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The thing is you can't say "ah, it's the same old stuff". Kim Jong Un is no his father. He was born and raised not knowing world any different to North Korea now. He may believe that they can win a war. We just don't know how he will react as this is the first time this has happend since his father died.

I think that's kind of it, although you need to swap the woman for an image of a starved and confused worker who is wondering why he doesn't have enough food to eat, and why a distant cousin living 100 miles south of him buys a new car every 2 years and throws away more food than he gets to eat.

CptJake wrote:

The crew of the Cheonan (PCC-772) knew there was no way the Norks would ever attack.

Damn the US!

The sinking of the Cheonan was appalling (and arguably escalated things as high as they have ever been, to the point where a bunch of Americans I knew left SK because of it) but its not as simple as was generally reported. What was not reported was that the Cheonan was sat directly on the border, firing into Northern waters (at what it thought was an incoming attacker, but which turned out to be a flock of birds) just 30 minutes before it was hit by something.

The US/SK team that investigated the wreckage wouldn't let the Russians in on it, but the Russians who did get to see some of it later on commented that it didn't match what they had seen regarding NK armaments.

I would put the sinking of the Cheonan as something that is eventually going to happen when you have so much weight of military hardware floating and flying around in proximity to each other, so much willy-waving going on. Whether it was a friendly fire incident, NK purposefully torpedoed the ship or dropped a mine in its path (or the ship even hit one inadvertently) doesn't matter in terms of the loss of life, but using parlance appropriate for these forums if you keep playing games and rolling dice, eventually they are going to come up snake-eyes. And, I think that's why so many now are nervous with the amount of extra military hardware on its way to SK, rather than the intent behind it.

PhantomViper wrote:
I don't mean to offend you in any way, but that speech instantly reminded me of Neville Chamberlain's statements in 1939.

I'm as anti-american as the next guy in the socialist hell hole of Europe, but when a mentally unstable dictator starts threatening nuclear holocaust and cutting lines of communication with some of their closest historical allies in the region, moving some defensive anti-missile systems to the region doesn't strike me as a "provocation", it strikes me as a sensible defensive measure.

Also this stopped being the same "business as usual" from the NK when they closed down the Kaesong complex denying themselves their only source of hard currency...

Kaesong has been closed several times before, most recently in the 2000's. Same too with the phone lines being cut, hopefully as soon as the first thousand ton shipment of ramen arrives from the south it will all be opened up again.

Steve steveson wrote:
The thing is you can't say "ah, it's the same old stuff". Kim Jong Un is no his father. He was born and raised not knowing world any different to North Korea now. He may believe that they can win a war. We just don't know how he will react as this is the first time this has happend since his father died.

I believe Young Mr. Un was educated in Switzerland actually.

text removed

Reds8n

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:

Steve steveson wrote:
The thing is you can't say "ah, it's the same old stuff". Kim Jong Un is no his father. He was born and raised not knowing world any different to North Korea now. He may believe that they can win a war. We just don't know how he will react as this is the first time this has happend since his father died.

I believe Young Mr. Un was educated in Switzerland actually.

Yes he was, and his brother has a love of Disney Land apparently. My point is that he has grown up believing, as 100% truth, that North Korea is the greatest country in the world and that it is strong. He may well think that everything said about his grand father, Dear Leader, is true. He may not but there is a risk that he is far more of a danger than his father. His father and grand father knew war and will have known, even if it was deep down inside, that allot of the political posturing was just that and nothing more.

Un has the possibility that he may believe what he says. We don't know for sure, but given that they seem to have nukes that might work it seems a big risk to dismiss it as the "same old same old".

Also, it's Mr Kim. Un, or possibly Jong Un (I'm not 100% sure as it gets written with a hyphen sometimes and I can't read Korean) is his given name. Kim is his surname. I learnt that the hard way offending a Japanese customer. You may know, but I like to think other people might avoid upsetting people if I tell them.

U.S. Military casualty estimates for the invasion of the Japanese home islands were over one million casualties taken over the course of the campaign (that's JUST the U.S. casualties) I would feel secure in saying that had the Soviets and United States invaded the Japanese home islands, Japan would mostly likely barely be a people or a nation today. Forcing the surrender and allowing for a relatively peaceful occupation and demilitarization of Imperial Japan was literally the best possible outcome. Not saying it's not terrible, war in all it's facets is terrible, however it remains that with the intelligence, and military capacity at the time, the nuclear strikes were deemed the best possible option to bring a decisive and immediate end to the war.

Maybe I'll feel differently after I visit Hiroshima this summer.

How about we don't keep quoting the dumb/offensive post. Thanks.

Yes! Sorry!

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:


and suddenly all is made clear.

Dang it! Beat me to it... By quite some hours at that.

All government embassies have been instructed to evacuate staff from Pyongyang after dictator Kim Jong-un warned he could not 'guarantee the safety of foreigners.'
The rogue communist state issued a deadline of April 10 to every government that is represented in North Korea in a dramatic new escalation of the nuclear crisis.
Today the British Foreign Office confirmed it had been told its staff were at risk while Russia said it was in 'close contact with the U.S, China and South Korea' about airlifting workers out.
Advice for tourists is set to change after North Korea moved a second missile to its east coast, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency.[

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2304287/North-Korea-latest-Get-ALL-embassies-told-evacuate-staff-Pyongyang-Kim-Jong-Uns-warning.html


Well, this is a new step.

This is getting ridiculous... if you want to start a war then fire the damn missiles already! You are either going big or showing off, and North Korea cannot show off with the US or it's allies.

And frankly if they are so crazy to actually start a war with the US then I doubt that even China and Russia will intervene to save them. Moreover, I think that will sent troops to "safeguard" their territory ( in other words: take that territory for itself ).

Steve steveson wrote:
The thing is you can't say "ah, it's the same old stuff". Kim Jong Un is no his father. He was born and raised not knowing world any different to North Korea now. He may believe that they can win a war. We just don't know how he will react as this is the first time this has happend since his father died.

Kim Jong Un spent years in Europe going to school.

He's not so ignorant of the world.

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:
This is getting ridiculous... if you want to start a war then fire the damn missiles already! You are either going big or showing off, and North Korea cannot show off with the US or it's allies.

And frankly if they are so crazy to actually start a war with the US then I doubt that even China and Russia will intervene to save them. Moreover, I think that will sent troops to "safeguard" their territory ( in other words: take that territory for itself ).

Set a deadline, ramp up threats and hope that the world caves in. Because that's not something he learned from his father or anything

Feels more like he's trying to goad us into hitting first so he can use any bio or nuke he wants and be like "boo hoo, I was just defending myself and those mean oppressors forced me to gas everyone!"

Has this happened before?

ALL embassies told to evacuate staff from Pyongyang.

I hereby recommend all NK civilians to leave NK.

 whembly wrote:
Has this happened before?

ALL embassies told to evacuate staff from Pyongyang.

Beat you to the punch

 whembly wrote:
Has this happened before?

ALL embassies told to evacuate staff from Pyongyang.

I'm more surprised there are embassies in NK...

 Sasori wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Has this happened before?

ALL embassies told to evacuate staff from Pyongyang.

Beat you to the punch

Sorry...

 whembly wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Has this happened before?

ALL embassies told to evacuate staff from Pyongyang.

Beat you to the punch

Sorry...

It's cool. I'm quite, intreasted in this situation.

Whats the endgame? What happens if they continue to throw their tantrum, and everyone - other than having defenses at a higher state of readiness - just carries on?

One argument is that this is blackmail for food and other goodies (kind of a crappy version of Attila the Hun). What if we just ignore them, like an adult with a child?

What are they going to do then?

In most tantrums either the baby runs out of steam (this is what occured with GC) or they get violent. Depending on the parent the parent could wuss, drop the hammer, or smack em.

What do you mean when you use GC?

Everyone's assuming it's the kid running the show, rather than the old guard who aren't all that happy about having to kowtow to a guy who's barely out of puberty.

Either way, if I were a nutbat dictator or a nutbat power-behind-the-throne, this is exactly the time when I'd start shaking things up, for a whole host of reasons.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
What do you mean when you use GC?

Sorry, Genghis Connie, my youngest aka Future Queen of the Freaking Universe. All will love her and Despair!

Someone told me that NK is pulling the "Canadian model girlfriend" tactic in regards to where their weapons are right now.

Genghis Connie. That's pretty good.

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Someone told me that NK is pulling the "Canadian model girlfriend" tactic in regards to where their weapons are right now.

Er What?

 Frazzled wrote:

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Someone told me that NK is pulling the "Canadian model girlfriend" tactic in regards to where their weapons are right now.

Er What?

"Yeah! I totally have a girlfriend, she's just in Canada!"

or more accurately

"Yeah we totally have awesome weapons... they're just hidden! yeah that's it!"

mmm...gotcha.

Meh, the Americans pulled a "Canadian Girlfriend" with the weapons in Iraq, doubt that they could get away with it again.