On this weekend’s broadcast of “The McLaughlin Group,” conservative commentator Pat Buchanan blamed the United States for the aggression of North Korea, whose recent surprise nuclear test brought widespread condemnation from the international community.
Buchanan, author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?,” specifically suggested the U.S. should stop protecting South Korea with a sizable standing military force.
“Why should the United States — 60 years after the end of the Korean War — have 28,000 guys on the DMZ, when South Korea has an economy 40 times the size of the North, and they got twice the population? The point is, if the United States weren’t on the DMZ, this guy wouldn’t be building intercontinental missiles and nuclear warheads to attack us.”
Buchanan said other major powers will soon step in to counter North Korea, but argued that the dictatorship is focused squarely on provoking the U.S.
“China is supposed to basically … rein in North Korea,” Buchanan said. “And they’re failing to do the job. That’s why I think the Japanese, who are in a conflict with the Chinese over the Senkaku [Islands], and the Koreans … are going to look themselves at [acquiring] nuclear weapons, and that’s going to be China’s problem. … Why would they build an intercontinental ballistic missile that can go 6,000 miles, when Seoul, South Korea is 25 miles from the border? This is aimed at us.”
