33 replies to this topic

[Kreian]

what do you guys think of the north and south korea situation

 

 

http://abcnews.go.com/International/south-korea-bracing-north-korean-missile-test-anytime/story?id=18921030#.UWX_y7UT-So

Edited by Pollito, 11 April 2013 - 12:28 AM.

[oceana]

I'm not to sure... (I sure have seen quite a handful of memes about this though)

[Mistake]

WHY IS THERE NO THREAD ABOUT THE DEATH OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR, MARGARET THATCHER

[m0t0man]

Why not throw in Roger Ebert?  Who is going to tell me if a movie is thumbs up or down now?  and dont tell me rotten tomato either....

 

In all seriousness though, I think they are just barking up a storm to get respect like all the other analyists are saying.  New leader, growing distrust in new leader from the people and military.  Lets cause a shit storm to gain the trust again.  It will end badly no matter what they do, missile launch or not.

Edited by m0t0man, 11 April 2013 - 01:00 AM.

[Mistake]

Why not throw in Roger Ebert?  Who is going to tell me if a movie is thumbs up or down now?  and dont tell me rotten tomato either....

 

In all seriousness though, I think they are just barking up a storm to get respect like all the other analyists are saying.  New leader, growing distrust in new leader from the people and military.  Lets cause a shit storm to gain the trust again.  It will end badly no matter what they do, missile launch or not.

Well that Roeper guy is still alive.

 

And the yeah N. Korea has been known to make big claims to force the USA to give them more aid and food, but this time it's diiiffffereenttt. They broke off their armistice with South Korea. Like you said, it's going to end bad for the North, but Orange County might just come out of it unscathed so you don't have to worry about me!

[pizhhh]

Honestly, I'd like to see them try.

[Mistake]

Honestly, I'd like to see them try.

HEY MISTER, THE PHILIPPINES ARE WITHIN RANGE OF KIM JONG UN'S MIGHTY MISSILES 

 

 

You should like 1. Check your privilege 2. Be afraid

[Kannade]

Kim Jong Un is really young so I think he's all talk for now. But if he does make the rookie mistake of launching the missiles to try to make North Korea look so hardxcore, then they're gonna miss who ever they're trying to hit and hit another country by accident because their technology sucks a million dicks. Then everyone, except the country that got hit, will laugh their asses off before going HAM on North Korea. The end.

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, plus their GDP is like $40 billion. There's just no way they can fund a war cause a lot of developed countries have military budgets wayyyy over $40 billion. Just based on the principle that they are poor as shit, I'm positive that trying to fight anyone would be suicide for North Korea.

Edited by Kannade, 11 April 2013 - 01:21 AM.

[Rol]

Well, what we know for sure is that if they really go to war they will get their ass kicked, that's not really the problem here. The problem is that before "losing" they'll launch their missiles and make casualties.

[2hot4you]

Probaly something like this will happen:

 

in all seriousness, nothing will happen at all, im not taking him seriously

[Phil777]

Welp, as far as my intelligence about this goes, NK has only enough ressources to specialize in two fields : artillery and special forces. Both of which are not enough to win a war. At most they might damage Seoul, but that's about it. =/ Their advance would run out of steam QUITE quickly if they ever set foot in SK.

 

Also, China will not counterattack as long as SK and the US do not step into NK, and they will not defend NK IF it ventures in SK. =/ They're only interested in looking after their own butts, not making up for the shortcomings of NK. =/

[pizhhh]

What the DPRK is trying to do, at least the way I see it, is to provoke its enemies into firing the "first" shot. They will set the missiles' trajectory dangerously close to a potential target, which will then scare the button-pushers to shoot it down. Then they will us this as an excuse to wage an offensive, claiming unfair treatment on not being allowed a proper "test launch".  They'll claim that the ones who shot down their missiles are the aggressors (probably ROK, US or Japan.) because of their shooting down of the missile, and their military build-up. 

 

But we all know they're not fooling anyone. Not even China will tolerate their warmongering. The PRC is actually getting tired of babysitting NK. It's like a friend who keeps freeloading on your guest room, and who's been giving you almost nothing but headaches.

[Angelo.]

i hope there is a war!!!! kill each other and then peace will be achieved!

[Seraphic Mist]

Most likely it's one of North Korea's crazy threats, to get the countries to the negotiating table. North Korea's in a serious situation with the food shortages, and well, disguised collapse of law and order.

 

(Anyone who's read George Orwell's 1984 will know what I meant in the last part.)

 

They really need food, money, and standing in the international community. It must be really painful (no really!) to think that you were once half of a country, whose other and better half churned out brands like Samsung, Hyundai, and...well making billions in the Global Economy. I mean hell, Samsung's earning profits in billions. Its profit alone is larger than about a few years worth of North Korean GDP.

 

The only way to get back into the picture is force the reunification. If there's reunification of the two Koreas, the people can increase their standards of living - I mean, they live unimaginable lives. Freedom of speech, expression, as much food as we want, dissent against political class- the list of things we can take for granted goes on.

 

If they re-unify, Korea as a country will see prosperity of untold measure. Technology and Manpower have often been at odds; no country except maybe China has ever come close to this. Any country that has advanced technology and abundant (affordable) manpower has flourished beyond wildest dreams.

 

But, if Korea reunifies, we will see Korea as an Economic Superpower on the level of G-7.

 

Also, for anyone interested, a former North Korean Camp prisoner tells his tale. Be warned, the link/spoiler contains disturbing content and images. View at discretion.

 

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/real-life/survivor-north-korean-death-camp-1814278

 

For those who don't want to click the link:

 

Spoiler

Horror in North Korea: Survivor of death camp says he was so brainwashed he betrayed his family and watched them get executed 6 Apr 2013 08:33

SHIN Dong-hyuk says he was so brainwashed he told guards at the notorious Camp 14 that his mother and brother were planning to escape- he then watched them be executed.

 

 

Shin escaped the horrors of North Korea

WHEN 13-year-old Shin Dong-hyuk overheard his mother planning an escape from their North Korean death camp, he knew exactly what he had to do.

He told the guards everything and watched as his mum and brother were dragged away.

In an even more shocking confession, Shin has revealed that after he was forced to see his mum being hanged and his brother being shot dead, he was convinced he had done the right thing.

He thought they deserved to die for their treachery.

Shin was born in notorious Camp 14. The grim battle to survive in the gulag 50 miles north of capital Pyongyang was the only life he knew.

It is only now – as the sole inmate known to have escaped the prison camp – that he can recognise the true horror of what he did.

As the world watches the deluded posturing of North Korea’s young dictator Kim Jong-un, Shin’s harrowing story shines a rare light on the most secretive country on Earth.

While the regime pumps out stage-managed pictures of military parades, the country’s 24 million people live in terror of being sent to one of the slave labour camps around the country.

About 200,000 people are detained in these hellholes where torture and rape are common.

Most inmates die in the camps. Escape is almost impossible, which makes Shin’s story so compelling.

Since he fled, he has devoted his life to telling people the truth about North Korea. But it was not until recently that he revealed his darkest secret about betraying his mum and brother.

Far from being rewarded for his betrayal, Shin was tortured for four days as guards demanded more information. “I was taken to a chamber full of torture instruments,” he said.

“I was stripped, my legs were cuffed and my hands were tied with rope. I was hung by my legs and hands from the ceiling. Someone started a charcoal fire and brought it under my back. I felt the heat at my waist and shrieked. My torturers pierced me with a steel hook near the groin to stop me writhing. The pain was so bad that I passed out.”

What did he hope to get out of informing on his own family? He said: “Being full for the first time. But the biggest reason was simply that I was supposed to report things like that.

“If I could meet my mother and brother through a time machine I would apologise. By telling this story I think I can kind of repent for what I did.”

His body still bears the scars of torture and his escape. Criss-crossing his legs are the terrible burns he suffered as he clambered over the body of his friend who was killed by the electrified barbed wire that
encircled Camp 14.

 

The back injuries Shin suffered

CARL DE SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images

Shin, 30, was born in the camp, punished for the political sins of his parents. They were forced into marriage inside the prison and were allowed to sleep together for a few nights a year as a rare reward for good work.

Inmates, fed gruel made of cornmeal and cabbage, live in a constant state of hunger, and an estimated 40 per cent starve to death.

The best chance of survival is by scavenging rats and cockroaches to eat.

Without a proper diet, prisoners develop hunchbacks from bending over working in the fields. In winter, with the most threadbare of clothes, fingers are often lost to frostbite. Knowing nothing else, Shin believed this was normal. “I had no concept of human rights. I was only destined to live and die in this camp. We were always hungry, and the guards told us, ‘Through hunger you will repent’.”

Guards are brutal and inmates are terrorised for fun but very few attempt to flee. Anyone who tries, plans or knows of a potential escape is executed, with other detainees forced to watch.

School was no haven for the children. Teachers would beat students to death for minor rule breaking. There are also medieval torture devices in underground cells.

Shin fell foul of the casual brutality of the guards. When he accidentally broke a sewing machine, he had the tip of a finger chopped off as punishment.

Daily life was an exercise in survival. He said: “We woke before sunrise and worked all day. It was manual labour well into the night.

“It was repeated day in, day out. And it was something I thought was natural. There was no way for the prisoners to know what was beyond the electrified fence, whether it was a world of prison camps or a different society. My mother and father never talked to me about the outside world.”

The Korean peninsula has been troubled for decades. It was occupied by Japan in the first half of the 20th century before being split in two after Japan’s defeat in World War II. The USSR imposed Kim Jong-un’s grandfather Kim Il-sung as leader in the North in 1946, while the US controlled the South.

Following the American withdrawal, the North invaded the South, sparking the Korean War which raged from 1950 until 1953. An uneasy truce has been maintained since. While those in the South live in a democracy, those in the North live in fear of being accused of showing dissent against Kim Jong-un and sent to a concentration camp.

While Shin was working in a factory at Camp 14 he became friends with a man called Park, a 40-year-old political prisoner. Park was well educated and had even travelled outside the country before falling foul of the regime.

He told Shin of the world outside. And there was something that lit a fire in the young man’s heart – the promise of a good dinner. Shin said: “The most important thing was the idea that a prisoner like me could eat chicken and pork if I escaped. I still think of freedom as broiled chicken.”

The pair got their chance to escape on January 2, 2005, when they were posted to work near the electric fence on top of a mountain.

When the guards were out of sight they took their chance but Park was electrocuted. Shin used his friend’s body as a shield to cross the electric fence but still suffered terrible burns when his legs touched the wire.

But he broke out, found an old military uniform in a nearby barn and, posing as a soldier, made his way north to the border with China. From there he made it to South Korea where he lives.

Shin is now a powerful voice speaking out for those left behind.

He said: “I used to feel intense hatred for the guards. But now I think they are victims too. I hope they will realise their wrongdoings and grab a chance to start a new life. The biggest change is that I can forgive them.”

 

 

[Phil777]

well shit... That story isn't for the faint of heart, and really shows how demented NK's regime is.

[Mistake]

well shit... That story isn't for the faint of heart, and really shows how demented NK's regime is.

It reminds me of Nazi Germany era, where SS officers were given German Shepherds as puppies with the task of raising and training them. When the dogs matured, the officers were ordered to shoot and kill them without wincing or showing emotion. The Germans were conditioned to become evil, I don't get how they're leading the world in renewable energy and a bunch of other eco-friendly shit now.

Edited by Mistake, 11 April 2013 - 11:17 PM.

[Phil777]

Easy, not everyone in Germani was a Nazi at the time. =/ The average German had no idea about what Hitler was doing behind the scenes. Do keep in mind extermination camps were being disguised as "labor camps" or something. >.>

 

Also, inb4Godwinslaw.

Edited by Phil777, 12 April 2013 - 06:04 AM.

[Dragon88]

It reminds me of Nazi Germany era, where SS officers were given German Shepherds as puppies with the task of raising and training them. When the dogs matured, the officers were ordered to shoot and kill them without wincing or showing emotion. The Germans were conditioned to become evil, I don't get how they're leading the world in renewable energy and a bunch of other eco-friendly shit now.

Well every country has its dark pasts.  What Hitler did pales in comparison to what Europeans did to native Americans.  They slaughtered them like crazy.  President Andrew Jackson even had his wallet made out of a dead native American Women's breast skin as a trophy.  Interestingly Hitler actually got lot of his racism and superiority idea from America.  He actually looked up to America in certain way and their use of slavery and segregation and everything.

[Phil777]

Stay on topic please... >.>

[Murdath]

A big fat baby playing with big fireworks, what could possibly go wrong.