Could Trump Reignite the Korean War?

[crescent]

Your second link (the first one denoting a specific incident) says South Korea initiated military force.

I am not seeing that, other than NK's claim that an SK boat had crossed the line - something never confirmed.

After that, NK was the clear aggressor, crossing the line many times; they were the first to open fire. SK was using non-violent tactics to resist the NK incursion, so NK opened fire - that's the initiation of military force.

You do understand that, even if we accept your contention, the difference between 0 and 1 for the "countries attacked by North Korea" is still less of an error than the "about 40" for the US, right?

They used to attack Japan, they kidnapped Japanese people and forced them to make movies.

North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens

I don't care about your ratio - regardless of how wrong America has been in the past, or how wrong America currently is right now in other parts of the world, NK is still in the wrong right now. Two wrongs don't make a right.

 

[caveman1917]

I am not seeing that, other than NK's claim that an SK boat had crossed the line - something never confirmed.

After that, NK was the clear aggressor, crossing the line many times; they were the first to open fire. SK was using non-violent tactics to resist the NK incursion, so NK opened fire - that the initiation of military force.

"The South Korean government decided at this point to use force to oppose further crossings of the NLL.[2]

On 11 June, the South Korean Navy began forcibly responding to continued North Korean crossings of the NLL by beginning a "bumping offensive", using its boats to physically push aside the North Koreans. Four North Korean boats were damaged, two seriously, while three of the South Korean boats suffered damage to their hulls. The North Koreans retaliated on 12 June by attempting their own "bumping offensive" but were outmanoeuvred by the South Koreans.[6]"

Using military ships to "bump into" another country's ships constitutes military force.

 

[Babbylonian]

"highly inaccurate"

Even if you want to include minor border skirmishes, which may very well have been initiated by the South instead, under "attacking another country" then it would still only go from 0 to 1. Which is still less than the error in "about 40" for the US.

Cognitive dissonance much?

I'm sorry, but we don't count attacks on US forces as attacks on another country?

I'm not making a claim for perfect purity on the part of the US or South Korea, nor would I excuse cases of foolish aggression and overreach on the part of the US, but **0** was a big claim and ignored a lot of provocative acts.

 

[caveman1917]

They used to attack Japan, they kidnapped Japanese people and forced them to make movies.

North Korean abductions of Japanese citizens

This is getting ridiculous. Remember the great USA-Italy war? If you want to include abductions as "attacking another country" then you could add Japan to North Korea's list, but the USA's list will grow by so much as well that the ratio probably wouldn't change that much.

I don't care about your ratio - regardless of how wrong America has been in the past, or how wrong America currently is right now in other parts of the world, NK is still in the wrong right now. Two wrongs don't make a right.

You heard the one about that *********** jew who insulted the concentration camp guard? How outrageous, didn't he know that two wrongs don't make a right and that ratios are not to be cared about?

 

[caveman1917]

I'm sorry, but we don't count attacks on US forces as attacks on another country?

Only if they're in the US or on US Navy vessels in international waters.

 

[Fizil]

I don't understand something about nuclear arsenals. Countries that develop nuclear weapons are said to have nuclear programs. The revelation that NK could hit the U.S. with a warhead supposedly shows they are farther along than previously supposed. But hardware sufficient to travel thousands of miles and take out hundreds of thousands of people isn't cutting-edge technology. That genie popped out of the bottle decades ago.

It isn't really about the missiles. It is about the warheads. You not only have to have the ability to make nuclear weapons, you have to have the ability to make nuclear weapons that are small/light enough to be the payload of an ICBM.

 

[Minoosh]

China puts up with it because as long as they like not having South Korea on its border. They don't want it to devolve into a real war which means at the very least, a ton of refugees flooding into the country. At worst, its a conflict with the US, which I don't think either side is at all interested in getting into. Even just on an economic level, the US getting into a conflict with North Korea is dangerous for China.

One would hope that if things start getting dangerous enough, China would support a coup or just march in and put things in order.

There's not much that I can see that the US can feasibly do that it hasn't already been doing. We can't even just drop a few bombs to take out missile platforms or the like. Anything the US does militarily would be met with a devastating attack on Seoul.

Maybe we can just make a time machine that will let us go back and not try to unify the Korean peninsula after pushing the N Korean invasion back.

All good points. Thanks for the insight.

 

[Minoosh]

It isn't really about the missiles. It is about the warheads. You not only have to have the ability to make nuclear weapons, you have to have the ability to make nuclear weapons that are small/light enough to be the payload of an ICBM.

There could be thousands of decommissioned nukes in Russia, though. I'm not saying Russia would supply nukes to NK, but in theory it could. Same with Iran. How would we know?

 

[Modified]

"The South Korean government decided at this point to use force to oppose further crossings of the NLL.[2]

On 11 June, the South Korean Navy began forcibly responding to continued North Korean crossings of the NLL by beginning a "bumping offensive", using its boats to physically push aside the North Koreans. Four North Korean boats were damaged, two seriously, while three of the South Korean boats suffered damage to their hulls. The North Koreans retaliated on 12 June by attempting their own "bumping offensive" but were outmanoeuvred by the South Koreans.[6]"

Using military ships to "bump into" another country's ships constitutes military force.

It seems a very polite way of stopping incursions into your territory.

 

[jimbob]

South Korea doesn't count?

Many times:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_border_incidents_involving_North_Korea#2000s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Yeonpyeong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Yeonpyeong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Cheonan_sinking

Of course, NK disputes all of this - but they are not the most credible of sources.


(Ninjad by Babbylonian)

You are also missing out its abduction programme

EDIT Ninja'd

 

[jimbob]

I'm sorry, but we don't count attacks on US forces as attacks on another country?

I'm not making a claim for perfect purity on the part of the US or South Korea, nor would I excuse cases of foolish aggression and overreach on the part of the US, but **0** was a big claim and ignored a lot of provocative acts.

Yes. Including recently using a nerve agent in a public place in a country that did have some relations with it (Thailand).

I know that we have some very one-eyed regressive leftists, but even so, the DPRK is one of the most oppressive regimes since the before the end of the Cold War. Equating that regime with the US, or the ROK is ridiculous.

We also know that the DPRK did want to reignite the Korean War several times during the Cold War but held back due to lack of support from the USSR and China.

 

[caveman1917]

I know that we have some very one-eyed regressive leftists, but even so, the DPRK is one of the most oppressive regimes since the before the end of the Cold War. Equating that regime with the US, or the ROK is ridiculous.

There is no equating, the US is much, much more dangerous and oppressive to the world than the DPRK. There really is no comparison here.

PS. Your use of far-right terminology like "regressive leftist" betrays your position a bit too obviously

 

[Spindrift]

There is no equating, the US is much, much more dangerous and oppressive to the world than the DPRK. There really is no comparison here.

PS. Your use of far-right terminology like "regressive leftist" betrays your position a bit too obviously

I was going to offer a hand but you don't seem to need a hand with those goalposts.

 

[jimbob]

There is no equating, the US is much, much more dangerous and oppressive to the world than the DPRK. There really is no comparison here.

PS. Your use of far-right terminology like "regressive leftist" betrays your position a bit too obviously

Would you prefer "Authoritarian Left"? Generally I consider the Left to be progressive, but when you start supporting the DPRK regime*, you earn nothing but contempt.



*which probably has managed to kill more people than the US since the end of the Cold War (and there are many situations where the US was in the wrong)

 

[caveman1917]

I was going to offer a hand but you don't seem to need a hand with those goalposts.

What goalposts?

 

[caveman1917]

Would you prefer "Authoritarian Left"? Generally I consider the Left to be progressive, but when you start supporting the DPRK regime*, you earn nothing but contempt.

From right-wingers? How unexpected.

*which probably has managed to kill more people than the US since the end of the Cold War (and there are many situations where the US was in the wrong)

If that were true they wouldn't have any population left

 

[jimbob]

From right-wingers? How unexpected.



If that were true they wouldn't have any population left

Most people wouldn't call me a right-winger. You might notice that my signature proclaims the cost efficiency of a universal healthcare system. In European terms, I'm probably closest to the Social Democratic parties. You might consider them to be right wing, but that would be a rather eccentric view.

I guess from your username, you would consider yourself a Communist, regardless of that, it is silly to call someone a right-winger because they deride you for supporting a regime that Khrushchev denounced.

 

[caveman1917]

Apparently the biggest event of killing North Koreans so far was done by...the US (as if that's a surprise)

The bombing was long, leisurely and merciless, even by the assessment of America’s own leaders. “Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — 20 percent of the population,” Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, told the Office of Air Force History in 1984. Dean Rusk, a supporter of the war and later secretary of state, said the United States bombed “everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another.” After running low on urban targets, U.S. bombers destroyed hydroelectric and irrigation dams in the later stages of the war, flooding farmland and destroying crops.

Although the ferocity of the bombing was criticized as racist and unjustified elsewhere in the world, it was never a big story back home. U.S. press coverage of the air war focused, instead, on “MiG alley,” a narrow patch of North Korea near the Chinese border. There, in the world’s first jet-powered aerial war, American fighter pilots competed against each other to shoot down five or more Soviet-made fighters and become “aces.” War reporters rarely mentioned civilian casualties from U.S. carpet-bombing. It is perhaps the most forgotten part of a forgotten war.

So, in short, the US installs/supports one of its most brutal right-wing dictatorship-clients in the Korean peninsula in the late 1940's. Korean communist anti-Japanese fighters, established in the North of the country, eventually decide to attack the dictatorship installed in the South. So the US utterly destroys the infrastructure of the North, including exterminating about 20% of its population.

Then an armistice is signed. But less than a decade later the US declares the armistice agreement null and void so as to introduce nuclear weapons to the peninsula. So now finally they got what they wanted, nuclear weapons in the Korean peninsula, and now they're whining about that and want to destroy North Korea all over again.

Americans...

 

[caveman1917]

Most people wouldn't call me a right-winger.

Most people are stupid.

I guess from your username, you would consider yourself a Communist, regardless of that, it is silly to call someone a right-winger because they deride you for supporting a regime that Khrushchev denounced.

You're not being called a right-winger because of that, you're being called a right-winger because of your use of far-right rhetoric about the "regressive left" and your never-ending support for capitalist (and fascist) imperialism.

 

[dudalb]

My dislike for Trump is approaching monumental proportions, but these attempts here to basically make Dear Leader Kim and the DPKR out to be the "good guys" here are truly disturbing.