North Korea Starving, pleads for aid from international comunity

[ishii]

We never attacked North Vietnam our armed forces was held back we bomb it only there is no way you can take over a country with just conventional bombing.

You’re right. We pulled our punches. Our goal was to get the communists to the negotiating table and then negotiate with people who wanted to win not compromise.

[The Republic Of Korea was one of the best armies I ever served with; together we could take out the North.

[/quote]

It would be a complete bloodbath. The north Koreans have a million man army and tons of weapons pointed directly at Seoul with millions of citizens. I would have a hard time justifying the loss of innocent lives.

Ishii

 

[stanmaxkolbe]

You’re right. We pulled our punches. Our goal was to get the communists to the negotiating table and then negotiate with people who wanted to win not compromise.

It would be a complete bloodbath. The north Koreans have a million man army and tons of weapons pointed directly at Seoul with millions of citizens. I would have a hard time justifying the loss of innocent lives.

Ishii

Don’t think the South is not ready I’d be surprised if the North made it across the DMZ. We have stuff aimed at the North too.
The ROK is built up heck even their highways are designed to land combat aircraft.

My experience with communists they’re like the devil everything they say is a lie North Korea is like a snake you have to cut off the head to kill it. That government is completely evil.

During the Paris Peace talks the North Vietnamese walked out, Henry called up Nixon, and he called the Secretary of Defense said bomb the hell out of Hanoi—as soon as we started bombing again the North came running back to the peace talks.

 

[ishii]

Don’t think the South is not ready I’d be surprised if the North made it across the DMZ. We have stuff aimed at the North too.
The ROK is built up heck even their highways are designed to land combat aircraft.

My experience with communists they’re like the devil everything they say is a lie North Korea is like a snake you have to cut off the head to kill it. That government is completely evil.

During the Paris Peace talks the North Vietnamese walked out, Henry called up Nixon, and he called the Secretary of Defense said bomb the hell out of Hanoi—as soon as we started bombing again the North came running back to the peace talks.

You’re right Stanmaxkolbe. We bombed the North and they came back to the peace talks. In fact, part of the peace accords which were signed that supposedly ended the war was that he accords were backed up with U.S. military strength - that the U.S. could at any time bomb the north if they violated the agreement. Unfortunately when the communists did violate the agreement and invade the south, the Democrats in congress tied the hands of president Ford and prevented him from acting to help the south by bombing the north. We should have come to the aid of the south. But the Democrats prevented America from helping the south and the communists took over. This is one of the most shameful periods in U.S. history - the betrayal of the south. It was committed by the Democrats and is one reason why I am not a Democrat.

Getting back to Korea, the north not only has a huge army, it also has missiles aimed at the south ready to fire if there was an outbreak of war. Even if the north didn’t make it across the dmz, the missiles could cause an unacceptably high level of civilian casualties. Do you think the north would hesitate to inflict them? Hard to say and I’m not sure its a risk worth taking.

Ishii

 

[Monte_RCMS]

If we provide food aid to North Korea, the people aren’t ever going to see one iota of it. The Army will keep it for themselves.

So … let us do a deal with them.

We will provide food … but in return we want something from them.

What should we ask for from North Korea in return for us providing food?

[The other interesting thing is that because of the extreme cold, food crops have failed in the West … so, how do we negotiate with them given our own circumstances?]

 

[manualman]

Send 'em “the loaf.” abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123848&page=1

Bake in some nice hard thermoplastic cards with Korean writing saying “We’ll be glad to share much better food with y’all once you depose Kim Joong Il and his cohorts.”

 

[stanmaxkolbe]

You’re right Stanmaxkolbe. We bombed the North and they came back to the peace talks. In fact, part of the peace accords which were signed that supposedly ended the war was that he accords were backed up with U.S. military strength - that the U.S. could at any time bomb the north if they violated the agreement. Unfortunately when the communists did violate the agreement and invade the south, the Democrats in congress tied the hands of president Ford and prevented him from acting to help the south by bombing the north. We should have come to the aid of the south. But the Democrats prevented America from helping the south and the communists took over. This is one of the most shameful periods in U.S. history - the betrayal of the south. It was committed by the Democrats and is one reason why I am not a Democrat.

Getting back to Korea, the north not only has a huge army, it also has missiles aimed at the south ready to fire if there was an outbreak of war. Even if the north didn’t make it across the dmz, the missiles could cause an unacceptably high level of civilian casualties. Do you think the north would hesitate to inflict them? Hard to say and I’m not sure its a risk worth taking.

Ishii

You are spot on and it was Teddy Kennedy and his buddies that did it the stopped the funding we had a legitimate treaty with South Vietnam and we threw them to the curb.

As for the ROK I can’t say to much because I don’t know what is classified or not anymore—let’s just say they’re ready to kick butt and take names. Yes if the North is cornered they will strike, also I must say when I was the DMZ we had problems with the South they wanted to attack.

The North would be fools to attack their air and ground forces would be taken out; yes they have some missiles so does the South and modern anti-missile weapon systems—the North’s leadership knows this that’s how come they always rattle their sabers but look for a political solution because if it came to a fight they know they would lose.

Yes there would be civilian collateral damage on both sides.

 

[Ridgerunner]

This whole thing has a surreal aspect to it.

N.K. wouldn’t last six months if it wasn’t receiving all kinds of support from China. And yet, what does China do to moderate N.K.'s behavior? Nothing. Why does it do nothing when it certainly could? Because China wants the place the way it is, that’s why.

I realize this is fantasy stuff. Nobody in the government will do it. But one can certainly dream of the U.S. getting together with Canada and Aus and saying “Well, we will sell you every bit of food you need…for American dollars. China has lots of those. Go ask your Big Brother for a loan instead of asking us for charity.”

If we knew the truth, probably N.K. is unpayable billions in debt to China already. But if they want to play this farcical game, let them pay the price.

 

[vsedriver]

I doubt it’d be that easy. We had better trained troops and equipment in Vietnam, but it didn’t help much there. Same with Iraq, and that hasn’t been a peace of cake. The North Korean armed forces, however, have over a million troops and 8 million reserves. In numbers, they would be the largest army the US has faced since the Wehrmacht. And I’m betting they’re better trained than the Vietcong.

Don’t forget we were winning in Vietnam till the Politicians put a choke chain on the military.

 

[mlund]

“Supporting regime change” sounds nice and all, but this isn’t Egypt. You aren’t going to have a public-sector employee strike supported by the military. In Egypt the Military decided to overthrow their dictator and seized power. In North Korean the military has already seized power, Dear Leader is a figurehead, and the guys with the guns are the ones stealing all the food and grinding the peasantry into the dirt in the name of Social Justice. Any attempt at Egyptian-style regime-change would be met by a military with a vested interest in shooting the protesters and it would be immediately quashed.

Suggesting the North Koreans to “free themselves” through “regime change” is just a nicer way of saying that they can sit in their hole and rot. The only thing that can free North Korea is killing, exiling, cowing, or converting a sufficient number of the rulers of the People’s Party that run the military.

• Marty Lund

 

[manualman]

“Supporting regime change” sounds nice and all, but this isn’t Egypt. You aren’t going to have a public-sector employee strike supported by the military. In Egypt the Military decided to overthrow their dictator and seized power. In North Korean the military has already seized power, Dear Leader is a figurehead, and the guys with the guns are the ones stealing all the food and grinding the peasantry into the dirt in the name of Social Justice. Any attempt at Egyptian-style regime-change would be met by a military with a vested interest in shooting the protesters and it would be immediately quashed.

Suggesting the North Koreans to “free themselves” through “regime change” is just a nicer way of saying that they can sit in their hole and rot. The only thing that can free North Korea is killing, exiling, cowing, or converting a sufficient number of the rulers of the People’s Party that run the military.

• Marty Lund

This kind of thinking appears to be based on a sort of assumption that the “military” consists of robots rather than humans. In the real world, the military consists mostly of the CHILDREN of the suffering poor peasants. When and if things get bad enough, long enough and widespread enough the day will come when the colonels give the order to fire, the captains and majors hesitantly distribute it and the privates, corporals and lieutenants decide enough is enough and start shooting majors and colonels instead of the peasants they were ordered to kill.

It is the downfall of despots throughout history. If you hoard TOO much to yourself until nobody else has anything worth anything, there is no one willing to prop you up anymore.

That’s why I say send 'em the LOAF. Keep 'em alive and miserable enough to get fed up with it.

 

[Loml]

Don’t forget we were winning in Vietnam till the Politicians put a choke chain on the military.

Maybe they were concerned about the enormous civilian death toll. Yeah, probably not.

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Here is a NASA - Goddard satellite photo of the Korean peninsula with a caption that is relevant to this thread.

flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5451018963/

Could someone who is better with computers than me, kindly post the actual photo and caption?

Thanks.

I played with it and got the caption, but no idea how to get the photo posted:

Heavy Snow on the Korean Peninsula

NASA image acquired February 14, 2011

In mid-February 2011, residents along South Korea’s east coast were struggling to dig out from the heaviest snowfall in more than a century. The BBC reported that hundreds of stranded motorists awaited rescue, and hundreds of homes had collapsed under the weight of heavy snow. The South Korean government had deployed 12,000 soldiers to assist and rescue residents.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this natural-color image on February 15, 2011. Mostly clear skies allowed MODIS a nearly uninterrupted view of the Korean Peninsula. East of Seoul, clusters of small white clouds cast shadows onto the surface below. But most of the white on the peninsula is snow.

Agence France-Presse reported that the port city of Samcheok recorded 100 centimeters (39 inches) of snowfall on February 11 and 12—the heaviest snowfall amount since recordkeeping began in 1911. In the west, Seoul escaped heavy snow, although the Han River froze over for the first time in years, according to the BBC.

The Chosunilbo reported that snow was expected to taper off for the east coast on February 14, although some snow might fall inland, including Seoul.

The heavy snowfall arrived on the heels of South Korea’s coolest January since the 1960s. The unusual cold might have been driven at least partly by the Arctic Oscillation (AO). A negative phase of the AO lowered temperatures in other parts of the Northern Hemisphere in January 2011.

NASA images courtesy MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.

Instrument: Aqua - MODIS

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

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