N. Korea gets away with murder. Obama and Clinton issue strongly worded statements. China does nothing. That’s… :loco:
www1.voanews.com/english/news/as … 99629.html
SK’s RAISED the sunken ship and recovered parts of the torpedo that they shot it with. Then staged a press conference in the drydock!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f6xSU_Il5o&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnfSwI36-ZE&feature=player_embedded
I do not like you Kim Jong Il. 
Lurvely hypocrUSy! The US can cook up any number of reasons to go to war - one of their boats was fired upon, so millions of Vietnamese have to die; falsified reports of Iraq’s threat to the world - kill them godamn Ayrabs. . . but when a country actually commits an act of war, what do they do? Oh shit! Don’t piss them off, man!
Oh my, could it be that North Korea doesn’t have anything the hypcrUStes want? Could that be why nary a stern peep? “No blood for kimchi,” just doesn’t have the same ring. Clearly. 
As I say to my boy, make it a point never to die for that country.
HG
Ghawar sized oil field found in North Korea.
That would change things.
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Lurvely hypocrUSy! The US can cook up any number of reasons to go to war - one of their boats was fired upon, so millions of Vietnamese have to die; falsified reports of Iraq’s threat to the world - kill them godamn Ayrabs. . . but when a country actually commits an act of war, what do they do? Oh shit! Don’t piss them off, man!
HG[/quote]
South Korea is vastly richer than North Korea, but no nuclear bombs. If the South really wanted to go to war over this, could the US stop them? It would be a legitimate reason to go to war, just like 911 was a legitimate reason to invade Afghanistan (but not Iraq.)
I agree, and I never thought I’d be saying this, but it’s pretty much because the South, unlike it’s tempestuous northern brother, is sane and doesn’t want to do the war two step. At least I hope so.
Then again, I do think a smite of some order is perfectly justified.
HG
Emotionally, I’d like to see a strong reaction. I’m sure Obama and Clinton want one too. The problem is the reaction that the reaction would likely provoke. You have to start by understanding the military (including nuclear) situation on the peninsula, and look at what in S. Korea is within reach of the North’s weaponry. It’s an extremely frustrating situation.
And then there’s China.
HG
“If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will … wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all.”
– North Korean Central News Agency, 2009
With a leader who thinks he’s god and has threatened to wipe the U.S. off the face of the earth you have to wonder at the schizophrenic indifference of the United States in the face of such a demonstrable threat, especially now that this member of the Axis of Evil has perpetrated an act of war towards one of its allies. Once North Korea weaponizes its nuclear devices and develops a method for delivering them it will be an imminent nuclear threat to the U.S. and its allies if ever there was one.
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]And then there’s China.
HG[/quote]
Slapping around NK is a great way to squeeze China.
[quote=“hardball”][quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]And then there’s China.
HG[/quote]
Slapping around NK is a great way to squeeze China.[/quote]
And to set South Korea back a few paces. Decapitate the North watch the tidal waves of refugees crash over China and the South. 23 million people making a dash for the exits: jeez. And people thought integrating East Germany was tough. It’d take a couple of generations to sort out that mess.
huh? SK is an ally of NK?
Hitchens has a couple of good reads on North Korea.
A Nation of Racist Dwarfs
Kim Jong-il’s regime is even weirder and more despicable than you thought.
Kim Jong-il’s Willing Accomplices
The West puts up with the evil madman’s antics because we’re afraid of triggering worse.
And then there’s this classic on North Korea, erhm thought.
HG
huh? SK is an ally of NK?[/quote]
You left off the first half of the sentence, without which doesn’t make sense. The schizophrenic US is the subject, North Korea is “this member of the Axis of Evil” and the ally of the subject is South Korea.
However that’s all changed. The US is supporting SK’s economic sanctions, the warning for NK to stay out of SK waters and airspace and the joint exercises between US and SK forces.
Kim Jong Ill’s swan song has yet to be played. Do you think a grand Narcissist like him is going to go softly into the pale night?
Act one of the tragic opera I’m sure he thinks his life is. He’ll want to destroy everything he has built-kick over all the sand castles then expect to be punished.
His foreign policy is basically “If you don’t give me what I want-I’ll crap in my pants.”
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]Hitchens has a couple of good reads on North Korea.
[/quote]
I’ve read Hitchens’ article and was struck by his description of North Koreans. Xenophobic, racist, think they are better than everyone else - really, they sound a lot like South Koreans. The conditions of their society and the propaganda of their crazy leader have just accentuated the xenophobia and racism and inexplicable nationalism of the South.
Actually i was thinking much the same.
I’ve long advocated the best way to ease north south tensions in Korea would be to shift all the blokes to the north, and bomb the hell out of it while moving all the women to the south and sending lotsa love.
HG
Oh, right! That just illustrates the dangers of inadequate blood caffeine levels. 
Good reading HGC, thanks! 
So S. Korea has declared an end to trade with the north. How much of an impact will that have, anyway? Isn’t China likely to make up for any slack, to prevent regime collapse and/or further influxes of refugees?
Strange… so many nuanced and sophisticated Europeans see the US as a BIGGER danger than North Korea. Someone must have gotten these reports wrong otherwise how could so many Europeans be wrong since they are so much more sophisticated and nuanced than Americans who are nothing more than gunslinging cowboys and warmongers?
Recent public utterances from EU leaders would appear to be at least as condenming of North Korea as the US is.
I don’t know where you get that from, your view is rather divorced from the view aired by most if not all leaders in the western world.
My dear Mr He:
When Bush was president, your “average” European would often be polled claiming that the US was the biggest threat in the world, more so than Iran, China, Russia and North Korea. No doubt being a clever and sophisticated but not Kierkegaardian European, you might attempt to explain the dichotomy or perhaps it is a dialectic of the sophisticated nuanced European viewing matters such vis a vis the cowboy gunslinging Americans and the incredible threat that they presented to the civilized world? I shall relish/treasure the exchange. Please do share with us your “views.” Thanks ever so… OR quelle horrore… has it become a world where Bush being gone Obama is a non-threat? If so, be sure and enlighten us where and how American foreign policy has changed! Yes! That must be so! American foreign policy is so different now under Obama to be, er, different in the ways that you are going to tell us! Yes! We must know! Or will this be a Shakespearian dichotomy/dialectic of “to be or NOT to be?” Ah, perhaps, then Danes are nihlists? Let us certainly hope so at least as far as the interest/attempt to breeding is concerned. Laughing at not with you because, alas, I miss Yorkick so…