North Korea

[think positive]

Maybe they need to threaten an Enola gay combak

[stui magpie]

^

I have no idea what you wrote.

Maybe Kim just needs a snickers.

[David]

Here you go Stui:

http://youtu.be/d5XJ2GiR6Bo

Great song, pretty horrible suggestion.

[stui magpie]

Ha.

[Piethagoras' Theorem]

bombard them with 80's electronica? It could be worse. Glam metal?

[think positive]

Actually I meant the plane that delivered the bomb!

(I have a really good movie memory)

[stui magpie]

Reading this article yesterday made me start thinking.

STARVED of facts and quite literally starving to death. That's the brutal reality of life for North Korean people under the dictator Kim Jong-un, who has continued in the tyrannical steps of his father Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim Il-sung.
Three generations of Kim family totalitarianism have reduced their small north Asian nation to a basket case which cannot feed itself or meet any of its own basic needs.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world-news/starv ... z2Q7VX9K56


Is there a point at which the United Nations SHOULD be able to step in and remove a government that is this bad and put something else in place? By force if necessary?

Skip the politics for a minute and focus on the human rights issues.

Yeah, North Korea isn't on it's own, there's some shitty stuff happening in Africa too.

Don't these people deserve better? Rather than taking and resettling refugees, wouldn't the better option to be "fix" their current country?

[David]

That's basically what the US tried to do in Iraq, and look how that turned out. The fact it might be done under a 'UN' banner wouldn't necessarily change the basic dynamics at play, and you can be sure that the North Korean army wouldn't go down without a fight.

At the end of the day, it's not only destructive and counterproductive to play world police, it's more or less impossible to do it effectively anyway. If there was a local revolution underway, ala Libya, foreign powers might be able to pitch in and help, but full-on invasion is only going to end in carnage.

Far better to maintain stability and hope for internal change. That may be cold comfort for the starving citizens of North Korea, but considering the main alternative is wide-scale massacre there's not much of a choice.

[Bruno]

That's basically what the US tried to do in Iraq, and look how that turned out. The fact it might be done under a 'UN' banner wouldn't necessarily change the basic dynamics at play, and you can be sure that the North Korean army wouldn't go down without a fight.

At the end of the day, it's not only destructive and counterproductive to play world police, it's more or less impossible to do it effectively anyway. If there was a local revolution underway, ala Libya, foreign powers might be able to pitch in and help, but full-on invasion is only going to end in carnage.

Far better to maintain stability and hope for internal change. That may be cold comfort for the starving citizens of North Korea, but considering the main alternative is wide-scale massacre there's not much of a choice.

I don't think Al Qaeda and Iran are as quite interested in disrupting things in North Korea as what they were in Iraq though David.

[stui magpie]

That's basically what the US tried to do in Iraq, and look how that turned out. The fact it might be done under a 'UN' banner wouldn't necessarily change the basic dynamics at play, and you can be sure that the North Korean army wouldn't go down without a fight.

At the end of the day, it's not only destructive and counterproductive to play world police, it's more or less impossible to do it effectively anyway. If there was a local revolution underway, ala Libya, foreign powers might be able to pitch in and help, but full-on invasion is only going to end in carnage.

Far better to maintain stability and hope for internal change. That may be cold comfort for the starving citizens of North Korea, but considering the main alternative is wide-scale massacre there's not much of a choice.

But that's the problem. The joint is so sealed off you have a tiny minority of people in change who are enjoying life and the rest of them are stuffed.

I know there hasn't been a great track record of these things, and occupations are usually done for gain rather than altruistic means, but surely there must be a point where it becomes an obligation on the rest of the world to act?

Or is it just of "They got nothin we want, ****"?

[think positive]

Black gold, Texas T!

Agree Stui, something should be done to help them

[Bruno]

Black gold, Texas T!

Agree Stui, something should be done to help them

Keep in mind too though folks that unlike Iraq, North Korea still seem to have some pretty nasty weapons which they can shoot back with.

[pietillidie]

Reading this article yesterday made me start thinking.

STARVED of facts and quite literally starving to death. That's the brutal reality of life for North Korean people under the dictator Kim Jong-un, who has continued in the tyrannical steps of his father Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim Il-sung.
Three generations of Kim family totalitarianism have reduced their small north Asian nation to a basket case which cannot feed itself or meet any of its own basic needs.

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/world-news/starv ... z2Q7VX9K56

Is there a point at which the United Nations SHOULD be able to step in and remove a government that is this bad and put something else in place? By force if necessary?

Skip the politics for a minute and focus on the human rights issues.

Yeah, North Korea isn't on it's own, there's some shitty stuff happening in Africa too.

Don't these people deserve better? Rather than taking and resettling refugees, wouldn't the better option to be "fix" their current country?

Agree Stui, something should be done to help them.

Unfortunately, there is no "should" about it. A merely theoretical question for us is played out in the minds of South Koreans daily who want to help their brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins and remove the bastards. I mean actual brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and cousins.

Now, let me put the sad facts of the suffering of the NK people into the context of political realities for you. The rabid dog is cornered with short-range missiles pointing down the road at two or three times the population of Australia in Seoul and Beijing. Meanwhile, China and the US using the country as a political buffer state in their own personal arm wrestle, so most of what they say on the matter can be taken with a grain of salt.

SK sends as much rice and oil and such north as it can in this absurd game of blood chess without risking it being converted into cognac and jewelry, and without taking pressure off the rabid dog. SK has small experimental tourism and manufacturing zones it is doing the same with; basically trying to get some economic activity going as part of its aid package to tempt the nation into reform without strengthening the dictator. Other countries are doing the same. Alas, apparently, though not certainly, to no avail thus far.

As I've tried to explain, it's a stalemate, that thing conservatives who demand control of everything can't seem to comprehend. SK takes anyone who flees, but not many do so given their families will be killed or sent to the gulags.

And, unlike Iraq and the countries surrounding it, China, South Korea and even Japan (despite paranoid tough talking from whacko conservatives) aren't about to let those other rabid dogs of the world--the psychotically deranged Bushes and Cheneys--cause arbitrary chaos by starting WW3 on their doorstep and setting their countries back to 1840.

The lesser of two evils in this case is still supremely evil, I'm afraid.

[Pies4shaw]

Stui, the UN Security Council is already empowered to act in response to a threat to international peace and security. The place to start is the Security Council's powers under Chapters VI and VII of the UN Charter. The question of what constitutes such a threat is a matter left to the political proceses of the Council. Thus, the Security Council could authorise the use of force, if it chose. For well-known reasons (including the voting alignments of the permanent members with the veto power), it probably won't.

[think positive]

The lesser of two evils in this case is still supremely evil, I'm afraid.

that's pretty sad