US suspends food aid to North Korea

well that's the question, I suppose. are you really helping by feeding the NKorean military?

cpwill said:

well that's the question, I suppose. are you really helping by feeding the NKorean military?

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And the answer to that question is, mostly yes.

And the residents of Pyongyang. Who are specially selected to live in the city.

But having said that the NK regime does need to give quite a bit of food out in order to passify the masses, a country is difficult to govern, a country full of angry, hungry people is even harder. And if you don't believe me you can ask the Russians of 1918.

You could also ask the Russians of 1935 but I would suspect they'd be put to death for saying anything about it.

well then that becomes question #2. by propping up the Kim Regime, are we helping or hurting the North Korean people?

cpwill said:

well then that becomes question #2. by propping up the Kim Regime, are we helping or hurting the North Korean people?

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It's difficult to say.

It's one of those ****ed if you do, ****ed if you don't scenarios.

If you don't, you do end up punishing alot of innocent North Korean people, and that goes both ways, either it weakens the Kim regime, or more likely and has been the case for the last 20 years since the collapse of Soviet Food aid, it strengthens the power of their propoganda to make people angry at foreigners for the food shortage rather then their own leaders, which is somewhat ironic considering the official state idealogy calls for self reliance.

If you do give them the food you help millions of North Koreans eat, BUT you also strengthen the military who will have more food rations, and even with that food aid you still don't reach the vast majority of North Koreans.

It's a messy, messy situation but if one believes that the ends justify the means, then give them the food aid, conditionally (stopping missile tests, nuclear ambitions) even if it means strengthening their military, but in the end, how do you deal with a nation that's more concerned about launching a missile then feeding its own people.

All I can say is, I'm glad I don't have to make that call.

Wish it were permanent. We should never give North Korea anything. There is no benefit whatsoever, and the Kim family apparently has a genetic trait of mental instability and erratic behavior.

They bluff, and we fold, every time, when we always have the better hand.



Let them sabre-rattle. We've got more and bigger swords.



That's what she said.

Im going have to say after seeing so many failed trade embargo's and sanctions, that just end up strengthening the people who we are trying to hurt i say we give them the food. Dicatorships slowly collapse after the people say enough is enough, history proves this. Hell, cool the North Korean gov wants to send a stalite up into space, let them do it, but at least give this startving innocent people some food.

jamesrage said:

Sanctions do not hurt the protected class in a tyrannical dictatorship.Perhaps food is the one thing we shouldn't be sanctioning. It amounts to do what we say or we'll starve your poor.

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If NK continues to clown around and develop nuclear weapons, the joke will be on them. Check out this picture of Pyongyang, NK, sometime in the future. :mrgreen:

You could also ask the Russians of 1935 but I would suspect they'd be put to death for saying anything about it.

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This isn't really true. It was quite common to complain about the food situation in the late 30's, even at the height of the Moscow trials.