I'm not sure it's his head that he pulls this stuff out of.

yes he absolutly does.

I've not heard much on what the left thinks of this, but ever since the launch of No Dong, conservatives have been blasting off about what this place means to global stabilization.

N. Korea's real issue is that anything sent there is misapportioned to the ruling party, and its going toward defense spending rather than feeding its people.

In the short run, its fending off rebels on the border, but in the long run, it will not survive past Kim's death.

Hahaha.
Zing!

:laughing:

Who can forget his post on Pakistan: "This happened because Obama was elected we're going to start bombing them soon."

I am in favor of this

Since when is it the role of the United States to assassinate world leaders based on whether or not we think they're fit to lead?

When it's obvious and no one else has done it yet.

Fuck semantics right is right

It would only makes things worse and the US government has no place assassinating world leaders anyway.

Among the more absurd things I've heard from a non-idiot.

he starves the country. The aide thats given for them isn't given to them.

Why isn't that genocide?

let's just hope that they don't come over here if we piss them off. Am i the only one who is moving to canada after they threaten us?

If ending Genocide is your concern (though starvation is hardly genocide which is far more murderous) then why don't we get involved in Sri Lanka or Darfur or Tibet or basically every country ruled by a cruel dictator? Why don't we start feeding Africa on a serious governmental level? North Korea isn't the only country with problems of that nature to treat it like it is and somehow deserves special United States attention is ridiculous. Besides weren't you against the invasion of Iraq?

I was. You asked for rationale. Aren't you for intervention in Darfur?

This reminds me of that economic hitmen thing I heard about.

Morality is subjective.
Genocide requires active killing. This is more like wide scale neglect.

hahaha youre kidding

I don't believe it's the role of the United States to intervene in Darfur nor do I believe it's they're role to be the world police which is what you seem to think.

I have a question for you though. Why were you against invading Iraq and removing a brutal dictatorship but now you're for removing Kim Jong Il? You think taking him out of the picture would result in a better situation? Honestly? The only way it could possibly do so is launching what would essentially be another Iraq war against North Korea. The United States would invade and then attempt to build a democratic country. They don't have the resources or the right do that though.

I can't believe you're trying to make this bigger than the flip comment it was. You've become the Zach de la Rocha of MB.

Also, I can't be certain, but off the top of my head I'd assume North Korea now is a world away from Iraq in March 2003.

Iraq was a relatively stable region in an otherwise unstable region. I'd say the opposite is true with North Korea.

Iraq was at least functioning within the Kurdish region, I'm not sure any portion of N. Korea functions well. At least what we'd call "well."

And unlike Iraq, its very evident at this point that North Korea actually has "WMD's."

The Weapons of Mass Destruction point is completely irrelevant. Every United States alley is developing/has nuclear technology. The only difference between North Korea and those countries is North Korea isn't a United States ally and apparently only the West and it's friends are allowed to have the big guns. This is a humanitarian argument.

Iraq was only stable in the sense that Saddam would torture, threaten, imprison or murder any dissenters. All dictatorships are stable in that sense. You don't consider that as offensive as starvation; which is happening all over the world including United States streets?

If we enter N. Korea it should be on grounds of breaking CTBT, not because of the way the civilians are treated. Which we can't because CTBT is not yet active and is still being discussed.

List of states with nuclear weapons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

we have more allies than this, no?

Yeah I meant to say every country with nuclear technology is a United States ally and according to wikipedia, barring the obvious countries, I'm not wrong. Thanks for that insightful counterargument though.

You're doing a couple things here that I think are dirty, and are being done to win an argument I'm not getting in because I don't think we should invade either country.

1. Pick the fights - It doens't have anything to do with WMD's but you brought up Iraq.

2. You're equating North Korea with America. Your point about who's allowed to have Nukes is valid, but its unreasonable to compare the two when North Korea is launching them to see what they can do, with no regard for where they actually land. Why do they have missiles crash landing in the sea of Japan? Does America?

3. You're attempting to paint me with a redneck brush in the last line, which we're all aware is a caricature of my positions.


Not all dictatorships are stable like Iraq was stable. To say the active murder of someone is better or worse than starvation is a tough call. I'd prefer neither but being shot does have the one saving grace of at least being quick. As I mentioned, Iraq was stable in regions, and while dissent wasn't tolerated, people aren't being starved. I'm sure you'll twist this into me defending something I'm actually not, but thats how this works I suppose.

In my final two years at college, I had the opportunity to sit in a writing group with a guy from Kurdistan (thats his call, I wasn't going to argue geographic boundaries with him) and he told me how their economy was more high functioning, and their currency worth more there then in either the rest of Iraq or Iran.

So maybe Iraq wasn't perfect, but I'd say it was far better off than North Korea then or now.

They are relevant when discussing reasons for recent invasions.

Now who's picking the fights?

Since he brought it up, and I don't own a time machine, I'd still say Ethan is/had/did.

Edit: Also, I think you're agreeing with me in your first point.

I meant the point of America launching (or not) weapons, not WMDs in general.

...I'm gunna need a complete sentence here.

He brought up Iraq. So I brought up WMD's (because that was America's rationale for going in). He says thats not relevent. I'm saying its a package deal, and when you bring up Iraq, you have to bring up WMD's.

So what are you saying again?

Again, a lot of mucking up a pretty simple solution. A likely unstable retarded fucking asshole who has no regard for basic human decency and a fresh supply of big fucking bombs is threatening to use them on people if someone doesn't pay attention to him.

Why should I or anyone else give a shit if his ass gets wiped off the planet.

North Korea is a hell hole and he's the main reason why.

In regards to North Korea testing nuclear weaponry I don't believe it's the United States job to do something about it. Now if they actually hit waters (or darwin forbid it land) of one of our allies and our allies chooses playtime is over for North Korea and they ask us for help that would be valid. The United States going in on Bushian grounds right now and assassinating Kim Jong Il is an entirely different scenario.

I didn't bring up Iraq to discuss the Weapons of Mass Destruction angle; you're the one who brought that in. I brought up Iraq from a humanitarian perspective. Saddam was doing many atrocious things to the citizens of Iraq; including murder but not limited to that. You're doing something which I think is dirty which is choosing one of Saddam's cruelties and saying "well at least it's over fast Kim Jong Il's starving people to death isn't." That's disingenuous. Saddam was torturing people, imprisoning them (I doubt he fed many of those people either) and coercing them. He was a deeply evil man who do deeply evil things - many things that are on par with starvation considering starvation was a factor in some of his acts. Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of his own people. He didn't neglect them he killed them. I wouldn't consider a country that does that to be "stable." But that's irrelevant; this isn't about stability it's about humanism.

Now despite Saddam being a mass murderer you accused Kim Jong Il, because of his cruel negligence, of being genocidal and said that was justification for assassinating him...but you're still against United States intervention in Iraq? It's hypocritical. I don't think Il has killed nearly as many people as Saddam did. I hate discussing things like that I don't particularly want to say who is worse through quantifiable means or think it's necessary.

So you admit you brought up WMDs and accused Ethan of doing it in one go? Good job.

I agree. Lets ban Boobs!

North Korea has always been a hell hole. It was founded by a Stalinist and on Stalinist principles as well. Kim Jong Il didn't ruin North Korea; his father starved people too. The country has always been a terrible place and that won't change if Kim Jong Il is assassinated and replaced with someone else.

You don't think a fresh start is better then status quo?

That's the only response I'm interested in.

A fresh start with a like-minded leader? Sounds like its worth murdering someone over.

Killing the Kim Jong-Il won't bring a fresh start because he'll be replaced by Kim Yong-nam or some other leader "Workers'" Party of Korea.

Any idea how annoying that is

A fresh start wouldn't be killing Kim Jong-il it would be the citizens of North Korea revolting. That I would be in favor of. An assassination by the United States not so much.

I guess not then

You're being too black and white about this situation and the problem with that is what you think is white isn't white at all but rather a color synonymous with black. The only way for there to be a fresh start in North Korea is the North Koreans overthrowing the Workers' Party of Korea. That wouldn't be achieved by assassinating Kim Jong-Il because you'd just be replacing him with another dictator which isn't giving the country a fresh start at all. My idea of white may involve more red but the prosperity and liberty isn't being stopped just because Kim Jong-Il is there; it's the entire corrupt system.

No

The problem is you don't want to discuss ideas or listen you want to tell everyone how smart you are. You've ignored simple questions and incorrectly assumed where I was going with this in every single one of your responses thus far. I'm not interested in that.