So, you do tell others that looking at how propaganda can blind a dictator and Hitler was an example of that effect means that all dictators that follow that tunnel vision are Hitler.
Indeed. As it is clear that to get to this misrepresentation you even had to ignore on purpose that I agree that Ceausescu was also a perfect example.
You’ve misunderstood Godwin’s Law. It doesn’t mean you get to say “Debate’s over! I win!” if somebody else mentions Hitler.
Godwin’s Law only says inappropriate comparisons to Hitler are invalid. But there are plenty of legitimate comparisons to Hitler, like Stalin or Saddam Hussein - or the Kim regime.
“Pentagon spokesman George Little said Thursday that it was important to remain calm and urged North Korea to “dial the temperature down.”” I think maybe you should try to understand why the rhetoric has reached this point. It’s because of actions, not unpleasant rhetoric.
Actually it just says that if you get into an argument online, someone’s going to mention Hitler eventually.
Yep, but it really becomes a stretch to claim that when a dictatorship is being blinded by their own propaganda on the way to war that we should not mention **the **war.
Indeed Godwin does refer to deserved criticism a poster should get when, for example, in discussions about kitties, suddenly a cat hater poster points out that Hitler hated cats.
Right. We’re talking about an isolated and aggressive dictatorship that keeps large numbers of citizens in prison camps while maintaining their military at all costs, but mentioning the Nazis- why, that’s unconscionably rude! North Korea isn’t anywhere close to invading anyone, but even if you overlook the fact that they keep threatening to nuke their enemies, it’s not as if there is no basis for a comparison.
No, the new leader is trying to build his credentials within the military and to the public of NK for propaganda purposes.
I assume NK will push, maybe start a skirmish and when the US and SK back off, the North will claim victory.
Beautifully -both countries are in ruins. Neither will represent a credible military threat to anyone for a very long time. A North Korea in complete ruins would represent a vast improvement over the current situation, as it would no longer pose a military threat to Seoul.
Absent a delivery system, precisely HOW are the North Koreans going to use them, exactly? Of course, that’s why they’re working on obtaining missle technology…
Moderation maintains the status quo only for the moment, and only so long as North Korea doesn’t do something recklessly stupid. Long term, it is going to be a failed strategy unless Norh Korea reforms its society - and that choice is entirely up to them to make. They DO have options other than periodic outbursts of belligerance, you know, they’ve just chosen not to pursue any of them. If North Korea wants peace and security, negotiating a peace treaty with South Korea to formally end the Korean War would be a good place to start.
North Korea is a nuclear power now. They need to tart acting like one, and lay off the idle threats before someone DOES take those threats seriously.
And if the US and SK don’t back off?
That to me is what makes the current situation scary. I’m sure you are right about Kim’s intentions. But North Korea doesn’t seem to realize that once they obtained nuclear weapons the rules of the game fundamentally changed, and the “wild and crazy” rhetoric they’ve used so successfully in the past of necessity will be interpreted differently now. They are being taken seriously - more seriously than they probably realize - and they no longer have the luxury of making aggressive threats on an international stage (even if the intended udience is only meant to be North Koreans, and they have no intention of actually acting on any of it).
What you seem to be ignoring is the goal in neither Iraq nor Afghanistan was to turn either country into ruins. Recall Iraq was supposed to pay for itself and a functioning democracy put into place that would shine as a beacon to the rest of the region. Then again, we were supposed to be greeted with flowers. Most importantly, neither country represented a credible military threat to anyone at the time of the invasions. In the case of Afghanistan I don’t particularly care, the point was to remove the Taliban from power for providing safe haven for Al Qaeda. Iraq was absurdly painted as a credible threat to its neighbors and the region. The defeat in Desert Storm in 1991 combined with the effects of sanctions in preventing them from getting any new hardware to replace the huge losses they had suffered in 1991 nor spares to maintain what was left and the no fly zones put into place that turned northern Iraq into a de facto Kurdish state had Iraq contained in its box and prevented it from being a credible threat to anyone. It was hardly a shock that the country was overrun and American troops were outside Baghdad in two weeks.
Understanding what Godwinization actually is would be useful before throwing it around. It’s particularly ironic and funny coming from a poster who tends to blame everything on the Jews.
Well rodong is back
http://www.rodong.rep.kp/InterEn/index.php?strPageID=SF01_02_01&newsID=2013-03-28-0015&chAction=T
What are those tanks - 1950’s or 1960’s?
If that doesn’t load, try the main page
http://www.rodong.rep.kp/InterEn/ - the tanks are the main story
The rest are about “We Await Order to War”
“The People are Ready to Die to Honor the Korean People”
These folks are too busy immortalizing the 28 year old “beloved leader” to notice they are chatting about their own destruction because of his idiocy.
But yes, it wouldn’t have hurt the US to dial it down and simply ignored the twit until he has someone other than is own bodyguards killed.
There’s always room for one more. Let’s give them Kim Kardashian.
That particular quote was giving examples of how sanctions exacerbate situations in North Korea. I realize you’re trying to paint my into the Adversary corner but the situation is more complex than you would like it to be. It is ludicrous to claim sanctions have no effect, the only point to sanctions is that they do have an effect. The intent is to cause suffering to prompt a change in behavior. As it happens, they have not had the effect that those imposing them would like in this case, but they most certainly have had an effect. Asshat actions on the part of the DPRK are still the responsibility of the the DPRK, which bear most of the blame for bad conditions in that nation, but the US isn’t lily pure in this matter, either. Neither is anyone else.
North Korea is a tough situation partly because we’ve basically tried everything before and nothing has worked. We tried sanctions for many years, China just made sure North Korea would do fine while totally isolated from the world. But during that time we developed some level of rapport with North Korea and came to a deal where we’d give them aid and they’d abandon their nuclearization activities. This was the big deal Jimmy Carter helped negotiate during the Clinton presidency.
Unfortunately, it later came out during the Bush Presidency that the entire time we had been having “improved” relations with North Korea where we were helping them out in exchange for them not developing nuclear weapons they were developing nuclear weapons in secret. Basically from the 1990s until their first nuclear detonation their nuclear program had continued unabated, while instead of just China propping them up both the U.S. and South Korea had funneled billions in aid to them.
That’s the whole reason North Korea has nuclear weapons now, because we were duped by them for a very long period of time, long enough for them to go nuclear. In response we enacted sanctions. For several years there was saber rattling and then North Korea fell to the backburner as other things took prominence. During this time we resumed some aid and South Korea was also giving them aid during this time, in addition to China giving them aid as always.
But then North Korea over the past few years became more and more provocative. They sunk a South Korean ship unprovoked in international waters. They bombed South Korea itself with artillery, killing several civilians. In response President Obama basically started ratcheting up sanctions, as did the more conservative administration in Seoul at that time. South Korea then elected a more liberal person President who had promised a restart on relations with North Korea. It was looking like maybe the new Kim would be willing to work with us, then he does a long range missile launch followed by another nuclear test.
At this point, North Korea had pissed on South Korea, the United States, and most importantly China. We’ve now got the harshest sanctions we’ve ever had against them and South Korea/North Korea relations are now non-existent. China has even cut off the flow of money because it has come to recognize North Korea is a bigger problem for China the way it is now and isn’t worth propping up anymore.
I don’t really know what to do about North Korea’s behavior, but I also don’t know what we’ve done in terms of peaceful activity that hasn’t been tried before. We’ve tried sanctions, we’ve tried lifting sanctions in exchange for good behavior, we’ve tried giving money in exchange for not developing nuclear weapons. We basically got duped or shit on every time we tried those activities. North Korea has shown it has no credibility in anything it agrees to do in exchange for lowering of sanctions of sending of aid. So how do we treat with them?
I don’t want to invade or bomb North Korea, at all. It’ll be very bad for the entire world if that situation comes to pass. But we’re in a new situation now, where North Korea is not only threatening to bomb everyone if we don’t give them money, they’ve started developing long range missiles and shown they are working on nuclear miniaturization. There are two things you need to launch a long range nuclear missile. One is rockets that can travel that far somewhat reliably (since you don’t want to waste nuclear warheads crashing in the Pacific), which is 50 year old technology that North Korea almost certainly will perfect if given time. Secondly you need warheads small enough to fit on the missile, which again is 50 year old technology. North Korea already has shown with their most recent test they’ve made strides in that direction with evidence of a low yield nuclear detonation.
North Korea is not only threatening South Korea, but also the United States. Further, every possible peaceful response to those threats has been tried in the past and every agreement the North Koreans have signed they’ve shown themselves to not be credible or trustworthy.
I think the approach Hagel and Obama have taken (it was Hagel’s idea I believe to do the B2 flyby) is appropriate. They’re sending the message: “The days of blackmailing us are over, and if you attack us or South Korea there will be a war.” That may seem bellicose, but I think it’s important because it is basically stating fact. This isn’t new policy, it’s been the case since the armistice that if North Korea attacks us or South Korea war will happen, and the United States will be bombing and invading North Korea. There’s no possibility of that not happening if North Korea invades.
North Korea, through its own initiative, is playing a game of brinksmanship and I think it’s important we tell them “there is a ceiling to this, if you actually start attacking us this won’t just be brinksmanship any longer.” That’s exactly what Kennedy did during the Cuban Missile Crisis by the way, he said, knowing full well the consequences “if the Soviet ships pass this point, I want our ships to attack them.” If we’re serious about going to war in response to a North Korean attack on the homeland or an invasion of South Korea (and we certainly are) then it is extremely important North Korea know that. The worst possible situation is Kim Jong Eun, perhaps surrounded by a cabal of ultra-aggressive military leaders leading him on a groupthink expedition, becomes convinced he could say, shell Seoul or launch a missile into Tokyo or even try to hit the U.S. and it would just cause us to gnash our teeth and beg for mercy and start giving them aid. It’s extremely important that Kim understand our response to those actions would be war.
The scariest situation is Kim feeling like he has no choice but to continue escalating to “prove himself” to the military leadership. But like I said, I don’t see what options on the diplomatic side we haven’t tried. And even at this late date if North Korea wanted to return to the multiparty talks I imagine we’d meet with them, so it isn’t like we haven’t done basically everything diplomatically that can be done.
Okay, so we’re back to where we started. You’ve acknowledged it was your position. Which means I was responding to what you said. I still stand by what I’ve posted but I don’t see a need to repeat it.
I’m ignoring it because it’s not relevant to the question of how effective a US military invasion would be with regards to North Korea. If we invaded North Korea (which we currently have no plans to do), it would be in response to some aggressive move made against either South Korea or Japan, and the goal would NOT be nation building, but simply the complete and utter destruction of the North Korean state. We have a mixed record when it comes to nation building (to say the least!), but the US military actually does massive destruction quite well.
I don’t think we’ll really have a war with North Korea, and if we did it’d be in response to either them invading the South or them doing something so provocative we had to attack. (Using a nuclear weapon, some sort of attack against the U.S. etc.)
If it was in response to an invasion, the DPRK has so many troops and the ROK/US are so outnumbered by comparison in theater that most likely the initial thrust of military activity would be halting and then reversing the DPRK incursion. This would be done, I have no doubt about it. But it’d be ugly for South Korea and might take awhile.
Once that was accomplished we’d probably have to topple the Kim regime, and how much invasion is necessary to achieve that is anyone’s guess. If there was ever to be nation building it would be the ROK’s job, not that of the United States. Just like East German unification with West Germany was the job of West Germany, not the United States. We’d probably help with aid and such, but unification has to be the work of Korea and isn’t a place I’d expect us to be doing external nation building in.
North Korea is very unique in that its such a closed state almost no one who lives there has any idea what the real world is like. They literally believe the Kims are/were divine, and that the United States and its evil puppets in South Korea are lusting to kill all North Koreans. If the Kim regime fell and South Korea started integration, it’s very hard to say how citizens of the North will respond to their long time promised murderers giving them money and trying to help them out.
This isn’t a scenario like in Muslim countries where they have ideological hatreds of Western culture and a feeling of being subjected to cultural imperialism. In a way it’s a lesser problem, these are just people who have been told we’re going to murder them all and have no access to accurate contradictory information. Once that great lie was exposed it’s difficult to predict what would happen but these people don’t have religious hatred against us or anything, it’s more along the lines of “they think we’ve been wanting to murder them all in their beds since time immemorial.”
Martin Hyde, your post is wonderful. it’s a perfect summation of what makes this whole situation so very difficult to deal with.
I appreciate all the information Broomstick has been laying out about North Korea in this thread, and I agree it’s important that we understand what they are thinking (to the degree that we can - it IS a closed, opaque society, after all). But I disagree that if both sides in a conflict could just reach a perfect understanding of the other, war could always be averted. Sometimes nations have irreconcilable goals, and understanding does nothing to change that fact. (A good example would be Japan and the US in the 1930s. We understood what the Japanese wanted; that wasn’t the problem. We just weren’t willing to give up our claim on the Philippines and leave the eastern Pacific to Japan. That pretty much made war between our two nations inevitable.)
The problem (for the United States) in North Korea today is the same problem that we faced in 1950: China. If it was just North Korea we had to deal with, the problem would have been resolved decades ago. But we have to take China’s response into consideration in any issue involving North Korea.
It’s worth noting China feels burned by North Korea, and is starting to feel that North Korea becoming just as much of a rock in the shoe for China as they are for us. China has a lot of goals in the Pacific region, like eventual reunification with Taiwan, and any overt support for North Korea in a serious conflict would totally undermine that.
Now, I do think China is why we’ve not pre-emptively done anything against North Korea, for sure. (Well, at least prior to them having nuclear weapons.) But China I do not think would support North Korea invading the South, or attacking the United States. It would be in a position of saying “let the North invade without counterinvading, or do nothing in response to an attempted missile launch against the U.S. mainland, or else” so now instead of North Korea in brinksmanship with us, it’d be China in brinksmanship with us. What does China have to gain from that situation?
China will not interfere in a response to some overt North Korean act (which I define as invasion of the South or a missile launch towards the United States.)
The reality is Kim is following a script. Basically a bully’s script. They are in the driver seat every time, they do stuff to threaten and pick on the rest of the world. We eventually say, “stop that, and we give you money.” The problem with this is we aren’t getting any concessions from them other than “stop picking on us!” and that means long term we (the collective we) are actually part of the problem. I don’t want war with North Korea, but we also can’t allow them to keep creating crises in which we relent and give them aid and the only thing we get in return is their agreeing to end the crisis. If they aren’t willing to basically let us denuclearize them and then have a persistent inspections presence I see very little options as to what they could give us that would mean anything. Their promises mean nothing, obviously.
I think we’re at a point where our best course is to not give them anything in response to their provocations and leave them to their own affairs. But we should draw the line that we view provocations and outright attacks differently. I’m fine with North Korea provoking us all the time and us giving them nothing in return, but I’m much less fine if they think “shelling South Korea” or “launching missiles at Japan” or “launching missiles at Gaum or Hawaii” are acceptable forms of provocation.