How similar is North Korea to pre-invasion Iraq?

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The standard history that I've read is that the American high command didn't believe China would invade, despite intelligence to the contrary. US forces were too dispersed to resist. Add to that MacArthur throwing up his hands and abandoning his troops.

What I'm reading now is that NK is able to do business with certain banks and tech companies to obtain the necessary components for its arms program. That's how they brought Iran to the table, by closing all the doors.

But that would require Trump & Co. to focus. Not likely.

The military didn't think the Chinese would come across. If they did, however, the military brass didn't think they had sufficient fighting ability and could be handled easily.

If you've ever read Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, we did the same thing in Nam with regards to the NVA. The brass said they could easily handle them, I think the exact words were, "We'll Cav them," meaning we'll annihilate them with our air cavalry regiments. Unfortunately neither the NVA nor the Chinese cooperated with those plans.

 

[Horatio Parker]

The standard history that I've read is that the American high command didn't believe China would invade, despite intelligence to the contrary. US forces were too dispersed to resist. Add to that MacArthur throwing up his hands and abandoning his troops.

What I'm reading now is that NK is able to do business with certain banks and tech companies to obtain the necessary components for its arms program. That's how they brought Iran to the table, by closing all the doors.

But that would require Trump & Co. to focus. Not likely.

The military didn't think the Chinese would come across. If they did, however, the military brass didn't think they had sufficient fighting ability and could be handled easily.

If you've ever read Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, we did the same thing in Nam with regards to the NVA. The brass said they could easily handle them, I think the exact words were, "We'll Cav them," meaning we'll annihilate them with our air cavalry regiments. Unfortunately neither the NVA nor the Chinese cooperated with those plans.

We were more successful in Vietnam, but that the VC/NVA could launch Tet at all lost for the brass the public relations war.

At any rate, I don't know of any Vietnam era disaster comparable to the Yalu river.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Now Russia deploys troops to border with North Korea - what does this tell us about what's REALLY going on?

Russia doesn't want refugees.

 

[Will Wiley]

Now Russia deploys troops to border with North Korea - what does this tell us about what's REALLY going on?

Russia doesn't want refugees.

Russia doesn't want nuclear war.

Russians are afraid of war. Americans are not afraid of war.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Russia doesn't want refugees.

Russia doesn't want nuclear war.

Russians are afraid of war. Americans are not afraid of war.

Well they should have thought about that before helping a crazy person become POTUS.

 

[Will Wiley]

Russia doesn't want nuclear war.

Russians are afraid of war. Americans are not afraid of war.

Well they should have thought about that before helping a crazy person become POTUS.

The full saying goes.
Russia is afraid of war. America is not afraid of war.
Russia is prepared for war. America is not prepared for war.

Americans who work in banks and sit comfortably at home seem to think their wars are some kind of game. It's all very funny.

Russia had to defeat Hitler and lose tens of millions of people in the last great war. They know what it's really like. But it's not a game Harry

 

[Harry Bosch]

Well they should have thought about that before helping a crazy person become POTUS.

The full saying goes.
Russia is afraid of war. America is not afraid of war.
Russia is prepared for war. America is not prepared for war.

Americans who work in banks and sit comfortably at home seem to think their wars are some kind of game. It's all very funny.

Russia had to defeat Hitler and lose tens of millions of people in the last great war. They know what it's really like. But it's not a game Harry

I have no idea what you are talking about. Where am I laughing? I've got three kids of draft age and am very concerned. But it's your side that helped a crazy person with a dangerous agenda to POTUS. I voted against Trump. I helped raise money against him. I've gone to rallies to protest his crazy policies.

 

[bilby]

The full saying goes.
Russia is afraid of war. America is not afraid of war.
Russia is prepared for war. America is not prepared for war.

Americans who work in banks and sit comfortably at home seem to think their wars are some kind of game. It's all very funny.

Russia had to defeat Hitler and lose tens of millions of people in the last great war. They know what it's really like. But it's not a game Harry

I have no idea what you are talking about. Where am I laughing? I've got three kids of draft age and am very concerned. But it's your side that helped a crazy person with a dangerous agenda to POTUS. I voted against Trump. I helped raise money against him. I've gone to rallies to protest his crazy policies.

I don't see any mirth from anyone here - but there is a lack of understanding of what war actually means, if your greatest concern is your kids being drafted to fight.

Americans seem to have forgotten that wars don't only happen somewhere else. It's not just your kids who are at risk - it's you, your home, and your homeland. Indeed, being drafted might actually reduce the risk for your kids if war comes to America. Most wars since WWII have led to more civilian than military casualties.

Getting drafted is the least of your worries.

 

[bilby]

If we are looking to understand North Korea by analogy to another nation, then perhaps the closest parallel is with East Germany. Germany wasn't reunified by an American invasion of the Warsaw Pact (despite their posing a nuclear weapons threat to the USA that was far greater than any threat to America that the Norks could muster).

German reunification came from the East German people (and the people of the other Warsaw Pact nations outside the USSR) deciding that they had had enough of the 'jam tomorrow' bullshit of their ruling dictators, and that what they wanted was to go and visit their long-estranged families across the border, and come home with Levis, Toilet Paper, and a Mercedes Benz to replace their Trabant.

Korean reunification needs to come from the North Korean people; and to make that happen, the developed world (and in particular South Korea) need to get the truth about what life is like in the South into the public domain in the North. I am not sure quite how this can be achieved, unless Kim (or a successor) decides to take his boot off their throats for a few minutes; But if the USAF do decide to drop stuff on Pyongyang, the smart move would be for it to be food wrapped in Seoul newspapers dropped on the suburbs, rather than bomb-lets wrapped in cluster munitions dropped on the palaces. That is, if they want to achieve the strategic objective of freeing the North from tyranny, and not the far less valuable tactical objective of killing the North Korean military leadership and fucking their shit up.

Propaganda (even if true), designed to make them jealous of the lifestyle lived in the South, will probably backfire; But ordinary daily newspapers, with their treatment of minor luxuries as totally banal and commonplace, would have a huge impact. It worked in East Germany.

Of course, the idea of owning a car - even a total shitbox like a Trabant - would be unimaginable luxury to most North Koreans. So it really shouldn't be hard to persuade them that they are missing out. The real problem is to pitch low enough for them to find the claims believable.

 

[iolo]

If we are looking to understand North Korea by analogy to another nation, then perhaps the closest parallel is with East Germany. Germany wasn't reunified by an American invasion of the Warsaw Pact (despite their posing a nuclear weapons threat to the USA that was far greater than any threat to America that the Norks could muster).

German reunification came from the East German people (and the people of the other Warsaw Pact nations outside the USSR) deciding that they had had enough of the 'jam tomorrow' bullshit of their ruling dictators, and that what they wanted was to go and visit their long-estranged families across the border, and come home with Levis, Toilet Paper, and a Mercedes Benz to replace their Trabant.

Korean reunification needs to come from the North Korean people; and to make that happen, the developed world (and in particular South Korea) need to get the truth about what life is like in the South into the public domain in the North. I am not sure quite how this can be achieved, unless Kim (or a successor) decides to take his boot off their throats for a few minutes; But if the USAF do decide to drop stuff on Pyongyang, the smart move would be for it to be food wrapped in Seoul newspapers dropped on the suburbs, rather than bomb-lets wrapped in cluster munitions dropped on the palaces. That is, if they want to achieve the strategic objective of freeing the North from tyranny, and not the far less valuable tactical objective of killing the North Korean military leadership and fucking their shit up.

Propaganda (even if true), designed to make them jealous of the lifestyle lived in the South, will probably backfire; But ordinary daily newspapers, with their treatment of minor luxuries as totally banal and commonplace, would have a huge impact. It worked in East Germany.

Of course, the idea of owning a car - even a total shitbox like a Trabant - would be unimaginable luxury to most North Koreans. So it really shouldn't be hard to persuade them that they are missing out. The real problem is to pitch low enough for them to find the claims believable.

Buying the simpletons didn't win in Cuba, did it? And the Marshall Plan, in the long run, has completely buggered the UK. Back then my Father was preaching that we'd do better to tighten our belts and keep our self-respect, and he was right. Self-respect is the key.

 

[bilby]

If we are looking to understand North Korea by analogy to another nation, then perhaps the closest parallel is with East Germany. Germany wasn't reunified by an American invasion of the Warsaw Pact (despite their posing a nuclear weapons threat to the USA that was far greater than any threat to America that the Norks could muster).

German reunification came from the East German people (and the people of the other Warsaw Pact nations outside the USSR) deciding that they had had enough of the 'jam tomorrow' bullshit of their ruling dictators, and that what they wanted was to go and visit their long-estranged families across the border, and come home with Levis, Toilet Paper, and a Mercedes Benz to replace their Trabant.

Korean reunification needs to come from the North Korean people; and to make that happen, the developed world (and in particular South Korea) need to get the truth about what life is like in the South into the public domain in the North. I am not sure quite how this can be achieved, unless Kim (or a successor) decides to take his boot off their throats for a few minutes; But if the USAF do decide to drop stuff on Pyongyang, the smart move would be for it to be food wrapped in Seoul newspapers dropped on the suburbs, rather than bomb-lets wrapped in cluster munitions dropped on the palaces. That is, if they want to achieve the strategic objective of freeing the North from tyranny, and not the far less valuable tactical objective of killing the North Korean military leadership and fucking their shit up.

Propaganda (even if true), designed to make them jealous of the lifestyle lived in the South, will probably backfire; But ordinary daily newspapers, with their treatment of minor luxuries as totally banal and commonplace, would have a huge impact. It worked in East Germany.

Of course, the idea of owning a car - even a total shitbox like a Trabant - would be unimaginable luxury to most North Koreans. So it really shouldn't be hard to persuade them that they are missing out. The real problem is to pitch low enough for them to find the claims believable.

Buying the simpletons didn't win in Cuba, did it?

The US approach to Cuba was pretty much the exact opposite of what I am suggesting here.

And the Marshall Plan, in the long run, has completely buggered the UK. Back then my Father was preaching that we'd do better to tighten our belts and keep our self-respect, and he was right. Self-respect is the key.

The UK boomed after WWII.

Before Thatcherism and Blairism buggered everything up.

Self respect won't help you if your political choices are between dumb and dumber. Blaming this on a highly successful seventy year old policy of the USA is totally crazy.

 

[iolo]

Buying the simpletons didn't win in Cuba, did it?

The US approach to Cuba was pretty much the exact opposite of what I am suggesting here.

And the Marshall Plan, in the long run, has completely buggered the UK. Back then my Father was preaching that we'd do better to tighten our belts and keep our self-respect, and he was right. Self-respect is the key.

The UK boomed after WWII.

Before Thatcherism and Blairism buggered everything up.

Self respect won't help you if your political choices are between dumb and dumber. Blaming this on a highly successful seventy year old policy of the USA is totally crazy.

I was here. Self-respect would have been a much wiser choice.

 

[J842P]

The US approach to Cuba was pretty much the exact opposite of what I am suggesting here.

And the Marshall Plan, in the long run, has completely buggered the UK. Back then my Father was preaching that we'd do better to tighten our belts and keep our self-respect, and he was right. Self-respect is the key.

The UK boomed after WWII.

Before Thatcherism and Blairism buggered everything up.

Self respect won't help you if your political choices are between dumb and dumber. Blaming this on a highly successful seventy year old policy of the USA is totally crazy.

I was here. Self-respect would have been a much wiser choice.

I disagree. If anything, the UK needed a lesson in humility. A lot of current-day problems can be traced to it's slow-to-die Imperialist tendencies.

And don't get me wrong, I don't think the UK was some monstrous entity, relative to other world powers. Let me put it this way, as a Latin American, I could only *wish* we had been colonized by the British instead of the Spanish.

Of course, then the food would have been worse. But you can't win them all.

 

[iolo]

The US approach to Cuba was pretty much the exact opposite of what I am suggesting here.

And the Marshall Plan, in the long run, has completely buggered the UK. Back then my Father was preaching that we'd do better to tighten our belts and keep our self-respect, and he was right. Self-respect is the key.

The UK boomed after WWII.

Before Thatcherism and Blairism buggered everything up.

Self respect won't help you if your political choices are between dumb and dumber. Blaming this on a highly successful seventy year old policy of the USA is totally crazy.

I was here. Self-respect would have been a much wiser choice.

I disagree. If anything, the UK needed a lesson in humility. A lot of current-day problems can be traced to it's slow-to-die Imperialist tendencies.

And don't get me wrong, I don't think the UK was some monstrous entity, relative to other world powers. Let me put it this way, as a Latin American, I could only *wish* we had been colonized by the British instead of the Spanish.

Of course, then the food would have been worse. But you can't win them all.

Whereas the only thing you can say for the current UK is that the food is, in aggregate, about the best in the world. The people who, like my Father, opposed the Marshall plan were also very strongly opposed to any continuation of Empire, and those who supported it lacked any self-respect whatever - like all racists they had so little that they had desperately claim superiority to some other group. And bilby, I began a poem once with 'It was in the early 'fifties tedium knew its finest hours -/You could feel the great world shrinking, feel the way life's pulses slowed/as the heroes and the heroines consumed consumer goods'. It was a dreadful time, and led directly to the even more dreadful movements you mention, as people forgot what life was about and went in for buying bangelums and suchlike capitalist trash to show off to the Joneses.

 

[blastula]

Entire U.S. Senate to go to White House for North Korea briefing | Reuters

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Iraq under Sadam Hussein was a nation under the thumb of a dictator. So is North Korea today. Both seem(ed) to me to be content to keep to themselves, harming really only their own people. The invasion of Iraq and killing of Sadam arguably opened Iraq up and created a considerably worse problem for other nations in the area, and for terrorism against the west. Would an invasion and displacement of North Korea on Trump's order do the same there?

I think the comparison is as valid as comparing it to WWI.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The US approach to Cuba was pretty much the exact opposite of what I am suggesting here.

Something you need to understand about Cuba: Castro wanted the embargo to continue. It provided a convenient excuse for the failures of the Cuban economy. If we moved to warm relations he would move to cool them. That's why things only got better once he died.

 

[untermensche]

The US approach to Cuba was pretty much the exact opposite of what I am suggesting here.

Something you need to understand about Cuba: Castro wanted the embargo to continue. It provided a convenient excuse for the failures of the Cuban economy. If we moved to warm relations he would move to cool them. That's why things only got better once he died.

No.

When Castro first took power he came to the US. He wanted friendship and trade.

The US told him he could be friends if US corporations could continue to exploit the people of Cuba.

Castro refused.

The illegal embargo began.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Something you need to understand about Cuba: Castro wanted the embargo to continue. It provided a convenient excuse for the failures of the Cuban economy. If we moved to warm relations he would move to cool them. That's why things only got better once he died.

No.

When Castro first took power he came to the US. He wanted friendship and trade.

The US told him he could be friends if US corporations could continue to exploit the people of Cuba.

Castro refused.

The illegal embargo began.

What Castro wanted was to steal and yet remain friends.

 

[ZiprHead]

No.

When Castro first took power he came to the US. He wanted friendship and trade.

The US told him he could be friends if US corporations could continue to exploit the people of Cuba.

Castro refused.

The illegal embargo began.

What Castro wanted was to steal and yet remain friends.

When has the US ever been bothered by foreign leaders who want to steal?