(Just a note: It's "Regardless." If you're going to use a word in practically every sentence, it helps to spell it correctly.)

And what does this have to do with Bush and Iraq? We're talking about North Korea here. There have been countless debate threads about the whole Iraq situation, so if you want to argue about that, go do it in one of those threads, or make another one. Not to be a mini-admin here, of course, but.. yeah.
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Moo.

[This message has been edited by A_Big_Fat_CoW (edited February 07, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by A_Big_Fat_CoW (edited February 07, 2004).]

It isn't up to Americans to change the system in North Korea, or any other country, just because they don't like the system. It is up to the people of North Korea to unite and overthrow the government, if that is what they really want. If the majority of the population don't, however, they they won't. Perhaps the North Koreans benefit more from a dictatorship than any other alternative. The majority of the world doesn't have democracy, it is an entirely western idea; it isn't up to the west to impose democracy upon countries that may not want it.

Just to say 'Mr. X is a bad ruler, let's get rid of him' is niave and unrealistic. You have to look at alternatives.
Iraq is not Britain, Iraq is not America, and Iraq will never be because Iraqis certainly don't want that. Iraq is not an easy country to rule, and Saddam Hussein did a very good job of supressing extremist groups within the country (while supressing a lot of other people too, yes). The people that actively supported him were a minority, but the people that actively opposed him were also a minority. The majority just didn't care; as seen by the Iraqi army. There wasn't a mass revolt with Iraqis fighting alongside Americans as predicted by American commanders, they just went home.
If Iraqis opposed Saddam, they would have overthrown him (as Iranians overthrew the Shah in 1970), but most Iraqis realised that Saddam Hussein was better than any alternative. The alternative as there is now; anarchy.
Eventually, I think more and more Iraqis will start to oppose the Americans, and extremeist groups sprout up within Iraq. Those extremist groups will either (1) start fighting amongst eachother like the warlords in Afganistan or (2) unite and overthrow the puppet ruler and establish an extremist anti-American state.
Either way, telling the Iraqis how their country should be run does not benefit the Americans or the Iraqis.

[This message has been edited by Mort-Hog (edited February 07, 2004).]

Right[Dr. Evil]

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

[Thank you for correcting me]
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

[This message has been edited by Darth J (edited February 07, 2004).]

No.
The communists were trying to establish a socialist state in Korea, and the Americans came in and battled the communists. China was afraid that the Americans would go up through Korea and invade China as well, so the Chinese forces came down into Korea and fought off the Americans. They had the numerical advantage, and so swamped the Americans, but sort of in the middle they reached a stalemate, at the 38th parallel. There the war has coninued to this day (as a peace treaty has never been signed). A demilitarised zone was set up as a buffer to keep South Korea and North Korea separate.

And so begins the media hype of the evil North Korea leading up to the offensive attack lead by the Americans and Britain.

No one knew or cared about the people dying in North Korea. Now they will start to put it in the media and people will start to want somebody to do something about it.
Oh yeah. And they have nuclear potential as well.

Go get 'em George.

Let me also say this. If Geaorge actually does start killing all the bad guys out there (he started with the worst), then I will support him and his department of offense and I will beleive that he is actually concerned about the people of the world and thier safety.


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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.

A wise man takes his own advice.

North Korea invaded South Korea, trying to unite the two into a single Communist state. U.N. forces came in and kicked the North Korean's collective *** . The general in charge (MacArthur?), with the consent of the presiding council of the U.N., pushed almost to the North Korean-Chinese border, until they met some resistance by Chinese forces, and the U.N. forces were ordered back into South Korea.



He can try, but he's only, at most, got another 4 years in office. Maybe you'd like to imagine that it's possible to fix everything that's wrong in the world in that time frame, but it's not. Especially when you've got countries like France, Germany, and Russia trying to protect oil interests in countries run by dictators who murder political opponents, support the destruction of Israel, and puts his own people to death without a thought.



Oh, yeah, North Korea is doing swell. But you know what? It's always worked out well for us to let dictators come to power and do whatever the Hell they want.

Hell, Hitler was a nice guy, wasn't he? Oh, well, I guess those gays, Pols, gypsies, retarded people, old people, lame people, Jews, and other "unwanteds" shouldn't have been born. I mean, it was up to them to overthrow the government, not us.

Or Franco. Boy, what a swell guy. I mean, he only tried to wipe out the Basque country. Let's not neglect to mention that the economy of Spain was in horrible condition until some mysterious and evil power helped boost its economy in exchange for some air bases.

I'm expecting someone to bring up Vietnam, and I simply reply: what was done in Vietnam was wrong. The American public was lied into fighting a war that could not be won.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

First, as far as I'm concerned someone's rights end where they interfere with someone else's rights, so Kim Jong-il's right to do whatever he wants ends where he is torturing and killing people. Second, as in TwistedSoul's signature, the people should have the right to decide who is ruling them. The people in North Korea obviously don't because they are murdered if they want someone else in power. When someone like Kim Jong-il is so obsessed with staying in power that they start taking political prisoners, that should raise a huge flag that they need to be replaced.

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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right." -Isaac Asimov
"You can't be brave without being scared first." - Joan of Arcadia

i have no idea how many North Koreans like there dictator
i have no idea how many North Koreans dislike there dictator
i have no idea how many North Koreans feel indifferent to there dictator

there for i can not assess whether a change is nessary/unnessary; possable(people of North Korea help)/ inpossable.

i do not think we can assess invading a country untill we have the #'s and untill we have a good assessment of the people, our military, our people, our budget(that thing is in shambles).


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IMPORTANT NOTICE PLEASE READ

Employees dying on the job are faling to fall down. THIS PRACTICE MUST STOP as it becmes impossible to distinguish between death and the natural movement of he staf.

Any employee found dead in an upright position will be dropped from the payroll.

LOL!!

You forgot to include the US in that little list of countries.
You know American history and you know they've funded and trained rebels to take down governments solely based on US financial gain.
This is well documented not only from reliable sources but from the American government itself.
Heh...

No. What I'm saying is, if George actually attacked Iraq because he wanted to take down the dictator and free the people (and get rid of a possible wmd threat), then he will go forward and do the same where there are more people suffering worse deaths that Sadaam has brought on his own people.
If he actually starts to rid the world of these evil dictators before he has to leave office, then it will look good on him.
So far what he has done has left many people (some Americans too) thinking he took Sadaam out to get oil and to put a Starbucks and McDonalds on every corner in Tikrit (which is starting to happen. So far it looks like he has done what he has done purly for long tem financial gain.


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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.

The Iraq situation is almost a direct parallel to North Korea, and hence worth mentioning here too.

Saddam mistreated his people for decades, yet no one cared until he used his miltary might and invaded another country. Hell, the US even supported the guy with arms and weapons during the Iran - Iraq War of the 80s. The situation is much the same in North Korea. The US would never (except in extreme circumstances) justify military action against North Korea solely for humanitarian reasons. The US is only interested in what weapons are potentially pointing their way.

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The Massassi-Map
There is no spoon.

I didn't say I supported the U.S.'s decisions during the Cold War, in which many of today's dictators were put into place. We supported people like Saddam for the sole reason that he wasn't Communist - the American government was very fearful of the Soviet Union getting any foothold in the Middle East.

Do you have sources that say the U.S. had any contracts with Iraq prior to the invasion that hadn't expired? I'm not trying to be an *** - I'm genuinely interested.



The U.S. and every other country in the world, or else Germany, Britain, France, or a host of other countries would have done what the coalition forces did. If you're willing to admit that all the other governments are as self-centered, then I have no problem. Otherwise, as has been pointed out in other threads, if they had such humanitarian goals in mind, where was Australia? Canada? Britain? France? Germany? These countries' governments were about as blind to the atrocities in Iraq as the United States' was.

Maybe it's just me, but whenever I hear "Kuwait," I can't help but think "Rhineland."

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

Of course the other governments were to a degree, there's no denying that. It's just that the US is usually the pro-active leader, so it's easy (and often accurate enough) to generalise.

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The Massassi-Map
There is no spoon.

Not sure what you're asking for.

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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.

You made the claim that, like Germany, France, and Russia, the U.S. had current oil contracts with Iraq.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

Worth mentioning, yes. But not worth going off-topic and turning this into a debate about Iraq, as oS and Bewil were doing. Granted, it makes sense to bring such a matter up, but as I've said, if you want to debate about Iraq, do it in one of the countless other threads that were around when this stuff was happening.

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Moo.

I wasn't turning it into a debate on Iraq, he was.

My debate was whether other people should forget about stupid distinctions of nations, politics, and rights when INNOCENT people are being MASS MURDERED.

Make no mistake, I will not stand for complacence in such a case.

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Ω of 14

I completely agree with you.


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"The Oracle told me I would die with my boots on. I've worn tennis shoes ever since." - Axis

I agree with that.

Except change "mind their own business" to "rebel". As was stated earlier, the United States needs to respect the sovereignty of other nations. If they're oppressed enough, they'll hold a revolution on their own. Just about every other country in the history of this planet has had some kind of revolution..


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Have a good one,
Freelancer

oS: According to the CDC, somewhere around 45,000 people starve or die of malnutrition related diseases every day. The thousands who die in North Korean camps each year are a drop in the bucket. Also, a war with North Korea would cause many deaths of its own accord and cost an enormous amount compared to simple humanitarian aid.

If you really cared about saving the most people, it's clear where your priorities should lie.

bush if you dont deploy your troops now those could be YOUR SOLDIERS! next!
DEPLOY TROOPS NOW!!!!and nuke that area and well...you know what to do...i think

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janitor bobs idea of rogers video: He's actually the overweight guy next door who has a HUGE selection of videos, including the entire Lethal Weapon, Halloween, and 'Ernest' series.
The advantage is is that you can 'borrow' movies for long amounts of time without him remembering that you borrowed them.

The disadvantage is the pizza cheese grime on the DVDs

Prove that bacteria and viruses that cause death do so with the intent to kill. Otherwise, comparing the senseless murder of someone to someone who dies of starvation or disease is comparing apples and oranges.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

Communism is not a political system. It is an economic system. There has not been a single communism that has been backed up by a democracy. It's always a dictatorship or a oligarchy.

Russia is not a world power. If it weren't for the Russian Mafia(who pretty much control that countries economy), then that country would be in anarchy and a third-world country still.

And what if they don't have the means to do so?

actually, 58.2 percent of the world's population is under some kind of democratic rule. The Third Wave of Democratization is happening, and if histroy repeats it self, it will be followed by a wave of authoritarionism and totalitarianism. Also, the percent of the population that isn't under a democratic society is mostly the Chinese population.

I just want to expand on this point. The Iranians were looking to start a socialist democratic country, so they overthrew the Shah. Well, back then, socialism was the cousin of communism, so we put the Shah back in place and he has not been very kind to his people. That's why Iranians chant "death to america". This happened more than once in the Cold War. The USSR lost that, but what did we gain? Only more, less powerful enemies. But this is irrelevant to what is being discussed, so I'll stop.

There has not been any actual fighting though.

Mainly due to the generals trying to win through a war of attrition. That didn't work when the British tried it against the colonies, it didn't work in Vietnam, and it will never work.

Hmmm...I think I'm changing my views. I think in cases where a dictator is persecuting his people, we should only do one or both of these things:
1) Bring information(whither obtained through normal channels or otherwise) to the UN and get them to send troops to kick out the oppressive government.
2) If an uprising occurs(whither it be natural or ignited by an outside force), we use that to flood the rebels with weapons, leadership, and soldiers. In other words, just having our soldiers train them and do the complicated covert missions that the natives wouldn't be able to do. And also to help the fighting where we can.

Of course, these are only military solutions. There are probably other ways. Hell, the USSR was brought down by a shipping dock worker in Poland.

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"What I find especially funny are the neo-Celtic religions based on accounts made by the Romans. It's like learning about Judaism from Nazi lore." --stat

[This message has been edited by Kieran Horn (edited February 07, 2004).]

That didn't work in Spain and Vietnam. The times that it did work...well, just look toward Asia and the Middle East today.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

I don't know what happened in Spain, but I did illustrate why we lost Vietnam. Also, wasn't it the communists who were the rebels in Vietnam?



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"What I find especially funny are the neo-Celtic religions based on accounts made by the Romans. It's like learning about Judaism from Nazi lore." --stat

CaptBewil: You're saying that Iran, Turkey and Jordan, all of which are in the Middle East, share a common culture, and calling people ignorant fools in the same breath? The irony is palpable. Also, is Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani an ignorant fool? He believes there can be a peaceful democracy in Iraq.



It has a lot more to do with the Iran-Iraq war that Saddam Hussein himself started. Who gives a **** about schools and roads when instead of educating your public, you can send them off to die en masse to hold some goddamn hilltop in Iran?

Also, it was the Kurds and the Shias, who together comprise a majority of the Iraqi population.



Astounding.



Mort-Hog: ... Do you not know the meaning of totalitarian government? A population cannot just decide to overthrow its government when it is:

A) Prevented from organizing
B) Heavily surveiled
C) ****ing subsisting on tree bark

Also, comparing the situation in 2002 Iraq to 1978 Iran is ridiculous. The Shah and his secret police stifled intellectuals, to be sure, but something like the "Tehran Spring" of 77 - a meeting of liberal intellectuals that was not repressed by the government, could never have happened in Iraq. Anyone even suspected of criticizing Saddam was punished. That is to say nothing of the network of Madrassah schools in Iran that was completely independent from the government, and the pecularities that made the Iranian Revolution possible.

By the way, the Iranians overthrew the Shah in 1979, not 70.

One other thing - are you sure you're not projecting your own wishes onto the Iraqi people? If extremist attacks are increasing, why then have they decreased since the capture of Hussein? And if elections are held anytime soon, which they will be, the leader of Iraq will likely become Ali al-Sistani, who (if you read the news you would know) is anything but an American puppet. He won't even meet with Paul Bremer.

Nothing makes me angrier than when people talk about imposing a democracy - it makes about as much sense as electing a King. You do realize that when Iraqi democracy comes to fruition, you'll have a hard time explaining to the people who voted that their leader was imposed on them by Amerikkkan imperialism.



Darth Evad: It's easy to sit back and insist that world powers abide by your piddling notions of how things should be done, but there are geopolitical realities that prevent the US and Europe from just offing every dictator who isn't kind to his people. In North Korea's case, it's the fact that a war could lead to up to 30 million deaths. Also, who are you kidding? No you wouldn't!



Cite. Cite cite cite.



Freelancer: That's just about the most goddamned ignorant and insulting thing that's been said in this thread. Just what do you think would happen if you lived in Baghdad or Pyongyang and advocated overthrowing Saddam or Kim Jong Il?

/me looks at his watch and wonders what is taking the end of the human race so long...

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wang is within all

Wolfy: We're discussing possible US intervention to save innocent lives. While there are more, cheaper, and easier lives to save, there is no humanitarian justification for invading North Korea. If you could spend either 80 cents or $20 to save someone's life and choose the latter, there are obviously ulterior motives.

Good point. My bad.

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Founder of the Massassi Brute Squad (MBS)

B'tduz: A popular dwarfish game which consists of standing a few feet apart and throwing large rocks at one another's head.

"Yes, it's a bloody flying alligator setting fire to my city!" - His Grace His Excellency the Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes.

Morituri Nolumus Mori

Sine, you're an insulting ignoramus.

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Have a good one,
Freelancer

.. And, for the record, um.. I would expect to get the backing of 99% of the population . . . ?

Pff, telling me I'm ignorant for stating a simple fact of life. People will bend, Sine, but only so far. Once you push them past their breaking point, it's inevitable.

[This message has been edited by Freelancer (edited February 07, 2004).]

Running under the assumption that these allegations of political death camps are true, I hadn't realized that putting an end such an act didn't qualify as a humanitarian act.

Additionally, the U.S. can not solve world hunger and disease. The fact that cost would be astronomically high and plunge us into such debt that it makes $6 trillion look like a few pennies, when you've got situations like Somalia and, up until recently, Iraq, where the leader actually fights humanitarian efforts, it makes it extremely difficult to try and solve these problems.



We, France, and Britain gave arms and military advisors to the Nationalists, while Hitler funded Franco's Republican side (cue democrats ). Franco ended up in power and sentencing numbers of Basque people to their death for opposing Castallization - the attempt to wipe out the Basque society and language and unite Spain.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead

[This message has been edited by Wolfy (edited February 07, 2004).]

What I was getting at is that you would be shot, on a good day. One Baghdadi woman had her tongue cut out and was left to bleed to death in a public square for speaking against Saddam. Of course they'd agree with you - that won't do you much good when you've got a bullet in your skull. Goddamn, you think they haven't tried? The 100,000 plus Shias lying in shallow graves didn't die of old age.

What you have to understand is that you would get no support under a totalitarian government like Sadaam or Kim's.

They create an atmosphere of paranoia. No one would dare ally themselves with you. You could be a government agent attempting to trick them.

Your neighbor will turn you in because he has no choice; it could be a test, which will leave his head on a chopping block, or his body in the torture-chamber, likely along with his family's, if he fails.

You say a word, you're dead. You hear a word and don't report it, you're dead. Maybe you don't freaking clap loud enough for the leader, you're dead. And perhaps your loved ones to boot.

Whether saving these lives is a realistic goal is another story. It is very sad if it is true and nothing can be done.

A government is formed by people to protect themselves from the very real dark side of human nature, not to bring it out and place it on top.

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Steal my dreams and sell them back to me.....

[This message has been edited by Bounty Hunter 4 hire (edited February 07, 2004).]

1) Humanitarian justification, Wolfy. Like I said, if you could spend either 80 cents or $20 to save someone's life and choose the latter, there are obviously ulterior motives.
2) When did I claim the US could solve world hunger? Again, a war with North Korea to save a couple thousand lives a year would be much more expensive then preventing tens of thousands of people from starving.

You're batting zero for two with this whole comprehension thing.

Sine: As I understand it, Iraq's three major religious/ethnic groups are likely incompatible without a brutal dicator to hold the nation together, particularly with the magnetic influence of the surrounding countries. What benefit could the Sunnis and Kurds hope for in a democratic Iraq, given that the national government will be dominated by Shia?

[This message has been edited by Ictus (edited February 07, 2004).]

It's a lot harder to do that if they are kept starving, have no access to weapons, and have every aspect of their life controlled by the government.

and that completely outlandish 99% comment shows you are a complete idealist that lets your emotions get in the way and affect your better judgement.

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"What I find especially funny are the neo-Celtic religions based on accounts made by the Romans. It's like learning about Judaism from Nazi lore." --stat

That's being terribly pessimistic - but I certainly don't claim to have a workable system in which the Kurds can maintain some degree of autonomy and the Sunnis are guaranteed protection against Shia hegemony, but that's not to say they can't find one. I'm confident that with UN help, the three factions, having just shrugged off 30+ years of political repression, can come up with a working pluralistic system. Sistani's probably going to be the first president, and I imagine he would love to go down in history as something like an Iraqi George Washington.

I'm still trying to remember the name of that one poltical system that might work in Iraq.....Consensual? anyway, scroll up to see my description. I also know that having federalism in the government would help as well.

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"What I find especially funny are the neo-Celtic religions based on accounts made by the Romans. It's like learning about Judaism from Nazi lore." --stat

[This message has been edited by Kieran Horn (edited February 07, 2004).]

Of course it's cheaper to feed a man for a day than it is to grant him political freedoms for x amount of years. I'd say more, but...that pretty much sums up my response. Solving disease and starvation takes as long, if not longer, than the removal of a totalitarian, genocidal ruler.



Psssh.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
NMGOH || Jack Chick preaches it || The Link of the Dead