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Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Preliminary analysis by North Korea policy experts here in the West seems to indicate that the apparent execution of Kim Jong Nam by his half-brother Kim Jong Un is evidence of increasing paranoia about the instability of the political system in North Korea.
Let's hope so.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/w...entCollection=
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-ko...uld-he-n721201
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Channel 4 News in the UK had a report on this which suggested that Kim Jong Nam was too erratic a person to be left to his own fate, but that with the Missile test this was designed to test the reaction of President Donald Trump. Whether or not this spells the end of the 'effeminate', Eric Clapton fanatic King Jong-Chul, Dear Leader Kim's other brother, is not clear -Chul may have been in the party that arrested their Uncle Jung Sung-taek, subsequently executed. Truth is nobody at this juncture wants North Korea to fall apart, but they don't want it to 'grow' either, if that means developing an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile. This may be one area where the Trump administration and China can reach an agreement. Who knows?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.485bae46a566
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jo...2.80.93present
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Kim Jong-un is very insecure , and with good reason.
China is under a great deal of pressure from the US and the international community to reign-in N Korea. With international sanctions in place China is the only thing that is keeping the Kim regime afloat , if China decides it is no longer in their best interest to support Kim the regime will collapse.
Additionally , as noted in Jieun Baek's excellent recent book ."North Korea's Hidden Revolution" the old system of isolation is beginning to fall apart.Since the Great Famine of 1994-1998 a free market in goods and outside media has sprung up in plain sight which the government has been powerless to stop. If China decides to pull back it's support the Kim regiem will surely crumble.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...e-perfect-pass
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
China bows to UN sanction request and halts buying North Korean coal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...=.9b4e0397914c
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
An interesting article on North Korea which highlights the importance of a 'free market' that has emerged since the 1990s famine, and the continuing mystery over who is actually in day-to-day control in the country. The potential for internal problems has increased as recent events may hurt North Korea's two most important outlets in trade -China and Malaysia.
Full article here-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/...ds-new-crisis/
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Thanks Stavros , that article is a good summation of the current situation, which is changing fast.
I now see N Korea is seeking talks in the US.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...for-talks.html
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
For anyone interested in further detailed information about the N Korean political and economic situation the Rand Corporation produced an excellent research report in 2013 "Prepairing for the Possibility of a North Korean Collapse" which is available in pdf format and easy to skim for salient details.
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand...RAND_RR331.pdf
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Possible explanations:
1) Kim Jon Nam owed money to criminals who killed him.
2) His half-brother, the Dear Leader Kim Jon Un, who received an honorary doctorate in economics from HELP in Malaysia, killed him because he kills all his rivals and potential rivals.
3) Opponents of the Dear Leader, Dr Kim Jon Un, killed him to foment unrest in the leadership and make the Dear Leader, Dr Kim Jon Un look like he is batshit crazy when in reality he and North Koreans are adored throughout the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/26/wo...dr-leader.html
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
My money is on 3
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
Possible explanations:
1) Kim Jon Nam owed money to criminals who killed him.
2) His half-brother, the
Dear Leader Kim Jon Un, who received an honorary doctorate in economics from HELP in Malaysia, killed him because he kills all his rivals and potential rivals.
3) Opponents of the
Dear Leader, Dr Kim Jon Un, killed him to foment unrest in the leadership and make the
Dear Leader, Dr Kim Jon Un look like he is batshit crazy when in reality he and North Koreans are adored throughout the world.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/26/wo...dr-leader.html
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Excellent thumbnail sketch of the human situation in North Korea from former NY Times journalist and author Blaine Harden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuAIWOxTEAE
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Thanks for the clip, it's good to hear that at least some information of the outside world is filtering in. I'm always impressed by the human capacity to put up with things.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Quote:
Originally Posted by
nitron
Thanks for the clip, it's good to hear that at least some information of the outside world is filtering in. I'm always impressed by the human capacity to put up with things.
Yes ,that and the power of human curiosity.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
clearly Kim bumped him off. His brother should have headed to the nearest US armed forces base, and say he has secrets in exchange for good treatment.
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3 Attachment(s)
Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Excellent PBS "Frontline" show on N Korea aired yesterday.
Segments include ," Could there be a North Korean 'Spring' " , " What was Kim Jong-un like as a boy " and "Five ways North Koreans are defying the regime".
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/fi...f-north-korea/
Attachment 1002978Attachment 1002979Attachment 1002980
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Evidence shows 40% of N. Korea's real economy comes from supplying chemical and illicit weapons. Including those being used in Syria.
http://www.pri.org/stories/2017-04-21/key-supplier-syrias-chemical-weapons-north-korea
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
A claim, unverified as yet, that North Korea has developed a 'small nuclear weapon' that can fit onto one of the inter-continental ballistic missiles they have been launching recently, has produced the following response from the President of the USA, bearing in mind recent threats made by North Korea against the USA:
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States...They will be met with the fire and the fury like the world has never seen.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...eats-fire-fury
Given that the world is recalling the centenary of the First World War and just in this last week the battles that raged at Passchendale from July to November -estimated casualties, start at 500,000 -followed by the Second World War, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki not to mention the Korean War, one wonders what the world has yet to see. As if we wanted to see it millions of dead people.
It may be hard to swallow, but North Korea does have a right to defend itself in international law. It also has the right to develop a nuclear capability, though there are instruments in international law which North Korea could and probably should allow to inspect its facilities to assess their safety and compliance with international norms, as Iran has done, in contrast to those nuclear states that deny they even have them, Israel for example. Moreover, given the hostility shown to North Korea, it is not surprising if they are concerned at the potential for harm foreign states pose.
But it is also the case that an attack produces retaliation, and the obvious danger that any sensible General knows is that with a state like North Korea, while it is possible they might 'do a Saddam' and commit a military folly, it is just as likely that a military strike on North Korea would not go without some reaction, even if it is a gesture such as an attack on South Korean shipping with minimal if any casualties, just to show they can and will do it. The irony of all this is that nuclear deterrence appears to be fine for existing nuclear armed states, yet any new state seeking a nuclear weapons capability is assumed, as is the case with Iran and North Korea to be anything from 'reckless' and 'irresponsible' to 'crazy' even though the primary aim is to deter precisely the military attack they fear.
In time the North Korean regime will fail, it has always been hard to sustain autocracy at that level for a long period of time. It would make more sense to maintain pressure on the country in order to weaken the regime, than to attack it, an expensive option which carries the greater danger that the outcome is unknown, just as the USA began bombing the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 and 16 years and a trillion dollars later, is still there, fighting the same enemy.
But hey, the President is a tough guy, and a winner, so maybe he knows something we don't?
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
The threat levels in the confrontation between North Korea and the USA have begged more questions than answers. Last week Rex Tillerson was attempting to calm people down and send messages to NK to the effect that the USA is not seeking 'regime change' or open conflict, whereas in less than a week his President threatens precisely that, and the head of the CIA Mike Pompeo has indicated that 'Regime Change' is an option just as General McMaster also claims all options are being considered.
It beggars belief that North Korea is targeting the US naval base at Guam -why? One wonders what it will achieve. There is a precedent for this sort of folly, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands [Las Malvinas] in 1982 having calculated that the British would not take any action to remedy the situation. They were not intimidated by the fact that the UK has nuclear weapons, and appear to have been surprised when Thatcher launched the 'Task Force' while the end-game was the end for the Generals. North Korea may calculate that the US will retaliate if it hits Guam, but fall short of raining bombs on the North that would kill a lot of people, but the US would have to do something and having sponsored a new round of sanctions a less than diplomatic attack would seem to be on the cards even if nobody knows what it might be.
The final option, terrifying in its implications, was given the by the British born son of an Hungarian nationalist, Sebastian Gorka who works for the NSA.
Asked what tools the Trump administration might use to increase its impact, Sebastian Gorka, a presidential foreign policy adviser, responded: “We have the president’s Twitter feed.” He added: “If you can win a US election with it, I think it’s pretty powerful, don’t you think?”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...iplomacy-talks
Feed the ducks, then, and see what happens....
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
I'm not trying to downplay things, but it really sounds like you have two guys in Trump and Kim Jon Un are just doing a lot of dick swinging.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Excellent interview with Dr. Henry Kissinger on The Charlie Rose Show this week, about his recommendations for immediate and long term future options for North Korea.
https://charlierose.com/guests/131
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Quote:
Originally Posted by
sukumvit boy
Excellent interview with Dr. Henry Kissinger on The Charlie Rose Show this week, about his recommendations for immediate and long term future options for North Korea.
https://charlierose.com/guests/131
As expected a standard realist view of international relations with two flaws in the argument. China acting in its national interests rather than to suit the interests of the USA is pure realism and could have come out of a textbook from the 1950s, just as the argument that at times, apparently now, the interests of the US and China coincide, that being the need to attempt some control of North Korea, and specifically its nuclear programme.
The first flaw in the argument is that realist theory when applied to nuclear war created the doctrine of deterrence which argues that the consequences of a nuclear war are so destructive that first use is disavowed by the states who own nuclear weapons. But the UK in 2006 did claim the right of first use even if it was hypothetical, and Theresa May shortly after becoming Prime Minister also said that in the right circumstances the UK would deploy them, although she failed to acknowledge that the UK cannot do so without US permission. In addition, deterrence was fundamental to the Cold War, yet suddenly the prospect of Iran and North Korea developing this capability undermines deterrence because of the view that both states are irrational and would use them, even though the original argument in deterrence would still apply. Kissinger can't bring himself to admit Kim is a rational leader, because then he would be on a level playing field, yet it can be argued he is indeed a rational leader and the rhetorical flourishes about attacks on the USA serve to feed a domestic audience with samples of his power, rather than make Americans scared of being fried by night.
The second flaw is the assumption that only pressure on China can make a difference in North Korea, whereas the recent documentary on the murder of Kim Jong-Nam illuminated the deep relationship between North Korea and Malaysia which is a crucial supply line for the military and the Kim family in particular. Yet we do not hear of any pressure being applied to Malaysia, even though successfully cutting off the flow of money and supplies would severely perhaps fatally weaken Kim's power base in Pyongyang, much as the PLO sued for peace with Israel when they lost the military, political and crucially, the financial support of the USSR. You can see the film here although there might be copyright issues outside the UK
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...-in-the-family
The fear of instability is real, the complexity of unifying Korea profound, but would it be any harder than the re-unification of Germany?
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Oh , looks good , brand new !
That link didn't work , this one is ok.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9edq0InxJOo
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
I once heard , Qadafi received letters from his public, he would read them and become heart broken....
They went something like this.....
" Please , dear leader, kill my neighbors dog, it makes so much noise, and I'm afraid it will do me great harm, was it not written that the Prophet himself....."
"...oh and can you move my family closer to the ocean, nothing fancy, of course..."
"... Brother Qadafi , one more favor, send some people and some money ,so that I can replace my door which faces...."
His dreams of a Pan African, Pan Islamic,....whatever......died long before he died..
(Paraphrasing, from documentary on Qadafi, I think by the BBc a year after his death, interviews of people who knew him)
If the fat kid lives there's suffering, if the fat kid dies there's chaos.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Quote:
Originally Posted by
sukumvit boy
Well done with lots of new material . Tks Stavros.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
While North Korea continues to provoke and the US and its allies respond, I offer a link to an article which is 10 years old but offers a perspective on North Korea's links to the world economy, suggesting that the republic is better connected to the outside world than is often made out, although I think there will have been changes since it was published in 2007 and some of the trade is modest in terms of revenue.
It looks at -
Arms Sales, including missiles with customers in the Middle East and Africa;
Drugs- North Korea, in addition to giving safe heaven to criminal gangs from China, South Korea and Japan has used them to export opiates and synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines netting somewhere between $71-200 million (estimated revenues); it has also exported heroin -in 2003 a North Korean freighter was seized off the coast of Australia with 125 kilos of heroin on board, most of it from South East Asia.
Counterfeiting -in addition to bank notes, such as the $100 bill, North Korea has also produced counterfeit tobacco products, and pharmaceuticals.
Aid -formal aid from the UN and other NGOs brings money into NK, as do remittances from workers abroad.
The article also looks at a wide range of development projects, and foreign investment, some of which will have fallen off in recent years owing to sanctions.
Nevertheless, it does mean that North Korea has been able to survive sanctions in the past through economic activities that were legal as well as illegal, so it remains to be seen how much more sanctions can achieve and whether or not they would ever be severe enough to cause the North Korean regime to choose an alternative to military might and confrontation.
The article is here-
http://gps.ucsd.edu/_files/faculty/h...orth-korea.pdf
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Yes , the paper is certainly still relevant with regard to pointing out the many avenues of revenue and trade that N Korea has developed over the decades. It mentioned "and possibly Syria " regarding arms sales ,which has since been confirmed and includes the chemical weapons recently used in Syria and of course the VX ,the most potent poison ever developed, used to kill Kim Jung Nam. Also the recently discovered ties with and through Indonesia outlined in the excellent BBC documentary (North Korea:Murder in the Family ) above . The video of which we seem to have lost.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
I woke this morning to another round of hysteria regarding North Korea and the various mixed messages coming from the USA which include an attack by the President on South Korean 'appeasement' of the North, the Defence Secretary confirming the US does not intend to bomb North Korea into oblivion, and the claims that China's President Xi is 'pissed off' with North Korea for testing a nuclear missile and raising tensions again. I do have a peaceful solution to this situation.
South Korea's official position is to make the whole of the Korean peninsula nuclear free, and this should be the basis of a new treaty between North and South Korea, with guarantors in China, the USA and Russia. Thus,
1) The Treaty would commit both North and South Korea to a non-nuclear energy and weapons regime, with the guarantors agreeing not to deploy nuclear weapons in either the North or the South.
2) The US would reduce it's military presence in South Korea by 50%, and China act as 'defender of last resort' for North Korea, so that neither North or South Korea need be in fear of an attack by either country or its allies.
3) A UN sponsored package would offer North Korea long-term economic investment in agriculture and industry to stimulate economic growth and reduce North Korea's involvement, or dependency on illegal trade. The aim would be to integrate not isolate North Korea from the regional and world economy.
4) In return, a limited form of 'open border' arrangements between the North and South would enable people from both countries to travel without restriction, with the long term aim of bringing people in the North and South closer together.
5) North and South Korean political and military leaders to hold regular -perhaps every six months- meetings in order to prevent misunderstandings and tensions to run out of control.
6) For the longer term, a more co-ordinated effort to bring the people of Korea and Japan into a dialogue that moves on from the stale rhetoric of the Japanese occupation and bases future relations on friendship and co-operation.
The primary aim is to prevent any escalation of tension into military engagement in the short term, while building the components of a peaceable and practical relationship between North Korea and its neighbours in the long term. It requires a step back from military confrontation by both the USA and North Korea, while offering both the opportunity to see North Korea end its isolation and become more fully integrated in the global economy.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
These would be good ideas in a saner world, but what would be in it for Kim Jong Un to make such a deal and stick to it? It's not unreasonable for him to see nuclear weapons as the best guarantee of his regime's survival. I doubt that he's all that interested in economic development or opening to the rest of the world - the North Korean people may be suffering but he certainly is not. Opening would also loosen the regime's control.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
I understand the strategic logic of nuclear weapons, but only in the context of deterrence, as the use of such weapons on the battlefield by inviting a proportionate retaliation risks far more in terms of destruction than most regimes would consider sane. War after all is fought for a purpose, and in military terms, the armies starting the war expect to be victors at the end of it.
On the other hand, nuclear deterrence has not deterred conventional military campaigns, be it the Falklands/Malvinas invasion by Argentina in 1982, or Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. In addition, there is the intriguing case of Israel in 1973 and the claim that Moshe Dayan or Golda Meir or both considered using their nuclear weapons at an early stage in the war when their lines were overrun by the Egyptians -but that they drew back from it and appealed to the US which raised the nuclear stakes which in turn triggered the USSR to intervene and restrain the Arabs.
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archi...om-kippur-war/
In the case of Korea the nuclear option was considered twice in the 1950-53 War, in 1950 when MacArthur proposed dropping 30 atomic bombs to both crush the Communists and their allies and to warn off the USSR, and in 1951 after MacArthur's replacement though the preparations never materialized. A nuclear strike on North Korea was actually ordered by President Nixon in April 1969 when a US spy plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan and Nixon ordered a retaliatory strike -which never happened because Kissinger got on the phone to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the order was rescinded -because Nixon was drunk. Indeed, the claim is
Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor for Nixon at the time, also got on the phone to the Joint Chiefs and got them to agree to stand down on that order until Nixon woke up sober the next morning.
According to Summers and Swan’s book “The Arrogance Of Power: The Secret World Of Richard Nixon,” Kissinger is reported to have told aides on multiple occasions that if the President had his way, there would have been a new nuclear war every week.
http://www.businessinsider.com/drunk...ea-2017-1?IR=T
We don't enough about the relationship Kim has with the Party and the Army, but we do know that when Kim Il-Sung died there was no immediate transfer of power to Kim Jong-Il but that his success in succeeding his father may have been a trade-off between the family and the army. If one accepts that Kim Il-Sung created a Stalinist autocracy in North Korea, one can appreciate that it survives because the people at the top of the pyramid know that as the echelons reach down to the people, they have enough loyal party members and military personnel to benefit from the regime. Autocracies fail when liberal reforms undermine the autocracy, or when there are enough party or military personnel to rebel against the leadership.
Kim may therefore not care about the state of the economy, largely because his source of wealth is external, but lower down the food-chain there must be party apparatchiks and officers who rely on their position to extract benefits from the local economy, for whom economic growth is essential, so the idea that the regime can sail on without regard to sanctions and their effect is I think an exaggeration. In addition, it would also be possible for disaffected officers to organize a coup within the leadership so that Kim could disappear, never to be seen again (they could even manufacture an illness brought on by stress and hard work) while a cabal of officers take power to preserve it, but also by de-escalating the current tensions.
Nobody needs nuclear weapons, the US laid waste to Korea and Vietnam without them; Mosul is in ruins; the Russians twice attacked Grozny in the 1990s and reduced it to rubble just as Saudi Arabia has spent the last two years destroying the Yemen.
I wonder if within the elites of North Korea, Kim is being goaded to be provocative, or is being viewed as a threat to their interests, so that the 'end game' to this present situation may not require any action by the US, China, or Russia, and take place behind closed doors in Pyongyang.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
LOL, great stuff about Nixon from "The Arrogance of Power" ,tks.
Very interesting proposal regarding N Korea treaty outline in post #27 above. Between your and Kissinger's proposals I think we could make something work.
Would that "Kim could quietly disappear, never to be heard from again" ! That would be the best solution for all concerned .
Dreams can come true as evidenced by the turnaround in Myanmar in 2011.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
I think there are two additional issues involved here, one is the elusive concept of 'international legitimacy' and the other is the 'Neo-Con' strategy of regime change that is associated with the GW Bush Presidency although it has antecedents.
In the case of international legitimacy, one aspect of the Cold War was an attempt by one side to deny the other the legitimacy of being an independent state, claiming that independence was denied by its relations with an external agent. The obvious examples would be West Germany/East Germany -East Germany controlled by the USSR; North Korea/South Korea -North Korea tied to China, and North Vietnam/South Vietnam -North Vietnam dependent on USSR (this was Kissinger's view). In these three cases there was a simple division between capitalism and communism with the tone registered as threat: IF South Vietnam 'falls' to Communism, the rest -from Cambodia to India- will follow. IF the west does not maintain a strong presence in West Germany, the whole of western Europe will face potential invasion from the USSR (people actually believed this rubbish).
North Korea posed something of a dilemma because it had been a victim of Japan's Imperial ambitions as far back as 1910 and while Korean unity was viewed as something positive in the long term, the Chinese- rather than Soviet- sponsored regime in Pyongyang created its own version of communism, resisting the trend taken in East Germany, that appeared to suggest that if the North dominated a new Korea in fact it would be a client state of China and thus no more independent than it was under the Japanese. This in turn played into the view which still holds in some quarters, that China sees itself as an Imperial power in East Asia where Empire does not appeal.
Regime Change comes into the picture because it was both resisted and practiced in the past. Possibly because of the nuclear status of the powers, but more probably because of other practical issues, the West never forced the issue in Germany, indeed it may have been because it was Germany with its difficult history that the confrontation was mostly ideological, though one notes that Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik began a process of 'normalization' which attempted to find common ground between East and West, and that some cross-border initiatives have been and gone between North and South Korea.
But there was one stunning example of regime change before Iraq and that was Kampuchea's reckless invasion of Vietnam in 1979 which led the latter to counter-invade and change the regime in Phnom Penh, ending the ghastly rule of the Khmer Rouge. The consequence, however, in terms of international legitimacy, was that the UN protocols which are opposed to the violent overthrow of one regime by another, meant that, for example, for years afterward, the British government refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government in Cambodia -which it viewed as a puppet govt of the Vietnamese- thus preferring to give legitimacy to the defeated Khmer Rouge regardless of their crimes against humanity.
This is a crucial point, because sovereignty appears to mean that if the government of a state attacks its own citizens, there is nothing in international law that the UN can do about it, even if the govt selects a minority group within the state. International Humanitarian Law (sometimes the Law of Intervention) is ill-defined. Genocide, as far as I can tell, is best prosecuted after the fact rather than during it. For Russia, as it was for the USSR, this has been a cardinal virtue in international relations which they protected throughout the Cold War as their way of intervening -they claimed at the request of the legitimate government- in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, etc- and which they see as the great Sin of the West, pointing to the aftermath of regime change in Iraq and Libya, and the potential chaos of regime change in Syria.
For all the rhetoric of violent confrontation with North Korea that at least implies regime change, the reality is that most of the parties look at it with the sobering reality of the past. And, for North Korea, being regarded as a legitimate state with all the rights the UN Charter confers, is seen as an essential ingredient to its survival. It doesn't matter how badly run a state may be, stability of the international system rather than instability is preferred and thus one sees the powers tip-toeing around North Korea not really knowing what to do that will produce their desired endgame. But as happened with East Germany and the USSR, autocracy and corruption cannot last and in time these regimes implode, so it may just be a matter of time before internal contradictions bring the North Korean experiment to an end.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
The New Yorker magazine journalist Evan Osnos has recently returned from North Korea , interesting article from the current issue of the magazine.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...th-north-korea
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
One wonders if the President of the USA was making a serious threat when saying of the USA that if 'forced to defend itself and its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea'. It is widely recognized, and not just in the US that there are few military options with regard to North Korea that do not bring with them potentially catastrophic consequences for the inhabitants of both Koreas, but it is also the case that far from being exhausted diplomatic initiatives have yet to be pursued with vigour. I have yet to see anyone attempt to engage with Kim directly by meeting with him and asking him what it is that he wants.
The basic idea that North Korea's attempt to build a nuclear arsenal is a threat to world peace applies to everyone else who has such weapons, be it the US, Russia, India and Pakistan, and Israel -indeed, given the threats Israel has made to attack Iran it would seem logical for Iran to arms itself with nuclear weapons, even though it has now said it will not pursue that goal in a deal from which the President suggests he wants to withdraw the USA's support (a move that would make it more likely for Iran to change policy and develop a nuclear weapons capability). As for the comments he made before the infantile Rocket Man jibe, that relates to those countries that have supplied North Korea, it must include the USA's ally in South Asia, namely Pakistan, and does not even begin to explain how Israel became a nuclear power, starting with the secret deals Ben-Gurion made with France in the 1950s.
Or it could be another attack on China, using North Korea as a proxy, but again one wonders what it is that this President wants when he thinks of the deal on the table that is signed and delivered. On the one hand, he has accused China of currency manipulation and stealing American jobs, but does not want to admit that the success of capitalism in China has given consumers in the USA affordable flat screen tv's, affordable smart phones and computers; affordable clothes; that without capitalism in China in which the US invested billions of dollars, the recession of the 1980s would probably have dragged on for another 20 years.
But this is a man who has built his entire political career on resentment and anger, mostly caused by Barack Obama. He has been encouraged by Stephen Miller (who probably wrote most of the UN speech), Rupert Murdoch and other friends, to select his victims because they suit their agenda of radical change, and not to praise their friends, and not to praise the alternative ways of doing things that are happening right under his nose in the USA. He appears to be turning into an isolated figure, worthy only of ridicule, thus also appearing to be the mirror-image of Rocket Man. Though this could be dangerous, one can only hope that the Generals really are in charge of the US, and that they are not about to rocket the US into another unwinnable overseas adventure at a cost of a Million Lives and a Trillion Dollars. Unless they feel they have to do something to placate the vanity of Saudi Arabia's best friend.
Or maybe we are supposed to live on the edge of a permanent crisis, just in case Americans realise he is the most useless and ineffective President in the history of this office?
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
I was looking at some article on the differences between Eastern and Western Germany, and came across this brief but informative article on why the re-unification of the two Koreas, should it ever happen, should not be compared to what happened to Germany after 1989. The article goes some way to explaining the apparent resilience of the regime in North Korea, for example
The Communist regimes in Eastern Europe collapsed so quickly in part because the populations there had shed any identification with the official ideology. In North Korea, Communism remains a rhetorical flourish — much as the word “democratic” in the country’s official name — but doesn’t shape the government’s programs or the population’s affections. The official dogma of juche (roughly, self-reliance) is too abstract and infinitely pliable a concept to command fealty. What is left, however, is nationalism, which the Kim dynasty has deployed in increasing doses to tie the regime’s legitimacy to a putative 5,000-year-old history, distinguish North Korean “purity” from South Korea’s “polluted” cosmopolitanism, and offer an illusion of security to contrast with the insecurities of globalization.
In short, North Korea — unlike the East European regimes of 1989 — seems to be on the verge of remaining the same, with some minor variations, for some time.
Full article is here-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-f...b_4767687.html
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Stavros
One wonders if the President of the USA was making a serious threat when saying of the USA that if 'forced to defend itself and its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea'. It is widely recognized, and not just in the US that there are few military options with regard to North Korea that do not bring with them potentially catastrophic consequences for the inhabitants of both Koreas, but it is also the case that far from being exhausted diplomatic initiatives have yet to be pursued with vigour. I have yet to see anyone attempt to engage with Kim directly by meeting with him and asking him what it is that he wants.
A war with North Korea is likely to kill hundreds of thousands or millions. Saber rattling without a war is likely to make North Korea accelerate its weapons programs and act. Sanctions without any attempt at talks is unlikely to deter North Korea. The only option is as you say other diplomatic initiatives that include discussions with China and negotiations with Kim to minimize the threat. The fact that Trump is engaged in saber rattling and is whipping up conflict makes me believe he is interested in war. Everything he has done so far has taken a potential threat and made it more immediate. It has done nothing to deter or dissuade or neutralize.
Assuming that there is some coordination within his administration, and that's not a perfectly safe assumption, it doesn't look like he wants to be tough because in this case it might deter, but because it will cause war.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
http://charlierose.com/videos/31007
BBC international correspondent Lyse Doucet reports on N Korea , with Charlie Rose.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
Former CIA Deputy Directer Michael Morrell and Nicholas Burns of The Harvard Kennedy School discuss N Korea.
http://charlierose.com/videos/31011
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
I noticed some discussion in the media lately on he point that Trump has decided to surround himself with generals , and the old adage that ,"when you're a hammer everything looks like a nail ",with regard to what to do about North Korea.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
On the one hand the Generals satisfy the needs of a President who wants to reverse the 'strategic caution' of President Obama by providing the rationale for a military attack. Generals regularly practice 'war games' to see how a military event begins, how it is conducted, the impact it has, how it ends, and what the consequences are. They do this for North Korea, for Iran, and many other scenarios.
On other other hand, presenting the case in terms of what a military event looks like is not the same as advocating it, and the impression one gets is that the Generals have said yes, an attack on North Korea's military installations is possible and would be effective, but would also ignite retaliation from the North with the South its targets, so that the negative political consequences outweigh any military advantage.
A General on the BBC today suggested again that a military strike that targeted Iran's production of missiles was possible in practical terms, and one could see how the US would argue it has a military advantage in reducing Iran's missile capabilities. But, again, other than the loss of life issue, and setting aside the view that such a strike would only delay further production of missiles, Iran would also retaliate, but not in the manner one is led to expect North Korea would retaliate.
The example is the USS Vincennes obliterating Iran Airflight 655 in July 1988 killing all 290 passengers and crew. In December of the same year Pan Am Flight 103 blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie killing all 259 passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground. All the evidence suggests this was retaliation by Iran, and is an example of how Iran could retaliate, and the US knows this.
In the meantime, Rex Tillerson has shredded the Department of State of many of its foreign policy specialists, others who were appointed in the Obama era left when the new Presidency began, which makes one wonder if there is anyone in the building who has any expertise in Iran and Korea, not that this matters to the President who appears to rely on Netanyahu for intelligence on Iran, a bad source with its own agenda. And at the same time the President is talking up war with North Korea, the US has yet to appoint an ambassador to South Korea.
While this gives the Generals the keys to the door of the Oval Office one can only hope they caution the very restraint the President associates with Obama, as he is dedicated to trashing everything Obama achieved because the former President made a fool of him in public, and nobody gets away with that.
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Re: Murder /Assassination of Kim Jong Nam
From today's Press:
Donald Trump has accepted an invitation from the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, to hold an unprecedented summit meeting to discuss the future of the embattled regime’s nuclear and missile programme.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...uclear-weapons
From the press in 1994
North Korea and South Korea have agreed to hold a summit meeting to resolve nuclear tensions, the Associated Press reported South Korean officials as saying. It quoted them as saying that the North Korean leader had proposed the meeting through Mr. Carter and that President Kim Young-Sam of South Korea had accepted but that the details have yet to be worked out.
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/18/wo...it-really.html
Madeline Albright eventually made the trip:
President Bill Clinton didn’t go meet with Kim Jong Un’s father himself, but eager for a diplomatic win at the end of his presidency, he sent Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for the meeting in 2000. Writing in the New York Times in 2017, Albright recalled, “I held two days of intensive talks, during which [Kim Jong Il] appeared willing to accept more significant restraints on the missile programs than we had expected.” But she continued, “Obviously, if this dilemma were easy to resolve, it would have been settled long ago. The fundamental problem is that the North Korean leadership is convinced it requires nuclear weapons to guarantee its own survival.”
http://time.com/5192579/trump-meets-...n-north-korea/