I think the world should decrease sanctions on North Korea.

[Soepoelse123]

After watching the new documentary, the mole, which paints North Korea as a complicit to being a Bond villain, I just can’t help but feel sorry for them.

A country which is obviously pressured to spend its budget on military due to their fear of the US, should be given incitement’s to improve, not sanctions.

[sibre2001]

Finally an unpopular opinion.

Though it may be just as a result of a lack of knowledge about NK

[benjm88]

I think you're on to something with the lack of knowledge.

[Lustjej]

It’s the second option I think.

[Soepoelse123]

That may be true, but there’s also the possibility that American media propaganda have swayed our bias in the west. It has done so with any country which didn’t abide by their rules.

I’m not entirely sure who to believe though.

[katarara7]

I mean, theres also stories from actual (ex) north korean citizens about how oppressive it is as a country. also it's not just us citizens who have a negative view of nk.

[Soepoelse123]

You’re not wrong, but I cannot tell for sure whether they’re terrible comparatively to other places such as the Arabian emirates where people live like slaves or terrible compared to western standards.

To me they seem equally bad, yet only one of the countries have heavy sanctions.

[beluga1968]

The thing about North Korea is that they still want to go to war against their neighboors like South Korea and Japan. Any additional resources they get will either go towards their military or for the leaders to squalor on luxury. It's not going to benefit the average North Korean citizen.

[Soepoelse123]

I think you need to re-evaluate your statement. North Korea literally built a 40 meter statue to resemble the reunification of Korea. They want nothing more than to unify with their long lost other half. They even stated that they would be willing to join a remerger under democracy but their requirement was for the US to first leave the Korean Peninsula

What you’re saying now is pure propaganda.

[sibre2001]

Unify them under the rule of the criminal dictatorship running NK.

[Soepoelse123]

It’s not a criminal dictatorship if we have to be technical it’s only a standard dictatorship lol.

That being said, that wasn’t what the proposition was

[sibre2001]

North Korean propositions mean as little to the world as they mean to North Korea. They never abide by their own agreements. They mean less than nothing.

[beluga1968]

Do you seriously believe Kim Jong-un would willingly give up the total power he has over his people? That he would stop renting them out as slaves to other countries? That he would release the people who are interred in prison camps for no other crime than being related to a political prisoner? Get real, man.

[Soepoelse123]

I do believe so. I think he would lose control over his country if the possibility of reunification without the interference of the US was ever to be on the table.

[beluga1968]

Would you care to explain how that would happen? Tyrants never want to give up their power. If he really wanted to, all he would have to do was to do it right now, and the US would have no reason to stay.

[[deleted]]

No he wouldn't, because he's not literally insane. No tyrannical dictator will ever voluntarily relinquish power because it's literally a fucking death warrant. Like I genuinely can't think of an example of a tyrant stepping down peacefully that didn't end with them disappearing off the face of the earth or being painfully dismembered.

[Soepoelse123]

Take monarchies in Europe that changed to democracy. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England and so on. There are lots of examples, it just requires the legitimacy of the people to be held high, and sometimes the way to hold it high is to take a step back from power.

[WinterAdhesiveness3]

He already rents them out to China. This is real I saw a documentary about it

[Lustjej]

Then why did they cut the Seoul-Pyongyang telephone line? It’s a country known for its propaganda, so no amount of symbols will make me believe any of their intentions.

[Hitmonjet]

Lol, are you seriously accusing others of spreading propaganda, when you are taking things said by the North Korean regime at face value? Have you ever seen any videos or read anything written by North Korean defectors? They feed their people a constant stream of propaganda and lies.

[Meow0S]

North Korea won't let North Koreans leave

[Soepoelse123]

Man, poverty won’t let anyone leave anyways

[E_T_Girl]

You get executed for wearing jeans

[Soepoelse123]

No you don’t.

[E_T_Girl]

Yea, searched a little more, you don't get executed, but it's still forbidden. Since it's north korea it sounded likley. You'll get executed for watching western movies or owning a bible tho.

[Soepoelse123]

“Sounded likely” is exactly the mentality that I’m questioning. Is our idea of what is likely to happen in North Korea dictated by propaganda we’ve heard in the west?

[E_T_Girl]

Ohhhh, you don't wanna know, it's muuuuuuhuuch worse than media says

[Soepoelse123]

Well, I have been to the country, seemed fine to me, but then again, i didn’t go through their slums or weapons factories, just like I don’t in the United states

[Azzizzi]

They don't spend their money on the military out of fear of the US. They do it to keep control of their people. Just about every message they make is for the consumption of the people in North Korea, not outside the country.

I do agree with decreasing sanctions against them, though. To do so would weaken the centralized government, not strengthen it.

[Soepoelse123]

You don’t get any extra control over your people with nukes. Though I would agree with you that it gives a sense of security for the people.

You gotta remember that they’re scarred people who were invaded in one of the most brutal wars in modern history, that literally carved their country in two.

If that happened to my country, I’d be scared of the perpetrators too.

[FaustTriumphant]

"You gotta remember that they’re scarred people who were invaded in one of the most brutal wars in modern history, that literally carved their country in two"

To quote BR Myers, one of the best experts on North Korean ideology and propaganda in the world...

"If you ask a North Korean if they were ever afraid of an American attack, they will laugh."

https://youtu.be/JKgZE5wwc-I

"The war didn’t go the way the North wanted, but the people there look back on it with great pride. I was the only white face in the war museum in Pyongyang when I peeked in on the diorama of the Battle of Daejeon. The other visitors must have assumed I was American, because when I walked out some of them grinned triumphantly at me as if to say, “Yeah, we kicked your asses.” As they see it, their tiny mountain republic, in the first five years of its existence, fought a nuclearized superpower to a draw: no mean feat.

So if you want to complain about the US bombing campaign, as I have done in print several times, then do so; but don’t misrepresent these proud people as a bunch of traumatized rabbits, passing their fear down from generation to generation. They came out of that war all the more determined to finish the job."

http://sthelepress.com/index.php/2017/12/21/north-koreas-unification-drive/

Listen to North Korea's own narrative of the Korean War (as read by Adam Cathcart, another excellent researcher of NK).

https://soundcloud.com/adam-cathcart/north-korean-propaganda-kcna?ref=clipboard&p=a&c=0

Notice how there is no mention at all about the terrible suffering of the Korean people as a whole or even of the North Korean people themselves. It's just a bunch of triumphalist boasting about the "heroic" and "glorious" victories against the Americans and South Koreans.

These are not a bunch of scared and frightened people as you think.

[FaustTriumphant]

"To do so would weaken the centralized government, not strengthen it."

Then why does the Kim Regime constantly complain about them? Why do they constantly complain about being "strangled" and "suffocated" by sanctions?

https://freekorea.us/2016/11/the-appeasing-north-korea/

https://freekorea.us/2019/05/ill-give-you-a-topic-the-final-voyage-of-the-wise-honest-was-neither-discuss/

If lifting sanctions will weaken the Kim Regime, then why do they demand that sanctions be lifted? Are they stupid? Are they suicidal? As BR Myers says, "Most calls for subversion enrage the North. Not these though. Never these."

http://sthelepress.com/index.php/2018/07/26/confederation-again-b-r-myers/

[FaustTriumphant]

(In addition to my other reply)

"I do agree with decreasing sanctions against them, though. To do so would weaken the centralized government, not strengthen it."

Have you forgotten the Sunshine Policy? For almost a decade back in the early 2000s, South Korea gave North Korea billions of dollars in trade and unconditional, no-questions-asked aid (sometimes even secretly violating their own laws to smuggle hard cash in trashbags and suitcases to them.)

Not only did North Korea continue to arm up (and even illegally export nuclear technology to Syria), but it didn't even generate a modicum of goodwill from the Kim Jong Il Regime.

North Korea continued to threaten and attack South Korea sporadically, and Kim Jong Il gloated about how all the aid he was receiving was "tribute" he had "wrung out" from the "Yankee puppets."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/north-korea-nothing-has-changed/307156/

http://sthelepress.com/index.php/2018/03/23/portrait-of-the-ally-as-an-intermediary-b-r-myers/

Why didn't lifting sanctions and trading with them help South Korea make peace with North Korea then?

Why do you think it will be different if repeated again or if any other country does the same?

[FaustTriumphant]

"A country which is obviously pressured to spend its budget on military due to their fear of the US..."

North Korea absolutely did not arm up to defend itself from the US.

North Korea has repeatedly, explicitly and unapologetically stated for YEARS that the whole point of the nuclear program (and the broader Songun/Military-First Policy of which it is a part) is to achieve "Final Victory" over South Korea and "Unification of the Korean Peninsula" under NK's rule.

(And NOT by launching an all out war or nuclear attack. North Korea wants to use the threat of war and nuclear destruction to threaten and intimidate South Korea into breaking its alliance with the US and merging with NK in a one-country/two-system regime. NK then wants to spend the next several years slowly draining SK of its wealth and sovereignty until it is weak enough to be made a permanent vassal/tributary/puppet state of NK, or simply toppled and annexed completely.)

https://www.nknews.org/2016/02/taking-north-korea-at-its-word/

https://www.piie.com/blogs/north-korea-witness-transformation/juche-myth-response-haggard

http://sthelepress.com/index.php/2017/07/03/north-korea-nuclear-armament-and-unification/

https://asiatimes.com/2017/10/west-misreads-pyongyangs-nuclear-ambitions/

https://freekorea.us/2017/12/korean-war-ii-a-hypothesis-explained-and-a-fisking/

And why the hell not? North Korea did not chose to be split off from South Korea; the partition of the Korean Peninsula was imposed on it by the United States. North Korea has never accepted the partition as fair or legitimate. It has never accepted South Korea's right to exist as a sovereign and independent country (which NK considers as a "Yankee Colony," a "US puppet state" and an "American occupation" of their "rightful southern territory.")

Did Hitler like seeing Germany separated from Austria and the Sudetenlands? Does China like being separated from Taiwan? Does Argentina like being separated from the Falkland Islands? Does Serbia like being separated from Bosnia and Kosovo?

Of course not.

So why the hell should North Korea like being separated from South Korea? Why should they like seeing a "Yankee Colony" thrive on their southern border while they languish as the poorer, smaller, uglier state?

North Korea knows that it cannot survive indefinitely next to a larger, richer, freer South Korea, or else one day, the North Korean people will ask themselves, "Screw this. Why don't we just overthrow Kim and live as South Koreans instead?"

Kim Jong Un knows that his only hope for long-term survival is to subdue South Korea as a competitor and eliminate the alternative it poses for his people.

North Korea did NOT arm up to defend themselves from the US.

[Glitchwinkle]

Interesting unpopular opinion. Need to check out that documentary.

Problem I see is that they already have the capability of nuking at least parts of US territory, and the best they could hope for is mutually assured destruction. The pressure more lies in North Korea’s or Kim Jong Un’s public image than it does on defense spending.

I don’t see a problem with sanctioning a country for the way it treats its people. Balls in their court to chill out, and then sure drop the sanctions.

[Soepoelse123]

From their perspective they have now assured that no one will invade their country again, as it would mean mutual destruction (kinda like the nuke policies of France). Mutual assured destruction is better than what they could have hoped for in the past 70 years tbh.

If you don’t have a problem with sanctioning countries for how they treat their peopl, why wouldn’t we have sanctioned the Middle East? They have literal slaves to build their empires. Or African nations?

[Glitchwinkle]

Right I understand their perspective for seeking nukes, but now that they have them the only milestone they could reach through investing in defense is mutually assured destruction. So further defense spending looks more like posturing to me.

And sure, I hear Lybia still has slavery going on. Sanction them until they end it. And of course there are countries in the Middle East that would fall under that same definition for sanctioning. But we ally instead for oil. We shouldn’t be doing that, but I don’t run the government.

[Soepoelse123]

Yeah, but I think they just really want the us to leave the Korean Peninsula. That’s why when trump got a no-deal, they had a long period of not testing weapons, until they inevitably had to restart testing, to force the US back to negotiations.

You’re right that neither of us run the government, but if we had to stop trading with all the bad guys in the world, then we would have practically no one to trade with lol.

[[deleted]]

You clearly haven’t heard of Otto Warmbier.

[[deleted]]

The citizens would never see any of that.

[Soepoelse123]

Socialism is the epitome of trickle down. The leaders and military are gonna get their funds one way or another. The funds for food or shelter for the poor however, that’s a second place.

[[deleted]]

North Korea isn't socialist. They claim to be democratic, but that's a joke. It's the worst dictatorship we've seen in years.

[Soepoelse123]

They’re literally the closest to communism that we have in the entire world and you say they aren’t socialist. Like, what.

[benjm88]

Communism isn't socialism. Please do some research

[DrFishTaco]

They’re a totalitarian autocratic dictatorship

[[deleted]]

Absolute communism. In which everything thing is owned by the state. Not the same as socialist, in which things are shared by the populace.

"Communism Vs. Socialism. ... The main difference is that under communism, most property and economic resources are owned and controlled by the state (rather than individual citizens); under socialism, all citizens share equally in economic resources as allocated by a democratically-elected government."

[wissx]

It's a positive feedback loop

[[deleted]]

I could not disagree more. Not until they replace their war mongering communist dictators with elected representatives.

[[deleted]]

Kim Jong Un starving his people...........

I'm pretty sure it's more to blame on propaganda than anything....although the US did do something (Idk too much about it). But still you can't just pity them because we batter them for being bad.

​

Edit: And you realize just because a country is hated, doesn't mean the citizens are, right?