Carol, I have recently had the pleasure (???) of reading over 1,700 pages of declassified documents relating to Korea from 1966 to 1970. I have also been finding more and more and more documents relating to the country from 1945 (when the Japanese occupied it) to the present. More, I have been reading more lightly in the history of Korea pre-WW2.

And I've been there.

They are are proud people, and have every reason to be. They have an unfortunate location, between China, Russian/Manchuria, and Japan.

Before you call it "US Imperialism", please take a peek at, for example, Kim Il Sung's life and lies. Korea, when I was there, was just starting to replant the trees cut down by the Japanese for their war efforts. Do not forget the Korean women taken by the Japanese as sex slaves during WW2, or this report from the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress. Find out why there a tunnel along the Imjin River is called the "Chinese Tunnel."

I respect and like the Korean people. I would not like to see them suffer yet again.