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Post by Moose on Apr 5, 2013 16:34:51 GMT
It's kind of hard to separate the truth from the propaganda (on both sides) when it comes to this country but it does seem clear that things are moving in a potentially dangerous direction. It would certainly be good to see that madman and his awful regime deposed but I wonder how many lives it will cost. What do people think is likely to happen?
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Post by tangent on Apr 5, 2013 16:52:06 GMT
He isn't in the same category as Saddam Hussein. In fact, I don't think he's mad. Wiki says: Kim Jong-un went to school in Switzerland near Bern and later attended the public school, Liebefeld Steinhölzli, in Köniz near Bern. He was described as a well-integrated and ambitious student who liked to play basketball. However, his grades and attendance rating are reported to have been poor. I've heard that while he was in Switzerland he was unhappy with the poor standard of living in North Korea (and, I suspect, the regime) but he has inherited a position which has given him supreme power, possibly under the tutelage of one of his uncles. (I may be wrong, this is from memory.) So, what are his options? It's in his own personal interests and those around him to continue being supreme leader and to quash all rebellion. I don't believe he has ambitions and his only option is to maintain the status quo. His current actions are no more than sabre rattling but when the sabres are tipped with nuclear weapons, it is a very dangerous game.
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Post by Moose on Apr 5, 2013 16:53:20 GMT
If he had any sense of altruism at all he could just his position to DO something for his people, rather than just 'maintaining the status quo'.
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Post by tangent on Apr 5, 2013 17:00:13 GMT
It requires intelligence, drive and ambition to do that without causing the country to collapse into civil war, as the Arab Spring did. And I don't think he has any of those qualities.
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Post by Moose on Apr 5, 2013 17:01:26 GMT
Unfortunately no. But there are still things he could do. He must have enormous personal wealth. He could also have cooperated with the US over his weapons programme in return for sanctions being lifted.
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Post by Shake on Apr 8, 2013 23:46:52 GMT
Some here were worried that he can "hit the US" with his missiles. Um yeah, western Alaska and Hawaii. We could put nuclear missile subs right off his coast and be able to hit anywhere in his country we like. You know he's got to know that, at least. Such a n00b!
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Post by tangent on Apr 9, 2013 10:59:35 GMT
David Cameron recently said: "North Korea does now have missile technology that is able to reach, as they put it, the whole of the United States and if they are able to reach the whole of the United States they can reach Europe too. They can reach us too, so that is a real concern." www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms-7Uf1Ji08Prat
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Post by Moose on Apr 9, 2013 16:17:45 GMT
Sounds rather like Blair and his WMD crap
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Post by tangent on Apr 9, 2013 17:04:57 GMT
It's a bit worrying that he doesn't know the true situation.
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Post by Shake on Apr 10, 2013 3:00:53 GMT
Of course, I just read a little while ago that we are now taking a more cautious approach: not wanting to incite any further escalation. In somewhat related news, many of our fighter jets have been grounded due to the budget cuts.
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Post by tangent on Apr 10, 2013 9:57:43 GMT
. In somewhat related news, many of our fighter jets have been grounded due to the budget cuts. Would that be in exchange for tax concessions to the über rich?
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Post by Moose on Apr 10, 2013 16:32:26 GMT
I was surprised that my fourteen year old nephew is actually getting really worried about this - I dunno what they are teaching him in school but he seems to be preparing himself for all out nuclear war.
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Post by tangent on Apr 10, 2013 18:42:38 GMT
More likely his classmates are scaremongering.
There is no chance, of course, of a nuclear war, which North Korea would certainly lose. However, that may change in the future. It's prime target would be South Korea but to prevent any retaliation it would have to be able to deliver a nuclear weapon to New York. That might happen by the end of the decade. Korea won't use it but it will always be a threat. It is precisely this sort of threat, I believe, that caused Blair and Bush to invade Iraq.
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Post by Alvamiga on Apr 10, 2013 18:55:53 GMT
It is precisely this sort of threat, I believe, that caused Blair and Bush to invade Iraq. ...or, more accurately, send other people to do it for them while they stayed safely a long way away!
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Post by Mari on Apr 10, 2013 19:03:40 GMT
It's usually the case that the people calling for and declaring war, are not usually the ones fighting it. Men like Jung Il are just boys with a battlefield and tin soldiers, not caring how many they lose. The Common man is just not real to them. Just like the class system our societies used to have. No lord considered their maid a person of flesh and blood, they were simply born to serve the deserving.
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Post by Alvamiga on Apr 10, 2013 19:21:23 GMT
Very well put.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Apr 17, 2013 13:00:56 GMT
It's usually the case that the people calling for and declaring war, are not usually the ones fighting it. Men like Jung Il are just boys with a battlefield and tin soldiers, not caring how many they lose. The Common man is just not real to them. Just like the class system our societies used to have. No lord considered their maid a person of flesh and blood, they were simply born to serve the deserving. Well, the class system still exists, albeit in a different form, and it will continue to exist as long as we have a value system (monetary system), and a value exchange network (economy, the market), where you have to sell your workforce in order to maintain a certain standard of living, and achieve some of your goals in life.
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Yuki
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Post by Yuki on Apr 17, 2013 13:29:06 GMT
If he had any sense of altruism at all he could just his position to DO something for his people, rather than just 'maintaining the status quo'. I doubt he can do much, not so quickly anyway. Usually when a system establishes itself, a high social class is formed which profits from the existence and maintenance of that system, and it will fight to the death to keep it going forever (which is impossible of course). Even if the North Korean president had good intentions, if he shows any signs of trying to change the system towards more openness and democracy, he will be faced by the elite. Oftentimes he will have to demonstrate that he's still faithful to the values of the social and political class he belongs to. The common people will not do him any good because they're crippled by decades of fear and torture. So either an "elite revolution" will take place first, changing the values and priorities of those running the country, or it will be a slow gradual change over several decades at least..
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Post by tangent on Apr 17, 2013 13:42:52 GMT
Burma has managed to change slowly over the past ten years and without revolutionary bloodshed but I don't think Kim Jong-un is bright enough to do anything. I suspect the real power is held by his uncle-in-law, Jang Song-thaek who is said to be a 'close advisor'.
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Post by Shake on Apr 23, 2013 4:17:10 GMT
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Post by Alvamiga on Apr 23, 2013 8:08:16 GMT
That last one is so much better than the original advert!
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Post by Mari on May 2, 2013 9:46:18 GMT
Apparently Hollywood has shifted its focus from Russia or Iraq as the bad guy to North Korea as the bad guy: a new action film is coming out soon about the NK taking over the PEntagon and of course only one guy is left in the Pentagon to save the day.
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Post by tangent on May 2, 2013 19:50:40 GMT
So likely.
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Post by Moose on May 2, 2013 23:34:00 GMT
I do find it hard to take Kim what not seriously looking at him. That silly hair and petulant little boy face!
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deej
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Post by deej on May 3, 2013 21:28:48 GMT
I am shocked at the decision by the Korean courts to give 15 years to Kenneth Bae for what they feel is threatening the state. Since when has taking pictures of vulnerable homeless children been a crime? If that isn't enough, then to use him as bait for these nuclear threats is unforgiveable.
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Post by spaceflower on Dec 14, 2013 4:06:23 GMT
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Post by spaceflower on Dec 14, 2013 4:15:20 GMT
In North Korea, people can be sent to concentration camps because of what their relatives do. And children are born in the camps. Like Shin Dong-Hyuk: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_Dong-hyuk
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Post by Alvamiga on Dec 14, 2013 9:54:09 GMT
It is a terrible situation. I recently heard an interview with a journalist who had gone out there and spoken to people (though not in an official capacity as all kinds of problems would have occurred). Many people were reluctant to speak to her, just because she was a journalist, but it was very interesting to hear just how into the mindset the population is about their leader. From the outside it all looks very strange, but the people have been brought up revering their leader and being indoctrinated to the way of life and it is all completely normal to them as a result.
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Post by Mari on Dec 14, 2013 10:28:25 GMT
In my mind the execution is actually logical. When Kim Jung Un came into power he was regarded as a greenhorn and people high in the military backed him up. This could signal that the person really in power is not Kim Jung Un, but his uncle, for instance, who was very high up in the military and would have had a lot to say. By executing him, there is not only a scape goat for the expected bad harvests etc. next year, but he also got rid of someone who might have seemed (and actually been) the puppetmaster behind Kim Jung Un. It's a powerful message to his enemies as well. Enemies within North Korea I mean. He has shown he has power and is not afraid to use it. Had he executed a random person, it would never had had the impact it has now, both internally as externally.
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Post by tangent on Dec 14, 2013 12:22:13 GMT
Jang Song-Thaek knew the risks and could probably have avoided the situation if he had kept out of political life. He was 67 when he was killed and had probably had a colourful and fulfilling life, if you can call it that, much more so than the average Korean. I regret his departure but I regret much more so the scores of his supporters who will also be executed as a matter of course. Some will be quite young, idealistic and largely innocent. It's a horrible country. It's usually the case that the people calling for and declaring war, are not usually the ones fighting it. Men like Jung Il are just boys with a battlefield and tin soldiers, not caring how many they lose. The Common man is just not real to them. Just like the class system our societies used to have. No lord considered their maid a person of flesh and blood, they were simply born to serve the deserving. Kings College School in London (I think it is) is breeding future cabinet ministers with the same sort of attitude. At the age of 12, a class was asked to write an essay justifying a future prime minister ordering the army to gun down and kill 25 people who were rioting. (It may not have been Kings College School but one like it. I believe it has a reputation for breeding Conservative cabinet ministers.) The ethos strikes me as being not very far away from the regime in North Korea.
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