# Anyone else scared by North Korea? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 1, 2003, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-scared-by-north-korea/178914 "2003-06-01T06:19:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Equal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Equal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equal)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-scared-by-north-korea/178914/41 "2003-06-03T13:28:18Z")
Would this even be a problem if the U.S. had fought a better war ( Korean War) back in the 50’s? ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-scared-by-north-korea/178914/42 "2003-06-03T14:08:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Equal \* > \*\*Would this even be a problem if the U.S. had fought a better war ( Korean War) back in the 50’s? \*\* Once China intervened (they unsurprisingly didn’t like the idea of having America sitting on their doorstep), the only way to fight ‘better’ would have involved WWIII, and the Soviet Union had the bomb. ---
**Author:** ![UnwrittenNocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/6de8d8/32.png) [@UnwrittenNocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UnwrittenNocturne)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-scared-by-north-korea/178914/43 "2003-06-03T15:11:47Z")
With the exception of China being unamused by a Western nation building exercise on its doorstep this would look easier (if bloody). Firstly, we have to remember that South Korea and Japan are our allies, our friends. This gives us some kind of moral justification for action. As does the existence of the murderous regime in the North. Recipe: Take one certifiably insane, paranoid personality Make said person leader with unlimited power of a country Arm him Stir for several decades Add certifiably insane son of original dictator Stir some more What sort of cake do you think that will bake? Without China being there I would probably espouse a first-strike, conventional weapons en masse, a huge hit to take out the military capacity of the North. Unfortunately, as noted by other posters, China would not approve of this (although they would probably not be upset at seeing the end of the current regime there). The thought of having a stronger Western presence in th region wold un-nerve the Chinese regime methinks. Hell, it might even encourage more of their own people to be problematic for them, and demand unconscionable things like political freedom. But we all remember 1989 right? Having said all that, I see little way out of this. I think that North Korean leadership is capable of almost anything. Rational sensibilities seem to play little part in policy there. No answers ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-scared-by-north-korea/178914/44 "2003-06-03T17:58:36Z")
I think that Pakistan is more of a threat than NK. Sympathies for Islamic extremists in the military and intelligence services AND The Bomb. NK’s only interest, IFAICT, is NK. Anything that eliminates NK’s viability, (startin’ sumpin w/ the US for example), is counterproductive. Some Islamic extremists have other-worldly interests that can be served by their own, personal extinctions. ---
**Author:** ![Spite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@Spite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spite)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2003, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-scared-by-north-korea/178914/45 "2003-06-03T18:23:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Musicat \* > \*\*The link **spite** provided us reads like a pure NK propaganda blast. This is why you supplied it, right? > > \*\* It should read lieke it. It is the state run NK news paper. I have yet to find another , even semi-private, news agancy in the country. I provided the link because of this story from 6/2/03: > [@](#): > > **U.S. imperialists indicted for massacres of Koreans** > > The Korean Democratic Lawyers Association made a full investigation into the massacres committed by the U.S. imperialists against the Korean people for a long period, and released an indictment urging the U.S. to own legal responsibility for them on Saturday. According to the indictment, the U.S. imperialists have committed untold brutal killings of Koreans in wanton violation of publicly-recognized international law and war regulations since the mid-19th century when they started an invasion of Korea. > > … > > In August 1866 they invaded Korea for the first time by the ship “General Sherman”. at that time, in Pyongyang they looted inhabitants’ properties, raped women and killed ten odd innocent inhabitants, firing bullets and shells at random. > > … > > From the beginning of the 20th century, they persistently instigated the Japanese imperialists to occupy Korea and crack down upon its people. In the meantime, they sent scout feelers to Korea under various names to hatch overt and covert plots to reduce it to their colony in future, while killing Koreans. > > … > > They massacred over one million Koreans from the day of their occupation of South Korea in 1945 to the day before the outbreak of the Korean War. During the war, they killed over 1.2 million civilians in the south of Korea and 3 million in the north and injured 1.5 million in the north and the south of Korea. > > … > > After all, one sixth of the population of Korea at that time were killed by the U.S. imperialists in the period from 1945 to 1953 alone. Since the ceasefire, the U.S. imperialists have committed an annual average of over 2,000 cases of various crimes including killings in South Korea, leaving at least 100,000 inhabitants dead or wounded. > > … > > Penalties should be imposed upon those who organized and ordered the aggression of Korea and the killings of Koreans and executed them in the 60s of the 19th century and all other U.S. imperialists who committed all sorts of massacres and violence in Korea during the Japanese imperialists’ rule over it. > > … > > Besides, penalties should be imposed on all those have kept forces in South Korea and committed unprecedented human rights violations, killings and violence while seeking to provoke another war in Korea, and their accomplices. > > … > > They must be accountable for all the crimes committed against the Korean people, irrespective of whether they were done by their legislative, administrative and judicial bodies within or beyond their authority. > > … > > The Korean people have a legitimate right to hold the U.S. imperialists accountable for those crimes anytime according to the law of the DPRK. > In case they are tried under the law of the DPRK, they will face appropriate punishment according to the gravity of their crimes under its criminal law. > > … > > Today the U.S. imperialists are working hard to start a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula in a bid to massacre the Koreans under the pretext of its “nuclear issue”, far from apologizing for the massacre of Koreans they committed century after century. > It is our belief that the lawyers, politicians, democratic figures and peace-loving people the world over who respect human rights and love justice and peace would join in the international campaign to try the U.S. imperialists who killed Koreans century after century at the international war crimes tribunal, pay due attention to the U.S. imperialists’ new criminal moves against peace on the Korean Peninsula and humankind and make positive efforts to frustrate them in time. We harp on the insanity of a select leader, when the entire militaristic population is being spoon fed this flavor of insanity. So it’s not necessarily the eccentrics of on man, or even his government that we have to face. But the population that supports him. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/anyone-else-scared-by-north-korea/178914.md?page=2)