Hacker News Reader

South Korea was a often-brutal military dictatorship until the late 1980s. The US was there to stop Communism, not foster democracy. If South Korea is a better place today, it's because of the Koreans themselves far more than the US.

> If South Korea is a better place today, it's because of the Koreans themselves far more than the US.

Agreed. Which makes the inability of the North Koreans to escape from under their repressive regime all the more tragic.

Here's another exercise: In the past 20 years, how many millions of citizens has the US killed in the other 6 countries that were mentioned?

Was the war to prevent that or was that a result of the war ?

The UK left Hong Kong without a fight and handed it over to another undemocratic communist state - the result doesn't seem to have been quite as bad

Was the gap between HK and mainland China increasing or decreasing before the handover? What about now?