[AlexeyBrin]

> but if the moral argument for entering WW-II for the purpose of liberating those in the concentration camps

Hugh? Sorry, but who told you that someone entered the WW2 to liberate someone from the concentration camps ? Liberating the camps was a consequence of the end of the war not the reason any country entered in the conflict.

[AndrewKemendo]

To be clear - I'm not making the point that the US entered WW-II predominantly for the humanitarian reason of liberating the camps. In fact we didn't know much about them when we entered in 1941.

Rather, one of the strongest used moral cases for WWII (post facto) was the liberation.

We have even stronger evidence of this same moral case in Korea, than we did in WWII, so if we're consistent then there is a good case to be made here.

One could argue however that this post facto moral back patting in WWII is just how we justify it. So if that's the case you're making then I got nothin for ya.

[JumpCrisscross]

Waging foreign policy based on morality over tangible interests has a poor track record. Korea isn't Germany. We could count on West Germany bouncing back on its people and industry. North Korea would involve cultural engineering on a scale and at a depth without precedent. Cost estimates regularly wander into trillions of dollars, and that's just for the first few years.

[AndrewKemendo]

Oh, god help us if it actually escalates to that point. I'm more than intimately aware of the ramifications, as I was an intelligence officer in the pacific and heavily involved in NK issues.

It's probably the biggest can of worms out there right now quite frankly.