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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   20421 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 6, 2025

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What did people expect? The US places sanctions on China with a clear goal to keep the Chinese economy down and people expect them just to accept it?

The US occupied a neighboring country for 20 years killing hundreds of thousands of people and had massive airforce bases right next to China. Last week Trump talked about retaking the airforce bases so it would be easier to bomb China. The Chinese are just going to accept it? The US just stole tiktok and China is just supposed to accept it?

Wait, which country are you talking about? There are too many options.

I believe Afghanistan is the only choice. The US never occupied North Korea or Vietnam (you could argue the US occupied South Vietnam when it existed, or South Korea, but neither is adjacent to China). Afghanistan has a very narrow and closed border with China, though I imagine there's unofficial traffic across it.

The US would have occupied North Korea in the Korean War if the Red Chinese hadn't chased them out.

"if".

It pretty much seemed like a done deal except recon somehow missed the 200k Chinese who were doing a creditable effort at not being seen and mostly marched at night iirc.

Reminds me of a bit from back when I read a biography of Lewis "Chesty" Puller. General C.A. Willoughby, MacArthur's intelligence chief, had come to X Corps HQ in Wonsan from Tokyo, along with his staff. Evidently, when Willoughby asked General Almond how things were, Almond told him about the seventh division fighting the Chinese, and that both sides had taken casualties, to which Willoughby replied, "that's another goddamn Marine lie." Almond promptly led him out to the POW stockade and showed him around 80 Chinese POWs that the 7th had captured. Willoughby reportedly departed without saying another word and that evening, the situation map from Tokyo that showed detailed positions of the troops suddenly showed 500,000 Chinese troops scattered around the map. It was clear from Puller's point of view that the issue was political. Quoth Chesty:

Now that's the fastest damned troop movement in the history of the world, gentlemen. You'll never see another such. And don't forget this lesson: Tokyo wouldn't admit that we had Chinese fighting us even after the Eight Army was in flight, because some damned staff officers hundreds of miles away willed it to be so. You can't will anything in war.

Should I read the book or can you briefly explain the motives of Willoughby here?

So the book is Marine! The Life of Chesty Puller, but being a biography of Puller, there isn't anything else to explain Willoughby's motives at all. There might be more insight to be had from a good bio of MacArthur on that front.

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