N. and S. Korea firing artillery at each other

[FinnAgain]

You still haven’t answered any of these questions, Commissar.
Any time now would be good.

-Found that cite yet to prove your claim that under international law or custom, NK’s military response was “justified” or “appropriate”, seeing as how that was your claim and you’ve never provided any proof for it and changed the subject every time you were called on your lack of proof?

-Found that cite yet to prove that North Korea routinely (or ever) refers to territories that are claimed by SK as “disputed” rather than simply North Korea’s territory, seeing as how that was your claim and you’ve never provided proof for it?

-Found that cite yet to prove that I have made assertions that I did not then cite, about any of the things you’ve claimed I’ve said? Treaty-violations, SK statements should always be taken as true, etc… seeing as how that was your claim and you’ve never provided proof for it?

Any cites for any of those claims would be nice.
We can expect them immediately, yes?

@Commissar

Interesting how most of your responses center around attempting to twist my words

Everybody can read along and see that no “twisting” occurred. Odd claim for you to make.
Rather obviously, you have set up a situation whereby giving humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan even while we prosecuted a war, based on a valid casus belli, against their government and the terrorists their government supported, is “bi polar”. And if we suspended aid when we retaliated for 9/11, we’d have been punishing their people. And if we’d never given them aid then we simply would have helped defend them against a communist invasion and then abandoned them. You win either way, what a coincidence. You’ve, obviously, set up a situation where no matter what the US does they’re the bad guys and one in which *not only is the US the bad guy, but the US is the bad guy for providing roughly a billion dollars in humanitarian aid. *

The fact that you’re using a billion dollars in humanitarian aid as a point of attacking the behavior of a country says all that needs to be said about your argument on that point. Your claims that anybody has “twisted” your quoted words to the contrary.

@Commissar

Your cite links to an article with the following subheading: “South Korea officially concludes that a North Korean torpedo sank the Cheonan — Where do we go from here?”

Again, an odd level of less-than-accuracy going on in your claims. You are ignoring the international fact-finding mission, and (readers should click on the link to see that Commissar’s description of the cite is about as accurate as divination-via-entrails, and is inaccurate via a whopping bit of ommission). Evidently you looked at the title and no further, or you’re only using the title to base your ‘rebuttal’ on. Either/or. You have avoided the subject of the report by attacking SK for mentioning it. Yet again a situation where the injured party even mentioning an international fact finding mission suddenly becomes grounds to ignore it.

Or, perhaps, you also have a problem with Sweden, I guess.

@Commissar

In a South/North dispute, do you really think that a statement by one of the Koreas can be said to be neutral? Really? So you’re back to your black-and-white worldview, then. Everything that South Korea asserts is true by default, while all North Korean statements are inherently false.

Yet another strawman because you actual argument can not stand against the facts. Not only was it not “a statement by one of the Koreas”, but the “black and white worldview” is one you have invented and a criticism you’ve lodged repeatedly on false grounds while, yourself, repeating NK propaganda as if it’s true despite your claim of withholding judgment. Likewise, you have simply invented a fiction whereby anybody has ever said that everything SK says must be true by default.
Is this yet another inaccurate claim you make about what others have said that you then refuse to provide a cite for?

[Monty]

Here’s what I see: South Korea has been the victim of two recent attacks on its citizens and has resorted to diplomacy to seek redress. On the other hand, North Korea has recently killed South Korean citizens without cause. And Commissar is supporting North Korea’s actions. Odd choice, that.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@The_Tao_s_Revenge

Well let’s look at simpler version. Let’s say North Korea was a family of four. The head of house hold makes $100 per month. Of that $100, mirroring North Korea’s economy, $80 is spent on a broad sword, and $20 is left for food. Naturally it isn’t enough and the family starves part of the month. Did the head of household choose for their family to starve?

I say yes, if you intentionally allocate resources needed for food, in full knowledge of the consequences, then you are choosing the resulting famine.

Maybe I’m not making myself clear. I am not saying that NK isn’t doing things that are exacerbating or even creating teh famine (I thought I had said taht at least three times so far). The claim was that NK uses hunger to subjugate its population. I am saying that NK is starving because feeding the population is a lower priority to the Nk government than a nuclear program and military expenditures. If they had enough resources to feed their populace while funding their military and funding their nuclear program, I don’t think NK would nevertheless try to starve their popuilation in order to subjugate it… thats what their military expenditures are for.

I apologize if this is a dumb question, but did they come over thinking it was action packed and dramatic like a soap, or because of the well fed life style presented?

The prosperity became painfully obvious.

Korean soaps follow one of several fomulas. A common formula might result in a storyline like this:

Attractive smart girl from a family of modest means gets into the top university in Korea and while its a struggle, her family is very proud of her because she is all her professors think she is the smartest student they have ever had. She meets a really hot guy from a rich familywhen tragedy strikes and her father becomes crippled and loses his job. Before too long, she has to drop out of school and the ONLY way she can support her crippled father and send her younger siblijgs to school (there is no free schooling in Korea) is to shine the shoes of her stuck up bitchy former classmates and do their laundry.

Its supposed to be a tearjerker but all the NK viewer can see is the painfully obvious prosperity.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@FinnAgain

No, you didn’t. What you said was:
It’s probably hard to define what you claim NK really meant because there is no other kind of self defense than the kind that one engages in for individual or collective self defense. Unless, of course, you’re using “self defense” to mean something other than “defending one’s self”. And rather obviously, NK used the phrase in exactly the way it’s understood in international law, eg in Article 51 of the UN Charter.
In no context and with no bit of nuance does “self defense” even possibly mean using lethal force in response to military force that was never a threat to your citizens at all. It can’t be defense if you’re not *defending *against anything.

So what definition of “self defense” are you using in order to claim that NK’s statement was not a deliberate misuse of terminology in order to morph their unprovoked act of naked and indiscriminate aggression into “self defense”.

Defense of their sovereignty perhaps?

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@straight_man

Ah, but it’s better than that! The whole family doesn’t starve —the head of the household decides that the least favourite child will starve. And s/he will sometimes be punished for finding food on his/her own.

I mean, just to clarify the analogy.

I don’t think the family analogy applies very well here. I think a better analogy would be if a militaristic totalitarian government was hit by famine and refused to reallocate its resources to food production and in fact shifted resources away from food production to the military and a nuclear weapons program, fedding the population may be a low priority but starving them isn’t really the purpose of their action, it may be the inevitable result but if they had enough food for everyone then (almost) everyone would eat.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Commissar

From the North Korean perspective, both the US and South Korea present clear and present dangers to their continued existence. This is not as absurd as you may think. The Empire has not exactly been known for its restraint, and tends to invade several nations a decade. As you may or may not have heard, it’s currently engaged in two wars of aggression… One of those wars (Iraq) came shortly after Little Bush lumped it into an “axis of evil” together with Iran and… wager a guess? Yes, North Korea. And it goes without saying that the Empire’s Southern lapdog will jump into action at a single Imperial command. Hence, it is not unreasonable for the North to build up its military deterrent so as to to be able to fight off a capitalist invasion.

This good faith position contradicts your baseless allegation that the North is slyly pretending to be afraid of the vicious Empire and its puppet as a pretext for starving its own people. Such convoluted scenarios are more likely to be found in a James Bond movie than in the real world. At the very least, you would need to back this hypothesis up with some concrete evidence of a nefarious North Korean master-plan.

I think that is incorrect. I think the better reading is that NK (along with coutnries like Iran) sees nuclearization as the holy grail. It gives their regime virtual immortality and if a few million people die of starvation in the process, well that’s a sacrifice they leadership is willing to make for the greater good of securing the permanence that a nuclear arsenal will provide.

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@FinnAgain

Already quoted and cited in this thread. You know, cites? The things you’ve steadfastly refused to provide for your claims on subjects ranging from international law to things you’ve made up about what other people in the thread have said?

I looked for the cite upthread and couldn’t find one. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some restrictions but I’d like to see the context in which NK was punishing people for procuring their own food.

[Tristan]

Can we vote on if Commissar should be forced to address the clear and reasonable questions that FinnAgain has asked, or risk getting a mod warning for trolling?

Note: I’m not saying he’s a troll, but dodging a set of plainly asked questions while continuing to use questionable rhetoric is highly dubious at best.

---

Commissar, as the US shipped food stuff to the USSR, due to the catastrophic failure of collectivized farming, one would think you would be thankful. Or was that just another dirty trick?

Your view of the world is far more black and white than you admit, and I’ll prove it, if you want.

[FinnAgain]

@Damuri_Ajashi

Defense of their sovereignty perhaps?

Show where in international law or custom “defense of sovereignty” is defined, and how it is equated with “self defense”. Then show how “defense of sovereignty” is required/justified if something falls into open water that you claim.
Additionally, show when why NK claims “self defense” instead of saying that they mean “self defense”, you find it necessary to invent an alternate meaning.

And then, identify why you have decided that NK really meant something totally different than what it said.

[GIGObuster]

@Damuri_Ajashi

I looked for the cite upthread and couldn’t find one. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some restrictions but I’d like to see the context in which NK was punishing people for procuring their own food.

I’m not FinnAgain, but when something is banned in NK you bet the “dear leader” will put you or your family behind the 8 ball.

U.S. Relations With the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea - United States...

North Korea’s economy declined sharply in the 1990s with the end of communism in Eastern Europe, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the dissolution of bloc-trading countries of the former socialist bloc. Gross national income per capita is estimated to have fallen by about one-third between 1990 and 2002. The economy has since stabilized and shown some modest growth in recent years, which may be reflective of increased inter-Korean economic cooperation. Output and living standards, however, remain far below 1990 levels. Other centrally-planned economies in similar situations opted for domestic economic reform and liberalization of trade and investment. To date, North Korea has not done so. However, North Korea did formalize some modest wage and price reforms in 2002, and North Korea has been forced to tolerate markets and a small private sector as the state-run distribution system continues to deteriorate. An increasing number of North Koreans work in the informal, private sector to cope with growing hardship and reduced government support. The government, however, seems determined to maintain control. In October 2005, emboldened by an improved harvest and increased food donations from South Korea, the North Korean Government banned private grain sales and announced a return to centralized food rationing.

You were one of the people that supported the reforms? Congratulations, now you are now part of the “wavering” or “hostile class”

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/ASA24/003/2004/en/eeea909e-d645-11dd-ab95-a13b602c0642/asa240032004en.html

Many North Koreans are victimized because of their class and social status. Article 65 of the revised 1998 North Korean Constitution recognizes citizens’ rights to equality. However the government continues to use “the three class labels – ‘core’, ‘wavering’, and ‘hostile’43 to prioritize access to education, jobs, residence permits, and entitlement to items distributed through the PDS.44 Commentators assert that “the policy of class distinction resulted in the institutionalization of inequalities, which presently persist in North Korea and have an impact on the enjoyment of economic and social rights.”45 Testimony collected by Amnesty International is consistent with this analysis:

According to Kim, “my brother, sisters and I could not go to university; they could not study beyond high school because of our family background. My grandfather, father (who had studied in Japan) and uncles (who had studied in South Korea) were detained in political prison and disappeared. So far I have no idea where they are, what happened to them. However, their ‘political crimes’ made me and my family lower in society. My father’s details were recorded in the family Identity Document. Given my lower social status, I could not marry a government official or a military officer. My social status meant that I did not have the freedom to travel. The lack of social status, lack of education, lack of freedom of movement meant that when the PDS could not deliver food, we had no options but to go to China to look for food.46

A quarter of the population reportedly still belong to the ‘hostile class’ and comprise people suspected of opposing the government or whose family members have been imprisoned. They also include the so-called ‘impure elements’ such as prisoners of war from South Korea who were reportedly relocated to remote mountainous areas in provinces such as North Hamgyong in the period 1953 to 1960, immediately after the Korean War. This group’s institutionalized lower status, their enforced geographical location and restrictions on movement all inhibit their access to food.

Women have also suffered because of the social roles ascribed to them. In North Korea, women “are expected to perform a highly gendered domestic role that always includes cleaning, cooking and physically demanding chores. These gendered roles are not intrinsically or necessarily sexually exploitative but, should abuse take place, these women have no legal protection or any way in which they can seek redress.” 47 Women are generally responsible for finding food for their families, and in times of scarcity often have the last call on food within a household. Many have been forced to roam the countryside in search of food, medicine and other daily necessities. A large proportion of those crossing the border into China for these purposes are women.

In its 2003 concluding observations on North Korea, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressed its concern about the:

“persistence of traditional attitudes and practices prevailing…with regard to women that negatively affect their enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights. The Committee is concerned about the lack of domestic legislation on non-discrimination against women and about the persistence of de facto inequality…”48

By continuing discriminatory policies, and failing to legislate and take action against entrenched inequalities, the North Korean government is not fulfilling its obligations under international law, in particular Article 2.1 of the ICCPR and Article 2.2 of the ICESCR.49

And for all the emboldening by the government, the current situation is becoming horrible again, but the intransigence of the NK government caused many organizations that were willing to help to pull out of NK.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/starving-north-koreans-forced-survive-diet-grass-and-tree-bark-2010-07-14

Amnesty International’s report, the Crumbling State of Health Care in North Korea, reveals how the North Korean government has been unable to feed its people and,in violation of international law, has refused to cooperate fully with the international community to receive food aid.

[FinnAgain]

Not only did I provide a cite, the relevant portion of which I quoted fully, but I did so in response to Commissar. His ignorance on that point is, well, odd.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Damuri_Ajashi

I don’t think the family analogy applies very well here. I think a better analogy would be if a militaristic totalitarian government was hit by famine and refused to reallocate its resources to food production and in fact shifted resources away from food production to the military and a nuclear weapons program, fedding the population may be a low priority but starving them isn’t really the purpose of their action, it may be the inevitable result but if they had enough food for everyone then (almost) everyone would eat.

It’s unclear to me how such a totalitarian regime could be viewed as anything other than evil, to be undermined and destroyed as opportunities arise.

Sure, maybe they’re not starving their people on purpose, but by refusing to take action to prevent the famine, and indeed in taking actions that make it worse, the practical difference between incompetent leadership and sadistic leadership becomes tenuous at best.

[Monty]

Out of idle curiosity, how is it not starving their people on purpose to punish people for buying food? How is it not starving their people on purpose to torture or execute prisoners who scavenge for food? I’m really curious how the intentional enactment and enforcement of these policies is not purposeful.

[tomndebb]

@Tristan

Can we vote on if Commissar should be forced to address the clear and reasonable questions that FinnAgain has asked, or risk getting a mod warning for trolling?

Note: I’m not saying he’s a troll, but dodging a set of plainly asked questions while continuing to use questionable rhetoric is highly dubious at best.

If you would like to open a poll regarding your question in some forum that permits polls, feel free.

There will be no “vote” in this forum regarding other posters’ behavior.

The appropriate, (if rarely employed), response to a poster who refuses to engage in serious discussion is to simply ignore that poster completely or, if the situation warrants, point and laugh at the silliness of the responses.

No poster is required to discuss a topic in a responsible manner or I’d have banned a lot of you years ago and no poster will be compelled to answer questions.
On the other hand, no one is compelled to respond to a poster who is simply posting nonsense when it is rather clear to all observers that the posts are nonsense.

[ /Moderating ]

[Commissar]

@Monty

Here’s what I see: South Korea has been the victim of two recent attacks on its citizens and has resorted to diplomacy to seek redress.

No, South Korea has been involved in two violent incidents, which may have been started by either Korea. I am not ready to blindly accept South Korea’s “Who, me?” Never!" version as the truth, any more than I am willing to swallow North Korea’s version without more proof.

Also, diplomacy? When did this happen? From what I’ve been hearing, South Korea’s been ramping up its belligerence and threatening airstrikes against the North. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11923866 If that’s what you call “diplomacy,” I’d hate to get on your bad side.

On the other hand, North Korea has recently killed South Korean citizens without cause. And Commissar is supporting North Korea’s actions. Odd choice, that.

I am not supporting North Korea’s actions, because we do not know what those actions actually were, or why they occurred. What I AM supporting is North Korea’s right to a fair determination of guilt rather than a mindless stampede to get on the South Korea bandwagon. Frankly, I’m disappointed by how readily Western media accepts unsubstantiated stories, as long as they happen to come from Western nations or their puppet states.

[Commissar]

@Tristan

Can we vote on if Commissar should be forced to address the clear and reasonable questions that FinnAgain has asked, or risk getting a mod warning for trolling?

I have addressed FinnAgain’s queries numerous times, most recently in post #419. My position remains unchanged. Under international law, nations are not required to support their actions absent a treaty-based challenge thereto. If FinnAgain wishes to argue that North Korea broke an international obligation, he needs to plainly state which obligation that is. So far, he has ignored all calls to do so. I cannot be expected to defend a nation when I do not know what the specific accusation against it is. Think of it as a court of law: you need to know the charges before you can present a defense. I’m waiting for the charges.

Commissar, as the US shipped food stuff to the USSR, due to the catastrophic failure of collectivized farming, one would think you would be thankful. Or was that just another dirty trick?

Sure, I’m thankful. The world is not black and white; a shred of light can come even from a heart of utter darkness. However, the US did not do any of it for charitable reasons, and collective farming tends to work very well, thank you very much. You may be interested to know that many of those farms have been maintained in both Russia and Belarus post-USSR. If it were a “failed” agricultural system, there would be no need to maintain the facade once the philosophical underpinnings had been effectively replaced.

Your view of the world is far more black and white than you admit, and I’ll prove it, if you want.

Yes, please “prove it.” This ought to be good…

[Commissar]

GIGObuster - are you serious with those sources? Very well. If you are going to use the official US government position as a neutral and fair analysis of North Korea, I demand that you also use North Korea’s position to analyze the US. After all, both nations will be just as balanced and neutral in their respective analyses of their mortal enemy.

Moreover, even if we accept the US propaganda as truth, it would still not prove what you want it to prove. Requiring that all grain sales be handled by the central system is patently not the same thing as punishing people for trying to feed themselves. Here I thought the argument was that people were being incarcerated for hunting, fishing, and gathering, and it turns out that you just have a problem with North Korean economics…

[GIGObuster]

@Commissar

GIGObuster - are you serious with those sources? Very well. If you are going to use the official US government position as a neutral and fair analysis of North Korea, I demand that you also use North Korea’s position to analyze the US. After all, both nations will be just as balanced and neutral in their respective analyses of their mortal enemy.

Moreover, even if we accept the US propaganda as truth, it would still not prove what you want it to prove. Requiring that all grain sales be handled by the central system is patently not the same thing as punishing people for trying to feed themselves. Here I thought the argument was that people were being incarcerated for hunting, fishing, and gathering, and it turns out that you just have a problem with North Korean economics…

One of them is Amnesty International, so yeah, once again it is clear that you do want to protect your ignorance.

And I was replying to someone else, not all replies are about you, you know…

[Commissar]

@GIGObuster

One of them is Amnesty International, so yeah, once again it is clear that you do want to protect your ignorance.

I was responding specifically to your first link; my apologies if I made that less than clear. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t exactly call Amnesty International an unbiased source, either. It has a very real objective, and that objective tends to make it less than fair to authoritarian states.

[GIGObuster]

@Commissar

I was responding specifically to your first link; my apologies if I made that less than clear. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t exactly call Amnesty International an unbiased source, either. It has a very real objective, and that objective tends to make it less than fair to authoritarian states.

Bingo.

So care to deal with what they say instead of playing “fairness games”? What I see so far is an extreme effort to discredit even organizations that have been against the US in the past, that is just like the efforts I have seen with many pushing conspiracy theories.