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It's great as long as you know you are not getting a full picture. You see what they want you to see, if you think any different you are delusional. If you appr

It's great as long as you know you are not getting a full picture. You see what they want you to see, if you think any different you are delusional. If you approach anyone on the street, you will most likely get them in trouble and it's very unlikely for them to tell the truth (even "the veggies are kinda brownish" is subversion and by now they have seen what happens to their "subversive" neighbors and maybe family members). Not to mention that almost all of them have been born and raised in that system, they know no better and are fed daily propaganda to make them believe that the outside world is much worst. I'd bet that most North Koreans would pass a lie detectors test with flying colors when saying that they love their current system.

dmm 14y ago
History will judge us very harshly for what we have all allowed to happen in north korea. Everyone should see Adrian Hong's speech: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4170683 http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4170683 He's co-founded a NGO that helps escapees from dprk. One challenge I always have when I speak about North Korea is I run out of adjectives for how bad things are. And many of you that follow policy or human rights situations oftentimes get jaded with numbers,” “It’s very easy for us to write off bad things because we just assume these are bad things that happen ‘over there,’ and many times they don’t necessarily affect us. And the challenge with North Korea in particular is that things are so bad on such a scale and scope that it sounds fake. It sounds unfathomable, it’s impossible to really comprehend.”
- derleth 14y ago
  > History will judge us very harshly for what we have all allowed to happen in north korea. Is there any way of stopping it short of a bloody, protracted war?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - mjn 14y ago
    The proximity of populated areas of South Korea, and the touchiness of China over intervention in the area, are particular problems. If it weren't for those, the U.S. would probably have bombed the North at one point or another, especially once the nuclear tests gave a plausible excuse to do so. If anything there was a better argument for attacking North Korea than for its fellow "axis of evil" member Iraq (on either humanitarian or "WMD" grounds), but Iraq was a much easier target. It wasn't really for any lack of interest on the U.S.'s part: for a few years, very pro-intervention neoconservatives had a strong role in the Bush administration's defense policy, and they investigated North Korea options, but presumably couldn't arrive at one.
    - kalleboo 14y ago
      But what strategic interest does the US have in North Korea? To get closer to China?
  - ekianjo 14y ago
    Stop giving them food and financial help. A difficult decision indeed, but what we are doing currently is giving just enough for the current regime to continue working forever as it is. Should the population go poorer than they are currently, they may revolt on their own in an unprecedented scale. Or the regime will take progressive reforms to allow of bit of capitalism to pervase in their society and slowly change the economic landscape.
- pcrh 14y ago
  "History will judge us very harshly for what we have all allowed to happen in north korea." History isn't judging "us" harshly for Rwanda, Somalia, etc, so I doubt it will judge "us" harshly for the DPRK. It will likely judge those directly responsible, however, for example the army of the DPRK. The reason is that they they are keeping their population in a developmental limbo that benefits no one except the the elite.
LaGrange 14y ago
Actually, deeper into the article you can see that the arrival from an unexpected direction caused so much confusion that you get this quote: "And we? We were standing next to the sleeping-car at the regauging facility of Tumangan. No soldier, no guide, no conductor... nobody took care of us or what we did... We were really surprised about so much freedom in North Korea! Usually something like that is totally impossible for tourists in North Korea..." And yes, this is followed by the explanation of a typical tourist experience.

dmm 14y ago

History will judge us very harshly for what we have all allowed to happen in north korea. Everyone should see Adrian Hong's speech: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4170683 http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4170683 He's co-founded a NGO that helps escapees from dprk. One challenge I always have when I speak about North Korea is I run out of adjectives for how bad things are. And many of you that follow policy or human rights situations oftentimes get jaded with numbers,” “It’s very easy for us to write off bad things because we just assume these are bad things that happen ‘over there,’ and many times they don’t necessarily affect us. And the challenge with North Korea in particular is that things are so bad on such a scale and scope that it sounds fake. It sounds unfathomable, it’s impossible to really comprehend.”

derleth 14y ago
> History will judge us very harshly for what we have all allowed to happen in north korea. Is there any way of stopping it short of a bloody, protracted war?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- mjn 14y ago
  The proximity of populated areas of South Korea, and the touchiness of China over intervention in the area, are particular problems. If it weren't for those, the U.S. would probably have bombed the North at one point or another, especially once the nuclear tests gave a plausible excuse to do so. If anything there was a better argument for attacking North Korea than for its fellow "axis of evil" member Iraq (on either humanitarian or "WMD" grounds), but Iraq was a much easier target. It wasn't really for any lack of interest on the U.S.'s part: for a few years, very pro-intervention neoconservatives had a strong role in the Bush administration's defense policy, and they investigated North Korea options, but presumably couldn't arrive at one.
  - kalleboo 14y ago
    But what strategic interest does the US have in North Korea? To get closer to China?
- ekianjo 14y ago
  Stop giving them food and financial help. A difficult decision indeed, but what we are doing currently is giving just enough for the current regime to continue working forever as it is. Should the population go poorer than they are currently, they may revolt on their own in an unprecedented scale. Or the regime will take progressive reforms to allow of bit of capitalism to pervase in their society and slowly change the economic landscape.
pcrh 14y ago
"History will judge us very harshly for what we have all allowed to happen in north korea." History isn't judging "us" harshly for Rwanda, Somalia, etc, so I doubt it will judge "us" harshly for the DPRK. It will likely judge those directly responsible, however, for example the army of the DPRK. The reason is that they they are keeping their population in a developmental limbo that benefits no one except the the elite.

LaGrange 14y ago

Actually, deeper into the article you can see that the arrival from an unexpected direction caused so much confusion that you get this quote: "And we? We were standing next to the sleeping-car at the regauging facility of Tumangan. No soldier, no guide, no conductor... nobody took care of us or what we did... We were really surprised about so much freedom in North Korea! Usually something like that is totally impossible for tourists in North Korea..." And yes, this is followed by the explanation of a typical tourist experience.