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North Korea said Wednesday that a U.S. decision to scale back military exercises with South Korea does not change what it sees as the provocative nature of the drills, dampening hopes for an early resumption of diplomacy between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump.
The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made the comments Wednesday night in her country’s first reaction to Trump’s moves to drastically cut back the annual U.S.-South Korean military drills.
“We think it’s not worth making comments on that and we have no interest in it at all,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media. “The provocative, aggressive nature of the drills won’t change even though their duration and size were reduced.”
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Trump sucks Kim’s dick on camera but grimaces during money-shot and North Korea was not impressed.
How many other Western, from what is supposed to be a democracy, leaders have gushed about falling in love with a dictator? Actually I’m sort of curious if there is more than one. Trump may have been working the flute but Kim sure played the pied piper better.
Trump is a wannabe. That’s it. He’s a fail-son who wants to be part of the wealthy class but most of his sensibilities match middle class America. He can’t read for shit, so he’s TV educated so his take on a rich person is his him pretending based on fake rich people.
All MAGA is a cult of fake and Trump is surely their king.
As far as being king, well he has no idea on that either, he just wants to be treated the same, but he has no idea how to do anything and anything he’s ever tried turns out like shit for him or for everyone else.
How embarrassing for poor little donald, screaming into the void about a wolf while we all know who the wolf is.
Poor Trump. His boyfriend is not impressed.
He has many boyfriends, some of whom are actually adults. You will have to be more specific.
“The worse she can say is no” Type of shi
Joint drills are good and need doing, however, there is a war on; anything short of large donations of arms to Ukraine is pussyfooting.
The joint drills in question are literally simulations of invading the North, and the simulation is essentially a game of chicken where the US and its occupied territories act like they’re going to invade but say “no no. It’s just an exercise” and the North has to respond every single time by preparing for it as if it’s a real invasion because it is essentially one real-time order away from being an actual invasion
Both offensive and defensive drills are performed. The vast majority are defensive
Does it matter?
Yes officer, we simulated invading the house multiple times but we spent at least 3 times as much effort simulating how we would defend and against them coming out of their house to attack us.
Has if the other part of the equation hasn’t been ready to move into the southern part of the peninsula for decades.
The largest number of placed artilery in the world is aimed at Seoul and projections have been made that a few volleys would be enough to nearly raze the city. If an invasion could be done with no concern for retaliation, it most probably would already been done.
The current state of affairs is kept by standing threats, not will to advance to true peace.
North Korea regime is well documented as the most entrenched, closed and secretive totalitarian regime in the world. Testimonies from people that managed to escape the territory are plentiful and grisly.
Where is the line where it is collectively said that such a nation is not a good faith agent?
The line of “not a good faith agent” was crossed by Truman. The Korean War was an extreme gratuitous war of genocide against the Korean people. That you don’t know the history is the reason you believe what you believe, and that’s by design as the USA is very conspicuous in the way it never ever ever talks about the Korean war in ways that would educate people, because it was unconscionable.
The Korean Peninsula, which is the homeland of the Korean nation, was brutally occupied by Imperial Japan. Japan was violent, rapacious, and monstrously oppressive to the Korean nation. But, as all empires do, they create systems of control that attract the conpromisers from among the occupied people, and they had a bunch of Korean people in their administration of the Korean Peninsula who benefited from selling their own people out.
When Japan was defeated on WW2, the US decided that they should take over the Korean Peninsula from Japan and continue the occupation. This was based primarily on the US’s position that the USSR and China were enemies of the US, despite those countries having been allies in the war.
So before we go any further, we have to mark two lines being crossed by the USA that show it was a bad faith actor.
1 - it claimed to fighting with its allies but after the USSR destroyed 80% of the Nazi forces and took Berlin (West Berlin was in East Germany, btw) and after the Chinese pushed the Japanese out of China, the USA decided that actually they weren’t really allies and that the USSR and China needed to surrounded by the US military and contained with violence and endless proxy wars. Total betrayal.
2 - it claimed to be fighting for freedom and democracy but as soon as the war ended it actually changed its story to protecting capitalism at all costs and that meant it had no problem taking over the imperial colonies of other countries and trying maintain them as imperial colonies (Korea, Ryukyu Micronesia from Japan, Vietnam from the French, Indonesia from the Dutch). In fact, capitalism was so clearly the important thing for the US that they literally brutalized Indonesians who fought for independence until they were able to convince the US that they were anti-communist and then the US turned on the Dutch and threatened to pull all their redevelopment funding if they didn’t leave Indonesia. The US clearly was not above killing masses of people for its own selfish goals.
Ok. Back to Korea. So the US takes over for Imperial Japan and the Korean compradors start working with the racist, violent, rapacious, oppressive US occupation. The Koreans who wanted independence decided to fight a war of liberation against the occupier and that also meant a civil war against the Koreans who benefited from being vassals of the empire.
The US responded by literally bombing every single building they could find in the entire country above an imaginary line they had drawn and gotten the Soviets to concede to accept. The Koreans never accepted such a line, but like Yosemite Sam, the US decided that line was real. They then proceeded to drop napalm on the entire country north of the imaginary line and the Koreans living there had to live in caves because they had no buildings to hide in. The US killed over a million civilians, nearly 10% of the entire Korean nation.
The US then proceeded to tell everyone this was about democracy and freedom while establishing a military dictatorship to administer South Korea that ran for 40 years before the US finally allowed the South to have a democracy.
So yes, the Koreans in the North have a massive military defense set up to defend itself, and for good reason. It will not allow another rapacious genocidal invasion like the Japanese or the Americans ever again. The Koreans in the North have recovered from literally total devastation without any help from 90% of the world’s economic actors because after the US bombed them back to the stone age they then established a full trade blockade and would not allow anyone to trade with them at all, something that still stands today. That blockade is not punishment for recent actions, it is punishment for trying to exist independently of the US’s goals of total dominance and hegemony.
So when do we decide that the USA is a bad faith agent? Where is the line when we collectively agree that the US has never been trustworthy, has never been honest, has never been interested in peace nor liberty nor democracy, but has instead lied, cheated, murdered, and genocided with zero consequences for 250 years?
I think that line was crossed a long time ago, and I think the non-white world has collectively seen the US as a bad faith actor for a long time. Hopefully more of the EuroCentric world starts to see it, too, and comes to the defense of the victims before the US plunges all of us into a massive dark ages.
I’ll grant you all of what you said but I have to have an answer to a question: at what point is it legitimate for one figure to turn himself and his family in near demigods in order to take hold of a nation struggling against an invading foreign power and proceed to establish a totalitarian authoritarian regime that lasts to this day and whose acts of violence and brutal control onto the people are very well documented?
The US took their opportunity to take control of whatever was within reach. It was an obvious consequence. The nations of the world were on it’s knees, while the US were highly industrialized, militarily capable and economically strong. It was obviously a wrong thing to do but who had the means to oppose it? And the will, after a long war? Even more with the nuclear menace looming?
I don’t think the person is justifying a dictatorship regime, but giving background into the nations mindset.
A lot can be said if the people latched onto a “popular hero” to the point of near idolatry during decades of fear and isolation (and keep in mind, Koreans north and south are very superstitious and extra). Hell, the same can be said about Trump supporters.
It also seems like you’re normalizing the US’s expansionism by saying “yeah, it’s wrong, but what did we realistically expect?!”. So while you’re giving the benefit of the doubt there, you’re also not doing it for a population that’s actually been oppressed (internally and externally) for decades.
My main concern is the general population. I have nothing against north koreans but I seriously dislike North Korea as a totalitaria authoritarian regime.
I accept the information and background advanced but in no way it justifies why the regime brutalizes, today, their population, while heavily indoctrinating their citizens and keeping them fearful of any outside contact.
We have this tactic very well document and it was used during WW2 to develop an irrational fear towards the Ally troops. The regimes then did not wanted whatever survivors to try to surrender and reach peace; it wanted for everyone to die. Glory in death. That is the proceeding of a cult, not a culture.
Even if a popular hero was necessary at the beggining to raly the people and gain momentum to push back, it does not justify enshrinning such a person and have their power bestowed by proxy, indefinitely. NK is the only necrocracy on the planet. The original president is still the president; his descendents govern in his representation. The dead have no word or will.
Regarding the US action post war, I was stating what it was. End of WW2, the US is heavily industrialized, solvent, militarily capable and became a pivotal figure for the resolution of the war. The great majority of the world is in shambles and wanting to lick wounds and heal. The US take the opportunity to expand their reach and influence on every possible front. It is not correct, under any light, but it was a logical outcome and one nobody really had the power to deny.
Then we get the Cold War and what the world got was just a more or less open display of menaces. Nobody really wanted peace or made strives to achieve it. The USSR turned into a brutally repressive regime; Stalin had countless people killed because he could, out of paranoia. It was meant to establish a regime of terror and ciment uncontested power. China took to that same book and so many other nations. Why have they opted to brutalized their people at some point? What justified it?
I think my response to all this would be my initial response again.
Nobody justifying a despotic leader but explaining why a nation of people are on edge (and probably why they allowed a despotic leader) and yet you say how the US doing something wrong was understandable. I don’t know if you’re noticing the juxtaposition by saying it twice.
at what point is it legitimate for one figure to turn himself and his family in near demigods in order to take hold of a nation struggling against an invading foreign power
Is that what happened? Where did you get that information from? Was it from your direct experience living in North Korea? Perhaps you’ve read primary source materials written by North Koreans either inside North Korea or living in China or Russia? Because if what you’re telling me is that you believe this because the people that attacked Korea tell you it’s true, then I have to admit I don’t think you’ve got a firm enough grip on the situation to say that.
But even worse is that you don’t know what you’re comparing against. You’re comparing against the idealized “non-authoritarian” state of white middle class America and Western Europe. The better comparison would be South Korea. And South Korea was under a brutal totalitarian dictatorship for over 60% of the time that North Korea was, and South Korea is STILL an active US military base that runs regular simulations of literally invading North Korea with all of the materiel and soldiers needed to repeat history.
The Kims didn’t take hold of a struggling nation, they were literally leading a cadre of the people’s army. They were instrumental in the struggle for national liberation and then in the struggle for their survival against the genocidal Americans and then they were instrumental in the rebuilding of Korea and the securing of Korea against the dictatorship to the South that was hosting the brutal global war machine of the Americans.
Did the state use a cult of personality as part of their system of control? Absolutely. And we think it’s weird because we don’t think we do that. And yet, we teach all of our children that George Washington was a brave and noble fighter for the rights of people but never teach that he made his dentures by ripping teeth from the heads of his slaves. We teach all of our children that Thomas Jefferson was a leading architect of this great document to enshrine liberty for all men but we never teach that he ran literal rape farms, committed infanticide, raped his slaves as young as he could, and even kept a girl inside a sex hole in his bedroom, and even wanted to ban the transatlantic slave trade so this his “domestically produced” slaves would fetch higher prices. You are not immune from the charge of believing fanciful lies about people who committed acts of mass barbarism that not only do we still celebrate but literally have printed on the money we use every single day.
So at what point do we decide that the DPRK’s particular brand of personality cult delegitimizes them as a state? I would say only when you’d be willing to say that the US is an illegitimate that doesn’t deserve a standing army to protect itself.
proceed to establish a totalitarian authoritarian regime that lasts to this day and whose acts of violence and brutal control onto the people are very well documented?
Well, let’s see. The per-capita incarceration rate in the DRPK is estimated to be about the same as it is in the US. That’s an estimate because of course we have no documentation about it, and the estimate comes from satellite imagery, the testimony of exiles working with the West, and the standard magic pixie dust that Western NGOs use to make anti-Western state into a pariah. But even in thew worst estimates, the DPRK is only slightly worse than the US on prison rates, but the US has 2x as many people on parole as they do in prison, and parole is literally a condition of being actively monitored by police, often having your wages garnished by the state, etc.
I’m not aware of documented evidence of violent acts of control against the population by the DPRK. I’m aware of violent acts against prisoners, and they’re bad, but I’m not aware of the DPRK, for example, killing hundreds of people every year in police altercations, police riots beating hundreds or thousands of people, national guards firing into crowds of students, or bombing civilian fishing boats.
The DPRK established a state under siege. I don’t know if you’ve ever read through the history of sieges, but the point of a siege is to make the people in the city so desperate for food, water, medicine, and peace that they’re willing to kill their own leader and open the gates to the invading army. Under those conditions, the besieged state is managing violent threats from both the outside barbarians and its own people who crack under the pressure. Failure to neutralize the internal threat from the small percentage that would throw wide gates means the external threat comes in full force and kills the rest of your people. Is that kind and fair and just? No. Is that because the DPRK is a bad faith actor? No. It’s because the US literally decimated their population, poisoned their land, and then tried to starve them through a 70-year siege.
It was obviously a wrong thing to do but who had the means to oppose it? And the will, after a long war? Even more with the nuclear menace looming?
So you’re fine with saying that the US were barbaric genocidal maniacs and nuclear menaces with all of the power and the will to fight while everyone else in the world was really just seeking peace but you still think that the DPRK is the bad faith actor here?
Maybe talking it out will help you see the contradiction in your position. The US’s actions during and after WW2 are not irrelevant history that’s in the past that people should be able to just overcome now. It’s quite literally the living present and it informs every single conflict over the last 70 years.
Do you think The Taliban exist because Afghanistan just breeds backwards people? Do you think al-Qaeda exists because Islam is a bad religion? Do you think Kuwait exists because it’s a genuine nation-state that deserves autonomy? Do you think Iran has absolutely no reason to have a brutal repressive administration despite it being literally the only way it has been able to maintain its autonomy from the West over the last 200 years?
The DPRK is an incredible story of resistance, a literal beacon of hope in an otherwise dystopian doom spiral. They fought for their independence with a people’s army and were so thoroughly destroyed that by all rights they should have been defeated and dissolved, but instead they not only held their ground but they rebuilt their country from literal rubble to a modern state complete with indigenous food production, medicine, education, recreation, and a national defense strategy that has prevented any meddling from the West via overt or covert means, and very very few nations in the world can make that claim. And they did while only having 2 trading partners: China (who was literally the poorest country in the world for most of that time) and the USSR (who was also under total blockage by the US).
The Koreans in the North have, almost without peer, the most legitimate claim in the whole world to self defense and national integrity.
I do not care the least about american history and how it is taught in schools.
My own country had its gripe with US machinations, which resulted in the outbreak of several bloody wars because USSR was already doing ground work to create upheavel. The then fascist government opted to try and choke out the independence feelings and many died for that decision, leading to several present day countries being severely late to reach higher civilizational goals.
The same goals North Korea should be striving for instead of developing and maintaining the regime it currently has and will retain indefinitely unless a stroke of fate eliminates the “royal” family.
The rulling family and the better viewed are completely above the rest of the people, which they alledgely serve in order to achieve a strong and better nations. Kids get to be privately schooled in very expensive establishments in Switzerland Source: I have know people in the country working in “invisible” positions, the everybody pretends they are not there. Meanwhile, back in the home country, education is best akin to indoctrination.
Every country in the world teaches children under the most favourable light but only a few actively prevent them from learning more and go beyond what they were originally taught. North Korea is amongst this selected few.
And are we to just automatically discredit all NK defectors? The ONG’s are likewise untrusworthy? They are all collaborators? Poor choice of word; usually, it’s much easily used by the totalitarian side. The country also makes no effort to hide it is a closed nation. Tourism there is not a hot industry and many people going there, with no political afilliation, report the constraints they face while visiting. Close supervision, official guides, a lot of restricted areas, no pictures. People from my country have been there; we are not on the radar for bad PR. Funny as it may be, we still maintain our own communist party and they still get voted to parliament and get to criticize the slew of idiotic governments we’ve been having and push back on the rise of the far right nationalists. I’m supposed to not give credit to people I personally know?
Totalitarianism is totalitarianism. Doesn’t matter in which colour it dresses. Nobody can claim clean hands. The NK regime is barbaric and there are numerous evidences and testimonies on what that country is and how it functions.
The US took a while to take off the mask but they are no better; in fact, in my understanding they catching up on what the other brutal regimes have been doing for more nearly 80 years.
Denying the famines China inflicted on its population because of badly thought through policies is idiotic; the 70’s and 80’s were with those and are very well documented. Denying the brutality of the USSR is laughable. Denying the brutality of the NK regime is ludicrous.
If the goal of all of these regimes is to elevate the people, then do it. Venezuela had a golden opportunity and instead fell for a con artist that seized power from the previous lawfully elected president while witholding the information he was already deceased. The country was on a rising tick, with lawful elections, industrial development and quality of life improving. Then they get a smooth talking dictactor that took the country under the guise of socialism.
Turning back to the original point: NK is a bad faith actor. What is stopping them to reach out and strike open talks for peace? One side has to be bigger and reach forward. Why not them? Why keep an armed standoff that benefits nothing and no one besides a chosen few?
That’s a whole lot of victim blaming there.
As I said, DPRK is literally actively under siege. They face regular military drills from literally the largest and most powerful military in the entire world and you’re saying that by not allowing tourism without significant oppressive oversight they are somehow in the wrong? This is significant cognitive dissonance.
What is stopping them to reach out and strike open talks for peace?
Literally the fact that you think the USA is “dropping the mask” and “catching up to other brutal regimes”. DPRK has accurately assessed the USA behind the mask. They have a more accurate assessment than you clearly did.
One side has to be bigger and reach forward.
Are you serious right now? You think that a country that suffered over a million civilian casualties should “be the bigger” and try to make peace with a globe-spanning empire that has been continuously involved in regime change operations for 70 straight year and actively engaging in funding and supporting an ongoing genocide? Really? That’s your position?
Why keep an armed standoff that benefits nothing and no one besides a chosen few?
They are LITERALLY under an illegal collective punishment regime by the entire West. The West has been literally trying to starve and deprive their millions of citizens of life for decades continuously and unending and you are asking why they have to keep an armed standoff?
You’re going to have to work through this on your own and dismantle your deeply held beliefs about the world.
