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N Korean children begging, army starving

Renae

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Footage shot inside North Korea and obtained by the ABC has revealed the extent of chronic food shortages and malnutrition inside the secretive state.

The video is some of the most revealing footage ever smuggled out of the impoverished North Korean state.

Shot over several months by an undercover North Korean journalist, the harrowing footage shows images of filthy, homeless and orphaned children begging for food and soldiers demanding bribes.
N Korean children begging, army starving - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Good video.
 
This has been going in since the collapse of the soviet union.
 
I'd like to say something but I don't know what words I could offer that would mean anything in the face of this situation. I guess I'll just say I hope to live to see the day North Korea falls apart.
 
As cruel as this sounds, it's not our problem.
 
This tragedy has the potential to kill millions of innocent people who have nothing what ever to do with Kim Jong Sicko's political craziness and it's a shame to have to sit by and just watch it happen.

We can attack and try to kill Gaddafi for fighting and killing Rebels on a much smaller scale but not do anything about N.Korea where millions of lives are on the line.

I'm thinking it's time to get Kim and his son invited to address the UN and when their plane is over the deepest part of the Pacific Ocean a tragedy occurs as the Plane breaks up at 30,000 ft. mysteriously, and everyone on board goes down with the plane. If you get my drift.

I can't help but wonder what our Official position might be if North Korea was an Islamic Nation.

Just wondering.
 
Nah, as long as the people are more concerned about their day to day survival, the government can cruise along on aid.

Then maybe we should stop providing it. Charity isn't supposed to make things worse.
 
Hard to compare Kim Jong Il to Gaddafi. Jong Il is absolutely batcrap crazy and would love a justification for sending a few warheads into South Korea or towards US warships stationed nearby. Gaddafi didn't really have the capability to retaliate or to cause harm to our ally nations. Russia and China kind of dismissed the vote on Lybia, tacitly consenting. Getting Russia and China to accept or tacitly consent to an attack on North Korea isn't going to happen. We risk larger reprecussions for our allies and ourselves if we go after Jong Il than we did going after Gaddafi.

That said, I agree with MiddleGround. The people have to demonstrate that they're willing to stand up against their government. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening.
 
This situation is strictly the consequence of the Kim Jong-il regime's disastrous policies. Difficult as it is, I do not believe the U.S. should provide assistance to North Korea. Instead, given North Korea's exceptional history of provocative or worse behavior, any U.S. assistance should be tied to concrete improvements in North Korea's conduct. The U.S. could work with China to work out an arrangement with China serving as a "guarantor" of sorts given China's greater leverage over North Korea and China's interests in stability there. North Korea would be more willing to honor commitments it makes to China than it has with respect to commitments made to the wider international community.

Also, "regime change" via military operations is not viable. Given North Korea's small nuclear arsenal and North Korea's repeated threats to decimate Seoul, the cost-benefit calculus is against such an operation. The U.S. will not pursue a course of action that inflicts catastrophe on South Korea and its people. It also would not pursue a situation that would exacerbate regional risks.

Containment and deterrence are the only practical tools available until North Korea pursues domestic changes on its own that can create a new situation. Even as such a course would require a lot of patience and discipline (e.g., refraining from the emotional impulse to avoid linkage between any kind of aid to North Korea and North Korea's conduct--the U.S. is not pursuing linkage at this time and North Korea will likely "pocket" the humanitarian aid that it receives and maintain its provocative conduct), it is a course that is probably the best of many imperfect or worse options that currently exist.
 
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The tricky part of the North Korea situation is that they are holding South Korea hostage. Thousands of artillery pieces are placed along the border and they can fire a lot of shells into Seoul before getting destroyed by counterfire. If North Korea's government goes down, they're probably taking a lot of innocent people in South Korea with them.
 
The tricky part of the North Korea situation is that they are holding South Korea hostage. Thousands of artillery pieces are placed along the border and they can fire a lot of shells into Seoul before getting destroyed by counterfire. If North Korea's government goes down, they're probably taking a lot of innocent people in South Korea with them.

The problem with hostage situations is that they only end when the hostage taker realizes his situation is hopeless. As long as we keep propping up the regime, NK can pretend they're winning.
 
As cruel as this sounds, it's not our problem.

That's normally my line, but nuclear rogue states are everyone's problem. They can't reach Los Angeles, but imagine what hitting Hong Kong and Tokyo would do to our economy.
 
Videos and photos are terrible substitutes for a real analysis based on real statistics, especially when paired with terrible editorials like this.
 
wondered how long the dictator apologist would take to show up
 
ARealConservative said:
wondered how long the dictator apologist would take to show up

Oh man calling for a reasoned analysis based on empirical information is totally being an apologist for dictatorship, you totally caught me dude!

Maybe you're right maybe I should just make meaningless posts about how Kim Jung Il is "bat**** insane" and deserves to be invaded, right?
 
Videos and photos are terrible substitutes for a real analysis based on real statistics, especially when paired with terrible editorials like this.

You're right. I'm sure they're all throwing parties in the streets thanking their supreme leader for the steak and rice suppers.
 
You're right. I'm sure they're all throwing parties in the streets thanking their supreme leader for the steak and rice suppers.

"He doesn't blindly accept a video as truth (though he didn't disagree either), he must think that North Korea is a paradise."

Solid logic!
 
Oh man calling for a reasoned analysis based on empirical information is totally being an apologist for dictatorship, you totally caught me dude!

Maybe you're right maybe I should just make meaningless posts about how Kim Jung Il is "bat**** insane" and deserves to be invaded, right?

reasoned? lmfao.

all you do is ask that we ignore mounting evidence of how bad it is there. no reasoning is present in your posts
 
all you do is ask that we ignore mounting evidence of how bad it is there. no reasoning is present in your posts

What evidence? Where is this evidence posted in this thread? Please point me to this evidence.
 
What evidence? Where is this evidence posted in this thread? Please point me to this evidence.

undercover reporting of what happens behind the curtain is evidence.

I'm done wasting my time on apologists such as yourself.
 
undercover reporting of what happens behind the curtain is evidence.

A video proves nothing aside from what is contained in it, and even then one must take it with a grain of salt given the unknowns. I could go into the ghetto of any major city in the US, make a video of it and be like "look how run down the US is!" It proves nothing. North Korea has a population of 25 million people. A video interacting with a dozen isn't ever going to be reflective of anything larger than itself, especially ridiculously abstracting out to make assumptions about the entire country.

And as anyone that is levelheaded and has read my posts on the country knows, I'm not saying the claims made are wrong. I haven't even addressed the claims. I'm saying that one cannot make claims and then not back them up, or back them up with something as subjective and relatively meaningless as this.

I'm done wasting my time on apologists such as yourself.

Name calling sure makes your point more valid!
 
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let's look to china in a couple of ways

under mao, it experienced a 'cultural revolution' which brought widespread death (focused on the best educated) and severe food shortages
that brought about general disillusionment with the party leadership and the system itself
which opened the door for a different approach. one applying the forces of capitalism, enabling china to emerge as the world's dominant superpower within decades

having experienced such misguided governance, one would hope that china would now exercise a greater influence in overturning the wrongheaded forces which now govern nk
 
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