Comments on: Pyongyang’s Priorities http://pollack.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/2648/pyongyangs-priorities an ACW Network site Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:28:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Sascha LHX http://pollack.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/2648/pyongyangs-priorities#comment-920 Sascha LHX Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:33:27 +0000 http://armscontrolwonk.com/?p=2648#comment-920 It seems I have put 3 extra zeros in my previous comment! this is what happens when you leave a comment at 3am !!! LOL but I guess the point was made. It seems I have put 3 extra zeros in my previous comment! this is what happens when you leave a comment at 3am !!! LOL but I guess the point was made.

]]> By: Azr@el http://pollack.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/2648/pyongyangs-priorities#comment-919 Azr@el Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:10:58 +0000 http://armscontrolwonk.com/?p=2648#comment-919 The DPRK are bad, they’ve starved their ‘own’ people due to adherence to a cult version of communism and their quest for a nuclear deterrent. We on the other hand, civilized folk that we are, just slaughter ‘other’ peoples to ensure our access to resources. And for the record our defense bill is considerably higher than half a trillion, we just like the PRC cook the books. In our case we slide expenditures such as retirement pay/benefits, Dual use R&D, paramilitary forces and war debt over to the civilian side of the ledger. Aren’t we clever, that way our military budget only looks like 20-30% of the Federal Budget as opposed to ~49%. The reason no one is in the mood for the melodramatic ‘Kim is bad, we’re good’ spiel is that we’ve reached that point as a nation where cynical apathy is the only response to the call of rah rah, save for Palin’s tea baggers perhaps; why must fascist lice with their ‘easy fixes’ always cling to the carcass of democracy…hmmmph. Thanks to the net we know fully, each and everyone interested in knowing, the butchers bill for our ‘enlightened’ policies. We’re no longer brash and ruddy Rome, now we’re transitioning to weary defensive Byzantium, eager to conserve our strengths, fight a tad bit wiser and most definitely not drain ourselves emotionally tilting at windmills. No one is making excuses for the DPRK, unfortunately no longer is anyone making excuses for us either. The DPRK are bad, they’ve starved their ‘own’ people due to adherence to a cult version of communism and their quest for a nuclear deterrent. We on the other hand, civilized folk that we are, just slaughter ‘other’ peoples to ensure our access to resources. And for the record our defense bill is considerably higher than half a trillion, we just like the PRC cook the books. In our case we slide expenditures such as retirement pay/benefits, Dual use R&D, paramilitary forces and war debt over to the civilian side of the ledger. Aren’t we clever, that way our military budget only looks like 20-30% of the Federal Budget as opposed to ~49%.

The reason no one is in the mood for the melodramatic ‘Kim is bad, we’re good’ spiel is that we’ve reached that point as a nation where cynical apathy is the only response to the call of rah rah, save for Palin’s tea baggers perhaps; why must fascist lice with their ‘easy fixes’ always cling to the carcass of democracy…hmmmph. Thanks to the net we know fully, each and everyone interested in knowing, the butchers bill for our ‘enlightened’ policies.

We’re no longer brash and ruddy Rome, now we’re transitioning to weary defensive Byzantium, eager to conserve our strengths, fight a tad bit wiser and most definitely not drain ourselves emotionally tilting at windmills. No one is making excuses for the DPRK, unfortunately no longer is anyone making excuses for us either.

]]> By: don http://pollack.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/2648/pyongyangs-priorities#comment-918 don Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:40:46 +0000 http://armscontrolwonk.com/?p=2648#comment-918 Yes, hard to throw rocks when we live in a glass house here in the USA…funny they call the NKs ‘communist’, sounds like Jong Il is being quite the little capitalist…good business is where you find it, etc…doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking of course. Yes, hard to throw rocks when we live in a glass house here in the USA…funny they call the NKs ‘communist’, sounds like Jong Il is being quite the little capitalist…good business is where you find it, etc…doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking of course.

]]> By: Josh http://pollack.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/2648/pyongyangs-priorities#comment-917 Josh Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:30:43 +0000 http://armscontrolwonk.com/?p=2648#comment-917 I don’t know what’s more amazing — that the arms export company of the “Democratic People’s Republic” uses large quantities of rice as packing material when most of its people rarely get the privilege of eating rice, or that there’s anyone out there who’s prepared to defend it, minimize it, wave it away. Reflecting on the same <em>Nodong Sinmun</em> item referenced by Andrei Lankov, Aidan Foster-Carter <a href="http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/10015FosterCarter.html#sect2" rel="nofollow">recently wrote</a>: <blockquote> …Kim said: “What I should do now is feed the world’s greatest people with rice and let them eat their fill of bread and noodles. Let us all honour the oath we made before the Leader and help our people feed themselves without having to know broken rice [an inferior version]”. Given Kim Jong-il’s own notoriety as gourmet and gourmand, his professed “compassion” for his less fortunate subjects’ deprivation may induce queasiness. Yet even this not-quite-apology glosses over the truth. Broken rice? They should be so lucky. As readers of Barbara Demick’s excellent and heartbreaking new book <em>Nothing to Envy</em> will know, rice of any kind – whole or broken – is a rare luxury for most North Koreans. In the late 1990s a million or so starved to death; even today most remain malnourished. One refugee who fled to China saw her first rice in years in the first house she came to – in a dog’s bowl. That is the true reality. Worse, all this was and is avoidable: the result of stupid and vicious policies, not the natural disasters that the regime blames…. </blockquote> Read <a href="http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/10015FosterCarter.html#sect2" rel="nofollow">the whole thing</a>. Janet: Thanks for pointing out the caption and photo credit. I’ll add those to the post. I don’t know what’s more amazing — that the arms export company of the “Democratic People’s Republic” uses large quantities of rice as packing material when most of its people rarely get the privilege of eating rice, or that there’s anyone out there who’s prepared to defend it, minimize it, wave it away.

Reflecting on the same Nodong Sinmun item referenced by Andrei Lankov, Aidan Foster-Carter recently wrote:

…Kim said: “What I should do now is feed the world’s greatest people with rice and let them eat their fill of bread and noodles. Let us all honour the oath we made before the Leader and help our people feed themselves without having to know broken rice [an inferior version]”.
Given Kim Jong-il’s own notoriety as gourmet and gourmand, his professed “compassion” for his less fortunate subjects’ deprivation may induce queasiness. Yet even this not-quite-apology glosses over the truth. Broken rice? They should be so lucky. As readers of Barbara Demick’s excellent and heartbreaking new book Nothing to Envy will know, rice of any kind – whole or broken – is a rare luxury for most North Koreans. In the late 1990s a million or so starved to death; even today most remain malnourished. One refugee who fled to China saw her first rice in years in the first house she came to – in a dog’s bowl. That is the true reality.
Worse, all this was and is avoidable: the result of stupid and vicious policies, not the natural disasters that the regime blames….

Read the whole thing.

Janet:

Thanks for pointing out the caption and photo credit. I’ll add those to the post.

]]> By: Sascha LHX http://pollack.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/2648/pyongyangs-priorities#comment-916 Sascha LHX Sat, 06 Mar 2010 01:30:53 +0000 http://armscontrolwonk.com/?p=2648#comment-916 Let’s not politicize this website; Joshua if you want to talk about “priorities” then US should explain its own DoD military budget of $533.8 billion (yes that is 533.800.000.000.000 dollars) never-mind all that money they threw to Banks while they decide to cut funds for higher educations, and I don’t even want to talk about “tent cities” … Let’s not politicize this website; Joshua if you want to talk about “priorities” then US should explain its own DoD military budget of $533.8 billion (yes that is 533.800.000.000.000 dollars) never-mind all that money they threw to Banks while they decide to cut funds for higher educations, and I don’t even want to talk about “tent cities” …

]]> By: Janet M. Simons http://pollack.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/2648/pyongyangs-priorities#comment-915 Janet M. Simons Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:04:11 +0000 http://armscontrolwonk.com/?p=2648#comment-915 For those of you who do not click through to the World Food Programme site, the caption of the photo is: Malnourished children awaiting treatment at a hospital in Sariwon City (North Hwanghae Province) on 18 February 2009. Photo: WFP/Lena Savelli For those of you who do not click through to the World Food Programme site, the caption of the photo is:

Malnourished children awaiting treatment at a hospital in Sariwon City (North Hwanghae Province) on 18 February 2009. Photo: WFP/Lena Savelli

]]> By: Azr@el http://pollack.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/2648/pyongyangs-priorities#comment-914 Azr@el Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:14:24 +0000 http://armscontrolwonk.com/?p=2648#comment-914 Yes the DPRK are evil and don’t care for the welfare of their children….unlike enlightened states such as: http://www.hss.energy.gov/healthsafety/OHRE/roadmap/achre/chap7_1.html Let’s leave the black and white propaganda buried with the wmd’s in mesopotamia. Yes the DPRK are evil and don’t care for the welfare of their children….unlike enlightened states such as:

http://www.hss.energy.gov/healthsafety/OHRE/roadmap/achre/chap7_1.html

Let’s leave the black and white propaganda buried with the wmd’s in mesopotamia.

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