North Korea - how serious should we take them?

[Yipper]

hidetheelephants said:

Yipper said:

As above, North Korea happily fed 2m soldiers in the Korean War 70 years ago. Russia fed 10m soldiers in WW2 75 years ago. It's been done before and can be done again for 9m. Typical Western or foreigner arrogance to think little North Korea could not pull it off.

No they didn't; if Russia fielded more than a couple of million in front line operations at any one time I'd be surprised, as the red army headcount peaked at about 6.5m in 1945. I imagine the russians had as much trouble keeping them fed as Eisenhower did the allies in western europe, tying up upwards of 5 divisions of men solely driving trucks and operating trains, and all with the benefit of virtual air supremacy. North Korea did not happily feed anyone, the Chinese held their hand and supplied the muscle.

It's hard to feed squaddies in the field when any logistical unit larger than a bicycle gets blown to perdition as soon as it moves; any NK army in the field will starve to death because of air interdiction of their logistics.

Yipper said:

As above, China is a communist country. North Korea is an ultra-communist country and millions of Chinese love them for it.

There are half-a-million US, UK and India soldiers within 6hrs of China. There are zero China soldiers within 6hrs of the US. China is, and feels, surrounded.

They aren't but if they insist on manifesting a persecution complex they're going to have to deal with it themselves. Millions of Chinese love Hello Kitty, but aren't about to lay down their lives for her.

Red Army peaked at 10m and they won the war. It's been done before and can be done again.

China is, and feels, surrounded by the West. Both in real terms (half-million soldiers) and perception (dozens of foreign ships in the South China Sea).

[Yipper]

mybrainhurts said:

Yipper said:

s3fella said:

I have a feeling this story about the women being stooges in a "TV prank show" is actually what happened. It would explain the LOL shirt and also it seems they had done the same "prank" with water on three other guys.

Sort of genius if the hit squad used innocent stooges like this. And if it was done by Kim Jong Il, it's actually pretty clever (if somewhat evil).

Hate to say it, but it does look kinda genius. Trick two naive stooges to do the act for you.

Video footage of the event emerged yesterday. A woman rushes up behind him and smears something on his face. All over in <3secs. He seems normal for the first several minutes, but then dies 5-30mins later. Some nasty, slow-acting poison. Horrific way to go.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/20/nort...

If she didn't know what she was doing, she wouldn't have been careful with the substance, so how did she not suffer ill effects?

Having watched the full 5min leaked video, it does look like a very professional hit. The "TV prank" may just be a ruse to throw investigators temporarily off the scent or mitigate a lesser sentence.

A spotter (woman 1) stands in front of him as the marker / distractor. An attacker (woman 2) carries out the hit in 2.3secs (according to Japanese TV). They exit the same familiar way they entered. Both split up and leave in completely opposite directions. The poison is inactive for at least 2-5mins, meaning there is no immediate chaos, giving the attackers a better chance (in theory) to escape. The poison has a "delay switch" and is very unlikely to be easily available commercially, even in the pesticide etc. business. Get in quick with a very rare poison without ill effects to people nearby and split up fast is a sign of knowledgeable training, not a TV stunt.

Having said that, the two women got caught almost immediately. So perhaps it was not all that professional and they really did think it was for TV. Curiouser and curiouser.

Full 5min leaked CCTV footage before, during and after the event here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v...

Edited by Yipper on Monday 20th February 19:20

[hidetheelephants]

Yipper said:

Red Army peaked at 10m and they won the war. It's been done before and can be done again.

China is, and feels, surrounded by the West. Both in real terms (half-million soldiers) and perception (dozens of foreign ships in the South China Sea).

There were nothing like 10m Russians engaged in europe, and there's plenty of testimony to the fact units went without food or supplies on a regular basis, particularly in winter.

Ships in international water? Just because it's called the South China Sea does not make it their property. They are not surrounded, they're just paranoid middle-kingdom obsessed loonies.

[MartG]

[Laurel Green]

[jmorgan]

Body snatchers tried to get brothers body.

[mybrainhurts]

jmorgan said:

Body snatchers tried to get brothers body.

Kimmy Pieboy must be hungry. No coal from China, no ovens for bakey pie.

[Cobnapint]

NK now blaming Malaysia for the death and disregarding international law by not releasing the body.

You couldn't make it up.

[mybrainhurts]

Cobnapint said:

You couldn't make it up.

Kimmy baby could...throw another uncle to the dogs and say ooops.

[Dan_1981]

Vx. Pleasent.

Call in Stanley Goodspeed

[Henners]

Dan_1981 said:

Vx. Pleasent.

Call in Stanley Goodspeed

It seemed to take less for us to go into Iraq...

[AshBurrows]

Is that a banned agent these days? Brutal stuff.
Assume it's grounds for war using something like that on foreign soil?

[Badgerboy]

AshBurrows said:

Is that a banned agent these days? Brutal stuff.
Assume it's grounds for war using something like that on foreign soil?

It's classified as a weapon of mass destruction, so one country deploying it on the soil of another in this manner is rather bold/foolish.

[Henners]

Dan_1981 said:

Vx. Pleasent.

Call in Stanley Goodspeed

Also...


GREEN SMOKE!

[Cobnapint]

Wow....They use VX in South Korean game shows...?

Hard core man, hard core.

[Vocal Minority]

Yipper said:

.

North Korea is "pure" communism. Which many Chinese respect (rightly or wrongly). They are, in many ways, kindred spirits.

North Korea and China trade a lot of coal and other materials. They have long been economic partners.

I think you are right in most of your post - but I would suggest that NK aren't really pure communism - N Korean communism is its own thing, very different to China's weird rudimentary free market communism!

It's closest relative we'd understand in the west is probably Stalinism. They rely heavily on the cult of personality and military force. The lynch pin of their power is keeping the population good and scared of the outside world, and then portraying the Kims as the only thing between them and this monstrous abyss.

It taps into Confucian traditions heavily, especially paternal gratitude - which is why they talk about all the Kim's do for Korea - its to foster the innate sense that to rise against them would be dishonourably ungrateful


Also - the reason that the country is starving and their are rolling black outs is the logistics of feeding the army.

So it is plausible they could keep it fed, as it is done at the expense of all else.

However - do we know how fit trained and healthy they are past the ones they let us see...

Edited by Vocal Minority on Friday 24th February 08:50

[KTF]

Dan_1981 said:

Vx. Pleasent.

Call in Stanley Goodspeed

Glass or plastic?

[KTF]

If it was VX, how would the person be able to have it on a cloth, hold it over his face and then escape without being exposed to it themselves?

[Sway]

KTF said:

If it was VX, how would the person be able to have it on a cloth, hold it over his face and then escape without being exposed to it themselves?

Cause fembots...

[hairykrishna]

KTF said:

If it was VX, how would the person be able to have it on a cloth, hold it over his face and then escape without being exposed to it themselves?

Gloves? It has a pretty low vapor pressure (if Wikipedia is to be believed), so doesn't easily evaporate, it's just getting the liquid on your skin that kills you.