North Korea

[bokonon]

I was just listening to the CBC and heard Kim Jong Il talking about how he is doing the nuclear tests not to attack anyone but to protest American agressive and opressive policy. To me it sounded like he was basically saying that America shouldn't be the only nuclear power. Call me naive but I really believe him.

[Birdy]

I really believe him too, but detonating nuclear devices to make a statement, is childish, ridiculous and extremely dangerous. Kim Jong II needs to grow the fuck up and think how to create change on a positive level.

[bokonon]

Is the testing really just to make a statement and not to make sure his stuff works and study its effects? If so that's a really good point, he should grow the fuck up.

[Booche]

I wish I was in North Korea with my son.

[localcrew]

...and he imprisons 13 year old concubines to satisfy his warped sexual desires to protest that Much Music doesn't have all the young scantily clad females in the world......and he starves his population to feed his massive goose stepping army to protest the fact that Hitler can't be the only one to have had a million goose stepping fanatics.....yes, you've chosen quite a role model!

Edited October 15, 2006 by Guest

[Guest Low Roller]

He's reaching out because he's ronery.

[shainhouse]

Until he starts feeding his people, I refuse to listen to him.

[bokonon]

yes, you've chosen quite a role model!

yes, he's my favourite role model....i'm sure i wrote that somewhere above.

um, maybe not. Nowhere did I say that I agree with how he runs his country. I said that I appreciate the fact that he's standing up to the US nuclear policy. Has reading comprehension degenerated so much that people only understand sweeping generalizations and not specific points?

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I hate this whole business of symmetrical escalation. Look what happened in the wake of the USSR running to keep pace with the US in their mutual perceived threat.

He's not just standing up to the US, either, though they're making the loudest noises about being put out. Think Russia, China (especially), India, Pakistan, France, England.... It's called "I'm a thug and you have to respect me because I've now got a big gun."

In fact, he kind of reminds me of this guy -

[localcrew]

Well neither is he standing up to US nuclear policy; he is building an arsenal to threaten the world into sending huge wads of cash to feed his totalitarian state and fund his lavish lifestyle.....and he will most likely sell nukes to rogue states who may very well set them off down the street from where you live.....I don't personally admire this much myself.

Do you at all know the N Korean history of acquiring this technology under the understanding of not developing nuclear arms; robbing Jimmy Carter, lying to Clinton and now bribing Bush.....that's the long and short of it.

[hamilton]

Until he starts feeding his people, I refuse to listen to him.

I don't think he's talking to you anyway.

[Kanada Kev]

China Erects Fence Along N. Korea Border

Oct 16 8:43 AM US/Eastern

By NG HAN GUAN

Associated Press Writer

HUSHAN, China

China has been building a massive barbed wire and concrete fence along parts of its border with North Korea in the most visible sign of Beijing's strained ties with its once-cozy communist neighbor.

Scores of soldiers have descended on farmland near the border-marking Yalu River to erect concrete barriers 8 to 15 feet tall and string barbed wire between them, farmers and visitors to the area said.

Last week, they reached Hushan, a collection of villages 12 miles inland from the border port of Dandong.

"About 100 People's Liberation Army soldiers in camouflage started building the fence four days ago and finished it yesterday," said a farmer, who only gave his surname, Ai. "I assume it was built to prevent smuggling and illegal crossing."

Though the fence-building appears to have picked up in the days following North Korea's claimed nuclear test last week, experts said the project was approved in 2003. Experts and a local Hushan official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the project, said the military was in charge of the building.

A Defense Ministry spokesman, Ye Xing, declined comment, saying he was not authorized to release information on border security.

The fence marks a noticeable change in China's approach to North Korea. In the decades following their shared fight against U.S.-led U.N. forces in the Korean War, China left their border lightly guarded, deploying most of its forces in the northeast toward its enemy, the Soviet Union.

But the border became a security concern for Beijing in the past decade, as North Korea's economy collapsed and social order crumbled in some places. Tens of thousands of refugees began trickling across the border into northeast China, fording the Yalu and Tumen rivers or walking across the ice in winter.

Professor Kim Woo-jun, of the Institute of East and West Studies in Seoul, said China built wire fences on major defection routes along the Tumen River in a project that began in 2003, and since September this year, China has been building wire fences along the Yalu River.

"The move is mainly aimed at North Korean defectors," Kim said. "As the U.N. sanctions are enforced ... the number of defectors are likely to increase as the regime can't take care of its people. ... I think the wire fence work will likely go on to control this."

But he said he also believes that Beijing wants to firmly mark its border with the North along the two rivers.

Kim said China and the North drew their border in a secret treaty. That treaty wasn't reported to the United Nations and therefore does not apply to a third country, such as South Korea. China is concerned that South Korea may claim a different border after absorbing or unifying with the North.

Reporters who visited the border area in the past week saw about 1,600 feet of newly erected barbed wire fence north of Dandong, mainly along river banks and occasionally broken up by mountain areas or military guard posts.

A duck farmer in Hushan, who would only give his surname Han, said that soldiers began putting up the fence near his farm on Oct. 9 _ the same day that North Korea claims to have carried out an underground nuclear test.

[ollie]

...and he imprisons 13 year old concubines to satisfy his warped sexual desires to protest that Much Music doesn't have all the young scantily clad females in the world......and he starves his population to feed his massive goose stepping army to protest the fact that Hitler can't be the only one to have had a million goose stepping fanatics.....yes, you've chosen quite a role model!

[color:purple]Hey, at least he's not American!

[Esau.]

I said that I appreciate the fact that he's standing up to the US nuclear policy. Has reading comprehension degenerated so much that people only understand sweeping generalizations and not specific points?

You'd probally feel different if you lived in S. Korea or Japan where in 1998 N.Korea tested missles by lauching them over Japan into the Pacific Ocean.

Not to mention, the new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says it's time for his country's era of pacifism to end. Which has been in place since Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Also they are considering getting into the nuke race, which they considered back in 1995 to counter the threat of a nuclear-armed North Korea, but now almost seems for certian they will, which won't take them long with the nation's huge stockpile of plutonium from the spent fuel of its nuclear power plants.

Just what the world needs, another arms race...

[The Chameleon]

Like it or hate, love him or hate him. His entrance into the world stage as a nuclear power, will force the US to "deal" and not attack him.

I hate to say it but given the current situation it was a shreud millitary move, one that will protect him from unchecked American invasions.

[Birdy]

i'm just on edge as i think the US' days of 'dealing' with things are numbered. their global involvement is already way too much for their economy to manage, adding an arms race with more rogue states to the pile is just going to weigh down the camel's back even more. It's been over 50 years, power changing hands is long overdue. Hopefully WWIII won't be the facilitator of that.. but when whack jobs are detonating nuclear devices to teach lessons, how can anyone be so sure.

[edger]

Aaahh... serenity now...

[The Chameleon]

i'm just on edge as i think the US' days of 'dealing' with things are numbered. their global involvement is already way too much for their economy to manage, adding an arms race with more rogue states to the pile is just going to weigh down the camel's back even more. It's been over 50 years, power changing hands is long overdue. Hopefully WWIII won't be the facilitator of that.. but when whack jobs are detonating nuclear devices to teach lessons, how can anyone be so sure.

Sad to say the US has far to go until they break. The still haven't introduced a full on draft yet. They still haevn't tapped thier massive oil reserves and Bush still has 2 more years.

America will coose to be "world cop/enforcer" for years to come, and due tho thier choice of that role, countries that are not firendly with them (Korea, Iran etc...) will feel they need weapons of mass destruction to protect themselves against the most armed nation in the world. THe U.S.A.

[Birdy]

Sad to say the US has far to go until they break.

the kind of break i'm talking about isn't one that ANYONE, regardless of political ideology, is going to want to look forward to. and no, they don't have far to go. if the US doesn't shift their primary focus from world domination to debt reduction sometime soon we're all going to be screwed. riding on borrowed money can only last so long! if you can imagine how devastating the great depression was, imagine the great depression in this day and age of globalization. pretty damn scary. again, all great powers will fall, unfortunate, but true. if only the US could look back at the lesson it taught to Great Britain post WWII and realize the errors of their ways.

[localcrew]

Yikes....there is nothing shrewd about a totalitarian madman with nuclear weapons and no source of income.....when nukes start going off not far from here (yes there is much collaberation between North korea and terrorist groups from the Middle East etc)I really don't care how shrewd you think it is...

...you need to give your head a shake if you think all these lost and hopeless countries in the world need nukes to stave off invasion from the hated imperialist Americans.....these countries need to get their acts together, stop buying arms at all and start feeding their people...this goes for everywhere in the world from Africa to Asia to wherever you may care to name...

Sometimes I think people's hatred of the Americans is way over the top; when you appreciate nukes in the hands of crazy regimes you might want to consider whether terrorists and weird nutjobs like the one in North korea would hesitate to use them against you-you may want to sympathise with them a little less.....

[bokonon]

Who hates Americans? Half my family's american. I don't like George Bush's nuclear policy. Never said I hated Americans. Yep, I'd like to see the world disarm itself but I don't see that happening anytime. Call me paranoid, but I lock my doors to prevent intruders. Nations have the right to do the same. It's just a shame that the most powerful nation in the world has the scariest kind of lock which forces all other nations to obtain the same device because of the tactics used by its government, ie. invade and destroy all those that don't comply with their demands.

[localcrew]

...the US has demands on N Korea (if for no other reason than the US under Jimmy carter gave them nuclear technology to help them with the clear undersatnding that they would never produce weapons from it) to not build nuclear weapons...the leap of logic that they should then build them and incur the wrath of the US as a means to avoid their wrath is a leap I'm not really making....?....?....?...

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

under the U.S. Constitution which derives from their D.of I., you have the right to bear arms! So, what's the problem?

I don't blame North Korea for starting a Nuclear program.

I lay the blame on the fact that they feel it is necessary to do so.

Maybe North Korea would find it easier to feed their people if they weren't crippled by sanctions.

Just playing devil's advocate

[localcrew]

Well how is N Korea not to blame for developing nuclear weapons? It's not like someone snuck into the country and did it without them knowing....they did it themselves. And what on earth do they need them for that you say they are so necessary?

[Esau.]

under the U.S. Constitution which derives from their D.of I., you have the right to bear arms!

Yep. The right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of a militia to defend the country in the absence of an effective standing military.