It’s kind of funny. Caught in the fact that he’s claimed NK’s military action was “justified” and “appropriate” but being totally unable to prove that by referencing either international law or international custom showing that SK’s actions constituted a valid casus belli, he is insetad repeatedly trying to invent some sort of “assertion” that I have made that I won’t back up. Naturally, the fact that the “assertion” only appears in his posts where he claims I’ve made it and not in any of my own just shows how tricky I am.
It’s a very interesting example of turnspeak.
He can not (or will not) provide a shred of proof that NK’s actions were “justified” or “appropriate” under international law or international custom, so instead he’s trying to change the subject by making up a claim, pretending that I’ve made it, and demanding that I support it.
I’m still not sure how he believes that shows that NK had a valid casus belli to respond to, but I guess that’s why it’s turnspeak.
As weird as the UN recognized maritime boundary is (it seems to hug the west coast of north korea), The NK version is a bit weirder still, it basically takes the water boundary that would have existed if we were drawing those maritime boundaries today and draws little circles around the islands along with a narrow corridor from the South Korean side of the border and calls that the boundary. It was linked earlier in the thread.
The North Koreans are not really big on that sort of thing. They would pretend that they didn’t suffer any casualties during the Korean War if they could get away with it.
Yeah, but in this case, its a pretty dark grey. Sure, NK was provoked when SK exercises challenged contested waters and sure SK attitude towards have deteriorated but NK’s attitude towards South Korea hasn’t been very friendly over the last few years either and apparently a more appropriate response to a provocative shooting of a patch of water is to line up your guns and shoot that same patch of water rather than shoot at a military base.
I just take issue with the characterization of this incident as an unprovoked attack on civilians. The incident was in fact provoked by Sk artillery fire. Yeah civilians got hurt but they were aiming for the military base and if their aim was better there wouldn’t have been any civilian deaths.
Some people think none of that matters because NK responded inappropriately and that may be but it doesn’t make the facts go away.
Where does it say self defense? I’m not doubting you but I haven’t read the NK claim self defense in the sense that they did it because they thought NK lives were in danger.
Do you think they would starve their own people if they had the food the food to feed them? They starve their own people because they don’t have food and they will feed their military before anyone else gets a single grain of rice. This isn’t like Saddam Hussein gassing the Kurds or anything like that.
Aside from that claim I don’t see how anything else you mentioned undercuts their credibility. Their consistent failure to do what they say they are going to do, and their failure to negotiate in good faith is what undercuts their credibility.
This implies that they have the food but are using starvation as a tool to subjugate their population. Can you cite to something?
Surely you don’t think that NK spends more on its military than SK. Aas a percentage of GDP, probably but not on an absolute basis.
SK was a military dicatorship until a few decades ago. Stuff like this used to happen in SK:
THIS!!! This is the impression I was trying to correct. The NK attacked a military base, civilians got killed but they weren’t aiming at the civilian homes that dot the hillside, they were aiming at the military base that conducted the military exercises.
I haven’t really been following this thread that closely. Where does NK claim that SK bombarded anything other than contested waters BEFORE they retaliated?
And that is why if this exchange had taken place in the past then I would join you, but the fact that SK has moved forward and NK backwards does weight heavily on my position (Incidentally, I’m still convinced the USA was wrong in Vietnam and almost killed us all (for considering using nuclear weapons) in the past Korean war, but Russians were the ones that propped a puppet regime that still follows a system that should had died with Stalin)
This is less likely if unguided rockets were used by NK.
I think he would apply the same standard if NK had attacked some uninhabited SK island and SK had responded by attacking the ship that launched the attack on the island. Sure it shouldn’t surprise you that a country that you have been at war with for 60 years will attack you for attacking their sovereignty (even if noone actually gets hurt) but its not exactly proportional.
I don’t know if there is an expiration date on these sort of things but you remember when NK sank that SK ship? Internal NK broadcasts basically took credit for it without asserting they were responsible.
That’s not what happened here. A better analogy wold be if NK shot a bunch of artillery almost exactly where the SK shot their artillery, what sort of response would SK have given (based on their response to the sinking of that ship, I’m going to guess a lot of people issuing stern and menacing warnings on TV.
NK was not doing horribly until Kim Jong Il took over. The worst thing Kim Il Sung did to NK (and therewere a few doozies) was leave his son in charge of the country.
The attack may have been reckless but the evidence seems to indicate that the civilians were not targetted as has been implied by several posters. The target was clearly the military base. Being that reckless can still be a war crime but they don’t appear to have actually targetted the civilians.
Cite what? Your interpretation of what I was saying, or the fact that millions have starved under the North’s tender ministrations of their people?
Seriously man…do you always go through all these twists and turns? NK spends less in absolute terms because they are a dirt poor country that only exists because the Chinese prop them up. The fact is they spend a ton of money that they don’t have while their people have starved in the past. Even in GOOD times a large percentage of their populations under nourished.
Even if true and compatible, so what? That was over 20 years ago. What have you done for me lately?
They fired (without justification) into an area with a significant civilian population using unguided rockets. I’d say that this constitutes ‘the other side chose to fire on a village full of civilians, killing several of them’. If you want to nit pick, then they fired unguided artillery indiscriminately and in an unjustified manner in an area known to have civilians in it. You can twist and turn all you want, but the bottom line is that they had no justification what-so-ever to fire, even if the island was only populated by SK military types.
We all know the score here…at least those of us who are even remotely reality based. The NK’s did this to once again put pressure on The West™ to make concessions to them politically and open up the goody bag for more appeasement, and also because lil’ Kimmy wants to strengthen the position of his son as heir apparent to the God Thrown. This was obviously yet another calculated move on the NK’s part…really no different than many of their actions over the past decades.
They called an unprovoked act of naked aggression “self-defense”. Barring a cite of North Korean merfolk populations, it’s obvious that their claim of self defense is the most cynical kind of dishonesty.
I’m trying to find a bookmark about Camp 22, the biggest of those “labor camps”. I apologize for using an American source (esp. since it quotes the government), but this will have to do:
Yes, once upon a time, South Korea was a bad place for human rights —and they still have a number of freedom of speech issues. But they don’t have anything on North Korea — and they never really have, at that.
Kim Jong-il is worse than his dad, but this really isn’t true. The food distribution system, the bad economy, the prisons, and the political repression all predate the current Dear Leader, the sabre-rattling has been happening since the Korean War (which Kim Il-sung started), and the open famine had more to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the accompanying loss of support than the regime change —in fact, the famine probably started before Kim Il-sung was dead, although the DPRK didn’t request food aid until afterward ('94, I think?). So no, not the salt of the earth, Kim Il-sung, and his country has been a pretty dire place since before he passed on.
For some reason, the site won’t allow for links to individual articles, but here is the pertinent part:
“… the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK on Nov. 23 took a decisive self-defensive measure to cope with the enemy’s reckless military provocation of firing shells inside the territorial waters of the DPRK side around Yonphyong Islet in the West Sea of Korea.”
As you can see, the North is not saying that rounds were fired into contested waters. Rather, the position appears to be that this military provocation occurred in North Korean waters proper.
Seriously man…do you always go through all these twists and turns? NK spends less in absolute terms because they are a dirt poor country that only exists because the Chinese prop them up. The fact is they spend a ton of money that they don’t have while their people have starved in the past. Even in GOOD times a large percentage of their populations under nourished.