Comments on: Why North Korea Is Scary

By: Don Quijote

Don Quijote — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:28:54 +0000

Really?

Let's take a short stroll down history lane:
1953: US overthrows Mossadeq Government, trains the SAVAK.
1954: US overthrows Arbenz Government, kicks of twenty year civil war.
1960's: US invades Vietnam, kills 3 million.
1960's: US carpet bombs Laos.
1965: US supplies death list to Suharto's government, half a million die.
1973:US overthrows Allende Government, puts Pinochet in power.
1970's:US Backs the Argentinian Generals who are running death squads and disappearing people left & right.
1980's:US trains & supplies death squads in El Salvador.
1980's:US trains & supply the contras who are busy killing civilians like there is no tomorrow.
1990's:US invades Iraq.
2002:US invades Afghanistan.
2002:US attempts to overthrow Chavez.
2004:US overthrows Aristide government.

And these are just some of the highlights of the last half century...
2003: US re-invades Iraq, leads to the death of at least half a million civilians.
1980's:

By: StockBoySF

StockBoySF — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:12:45 +0000

Of course the missile launch was a success and they achieved their goal (which is different than the stated goal, which was given as an excuse to test military hardware)…. Even if it bombed (pun intended) the results will let the North Koreans fine tune their engineering and next time the launch will be better. The notion of North Korea putting a communications satellite in orbit is laughable. What do they need a communications satellite for? So their citizens can get better reception on their cell phones? So they can communicate across the many times zones in their country? So they can tap into the high definition broadcasts of other satellites so their citizens can view the very best on the high def TVs? I suppose the only reason they might need a communications is satellite is for the military.

As to the rest of the post… Very good point about the North Koreans being indoctrinated…. However many North Koreans maintain ties with their South Korean relatives and do try to escape.

Having said that…. I think that 95 or 99 % of all NK men were in the military at some point…. a good way to indoctrinate them and teach them to follow orders. Certainly not many people will take a chance to go against the government with the threat of losing what meager provisions they have to survive. With the entire population tied to the military it is next to impossible to get an opposition movement started. I wonder how many opposition movements the government has squelched….

By: kathyedits

kathyedits — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:26:10 +0000

Here is what I'm most scared of regarding North Korea: I'm scared of what North Korea might be able to do as a result of the fact that the U.S. has absolutely no political or moral leverage to stop it as it once might have had, before Bush 43. There are two young women being held in NK right now — American journalists who were working on a story about refugees from NK — whom nobody seems to mention and everybody seems to have forgotten. But I don't think that the reason nobody mentions Euna Lee and Laura Ling is because they've been forgotten. I think the reason nobody mentions them is because there is absolutely no f**king thing the U.S. government can do to persuade the North Korean government that holding two Americans in arbitrary detention with no legal representation and under inhumane conditions is unacceptable.

And I think we ALL know why that is.

By: PattonGuy

PattonGuy — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:40:00 +0000

It depends on how you define "success". If "success" is "better than the last one", then yes, it was a success. If you define success as "actually achieving one's goals", then the answer is no. The second stage apparently failed at some point, and the satellite that they were launching has apparently not acheived orbit. Although I doubt the satellite was ever really a concern for the DPRK. Still, they obviously have reliability issues with this latest one, which makes me doubt the necessity for all this hubbub over the launch. I doubt that they can reach the U.S. yet. Besides, even once they have a reliable missile, they need to fiddle with the nukes that they have and manage to mount them onto the actual missiles. And even then, it would take gobs of money to have anything close to our nuclear arsenal, so at least Pyongyang will be radioactive ash if they attack us.

By: Jim_Satterfield

Jim_Satterfield — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:11:39 +0000

Sorry, DQ, but trying to make an equivalency argument between any American President and the “leadership” of North Korea is in fact, loony.

By: cynicalone

cynicalone — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 15:22:47 +0000

What are you saying Mr. Tilting at Windmills?
You expect the President, Mr. Obama, to destroy human civilization.
What country do you expect Obama to invade?

By: Don Quijote

Don Quijote — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:56:58 +0000

With that in mind, the fact that they may soon have the ability to nuke anywhere on the planet is VERY scary.

As opposed to the US with it's thousands of Nukes, more than enough to destroy Human Civilization, a history of invading defenseless foreign countries and toppling regimes that it doesn't like...