Our Ground Troops in Korea

Vice President Dick Cheney, observing the 53rd anniversary of the Korean War armistice, said Thursday that U.S. troops will remain on the peninsula until stability and peace spread to the North.

Because the war ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty, the two Koreas are still technically at war. South Korea's 650,000 troops face the communist North's 1.1-million-strong military, the world's fifth largest, across a heavily armed border. About 29,500 American troops are also stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/7/27/163855.shtml?s=ic

Does this make anyone nervous besides me? It gets worse.

From a 2001 Stars and Stripes article:
Pyongyang's (pronounced Pyongyang) military machine is "bigger, better, closer, deadlier," Gen. Thomas A. Schwartz said in testimony last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Schwartz heads the United Nations and ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Commands and U.S. Forces Korea.

Schwartz said 70 percent of the North's army — "approximately 700,000 troops, over 8,000 artillery systems and 2,000 tanks" — are based within 90 miles of the DMZ and are being reinforced. Most are positioned in more than 4,000 underground facilities from which they "can attack with minimal preparations or warning," he said.
http://www.checkpoint-online.ch/CheckPoint/J2/J2-0001-NorthKoreaDeadlier.html

Let me take a wild guess and say that since 2001 North Korea has spent more money on its military than South Korea.

With widespread starvation and political prisoners in gulags the size of cities, ...what have they got to lose? ...And all that prosperity south of the DMZ? ...Kim Jong Il, whose emotional maturity rivals that of Brittany Spears, could roll 200 miles into South Korea before the "Combined Forces" got their boots tied. Then you've got a nut with nuclear weapons, along with several thousand male and female American Troops as hostages.

Little Pompadour Man (or is that a bouffant?) knows we aren't going to nuke him... that simply wouldn't be sporting, and goodness knows we must think of our reputation in the world community... and by the time all the politicians stopped wringing their hands and figuring out how they were going to effectively cover their rear ends politically ...and acted, the American hostages would be spread throughout North Korea making nukes a very unappealing option.

I figure in a year's time the "Little Tyrant Who Could" would have all sorts of cash and food, more land and concessions, ...as the hostages slowly dribbled back across the new DMZ, except of course for the females he would keep for the romper room.

If I was the President I would dramatically increase the Naval presence in the area and get our ground troops out. Today.