4 ms·

Douglas Macarthur said this ... (or part of it) and then wound up fighting the Korean War ... which we won. So ... never say never, I guess.

Swizec 11y ago
I think it might have been meant as a Princess Bride quote. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mTlnrXFAXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mTlnrXFAXE
- novaleaf 11y ago
  Princess Bride gets the quote from Mcarthur. (and I'm not the one(s) downvoting you btw)
  - Swizec 11y ago
    After some digging, it looks like either McArthur or Montgomery expressed the general sentiment first. But the specific formulation in GP is a direct quote from Vizzini in Princess Bride.
ojbyrne 11y ago
Dunno if I'd say "we won." Technically North and South Korea are still at war. And apparently MacArthur said that _after_ the Korean War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War
- tosseraccount 11y ago
  Can you find a definitive link? I find this ... "MacArthur articulated his most famous dictum—“never get involved in a land war in Asia”—after the Japanese surrender, because he believed that Japan’s simultaneous war in China made his Philippines victory possible. Japan had annexed Manchuria in 1931, then invaded China in 1937" [ http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/rethinking-douglas-macarthur-106397_Page2.html http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/rethinking-do...] We acheived our goals of stopping the Communists from conquering a friendly nation; so it's a victory.
  - ojbyrne 11y ago
    No, we intervened in a civil war between two groups, one that we decided was more in our interests to support. And we opened 2 markets for arms to be sold to, that would be healthy vibrant markets (for arms) for the next seventy years.
Htsthbjig 11y ago
Did you win the korean war? Nobody won the korean war. It was a draw,a stalemate. The US won on the South, they won on the North. The war officially never ended.
- adventured 11y ago
  Given how South Korea has turned out compared to North Korea; given the US saved South Korea from an unbelievable amount of death and suffering that would have come with the North's domination; compared to the disaster that Mao's China was, and Stalin's Russia, due to Communist rule; considering South Korea became a tremendous ally; yeah, we very clearly won.
  - kafkaesq 11y ago
    Given how South Korea has turned out compared to North Korea; Shifting the goalposts. The fact is, both sides pledged to fight until the other was (politically) annihilated. Both sides failed to meet that goal, or even come close to it. Despite 2.5m+ killed or wounded, and a landscape in ruins.
  - vacri 11y ago
    The socio-politics won, not the war. By your own measure, only half of Korea won - the other half didn't win.
  - yongjik 11y ago
    Fun fact: until 1960s, North Korea had a higher GDP per capita than South Korea. Somehow I can't find any definite source on the web, but here's one phrase I found: https://books.google.com/books?id=D1dOCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA191&dq=dprk+economy+1960&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi24O6rh4PLAhVI-GMKHWosAI0Q6AEILzAC#v=onepage&q=dprk%20economy%201960&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=D1dOCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA191&dq=d... > By the beginning of the 1960s, North Korea's economic development was much more impressive than was South Korea's and would remain so until at least the mid-1970s. (...) As these data make abundantly clear, without foreign aid, the DPRK could not have achieved its ambitious post-war reconstruction. Another fun fact: even with all the help from the US (for which I'm grateful), South Korea went though an unbelievable amount of death and suffering all the same, and our first president was a first-class mass murderer who would have been quite at home in the company of his Northern counterparts. So, yeah, somehow we ended up all right (after decades of tyrants and struggles), but the history is a lot more complicated than good guys saving half of the population from bad guys.

Swizec 11y ago

I think it might have been meant as a Princess Bride quote. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mTlnrXFAXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mTlnrXFAXE

novaleaf 11y ago
Princess Bride gets the quote from Mcarthur. (and I'm not the one(s) downvoting you btw)
- Swizec 11y ago
  After some digging, it looks like either McArthur or Montgomery expressed the general sentiment first. But the specific formulation in GP is a direct quote from Vizzini in Princess Bride.

ojbyrne 11y ago

Dunno if I'd say "we won." Technically North and South Korea are still at war. And apparently MacArthur said that _after_ the Korean War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War

tosseraccount 11y ago
Can you find a definitive link? I find this ... "MacArthur articulated his most famous dictum—“never get involved in a land war in Asia”—after the Japanese surrender, because he believed that Japan’s simultaneous war in China made his Philippines victory possible. Japan had annexed Manchuria in 1931, then invaded China in 1937" [ http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/rethinking-douglas-macarthur-106397_Page2.html http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/rethinking-do...] We acheived our goals of stopping the Communists from conquering a friendly nation; so it's a victory.
- ojbyrne 11y ago
  No, we intervened in a civil war between two groups, one that we decided was more in our interests to support. And we opened 2 markets for arms to be sold to, that would be healthy vibrant markets (for arms) for the next seventy years.

Htsthbjig 11y ago

Did you win the korean war? Nobody won the korean war. It was a draw,a stalemate. The US won on the South, they won on the North. The war officially never ended.

adventured 11y ago
Given how South Korea has turned out compared to North Korea; given the US saved South Korea from an unbelievable amount of death and suffering that would have come with the North's domination; compared to the disaster that Mao's China was, and Stalin's Russia, due to Communist rule; considering South Korea became a tremendous ally; yeah, we very clearly won.
- kafkaesq 11y ago
  Given how South Korea has turned out compared to North Korea; Shifting the goalposts. The fact is, both sides pledged to fight until the other was (politically) annihilated. Both sides failed to meet that goal, or even come close to it. Despite 2.5m+ killed or wounded, and a landscape in ruins.
- vacri 11y ago
  The socio-politics won, not the war. By your own measure, only half of Korea won - the other half didn't win.
- yongjik 11y ago
  Fun fact: until 1960s, North Korea had a higher GDP per capita than South Korea. Somehow I can't find any definite source on the web, but here's one phrase I found: https://books.google.com/books?id=D1dOCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA191&dq=dprk+economy+1960&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi24O6rh4PLAhVI-GMKHWosAI0Q6AEILzAC#v=onepage&q=dprk%20economy%201960&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=D1dOCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA191&dq=d... > By the beginning of the 1960s, North Korea's economic development was much more impressive than was South Korea's and would remain so until at least the mid-1970s. (...) As these data make abundantly clear, without foreign aid, the DPRK could not have achieved its ambitious post-war reconstruction. Another fun fact: even with all the help from the US (for which I'm grateful), South Korea went though an unbelievable amount of death and suffering all the same, and our first president was a first-class mass murderer who would have been quite at home in the company of his Northern counterparts. So, yeah, somehow we ended up all right (after decades of tyrants and struggles), but the history is a lot more complicated than good guys saving half of the population from bad guys.