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I'm just tired of the Western view of North Korea as a joke. Yes, the Kims are ludicrous. They're also monsters, some of the worst in human history, who have cr

I'm just tired of the Western view of North Korea as a joke. Yes, the Kims are ludicrous. They're also monsters, some of the worst in human history, who have crushed one of the world's most beautiful and functional cultures under their brutality and insanity. Nobody considered Hitler or Stalin to be laughing matters during their purges. But somehow we can all ignore the horrific crimes of these bastards because the father was ridiculous and the son is fat. Nobody gives a damn if the Kims rape women, torture civilians, or murder innocent families so long as their victims are Korean. No, the first time we see even vaguely appropriate anger toward these dictators is when they might have hacked a goddamn MOVIE STUDIO. MacArthur was right. Truman was horribly, horribly wrong. And innocent Koreans have paid for Truman's cowardice and vanity with half a century of utter brutality. The only thing wrong with The Interview movie was that it was a comedy rather than a true story.

vowelless 12y ago
> MacArthur was right. Truman was horribly, horribly wrong Could you expand on this?
- henryl 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Truman%27s_relief_of_General_Douglas_MacArthur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Truman%27s_relief_of_...
- disjointrevelry 12y ago
  MacArthur publicly stated dropping nuclear weapons on the northern border of the Korean peninsula to prevent the Chinese hordes from invading was necessary to secure peace in the Korean peninsula. Truman fired him because the long-term strategy the US had with the Chinese had a threshold of military conflict that MacArthur was far surpassing. Truman and the strategists involved believed the conflict with the Chinese had to remain on the Korean peninsula. They believed MacArthur's plans to drop nuclear weapons on the Chinese side of the Korean border would escalate the conflict to a point of becoming an uncontrollable conflict in the region.
  - scarmig 12y ago
    MacArthur also repeatedly tried to goad China into intensifying the conflict, against the direct orders of Truman. There's the escalation with China/nuke part of things, and there's the total rejection of civilian control of the military part of things.
    - nemo 12y ago
      Yep, MacArthur was a great military strategist, but very politically naive. Truman really had no choice but to relieve him after MacArthur went off the rails and tried taking executive authority he didn't have to further military goals.
  - cubano 12y ago
    MacArthur wanted to nuke everyone...including Stalin's new Soviet Union. Perhaps it's best he didn't get a chance to do all that.
- fosk 12y ago
  Somebody more knowledgeable than me can elaborate on this, but in a nutshell he was an american general during the Korean War, who had a sort of aggressive diplomatic and military stance (he wanted to nuke North Korea in 1951, too) and was relieved by Truman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur
- austinz 12y ago
  In short, the UN forces were able to drive North Korean forces out of South Korea. They then began advancing into North Korea. At this point China entered the war (under the guise of the PVA) on the side of the North Koreans, which was not something which had been anticipated. This resulted in several defeats, and the UN forces being pushed back towards the prewar boundary. MacArthur wanted the option to expand the scope of the war by using nuclear weapons against North Korea and northern China, which Truman didn't want because he was afraid that doing so would mean full-scale war against China and the USSR, and possibly an invasion of Europe by the latter while the US was tied down in Asia. The Wikipedia links posted by some of the other users make for interesting reading. It should also be noted that North Korea, while the instigator of the war and a Communist country, was in a very different position in the 1950s. It was a richer country than South Korea until the 1970s, and South Korea at the time was an American-backed military dictatorship. While there may have been a moral argument to roll back Communism as far as possible, Truman's concerns about the geopolitical implications of expanding the war were very real, and calling them cowardice is a rather crude mischaracterization.
  - scarmig 12y ago
    An interesting article on the respective paths of ROK and PRK: http://my.firedoglake.com/inoljt/2012/11/30/how-north-korea-fell-behind-south-korea-part-1/ http://my.firedoglake.com/inoljt/2012/11/30/how-north-korea-...
- Chevalier 12y ago
  MacArthur is possibly one of the finest generals in American history. But while he's widely beloved across Asia for his work in Japan and especially the Philippines, his American legacy is tarnished after Truman publicly disgraced him for threatening China with war after Chinese troops had overrun American forces in Korea. The Chinese intervention in Korea was overwhelming, and Americans were forced to retreat -- and considered evacuating the peninsula altogether. MacArthur, fresh from Japan and the Philippines, was determined to save Korea from its modern fate and threatened China with war if they would not withdraw from what is now North Korea. Truman had already significantly interfered with MacArthur's prosecution of the war, and eventually relieved him entirely when he felt MacArthur was too provocative. That led to the use of North Korea as a Chinese buffer state, much as Stalin used Eastern Europe, and to the situation we have today. It's one of the worst blunders in the history of American foreign policy. Now, not only is North Korea a paranoid dictatorship with more than enough conventional arms to reduce South Korea to rubble within hours, they're armed with nuclear weapons and increasingly hostile even to their Chinese sponsors. Since I identify as mostly liberal, I always defaulted to a defense of Truman. But I was wrong. Truman's failure should have stained his legacy, not MacArthur's. And for exactly the same reasons I outlined, MENA states dominated by fundamentalist Islam must not be allowed to gain nuclear weapons. Rogue states and lunatics have ruined too many lives to be protected by a kneejerk fear of war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Truman's_relief_of_General_Douglas_MacArthur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Truman's_relief_of_Ge...
  - throwaway5752 12y ago
    The principle of democratically elected civilian leadership of the military in the US was the issue, not a specific military strategy in the Korean peninsula. MacArthur undermined the chain of command. That's why he was relieved. Full stop. It's too bad how it work out for all parties involved, particularly the people of North Korea.
dmix 12y ago
Are you saying that America should have gone there and spread freedom? Or that western views might have influenced China in the 1960s+ who closed their doors to the west? Or maybe Russia...who would then have helped DPRK open up? I'm trying to think of this alternative scenario that Western cultural sensitivity would have helped , considering their propaganda for 70 years has been targeting America with unbridled hatred. Even in modern times there are very few options other than China and recently South Korea's attempt to start collaborating on industry. Economics is the only way out for them. And the burden of which is on surrounding Asian countries. There is a zero chance war will result in any good. Or that being nice to them will win their hearts. That being said I have called out comments this week where people said: > Wouldnt it be awesome to watch NSA go all out on DPRK? Replying with: > Yes, and more poverty and starvation for all too! /s
- rikacomet 12y ago
  I agree partially with you. And to add to that. The probable problem with the US approach to this is the "rate of change" ("probable" because it is too hard to call it anything more, since this is world affairs we are talking, we can't talk loosely) Spreading freedom is right, and I can see the good side of US authorities in this. I imagine there might be lot of people living in North Korea under medieval set of freedoms (but we all lived through that and is it that bad?). But people can't open up easily, even if you are trying to help them. It takes time. If we want NK to come to terms with upholding human rights, we need to give them time. While at the same time pushing them a bit as well. Sometimes I wonder if that is what is happening. US the lash, Russia/China the console. If that is so, then the culprit is neither US or NK or Russia, but us, for over-reacting in certain senses. For example, in the above translation there is a line: "all war spaces including cyber warfare space to blow up those citadels." I think the above line was for 'biased or mistaken/unbiased' reasons miss-quoted/translated by some in the US media, as 'North Korea threatens to blow up US buildings'(creating unnecessary tension based on the events of 9/11). Instead it might have meant "breaking a nexus". But anyways, quite a few media outlets ran that story. And I guess, to some extent the comedic approach to North Korea is thus needed. But that should not mean disgracing its leader directly. Tease but don't Touch!
- Chevalier 12y ago
devnonymous 12y ago
I agree ...and I might get downvoted for this but what the heck. The story would've been different if North Korea was in the middle east or the Kims followed a certain religion that seems to be consistently demonized these days.
bdamm 12y ago
The Korean war was a conflict just as substantial as the Vietnam conflict. Withdraw was wise considering that the US suffered major casualties and lost a number of key battles. What else were they to do? Keep throwing men into the breach? "The enemy gets a say, too".
ketralnis 12y ago
Honest question: how is the "North Korea is bad" problem our fault, or our problem? Do you believe the US is obligated to intervene with anything that's bad?
- devnonymous 12y ago
  Well, the US never seemed to be bothered with that moral conundrum when it came to Iraq (no WMDs, did not cause 9/11, mind you) or Afghanistan.
- tehwalrus 12y ago
  Law and order are everyone's problem. Why should the North Korean government be allowed to torture, imprison and enslave large parts of its nation with impunity? These things are international crimes (as are many actions of the CIA and the IDF, incidentally) and everyone in every country should be clamouring for justice for civilians attacked by their, or someone else's, governments.
  - kushti 12y ago
    Ok, so how the US could be punished for making international crimes on a regular basis (CIA actions, 150,000 civilian deaths in Iraq ( https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ ) etc) ?
    - tehwalrus 12y ago
      How is a much bigger question. I have a much bigger answer, but I'm not typing it out here (the most recent version was on a server that died I'm afraid). Short version: international treaties building up to a "we will enforce international law" army, where everyone else in the treaty has to turn on one of its members if they are accused. The army's job isn't to wage wars, it is to forcibly arrest suspects, to be tried at the Hague. Suspects must be "members of a government" (any soldier, civil servant, elected official, spy, etc) the idea requires lots of definitions first (not least who is in a government), but that's the gist of it. This is not an idea I throw around lightly, as people tend to misunderstand it readily. I know that it is far-fetched, etc, no need to remind me :)
totony 12y ago
I love how you say that your view is good and the other's is bad. They think doing what they do is good, you think it is bad, who's right? Are we going to start a war every time we disagree with the choice of a country? Might as well nuke the whole earth.

vowelless 12y ago

> MacArthur was right. Truman was horribly, horribly wrong Could you expand on this?

henryl 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Truman%27s_relief_of_General_Douglas_MacArthur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Truman%27s_relief_of_...
disjointrevelry 12y ago
MacArthur publicly stated dropping nuclear weapons on the northern border of the Korean peninsula to prevent the Chinese hordes from invading was necessary to secure peace in the Korean peninsula. Truman fired him because the long-term strategy the US had with the Chinese had a threshold of military conflict that MacArthur was far surpassing. Truman and the strategists involved believed the conflict with the Chinese had to remain on the Korean peninsula. They believed MacArthur's plans to drop nuclear weapons on the Chinese side of the Korean border would escalate the conflict to a point of becoming an uncontrollable conflict in the region.
- scarmig 12y ago
  MacArthur also repeatedly tried to goad China into intensifying the conflict, against the direct orders of Truman. There's the escalation with China/nuke part of things, and there's the total rejection of civilian control of the military part of things.
  - nemo 12y ago
    Yep, MacArthur was a great military strategist, but very politically naive. Truman really had no choice but to relieve him after MacArthur went off the rails and tried taking executive authority he didn't have to further military goals.
- cubano 12y ago
  MacArthur wanted to nuke everyone...including Stalin's new Soviet Union. Perhaps it's best he didn't get a chance to do all that.
fosk 12y ago
Somebody more knowledgeable than me can elaborate on this, but in a nutshell he was an american general during the Korean War, who had a sort of aggressive diplomatic and military stance (he wanted to nuke North Korea in 1951, too) and was relieved by Truman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur
austinz 12y ago
In short, the UN forces were able to drive North Korean forces out of South Korea. They then began advancing into North Korea. At this point China entered the war (under the guise of the PVA) on the side of the North Koreans, which was not something which had been anticipated. This resulted in several defeats, and the UN forces being pushed back towards the prewar boundary. MacArthur wanted the option to expand the scope of the war by using nuclear weapons against North Korea and northern China, which Truman didn't want because he was afraid that doing so would mean full-scale war against China and the USSR, and possibly an invasion of Europe by the latter while the US was tied down in Asia. The Wikipedia links posted by some of the other users make for interesting reading. It should also be noted that North Korea, while the instigator of the war and a Communist country, was in a very different position in the 1950s. It was a richer country than South Korea until the 1970s, and South Korea at the time was an American-backed military dictatorship. While there may have been a moral argument to roll back Communism as far as possible, Truman's concerns about the geopolitical implications of expanding the war were very real, and calling them cowardice is a rather crude mischaracterization.
- scarmig 12y ago
  An interesting article on the respective paths of ROK and PRK: http://my.firedoglake.com/inoljt/2012/11/30/how-north-korea-fell-behind-south-korea-part-1/ http://my.firedoglake.com/inoljt/2012/11/30/how-north-korea-...
Chevalier 12y ago
MacArthur is possibly one of the finest generals in American history. But while he's widely beloved across Asia for his work in Japan and especially the Philippines, his American legacy is tarnished after Truman publicly disgraced him for threatening China with war after Chinese troops had overrun American forces in Korea. The Chinese intervention in Korea was overwhelming, and Americans were forced to retreat -- and considered evacuating the peninsula altogether. MacArthur, fresh from Japan and the Philippines, was determined to save Korea from its modern fate and threatened China with war if they would not withdraw from what is now North Korea. Truman had already significantly interfered with MacArthur's prosecution of the war, and eventually relieved him entirely when he felt MacArthur was too provocative. That led to the use of North Korea as a Chinese buffer state, much as Stalin used Eastern Europe, and to the situation we have today. It's one of the worst blunders in the history of American foreign policy. Now, not only is North Korea a paranoid dictatorship with more than enough conventional arms to reduce South Korea to rubble within hours, they're armed with nuclear weapons and increasingly hostile even to their Chinese sponsors. Since I identify as mostly liberal, I always defaulted to a defense of Truman. But I was wrong. Truman's failure should have stained his legacy, not MacArthur's. And for exactly the same reasons I outlined, MENA states dominated by fundamentalist Islam must not be allowed to gain nuclear weapons. Rogue states and lunatics have ruined too many lives to be protected by a kneejerk fear of war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Truman's_relief_of_General_Douglas_MacArthur http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Truman's_relief_of_Ge...
- throwaway5752 12y ago
  The principle of democratically elected civilian leadership of the military in the US was the issue, not a specific military strategy in the Korean peninsula. MacArthur undermined the chain of command. That's why he was relieved. Full stop. It's too bad how it work out for all parties involved, particularly the people of North Korea.

dmix 12y ago

Are you saying that America should have gone there and spread freedom? Or that western views might have influenced China in the 1960s+ who closed their doors to the west? Or maybe Russia...who would then have helped DPRK open up? I'm trying to think of this alternative scenario that Western cultural sensitivity would have helped , considering their propaganda for 70 years has been targeting America with unbridled hatred. Even in modern times there are very few options other than China and recently South Korea's attempt to start collaborating on industry. Economics is the only way out for them. And the burden of which is on surrounding Asian countries. There is a zero chance war will result in any good. Or that being nice to them will win their hearts. That being said I have called out comments this week where people said: > Wouldnt it be awesome to watch NSA go all out on DPRK? Replying with: > Yes, and more poverty and starvation for all too! /s

rikacomet 12y ago
I agree partially with you. And to add to that. The probable problem with the US approach to this is the "rate of change" ("probable" because it is too hard to call it anything more, since this is world affairs we are talking, we can't talk loosely) Spreading freedom is right, and I can see the good side of US authorities in this. I imagine there might be lot of people living in North Korea under medieval set of freedoms (but we all lived through that and is it that bad?). But people can't open up easily, even if you are trying to help them. It takes time. If we want NK to come to terms with upholding human rights, we need to give them time. While at the same time pushing them a bit as well. Sometimes I wonder if that is what is happening. US the lash, Russia/China the console. If that is so, then the culprit is neither US or NK or Russia, but us, for over-reacting in certain senses. For example, in the above translation there is a line: "all war spaces including cyber warfare space to blow up those citadels." I think the above line was for 'biased or mistaken/unbiased' reasons miss-quoted/translated by some in the US media, as 'North Korea threatens to blow up US buildings'(creating unnecessary tension based on the events of 9/11). Instead it might have meant "breaking a nexus". But anyways, quite a few media outlets ran that story. And I guess, to some extent the comedic approach to North Korea is thus needed. But that should not mean disgracing its leader directly. Tease but don't Touch!
Chevalier 12y ago

devnonymous 12y ago

I agree ...and I might get downvoted for this but what the heck. The story would've been different if North Korea was in the middle east or the Kims followed a certain religion that seems to be consistently demonized these days.

bdamm 12y ago

The Korean war was a conflict just as substantial as the Vietnam conflict. Withdraw was wise considering that the US suffered major casualties and lost a number of key battles. What else were they to do? Keep throwing men into the breach? "The enemy gets a say, too".

ketralnis 12y ago

Honest question: how is the "North Korea is bad" problem our fault, or our problem? Do you believe the US is obligated to intervene with anything that's bad?

devnonymous 12y ago
Well, the US never seemed to be bothered with that moral conundrum when it came to Iraq (no WMDs, did not cause 9/11, mind you) or Afghanistan.
tehwalrus 12y ago
Law and order are everyone's problem. Why should the North Korean government be allowed to torture, imprison and enslave large parts of its nation with impunity? These things are international crimes (as are many actions of the CIA and the IDF, incidentally) and everyone in every country should be clamouring for justice for civilians attacked by their, or someone else's, governments.
- kushti 12y ago
  Ok, so how the US could be punished for making international crimes on a regular basis (CIA actions, 150,000 civilian deaths in Iraq ( https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ ) etc) ?
  - tehwalrus 12y ago
    How is a much bigger question. I have a much bigger answer, but I'm not typing it out here (the most recent version was on a server that died I'm afraid). Short version: international treaties building up to a "we will enforce international law" army, where everyone else in the treaty has to turn on one of its members if they are accused. The army's job isn't to wage wars, it is to forcibly arrest suspects, to be tried at the Hague. Suspects must be "members of a government" (any soldier, civil servant, elected official, spy, etc) the idea requires lots of definitions first (not least who is in a government), but that's the gist of it. This is not an idea I throw around lightly, as people tend to misunderstand it readily. I know that it is far-fetched, etc, no need to remind me :)

totony 12y ago

I love how you say that your view is good and the other's is bad. They think doing what they do is good, you think it is bad, who's right? Are we going to start a war every time we disagree with the choice of a country? Might as well nuke the whole earth.