Robert Fulford writes about that other nuclear nutcase, Kim Jong-Il:
Kim Jong-il’s taste runs to teenagers and his concubines are considered old when they reach their early 20s. … Kim Jong-il is known as a fellow who “sleeps in the afternoon, parties at night, and has affairs with actresses.” At least in that regard he’s emulating the film producers of the West, whom he envies.
“Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty.” is the best book written regarding the DPRK. It’s everything you don’t want to know about the Kim regime.
At least Kim Jong Il doesn’t murder “food testers” like Saddam Hussein used to…
Bush has given this blood soaked twinkie a free ride…even after his threats to nuke the US….why?
The time is 7:53 in the middle of a dark, black hell…
http://ashesoftyranny.blogspot.com/2006/03/green-clock-in-middle-of-dark.html
Geez, what would one have to be taking to have a tryst with Little Kimmie?
He needs a frozen toed boot to the butt, knock him off his high heeled booties and read him the Riot Act.
How long can we safely let him defiantly test his big boomers?
“Bush has given this blood soaked twinkie a free ride…even after his threats to nuke the US….why?”
Because China wouldn’t put up with any nonsense from the Americans in their own backyard.
Someone should write a book about Dictators & there propensity for harems some day.
That said. How the Hell has the US State Department or “intelligence” agencies at home & a broad allow this mutation to reach this surreal a level with nukes, in this human lobotomy of collectivist guinea pigs, run by an eccentric ego maniac?
“Because China wouldn’t put up with any nonsense from the Americans in their own backyard.”
China also wouldn’t put up with any nonsense from the North Koreans either. America has no real worries about Kim.
“Because China wouldn’t put up with any nonsense from the Americans in their own backyard.”
China, that wonderful country of enlightened communism? That woderful country that imprisons and kills dissenters? Ohh, that China……
I guess China will become the new moral compass for Iberia and his ilk…..just as long as China continues to use its muscle to (encourage) the US from meddling in its back yard.
China …… what a bastion of freedom and democracy!
The award for the weirdest Korean Central “News” Agency report of 2006, won easily by this:
http://ashesoftyranny.blogspot.com/2006/02/beyond-farcical.html
When radical socialist lefty appologist voices from Canada tell America, that they have nothing to worry about, it’s time to start worrying.
“China, that wonderful country of enlightened communism? That woderful country that imprisons and kills dissenters? Ohh, that China……”
Yeah, China is so bad that the US has to buy $240 billion a year worth of goods from them. Talk about “moral compass.”
Iberia – economic trade and moral infrastructure are two different things and you know that. Furthermore, you don’t encourage and enable the latter by restricting the former. Developing an economic network leads to a shared moral network.
Why should the Americans move into N. Korea? Kim is constrained within the disastrous results of his economic destruction of N. Korea. And S. Korea would be seriously harmed in a war. Furthermore, China certainly doesn’t want any war – carried out by the US or itself, in N. Korea, because it doesn’t want to deal with the massive immigration of N. Koreans into China. It has enough troubles with such illegal migrations already.
So, China won’t put up with any nonsense from N. Korea – because of that immigration problem.
Your intense hatred of the Americans is your problem,and that makes it difficult for you to evaluate realistically.
ET:
I don’t hate the Americans – gov’t or people. Where are you getting that from? I was just commenting on why the US isn’t about to invade N. Korea, then I got accused of being a supporter of China, etc.
Funny you should write this – “economic trade and moral infrastructure are two different things and you know that. Furthermore, you don’t encourage and enable the latter by restricting the former. Developing an economic network leads to a shared moral network.”
I wonder why it doesn’t apply to Cuba as well?
There’s a real dummy at work who was trying to tell me that Kim Jong-il is doing what he’s doing because of the US supporting South Korea in the Korean war.
This guy blames the US for everything. He states that all of Cuba’s problems come from the US embargo. Imagine that! List the embargo and voila!!! No more problems in Cuba.
I’ve decided that talking to him about politics is a waste of time.
I believe it was the liberals that complained that Stephen Harper should not bring up human rights issues when there is trade involved with China. there was nary a dissenting voice with the MSM.
Don’t get too smug – until you read this Globe & Mail poll…
“Those big city sophisticates sure do live out there on the bleeding edge…
of total and irretrievable insanity.”
Iberia – with regard to your question about Cuba, I think that’s a different situation. It is a dictatorship and capitalism is not allowed. Its economy was kept afloat by massive Soviet Union support but with the loss of this support, Cuba has been unable to develop a viable economy. Why do so many attempt to leave? It isn’t the US embargo that is the problem; it’s the loss of the Soviet Union financial aid and the fact that Cuba is a dictatorship that rejects private entrepreneurship and capitalism.
China, on the other hand, may be politically communist but it is not a dictatorship and it is economically strongly and increasingly capitalist. This capitalism is changing the government structure ‘from the bottom up’ or, the economic process is changing the political structure. That can’t happen in Cuba, as long as there is a one-man dictatorship. Cuba is in a real mess.
ET, “China is NOT a dictatorship”???
One might ask if that statement is correct of Chinese people who have had the temerity to try to exercise freedom of speech on the Internet, or elsewhere…or ask people such as Chinese Christians or Falun Gong followers who have tried to exercise freedom of religion.
Or perhaps go to the cemeteries where the Tienanmen Square massacre victims are buried and invoke their ghosts to ask them if “China is not a dictatorship”.
ET:
I think if Cuba didn’t have that silly economic embargo against it, it would also start becoming more democratic.
Attn WL Mackenzie Redux, Liz J, Iberia re what the US is doing about North Korea:
Think “multilateral intelligence, economic, financial and other measures”. The US, Japan, South Korea and other allies are exerting very successful efforts on a global basis to squeeze shut the windpipe of the North Korean dictatorship.
The excellent site Strategy Page, at http://www.strategypage.com, has more than one very informative article on the topic of North Korea. I quote an excerpt from their article “Going for the Gold”:
“The United States has gotten North Korea’s attention, and in an unexpected way. By telling the world’s banks that they will be cut off from access to the U.S. banking system if they do business with North Korea, the North Koreans suddenly find that many of their criminal activities are much more difficult, if not impossible, to carry out.”
[North Korea’s three primary sources of hard currency are: counterfeiting US currency; growing and selling narcotics on the international market; selling missile and nuclear technology to people who, for the peace of the world, shouldn’t have either. To a great extent, the success of all three of these require access to the international banking/financial system to lubricate this system.]
“…The American plan was accompanied by U.S. government officials giving a compelling presentation detailing North Korean crimes, and abuse of the international banking system. This convinced all the major international banks that it was not worth the trouble, and risk, to do business with the North Koreans. As a result, North Korea has put regaining access to the banking system at the top of its list of demands.
“The U.S. has told North Korea that, if the nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs are shut down, along with the drug dealing and counterfeiting, American banking restrictions would be lifted. The North Koreans are fuming over that, and are getting desperate, as can be seen in the attempt to sell their gold reserves…
“The gold is the North Korean emergency reserve, and when it is being sold, it means the north is out of options.”
Strategy Page quotes a $25 billion estimate of the size of North Korea’s bullion reserves.
What the United States and Allies are doing is working very hard, with great success as noted above, to bring about the collapse of the North Korean regime WITHOUT igniting a Second Korean War.
(On a peripheral note: IMO, one of the reasons this multilateral effort is working is because the UN is NOT involved.)
In my opinion, US is not going after NK, militarily, for two reasons. They believe NK not really serious and can be deterred.
NK can be deterred because China is deterrable, as a comparison of their nuclear capabilities with US makes clear:
http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=nd03norris (China 120 warheads); and
http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=mj03norris (US way more warheads)
Obviously, China could do catastrophic damage, but are deterred by overwhelming capability of US, and even Russia.
Clearly not nice situation, but neither was Cold War and mutually assured destruction, but many argue it stopped us from destroying each other.
Iran is far more dangerous issue. Israel will do everything it can to prevent proliferation, with nasty results for everyone. It is not clear either than Iran can be deterred, especially given their paranoid mouthpiece, Amadmanjihad.
Maybe US knows Kim Jong-il is a pipsqueak, trying to look tough while begging for foreign aid.
Maybe GWB thinks AESEAN should talk to this guy and see what he really wants. They have maintained this position, however inconsistently of late.
I think if Cuba didn’t have that silly economic embargo against it, it would also start becoming more democratic.
I have said for years that the best thing the US could do about Cuba is to unilaterally drop all sanctions and invite them into NAFTA. This is Castro’s nightmare scenario. I don’t think he could have maintained his grip on absolute power in the face of those forces.
That said, Cuba’s problem is not the embargo, it’s their insane communist system. After all they are free to trade with the rest of the world, and that hasn’t seemed to help anyone but the hookers at the beach resorts.
For anyone truly interested in conditions in North Korea, the most amazing piece of literature I’ve read on it so far is this travelogue written by an American citizen living in South Korea. He had the opportunity to travel to North Korea, and has documented the experience in detail. It’s a very long article for a website, however, once I started reading I just couldn’t stop.
Here’s an excerpt from his visit to the the Kim Jong-il shrine:
“The next room contained more gifts from the South, including a Hyundai Grandeur donated by the former chairman of Hyundai (whose family is originally from the North). Mr. Huk asked me if I had ever seen one of these cars during my time in the South. When I said, “sure, my neighbor has one just like it,” he gave me another one of his ‘you have to be lying’ looks. How could such a great gift, a gift implying so much respect, belong to some normal person like my neighbor? This was obviously a car reserved for the elite, capitalist oppressors, not some common car for the masses. When I told him I wished the chairman had given away a lot more so there’d be less traffic in the South he got fed up with my obvious lies, gave me a disgusted look and moved on to talk to someone else.”
The article is truly an eye opener, while being interesting and amusing at the same time. It’s definitely near the top of my “suggested reading list” for everyone.
Dave – that’s right. China is not a dictatorship. It’s a communist country, whose communism is dissolving from within, because its economy is moving out of a communist (state run) mode and into capitalism (private run).
Yes, censorship is a problem, but, it’s becoming less, as the Internet is simply not amenable to censoring. Close down one internet site and the owner can set up another.
Falun Gong is a cult. (Do you also agree, wit the Falun Gong, that the earth was populated by aliens?)
Tienanmen Square was ten years ago. China is not the same.
Dave- also, thanks for the outline on N. Korea. Very very informative. I agree – the UN involvement would ruin the whole project.
Iberia – no, the real problem in Cuba is its dictatorship and communism. It requires private enterprise.
And Alex – thanks. Neat post.
re Cuba and embargo. Fiscal year 2004. Estimated Cuban food imports of 900 million dollars U.S. Imports of food from the U.S. 440 million dollars. The U.S. is the largest exporter of food to Cuba. Landing at an airport in Cuba, examine the equipment on the tarmac. American made.
ET:
“…the real problem in Cuba is its dictatorship and communism. It requires private enterprise.”
Come on ET, your’e going in circles. Dictatorship and communism are not unknown in China.
Presumably the imputation is that Iran is the other nuclear nutcase.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Iran is located in a nasty corner of the world; the Americans are at best treacherous friends (or rather, the US Executive+Congress are treacherous friends); and Iran was on the receiving end of Iraqi missiles some twenty-odd years ago. The Iranians have every reason to want nukes, as fast as they can get them.
Yes, the clever Dr. Ahmadinejad is a millenarian. That does not make him insane. He probably has as much reason to expect the return of the 12th Imam as we do for many of our religious beliefs. Indeed we Christians do look forward to the return of Christ (it is in the Nicene Creed, after all), though I don’t suppose many of us think it proper to attempt to speed up the process.
The two factors (nukes well justified by considerations of Realpolitik+millenarian beliefs) togther make Iran extremely dangerous for us, and indeed for the presumed majority of Iranians who do not want to depart this world in the near future. It is neither true nor useful to present the Iranian leadership as insane.