North Korea

[Hoodie]

does anyone think that north korea will actually do something or is it all just talk? this is a genuine question as i am totally uninformed on the topic.

[syd syside]

lolwithout watching the hitchens clip NK was only included in the "axis of evil" so that it wouldnt look like a war against Islam.

 

No, I'm pretty sure Hitchens is very forward about his war against Islam and all religions. Maybe you should watch the clip instead of assuming.

 

edit: @ Hoodie, no one really knows, but it is of my belief that there appears to be no real end to the tremendous suffering of the NK people unless the dictatorship is overthrown. And that only seems possible with military intervention at this point.

 

In the Hitchens clip its noted that at the line where NK and SK soldiers stand and face each other, the NK government rotates their strongest/most committed soldiers.. which are on average 6 inches smaller than those of SK. Why? Because from birth the lack of food and nutrition stunts the brain/body from growing. The NK people are literally in a totalitarian hell. Watch the Hitchens clip if you want to hear a much more raw and blunt description of what it would be like to even live a day in a place like NK.

Edited March 29, 2013 by compson

[joshuatxuk]

does anyone think that north korea will actually do something or is it all just talk? this is a genuine question as i am totally uninformed on the topic.

 

It's all talk, and it's at the apex of tension because ROK-US military exercises are in full swing with USAF B-2 bombers deployed in the region (that detail is unprecedented I think). North Korea's military is huge in manpower and ideological morale to fight but absolutely no chance against the South Korea and the U.S. If they attacked they would, militarily speaking, get their ass handed to them in a ROK-US counter-attack.

 

The real question is the future of the South Korean hardliner approach to North Korea - I can't speak as an expert on recent trends in the ROK-US relationships but I do know the younger generations and more moderate and liberal South Koreans are generally more wary of the US military presence in South Korea and want to focus more on negotiating with the DPRK instead of perpetual "tough" rhetoric and status quo tension with the North. The U.S. has been seen as contributing toward the tougher approaches. The ROK was after all essentially a dictatorship itself from 1961-1979. The Sunshine Policy to slowly engage the North peacefully through trade and goodwill actions fell apart after 2008.

Edited March 29, 2013 by joshuatx

[pattern recognition]

i am also pretty uninformed about all this, but it seems pretty outrageous that in the financial situation our country is in, that the u.s. would send 2 bombers from missouri (?) all the way to south korea to drop bombs, just to show north korea that we can. \

 

what a country.

[chenGOD]

 

lolwithout watching the hitchens clip NK was only included in the "axis of evil" so that it wouldnt look like a war against Islam.

 

No, I'm pretty sure Hitchens is very forward about his war against Islam and all religions. Maybe you should watch the clip instead of assuming.

 

edit: @ Hoodie, no one really knows, but it is of my belief that there appears to be no real end to the tremendous suffering of the NK people unless the dictatorship is overthrown. And that only seems possible with military intervention at this point.

 

In the Hitchens clip its noted that at the line where NK and SK soldiers stand and face each other, the NK government rotates their strongest/most committed soldiers.. which are on average 6 inches smaller than those of SK. Why? Because from birth the lack of food and nutrition stunts the brain/body from growing. The NK people are literally in a totalitarian hell. Watch the Hitchens clip if you want to hear a much more raw and blunt description of what it would be like to even live a day in a place like NK.

 

I'm not referring to Hitchens' use of the term - I'm referring to the inclusion of North Korea in the "axis of evil" in Bush's original State of the Union address. It is very likely that NK was included in that speech specifically to avoid the criticism of being a war against Islam.

 

Military intervention would be a surefire means of ensuring the deaths of millions of people in South Korea and Japan.

The NK people are in a totalitarian state, but to call it a hell¹ is the worst kind of rhetoric, that does nothing to promote discourse, which, if you'd actually been paying attention to North Korea at all in the last two decades, was something that worked remarkably well (see the "sunshine policy" and the 1994 "agreed framework"). And to say that change is not happening from within is also some ridiculous hyperbole. Yes, it is slow, and it can sometimes seem as if NK is taking one step forward and two steps back, but change is inevitable, especially as the proliferation of communication technology proceeds. The NK government has already lost control of the internal cell phone network for example. University students and professors have been engaging in overseas studies, and the more NK people who see the outside world the better. Especially if they get to engage with foreign intellectuals.

Are North Koreans wary and paranoid? Yes, of course they are. That's the nature of life in a totalitarian state. But they are also people who, at the end of the day, don't want US "liberation" any more than the Iraqis did.

 

pattern recognition: if you think it's financially irresponsible of the US to send 2 bombers across the Pacific, wait until you see the plans for the missile defense shield to defend against North Korea's missiles!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/world/asia/us-to-bolster-missile-defense-against-north-korea.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

1: OK, their domestically produced goods are terrible, especially the alcohol and cigarettes.

[syd syside]

 

 

lolwithout watching the hitchens clip NK was only included in the "axis of evil" so that it wouldnt look like a war against Islam.

 

No, I'm pretty sure Hitchens is very forward about his war against Islam and all religions. Maybe you should watch the clip instead of assuming.

 

edit: @ Hoodie, no one really knows, but it is of my belief that there appears to be no real end to the tremendous suffering of the NK people unless the dictatorship is overthrown. And that only seems possible with military intervention at this point.

 

In the Hitchens clip its noted that at the line where NK and SK soldiers stand and face each other, the NK government rotates their strongest/most committed soldiers.. which are on average 6 inches smaller than those of SK. Why? Because from birth the lack of food and nutrition stunts the brain/body from growing. The NK people are literally in a totalitarian hell. Watch the Hitchens clip if you want to hear a much more raw and blunt description of what it would be like to even live a day in a place like NK.

 

I'm not referring to Hitchens' use of the term - I'm referring to the inclusion of North Korea in the "axis of evil" in Bush's original State of the Union address. It is very likely that NK was included in that speech specifically to avoid the criticism of being a war against Islam.

 

Military intervention would be a surefire means of ensuring the deaths of millions of people in South Korea and Japan.

The NK people are in a totalitarian state, but to call it a hell¹ is the worst kind of rhetoric, that does nothing to promote discourse, which, if you'd actually been paying attention to North Korea at all in the last two decades, was something that worked remarkably well (see the "sunshine policy" and the 1994 "agreed framework"). And to say that change is not happening from within is also some ridiculous hyperbole. Yes, it is slow, and it can sometimes seem as if NK is taking one step forward and two steps back, but change is inevitable, especially as the proliferation of communication technology proceeds. The NK government has already lost control of the internal cell phone network for example. University students and professors have been engaging in overseas studies, and the more NK people who see the outside world the better. Especially if they get to engage with foreign intellectuals.

Are North Koreans wary and paranoid? Yes, of course they are. That's the nature of life in a totalitarian state. But they are also people who, at the end of the day, don't want US "liberation" any more than the Iraqis did.

 

pattern recognition: if you think it's financially irresponsible of the US to send 2 bombers across the Pacific, wait until you see the plans for the missile defense shield to defend against North Korea's missiles!

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/16/world/asia/us-to-bolster-missile-defense-against-north-korea.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

1: OK, their domestically produced goods are terrible, especially the alcohol and cigarettes.

 

I disagree, first why the assumption that Bush, Hitchens, or anyone who refers to North Korea as evil is only doing so because of necessity to avoid signaling out Islam?

 

From wiki on Sunshine Policy:

 

 

North Korean defector and journalist Kang Chol-Hwan, who spent nine years in a North Korean prison camp, claims that Kim Dae Jung was mistaken in offering assistance to the North without any conditions of improving human rights in return. Kang disagrees with claims that the Sunshine Policy has led to a settlement of peace between North and South and questions the concept of no-strings-attached humanitarian aid, saying "it is important to understand that North Koreans are starving not because of a lack of aid from South Korea or the U.S., but because they are deprived of freedom. Giving aid only throws a line to the government, and prolongs starvation, surely a perverse outcome." ^[12]

Some critics of the Sunshine Policy contend that rather than increasing the chances of reunification or undermining the regime in North Korea, it has been used instead for political gain in domestic politics in the South. They point to what they say are the continuing provocations and criminal activities committed by the North, such as the 2002 sea battle that left several South Korean sailors dead, ^[13] the counterfeiting of American money,^[14] and what they call the North's general unwillingness to reciprocate Seoul's gestures of goodwill, as evidence that the North is interested only in receiving money and aid to prop up the communist regime. Critics

 

Now, an overview of the Sunshine Policy goals:

 

 

The main aim of the policy was to soften North Korea's attitudes towards the South by encouraging interaction and economic assistance.

The national security policy had three basic principles:

• No armed provocation by the North will be tolerated
• The South will not attempt to absorb the North in any way
• The South actively seeks cooperation

 

What it achieved (briefly):

 

Kim Dae-jung administration

 

The first was the separation of politics and economics. In practice, this meant that the South loosened restrictions on its private sector to invest in North Korea, limiting its own involvement essentially to humanitarian aid. This was initially meant both to improve the North's economy and to induce change in the North's economic policy, though the latter goal was later (at least officially) de-emphasized.

 

The second component was the requirement of reciprocity from the North. Initially it was intended that the two States would treat each other as equals, each making concessions and compromises.

Perhaps most criticism of the policy stemmed from the significant backpedaling by the South on this principle in the face of unexpected rigidity from the North. It ran into trouble just two months into the Sunshine era... when South Korea requested the creation of a reunion center for divided families in exchange for fertilizer assistance; North Korea denounced this as horse trading and cut off talks.

 

Kim Dae-jung administration

 

North-South cooperative business developments began, including a railroad and the Mount Kumgang Tourist Region, where several thousand South Korean citizens still traveled until 2008, when there was a shooting incident and the trips were cancelled. Though negotiations for them were difficult, three reunions between divided families were held.

 

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the US called North Korea part of the Axis of Evil and the North cut off talks with the South.^[2] In 2002 a short naval skirmish over disputed fishing territory killed four South Korean sailors, further chilling relations.^[3][4]

Credible allegations later came to light that Kim's administration had arranged the 2000 summit meeting with payments worth several hundred million dollars to North Korea.

 

Roh administration

 

President Roh Moo-hyun continued the policy of his predecessor, and relations on the divided peninsula warmed somewhat from 2002. In 2003, the issue of the North's possession of nuclear weapons surfaced again, with both North Korea and the U.S. accusing each other of breaching the Agreed Framework.

 

The new government took a harsher stance toward North Korea. Both the North and South Korean Governments agreed to hold a summit in Pyongyang on August 20, 2007, but this was later postponed to ^[9] October 2 to 4 due in part to an internal crisis within North Korea. Unlike his predecessor Kim Dae-jung who travelled to Pyongyang by plane,^[10] Roh travelled from Seoul to Pyongyang overland by car on October 2. Roh made a stopover at Panmunjeom and crossed the Military Demarcation Line by foot, stating that his gesture would symbolize the future reunification of Korea.

 

So from my brief understanding of the achievements of the Sunshine Policy we saw and I quote "several high-profile business ventures, and brief meetings of family members separated by the Korean War." And this is proof of discourse working remarkably well on the front of people starving in a 1984 totalitarian dictatorship?

 

I'll have to read some sources on advances with cell phone/internet availability to NK people but what makes you so sure that some kind of internal revolution is possible without military assistance? Also, as we continue to wait it out and attempt to come up with a few more dozen ways to give money to the NK government and a dozen or so more brief family meetings.... the NK government will continue to advance its military and gain more nuclear weapons. So then when as they say, "shit hits the fan" there will be more possibility of more disaster and more destruction.

 

NK in its current form is like a cancer. The people who live inside, live in what I think is fair to call hell and the people who run its government are evil. Kim Jong Un really has no choice to carry out his duties as the son of the dear holy immortal leader (his grandfather) because of his upbringing. To give them more aid and call them our "equal," we are simply saying it is okay for you to treat people like props for the state. This is most certainly evil and I see no mystery on why any person would not see the NK government as an enemy.

Edited March 29, 2013 by compson

[Friendly Foil]

North korea is a-okay.

[syd syside]

too late for edit:

 

Not to mention the possible exchange of dangerous weapons from NK to terrorists or other states. Which NK was in talks for 2 years with Saddam Hussien:

 

In return for a $10 million down payment, Mr. Hussein appears to have gotten nothing.

 

The trail that investigators have uncovered, partly from reading computer hard drives found in Baghdad and partly from interviews with captured members of Mr. Hussein's inner circle, shows that a month before the American invasion, Iraqi officials traveled to Syria to demand that North Korea refund $1.9 million because it had failed to meet deadlines for delivering its first shipment of goods.

 

North Korea deflected the request, telling Mr. Hussein's representatives, in the words of one investigator, that ''things were too hot'' to begin delivering missile technology through Syria.

 

The transaction provides an interesting glimpse into the last days of the Hussein government, and what administration officials say were Iraq's desires for a long-term business deal for missiles and a missile production plant.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/01/world/region-inflamed-weapons-for-iraqis-missile-deal-that-went-sour-files-tell-talks.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Edited March 29, 2013 by compson

[syd syside]

Further:

 

In 2011, during a visit to North Korea, former US President Jimmy Carter reported that one third of children in North Korea were malnourished and stunted in their growth because of a lack of food. He also said that the North Korean government had reduced daily food intake from 1,400 calories to 700 calories in 2011^[56] (by comparison, a normal food intake for a healthy European is 2,000-2,500 calories per day^[57]).

 

Escaped North Koreans reported in September 2010 that starvation had returned to the nation.^[59] A study in 2011 by South Korean anthropologists of North Korean children who had defected to China found that 18-year-old males were 5 inches shorter than South Koreans their age. Roughly 45% of North Korean children under the age of five are stunted from malnutrition. Most people eat meat only on public holidays, namely Kim Il-sung's and Kim Jong-il’s birthdays.^[60]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine

[awepittance]

<p>I think Chengod was saying, correctly that Hitchens has always been a Bush lackey wrapped in a cloak of quasi intellectualism, so if he is referring to North Korea as 'evil' it's probably because he's just doing what Bush did.   Anyone stupid enough to follow in the footsteps of the neoconservative war rhetoric is justifiably open to criticism and attack anytime he's mentioned or quoted. You cant clean that shit off you, even after you've died of cancer</p>

Edited March 29, 2013 by John Ehrlichman

[syd syside]

lol

 

its amazing how liberals who say they are for human rights here in the west don't see the great evil and hardship others are under. If we could all just hold hands and sing songs everyone would be equal and free and there would be no war or murder. lol...

Edited March 29, 2013 by compson

[Guest Adjective]

are you ann coulter now?

[syd syside]

are you ann coulter now?

 

The new left is becoming more and more fascist and totalitarian in with their double-talk. Their criticisms are so deluded, that social justice and morality is only important on the surface. As an example:

 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2013 by compson

[Guest Adjective]

Just sounds like an old man demonizing those he disagrees with and doing a lot of lumping together of viewpoints for the sake of a rant. I couldn't finish, you made me lose interest in your thread though, so good on ya.

[syd syside]

Just sounds like an old man demonizing those he disagrees with and doing a lot of lumping together of viewpoints for the sake of a rant. I couldn't finish, you made me lose interest in your thread though, so good on ya.

 

 

I bet you would agree with this video. Yet not the Islamic. Which is exactly my point.

Edited March 30, 2013 by compson

[Guest yikes]

juchebags

[chenGOD]

too much to go into on a phone. ill post a lengthy (and i mean lengthy) response later.

[syd syside]

excellent

[syd syside]

[Guest chunky]

country of paupers threatening to beg for food and cross china/southkorea's borders in order to get jobs.

sort of like seeing a few homeless people in a city ask you for some spare change, multiplied by millions of people.

they put on those amazing shows and seem like a proud dignified people who have very little in the way of material possessions. they're on china and south korea's borders so it's their problem. but we can still answer the cry for help that is this lonely dog's threatening posture. i guess the new leader is a guy about the same age as a typical member of this website and probably has a similar personality? in that case they can sort out their problems by interacting/trading with other countries and in a couple of generations NK will be doing just fine. hope so anyway.

Edited March 30, 2013 by chunky

[delet...]

They have no money because they have been under sanctions since the stalemate for the war that never ended. Given the hardship they have been under provided by the ever cuntish US empire, it's a mircale that they have been able to achieve so much.

 

Long live the outlying states that don't conform to the will of the banker elite.

 

[eugene]

it could easily trade with the eastern block during the communist years and still fucked up entirely and defaulted on loans because of idiotic leadership, economic organization, ideology and insane military spending, just as example for some reasons.

 

why does everything you say about political issues has conform to some "evil-america-is-the-cause-of-all-evil" fantasy delete ? do you not acknowledge the complexity of the world and and multitude of variables ?

[delet...]

heh, you disagree with my cult of reality ?!

isn't the picture lovely ? hehehe .. ;-]

[BCM]

 

your hair is a bird

[eugene]

heh, you disagree with my cult of reality ?!

 

isn't the picture lovely ? hehehe .. ;-]

 

what makes you think that what you believe in is the real reality ? just because it contradicts mainstream conceptions ?

 

the picture and its timing is great, obviously.