I believe we should give them all the food they need! With one single proviso - WE DISTRIBUTE IT!.

I don't care to feed any adults until all the children are fed! Including the unrecognized orphans.

If you dont send food then eventually the people will get sick of it and rise up. Then we wouldnt have to do the dirty work of getting them out. I say dont send them a damn thing.

They seem to have plenty of money for freakin' land mines. How about parting with a few bucks and feeding your people?

A big problem with food aid (especially things like grain and rice) is that it tends to destroy the local grain industry by severely lowering prices. This is a big problem in Afghanistan, where farmers are growing poppies instead of wheat.

I think North Korea needs to use their aid (if the actually cared of course) to develop agricultural programs and provide subsidies, so we don't have to hear about how they are out of rice every four months. Instead, they could create a stable and sufficient agricultural industry to feed themselves.

Originally posted by mybigunit
If you don't send food then eventually the people will get sick of it and rise up. Then we wouldn't have to do the dirty work of getting them out. I say don't send them a damn thing.

No they wont. This is a totalitarian state and 'the people' are barely even aware they are the 'people'. Indoctrination and population control are at a completely different level there. I emphasize completely.

Once they open up to the world they´re going to be like time-travellers entering a brand new space. Many of them dont even know what internet is.

Starve them out. No more aid of any kind for these rouge oppressive ganglands and regimes and their complacent citizens/prisoners. Maybe an empty stomach will motivate their people to rise up and do something to help free themselves. The humane thing to do would be to consider this a hostage situation and bomb the heck out that regime like we did in Afghanistan and Iraq and others yet to be invaded, and NOT to support them with any further AID.

Originally posted by Divinorumus
Starve them out. No more aid of any kind for these rouge oppressive ganglands and regimes and their complacent citizens/prisoners. Maybe an empty stomach will motivate their people to rise up and do something to help free themselves. The humane thing to do would be to consider this a hostage situation and bomb the heck out that regime like we did in Afghanistan and Iraq and others yet to be invaded, and NOT to support them with any further AID.

That is a ludicrous statement. Iraq and especially Afghanistan have both received more aid since their respective invasions than they saw in the periods before. In fact, food aid is one of the main reasons why Afghan farmers are choosing to grow drugs (poppies) instead of food (wheat), as food aid drives down the price and demand for grain in local markets.

A balanced shift from a reliance on food aid, towards stable domestic agricultural industry, is the best way to ensure a country can feed itself.

There is also the liberalized trade route, but I don't think NK has a strong enough comparative advantage over anyone in anything to do this, especially considering how staunchly protectionist the current regime really is.

Honestly it's none of our concern. Until we can say there is no such thing as a malnourished or impoverished American child we've got our own issues to deal with and should not be providing aid to anyone outside the borders of the USA.

Originally posted by burdman30ott6
Honestly it's none of our concern. Until we can say there is no such thing as a malnourished or impoverished American child we've got our own issues to deal with and should not be providing aid to anyone outside the borders of the USA.

Amen I couldnt of said it better myself. You have to clean your own back yard before you can talk about others.

I would not resist a consensus to deny North Korea the aid its requesting, there is no denial that we too have much suffering to address right here.

I also would not resist a movement to aid them... unless the aid takes the form of anything other than food, and is given in any way other than directly to those who hunger, I've had enough of our government leaders 'pretending' to help other people.