[Archived] North Korea

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Playing a very dangerous game this Kim Jong-un with the war retoric,I fear one rash mistake by either side right now and its tin hat time folks.Would like to see China reign this idiot in but I'm starting to think they might just have had enough of him too...this is what happens when you let a complete loose cannon gain control of Nuclear weapons.

[DE.]

If things escalate North Korea will be quickly wiped out. They have no allies and will be obliterated within days should they launch an attack on anyone other than South Korea.

There would be a ton of casualties though, the likes of which haven't been seen in some time. Hopefully they are just posturing, as usual.

[Audax]

It's sad, I feel sorry for the North Korean people themselves, I always wanted to read a book called "Aquariums of Pyongyang", Kim himself in a lot of the pictures looks to be little more than a child or maybe better said little more than a teenager. It's also crazy. Japan might be under threat too.

[Guest Norbert]

Another good book is 'Nothing to Envy'. It is from an American author who has interviewed some who have escaped to the South, and it just shows what a weird Owellian state it is. All this talk of a state of war is just bluster to make the fat one look tough. Even he knows that he may be able to take out Seoul or a Japanese City, but then North Korea would soon cease to exist. Unlike his grandad, he doesn't have Mao ready to send untold millions of the PLA to bail him out.

[Hanks]

I read an article on the Guardian Website (not available any more) some time ago about this Guy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Dong-hyuk_(human_rights_activist)

His account does appear to differ in different articles - http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com/2007-09-atbirth.htm but His story makes Solzhenitsyn's A Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich sound lie a weekend at Butlins

Its just an evil state and if it had any natural resources, ie Oil it would have been invaded years ago..

[Al]

Needs a sniper to take that immature little pillock out and things should settle down again.

[ultrablue]

Well life over here in South Korea continues as normal. Not even a peep of concern from anyone I speak to. The joint industrial zone at Kaesong, just across the DMZ in North Korea, continues to be open to the hundreds of Southerners who travel there every Monday morning. Of course the nightly news leads with the latest threats from the North, but everyone here is still saying exactly the same thing they have been doing for the last 15 years or so. None of this is for the benefit of the outside world. This is simply to re enforce Kim Jong Eun's position domestically as the Supreme General and the only man able to keep the "yankees" and their "Southern puppets" from invading.

With the North now very close to mounting a nuclear device to a rocket, it is only natural that the rhetoric from the North rackets up a few steps. They are feeling a lot stronger than before. In 2010 Kim Jong Il had to take very high risk actions to maintain power, namely sinking the Cheonan battleship and firing directly on a South Korean island. This open engagement was brazen and deadly, but fortunately did not lead to retaliation from here in the South.

Now the UN sanctions have really kicked in and the new leader needs to up the ante militarily, in order to take focus away from food shortages, after another tough winter has doubtless cost many more lives outside Pyongyang. Fortunately for Kim, when you develop nuclear weapons, the spotlight from Washington is suddenly swung your way. B-2 fly overs and maps showing missile trajectories help keep the domestic population in a state of fear and nationalistic fervour. It is also a lot less risky than shelling a South Korean island or killing 40 odd sailors.

The funny thing is we in the South are probably a bit safer with a emboldened Kim Jong Eun than we were with the ailing Kim Jong Il of three years ago.

[T.J.Newton]

Needs a sniper to take that immature little pillock out and things should settle down again.

Somebody else would only take his place and he would have to get some kind of revenge to regain some respect from his people, id imagine.

[Guest Norbert]

Well life over here in South Korea continues as normal. Not even a peep of concern from anyone I speak to. The joint industrial zone at Kaesong, just across the DMZ in North Korea, continues to be open to the hundreds of Southerners who travel there every Monday morning. Of course the nightly news leads with the latest threats from the North, but everyone here is still saying exactly the same thing they have been doing for the last 15 years or so. None of this is for the benefit of the outside world. This is simply to re enforce Kim Jong Eun's position domestically as the Supreme General and the only man able to keep the "yankees" and their "Southern puppets" from invading.

With the North now very close to mounting a nuclear device to a rocket, it is only natural that the rhetoric from the North rackets up a few steps. They are feeling a lot stronger than before. In 2010 Kim Jong Il had to take very high risk actions to maintain power, namely sinking the Cheonan battleship and firing directly on a South Korean island. This open engagement was brazen and deadly, but fortunately did not lead to retaliation from here in the South.

Now the UN sanctions have really kicked in and the new leader needs to up the ante militarily, in order to take focus away from food shortages, after another tough winter has doubtless cost many more lives outside Pyongyang. Fortunately for Kim, when you develop nuclear weapons, the spotlight from Washington is suddenly swung your way. B-2 fly overs and maps showing missile trajectories help keep the domestic population in a state of fear and nationalistic fervour. It is also a lot less risky than shelling a South Korean island or killing 40 odd sailors.

The funny thing is we in the South are probably a bit safer with a emboldened Kim Jong Eun than we were with the ailing Kim Jong Il of three years ago.

Like I said in my previous post, surely the majority of people, no matter how much nationalistic propaganda is issued against the South, the USA etc. North Koreans will notice that they've got a surly looking fat lad in charge as the food shortages start to take effect. It'll surely reach a pont where the regime is almost openly ridiculed by their subjects as they'll say 'stuff it, we're starving to death so we might as well have a laugh at pie boy' because they're just so tired of sacrifices to a very well looked after elite. And when the North Koreans lose their fear of the outside world, and the thought police at home, then it is game over for Kim III. Mind you, it may take a while for the public to say 'Is this all there is?'.

[thenodrog]

Needs a sniper to take that immature little pillock out and things should settle down again.

As long as it's either a tiddlywink or a Russky. They are the best ones to control this nutter.

[Batman.]

Day three of the War, and not a single water pistol has been fired. Not very good at this are they, the North Koreans?

[thenodrog]

Needs a sniper to take that immature little pillock out and things should settle down again.

Only if the sniper is Chinese or Russian.

[ultrablue]

Like I said in my previous post, surely the majority of people, no matter how much nationalistic propaganda is issued against the South, the USA etc. North Koreans will notice that they've got a surly looking fat lad in charge as the food shortages start to take effect. This never happened during the reign of the last two surly looking fat blokes, so why should it now? The food shortages were far worse in the mid 1990s and no real dissent happened then, so why should it now?

It'll surely reach a pont where the regime is almost openly ridiculed by their subjects as they'll say 'stuff it, we're starving to death so we might as well have a laugh at pie boy' because they're just so tired of sacrifices to a very well looked after elite. This kind of 18th century European style revolution relies on ideas and alternative political groups spreading throughout the oppressed population and organising civil action. These ideas have never made it to the Korean peninsula. Before the war the Japanese had annexed Korea and ruled it militarily. Before that, Koreans were incredibly insular. The only foreigners there up until the early 20th century were Catholic missionaries , and they killed them.

And when the North Koreans lose their fear of the outside world, and the thought police at home, then it is game over for Kim III. Mind you, it may take a while for the public to say 'Is this all there is?'. The national identity of Korea (North and South) has always been built on their unique history of isolation and xenophobia. They describe themselves as "a shrimp between two whales" meaning they are crushed between China and Japan. fear and distrust of the outside world is a very powerful emotion here.

Only with the unique history of the Korean peninsula could an autocratic, racist monarchy like the one in the North continue to survive with next to no dissent from its own people. And with the generation that lived in a sinlge Korean nation under Japanese rule dying out in the next decade or so, the will to unify the nation will die along with them.

North Korea will not be changed by any outside influences other than violent ones. And chaces of changes from within will move from slim to even slimmer when NK gets the bomb..

[Aberdeen Blue]

"The joint industrial zone at Kaesong, just across the DMZ in North Korea, continues to be open to the hundreds of Southerners who travel there every Monday morning."

Not any more....... Although I do not see what is to be gained by this as the zone is much more beneficial to the North than the South.

Hopefully just more willy waving by the fat lad

[cletus]

Every time i see the North Korean leader on telly, i can`t help thinking he reminds me of Alison Moyet!

...on a plus side to the whole sorry saga, we might get a new series of M*A*S*H if it all kicks off

[adopted scouser]

Makes you glad to be British watching that bloody inbred and hysterical supporters (machine guns out of view)

God save the Queen

[1864roverite]

Bomb the keaners

[RibbleValleyRover]

North Korea has claimed they have final approval to carry out strikes on US targets including the use of Nuclear Weapons, The US is going to move a new anti missile defense system to Guam.

[Batman.]

Talk about daft. Does that nutter not realise that one push of a button and they'll be a North Korean shaped hole in the map?

[DE.]

This will all ultimately come to nothing. Extreme posturing by North Korea, though why such a sorry state is allowed to exist is beyond me. The US can invade Afghanistan to oust the Taliban, and take the moral high-ground to get rid of old Saddam... but the country with the worst humans rights record in the world by far is left to torture its own citizens and throws threats out left, right and centre.

They're just lucky they don't have any oil.

[Jeru tha Damaja]

Hmmm.....I think I've seen this movie before. We impose sanctions on a country, starving its people and neutering any political resistance, then we build a case to make everyone believe they pose a credible threat and then we bomb it.

[ultrablue]

There is no political resistance in North Korea. Not before, and not now.

UN sanctions are not starving North Korea. The lack of arable land is doing that. China has been keeping the people alive for decades.

we are not building the case for the North Korea's threat - they have been doing that themselves in order to survive.

Finally there is no way the Americans would take the first shot. If they did, the North would certainly have time to attack Seoul, with a population of 25 million.

[Audax]

I agree, the talk is very inflammatory:

SEOUL — North Korea dramatically escalated its warlike rhetoric on
Thursday, warning that it had authorised plans for nuclear strikes on
targets in the United States.

"The moment of explosion is
approaching fast," the North Korean military said, warning that war
could break out "today or tomorrow".

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gpuimXzka5inwGnL0c9vZsbQ54fw?docId=CNG.4eb43e27607cb9d4be6b952b88ddefeb.01

[T4E]

North Korean state TV will be showing Independence Day tonight and telling its people those are their ships.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

More brainless threats of using Nuclear weapons by North Korea..