North Korea - how serious should we take them?
Discussion
pc.iow said:
With a machine gun apparently. Messy
Years ago I read an interview in the Sunday Times, with an executioner from some place where they used machine guns to do it. He spoke about them trying to use exactly the right number of rounds to ensure a quick death. I seem to recall it was 7. Missing the target with any was deemed cruel. He seemed to focus on the technicalities of it and getting them right. The outcome was just what it was. His job was to be accurate and not wasteful, and then home to wife and kids.Munter said:
Years ago I read an interview in the Sunday Times, with an executioner from some place where they used machine guns to do it. He spoke about them trying to use exactly the right number of rounds to ensure a quick death. I seem to recall it was 7. Missing the target with any was deemed cruel. He seemed to focus on the technicalities of it and getting them right. The outcome was just what it was. His job was to be accurate and not wasteful, and then home to wife and kids.
Nice to see someone taking pride in their work.....pc.iow said:
With a machine gun apparently. Messy
Surely there are better ways than that!All Pie Boy needs to do is use a bit of imagination, get himself a fluffy white and he's away...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7hgPwyQUTc
By the way to those who aren't familiar with NK, Jang Song Thaek was in charge of the secret police and the running of the atrocious concentration camps in the north of the country. That he shuffled off by way of machine gun and not Hague trial leaves a somewhat bitter taste.
k. In many ways that's more dangerous than DPRK is.
Anyone interested in North Korea really should take a look at One Free Korea , it's a brilliant site and very accessible.
smegmore said:
I can't help feeling that Fatboy's days are numbered if he's bumping off members of his own family. He can only stay in power with the nod of the army top brass and they must be getting a bit twitchy methinks.
There's certainly a bit of a power struggle going on, and I think people are really starting to ask "when". The biggest question is what you do when it collapses, with the Chinese at the top and the Americans at the bottom it would be an almighty clusterfk. In many ways that's more dangerous than DPRK is.Anyone interested in North Korea really should take a look at One Free Korea , it's a brilliant site and very accessible.
greygoose said:
Nice to see someone taking pride in their work.....
It was in Thailand I recal the interview the guy was quite human about it 7 rounds in an around the heart quick death no messy face for the family to see etc and then home. He said the people he executed had been tried and it was the courts who found them guilty he just did his job.In NK the courts do what fat boy wants this week and then something else the next, my bet is NK will collapse not because of samctions or a a revolt but BookFace. with people able to access it near the boarder word spreads that there is a better world out there more people know that the less likely they are to clap and cheer every time fat boy is on tv. Sooner or later the Army will say enough and then the regim will collapse and we will have a berlin wall moment.
Badgerboy said:
We saw what re-unification did to the West German economy, imagine what a Korean one would do to the South.
I'd imagine they would be quite happy to keep the DMZ as is for quite a while.
There is ambivalence on the part of SK about this. To defect, the obvious route was across the shallow Tumen river & straight off to the SK embassy. That has been stopped by Chinese pressure so defectors now have to head to Mongolia in a much more treacherous journey. Once they have, they are flown to Seoul, detained for debriefing for a period of weeks to months, then set up in apartments with a small amount of money & helped with finding work. Many find it hard to adjust & fit in & there is evidence of discrimination against NK defectors. Multiply this by millions and it's entirely uncharted territory for Seoul.I'd imagine they would be quite happy to keep the DMZ as is for quite a while.
North Korea's physical size is about the size of England. Let's say there are around 200k - 250k people held in these camps; this is roughly the same population as Milton Keynes / Southampton / Portsmouth to name a few.
Imagine having every single person working in dire conditions and being abused with a lot of them being killed on a daily basis; many of them are there there through association or even born into this hell. This is not to mention the other countless millions that aren't in camps but are brainwashed and intimidated to not speak up.
People have been saying that DPRK will collapse when Kim-Jong Il was in power, especially when there was wide spread famine in the 90s but it didn't. The whole world made a few news stories and carried on as normal - this is the same world that apparently united against the cruel world that the Nazi's created with their concentration camps. After WW2 speaches quoting things like "never should the world see such atrocities again" were mentioned yet here we are conveniently ignoring it.
I would love nothing more than to see North Korea collapse, but I honestly don't think it will any time soon; it's set up so the outside cannot get in and until that changes people will continue to live like this. I'm surprised a leading general or something hasn't just sacrificed themselves, walked up to the 'supreme leader' and just blown eachothers heads off -it'll take something like that to shock the world into doing something.
Imagine having every single person working in dire conditions and being abused with a lot of them being killed on a daily basis; many of them are there there through association or even born into this hell. This is not to mention the other countless millions that aren't in camps but are brainwashed and intimidated to not speak up.
People have been saying that DPRK will collapse when Kim-Jong Il was in power, especially when there was wide spread famine in the 90s but it didn't. The whole world made a few news stories and carried on as normal - this is the same world that apparently united against the cruel world that the Nazi's created with their concentration camps. After WW2 speaches quoting things like "never should the world see such atrocities again" were mentioned yet here we are conveniently ignoring it.
I would love nothing more than to see North Korea collapse, but I honestly don't think it will any time soon; it's set up so the outside cannot get in and until that changes people will continue to live like this. I'm surprised a leading general or something hasn't just sacrificed themselves, walked up to the 'supreme leader' and just blown eachothers heads off -it'll take something like that to shock the world into doing something.
Anubis said:
I would love nothing more than to see North Korea collapse, but I honestly don't think it will any time soon; it's set up so the outside cannot get in and until that changes people will continue to live like this. I'm surprised a leading general or something hasn't just sacrificed themselves, walked up to the 'supreme leader' and just blown eachothers heads off -it'll take something like that to shock the world into doing something.
There is plenty to aid collapse from the outside that the West can do, but it's not. Collapse from within won't happen without severe destabilization of the leadership, which we are seeing an interesting amount of. What is notable about the purges is not necessarily the quantity, but the fact we're hearing about them. Such transparency and glimpses of instability in the power structure rarely happened under Kim Jong-Il. From the blog I linked earlier: "What we’re seeing now looks a lot like my best guess about what the earliest stages of North Korea’s collapse would look like."
Must read on the logistics of DPRK collapse: http://freekorea.us/2013/09/27/rands-study-of-n-ko...
hmmm...you have an interesting point there storminnorman. 
The 'supreme leader' or whatever he decides to call himself has rolled the dice by killing his uncle. It could go one of two ways; either he starts picking off family members and everyone around him starts rushing for power trying to get rid of him OR they think "crikey, best keep my mouth shut" in which case fat boy stays top dog.
The fact news is coming out could be purely because he is younger and having lived in western countries knows that mass communication can be used to your advantage as well as your own demise. Telling the whole nation you killed someone so powerful sends a message to millions - you challenge me and you're gone (you've seen what i can do).
Personally I think the second option will play out as you'd be an idiot to start killing off fellow powerful family members. He's obviously had time to gather evidence before pulling the trigger on this one which means he has reliable informers and people around him willing to carry out deeds. Until that changes, he will still be in control and have power.
Hurry up rogue officer and shoot him! That'll give a shock to the whole eastern region and really will kick off a huge power struggle.
The 'supreme leader' or whatever he decides to call himself has rolled the dice by killing his uncle. It could go one of two ways; either he starts picking off family members and everyone around him starts rushing for power trying to get rid of him OR they think "crikey, best keep my mouth shut" in which case fat boy stays top dog.
The fact news is coming out could be purely because he is younger and having lived in western countries knows that mass communication can be used to your advantage as well as your own demise. Telling the whole nation you killed someone so powerful sends a message to millions - you challenge me and you're gone (you've seen what i can do).
Personally I think the second option will play out as you'd be an idiot to start killing off fellow powerful family members. He's obviously had time to gather evidence before pulling the trigger on this one which means he has reliable informers and people around him willing to carry out deeds. Until that changes, he will still be in control and have power.
Hurry up rogue officer and shoot him! That'll give a shock to the whole eastern region and really will kick off a huge power struggle.
Edited by Anubis on Friday 13th December 12:57
Magog said:
If one wanted to destabilise North Korea and topple the regime I would have thought now was a very good opportunity. I wonder if there are some telephone calls going on between China and the USA.
From memory the reason China have not put the boot in is they don't want millions of refugees coming over the border in the event of melt down so are happy to get cheap labour and resources etc and turn a blind eye to millions starving.China not so long ago was not that far from the regim in place in NK, they are changing but its not perfect and thoes at the top while enjoying the fuits of change do not want the billion or so poor in china (not many can actually afford a Lambo) putting them up agaist a wall like Fat boy does with his enimies.
Bookface, tinternet, 24hour media etc, t
tter etc might all be derided in the west time to time but they have made the world a much more transparent place. The Arab spring shows you can't hold people down forever Syria today is a regime collapsing in the worst way but collapse it will. Same will happen in NK but could be 20 years from now.fat boy should hopefully be the last supreamleader and will come to a sticky end. Shame really he had chance to make changes like China but seems to have choosen to be like his dad
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