N. and S. Korea firing artillery at each other

Oh so when you said “One side has routinely starved their population into submission” you didn’t mean to imply that starvation was being intentionally used as a mechanism to control the population?

You’re simply going overboard. If NK had enough food to feed their entire population they would and they would credit Kim Jong Il with being able to provide that food for everyone. They can’t so they blame the west for the famine.

You said: “while spending what little money they have on building up a ridiculously over armed military…while the other has not.”

Was i quoting you out of context. SK spends more on its military than all but ten other countries.

So what?!?!?!? I’m trying to tone down the hyperbole about NK. They’re bad enough as it is without having to make shit up.

No its NOT the same thing. You are imputing intent where intent did not exist. They CHOSE to fire on a SK military base with the artillery they had on hand and civilians got killed. They deserve criticism for every single death but the characterization of this incident as an attack on civilians is incorrect.

You may not like the justification or think its good enough and thats fine but you can’t say they fired on civilians because that sort of lie creates doubt about everything else you say.

Why isn’t it enough to say that they responded to the firing of SK artillery into contested waters with deadly force and civilian casualties resulted?

Are you afraid that someone might analogize the dead Korean civilians with collateral damage of dead civilians in Afghanistan or something?

I don’t entirely disagree. So why do you have to misrepresent the facts? Can’t you get to your conclusion without effectively saying “NK chose to attack civilians over nothing”