America and Korea

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A simple question, do youi think it was right for America to not only call N. Korea a Rogue state, but cut off all oil shipments to them as well?

Personally I think not. Calling a country a terrorist state is not a helpful way to to keep the piece. And George W. Bush not only called N. Korea a Rogue State, but also tried to bring S. Korea and N. Korea further apart.

And cutting off any aid to a famine stricken country does not look good. Not only are you breaking the frameworks agreemant, but also causing an inhumane act. Of course America won't get into to much trouble for human rights violations, because they practically own Amnesty Inc. So tell me your views.

 

I don't know enough about the agreements that were made some time back to comment exactly on who should be doing what etc, but for N Korea to resign from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is certainly not helping the situation.

Sure, the idea is obviously to make a point, and directly of course they are no threat to the US. In the current climate just a very bad taste and probably emotional decission.

To say that the US Government is being inhumane by withdrawing aid, well, exactly how do the US *owe* this aid? Lets compare North and South here. The South have some economic problems of their own, but the North is effectively bust. Now who's fault is that if not the function of a misguided communist regime which have run the country into the ground with the sort of bravado that put paid to the Soviet Union?

So, since the US cannot be held responsible for the fact that Communism does not work as an economic model, exactly how are they to blame?

Aid is voluntary and carries some responsibility on the part receiving it. Right now they don't want to play by those rules, so why should they receive this aid?

Just a couple of pennies worth.

 

I have to agree with BTA. Sure, North Korea is an independent country - but it is a country that cheerfully has kidnapped japanese and south korean citizens - to get first hand in country info and language training for their spys and special forces. Peacetime or not, North Korea regularly digs tunnels under the DMZ, direction south korea, to infiltrate Skys and Special Forces. And whenever North Korea again is in financial and economic trouble they start their jolly missile tests - direction Japan.
North Korea has a huge military, one of the four largest in the world. North Korea only doesn't collapses because of the foreign support it scares out of its neighbours and the rest of the world. When they run out of food or money, North-Korea fires a few missiles over Japan, and mentions that it is still working on a nuke program - to get some aid in response. That went on for all over the 90s well into this century. North Korea is ultimately a bully state.

North Korea's nuke program is a serious threat to the local stability. A North-Korea with nukes and longer range missiles will most certainly scare Japan into aquiring nukes itself to be able to defend against North-Korea - Japan has the nuclear and missile technology needed and could do so very quick. *TWO* more nuclear armed countries is certainly not what the world needs. Alternatively the US could of course expand their "nuclear umbrella" over Japan. The lack of trust in that though, made france to start their own program. Credibility and reliability is unavoidable here.

When the US confront North-Korea that is in the best interest of the region, including even that of the rival China. The South China Sea and it's unsolved territorial disputes is a troublespot bad enough without nukes. It is, considering the possible cathastrophic effects of an escalation, not only for the people there but also for world economy (imagine nukes on South Korea and Japan - that won't only affect HiFi and car prices), in the interest of the US as well of the rest of the world, to keep the numbers of nuclear armed countries as low as possible. North Korea must be stopped!

[ January 14, 2003, 17:38: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

How exactly is Bush to blame for driving the North and South Korean nations apart? I don't see that. Quite the reverse, since South Korea is scared silly by the North waving their No Dong around. I can't imagine anything driving the Koreas further apart than the North declaring an intention to nuke.

 

I know, but who knows that they would do when desperate? North Korea is probably the least reliable and predictable regiemes in the world.

 

Instead it's Iraq we're hounding down/going to war with etc, because he might be atempting to do what the N Koreans have been doing for years....

Good innit?

 

Consider also that North Korea has no bargaining chips: no industry or resources of interest to the world. What have they got to lose by going rogue? There's no economy to embargo, just aid to be cut. The American petroleum industry has too much to lose if things come to this stage in Iraq, not to mention too many strings into the White House to LET it get to this stage in the first place.

 

I think we're seeing the dawn of the WW3.
It was a pleasure to know you all, I love you all, and I'm saying this now because it may happen that I'm not able to say it in the future because of ONLY FEW cretins.

I called noone a threat or something and I certainly don't have nukes in my courtyard. Some people do. Only few of them. I guess someone is bored with unused nukes so I must write this pathetic post. So be it.
But this time I hope that imbeciles with powers to order things and their minions (mass murderers) will also die in the process.

 

Extremist might be quite right.
It is possible that the North Korean leaders have gone utterly mad. There is absolutely no good intentions in what they are doing. Not even to their own people. There is no sense at all. Perhaps they just pulled the plug (no pun intended) to sanity (no pun intended again); And said. Screw you guys, it can only get better.

But a WW3? ok might happen. I just can't figure out the connections even in a worse case scenario. Ok I can make a far far fetched one. But I can do so with UFO's too.

[ January 14, 2003, 21:28: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

 

I heard an interesting interview on National Public Radio with a reporter who talked about the Republican desire to have a "war" presidency, which makes it much easier to get re-elected in spite of economic chaos, etc.

The problem with this is North Korea saw us talking war with Iraq over the POSSIBILITY of a nuclear program. Needless to say, this upset them. After all, if we would invade a sovereign nation that MIGHT have weapons of mass destruction, what are we going to do about one that definately has an illegal weapons program? Especially one so dependant on our oil & food?

I'm not saying the DPRK is in the right here. They are an extremely oppressive and deviant regime. But they have good cause to be worried based on what is happening in Iraq.

I just wonder how much of this is because of what we are doing elsewhere. The most depressing part of this interview was the calls they took afterwards, where almost everyone supported tactical strikes on the Korean nuclear facilities. On what is normally a very liberal show.

 

"I think we're seeing the dawn of the WW3."

WW3 wouldn't feel right if the German's weren't the enemy... Can't we call it Global War 1 or something?(jk)

It wouldn't be much of a war anyway.

*Saddam, on verge of losing* Oh f**k it! I'm sending the nukes over to the USA.

*USA see nukes* Sweet Jesus! We didn't think that he REALLY had weapons of mass destruction!
*USA lanch own nukes in response*

*Britain sees this going on*
Tony Blair- "NO! America can't nuke the world on its own! lets jump in and help!" *Launches several nukes*

*Every other country with nukes launches them*

The entire world is destroyed except for Japan, who poured all the money that other countires put into Nuclear weapons into a giant technological device that launches Japan into space surrounded by a giant air bubble. They land on Mars and live in peace and harmony after terraforming the planet and listen to the poem, "No more Hiroshimas" and laugh at the ex-Earth's stupidity.

The end.

[ January 26, 2003, 13:57: Message edited by: Ulicus ]

 

The internet is a poor form of communication. It is difficult to determine when someone is being sarcastic, satirical etc and when someone is just being foolish. On the off chance that in this case it is the latter, I'll just point out that while it is possible I suppose that Iraq has a functional nuclear weapon or possibly even two we know they don't have a delivery system capable of making it to Europe let alone the United States. Korea also lacks such a delivery system as do Pakistan and India.

China, Russia etc are of course a different story. But then, China and Russia are more than stable enough to know it is in their own best intersts to avoid such a war -- that'd hurt China's favored nations trading staus : )

[ January 27, 2003, 07:54: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

"The internet is a poor form of communication. It is difficult to determine when someone is being sarcastic, satirical etc and when someone is just being foolish."

Oh, that... sorry, it was very poor 'satire' of the foolish bent. I'm against Nuclear weapons you see... however since almost everybody has them now I realise that trying to get everyone to disarm is pointless. Well, at least you gave me an intelligent and polite insult. Thankyou

 

Sorry Ulicius, it wasn't meant to be an insult. Ok, maybe just a conditional one : ) But since you were being satirical and not foolish the condition wasn't met : )