UN: New Aid, Better PR Campaign, for North Korea

UN: New Aid, Better PR Campaign, for North Korea

www.foxnews.com

Even as the world struggles to find workable ways to constrain North Korea’s expanding nuclear weapons program and unpredictable belligerence, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is planning how to channel new streams of aid and development money to the dangerous regime.

Ban, the former foreign minister of South Korea, wants to engage more deeply in confidence-building measures to reassure a skeptical world of the positive impact of engaging North Korea peacefully.

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I just don't understand this at all. Why does the UN think that the answer to this problem is by rewarding North Korea? How can this not give North Korea incentive to do this again? This truly boggles my mind, and yet I am not surprised at the same time. This also shows Iran what it needs to do if it wants more aid.

www.foxnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Endure


Because North Korea have been sanctioned to the depths and the country is near starvation. They need imports, but at the same time cannot show the weakness which is to succumb to the west's intentions which are to de-nuclearize North Korea.

They've shown they won't budge and this is probably a small win on their part to shake the U.N into realising the sanctions will not work.

The UN should say this to North Korea: goto hell until you actually try to work with the rest of the world instead of buying up all the uranium and sunglasses you can. If you don't stop buying terrible sunglasses, we will bomb you. Oh you have a few nukes? Go ahead and fire them. See what happens.China would not defend a nuclear war. China would offer troops to take your regime down. No sane country would support you. Not even Iran. North Korea is the boondocks and will always be until it starts acting like a real country instead of a teenager rebelling against its parents.

reply to post by Endure


i agree this is not helpful in curbing NK's dissenting behavior. i disagree though that Iran has anything to gain from this type of policy. NK is purely a military and geopolitical threat, whereas the Iran debacle contains much more tangible value than simple political or social disruption. Iran can do little good or bad to readjust itself for better or worse under the scrutiny of international public opinion that fixedly condemns everything about it. NK is poor and stubborn and desperate, but Iran is rich and stubborn and unperturbed. NK needs while Iran desires, and the opposing parties to both of these entities are not willing to negotiate or compromise unless the accord essentially tramples upon either one of Iran's or NK's long standing political principles. both are looking down the barrel of a gun right now, yet both safe behind an iron wall. precarious situation to say the least.

Mr. Ban Ki-moon
Secretary General
United Nations

Re: North Korea, gift baskets and other pleasantries

Dear Mr. Ban Ki-moon:


Are you nuts? Seriously. Have you lost your friggin’ mind.

We know North Korea has been sanctioned to the gills but we also know those sanctions were not put in place because . . . well . . . somebody just woke up one day and said, “Hey, lets starve a few million people just for the hell of it.”

Obviously there are reasons why they’ve been given an economic ‘time out’. So, instead of rewarding their clearly mentally failing pudge pot leader, and carrying on a similar fate at the hands of the aforementioned feeble-minded dolt’s offspring, why not deal with the damn problem instead of making it all touchy-feely nicey-nicey with the hopes they won’t pull the same crap the next time they want to get away with something.

Just askin’,


Sincerely

Mr. G. Poster

These people have a classic appeasement mentality, institutionalized in both cases. It stems from a complex set of curcumstances I can't do justice to in a short post, but here are a few pieces of the puzzle.

South Korea has a deeply rooted psychological complex about its relationship with America. On one hand, it recognizes the necessity of US military presence and the rewards in terms of material prosperity and living standard that have been reaped through open markets and concourse with the West. On the other hand, it naturally galls them as citizens of a sovereign nation to be occupied by another nation's forces, to see their women pawed at drunkenly in the streets by soldiers, and so on. And the indignity of actually having to depend on the US is deeply humilating for the Koreans, a proud nationality that managed to keep its identity and autonomy for thousands of years despite their hungrier, more powerful "big brothers" of China and Japan. Some of this frustration irrationally manifests as a twisted idealism of the Northern regeme. There is a feeling among some South Koreans that the North is more "purely Korean" in some way because it stands alone and is not "corrupted" by the Yankee Imperialist. THis is foolish, self-indulgent romanticism only possible in a nation developed enough to support idle speculation and idealism, but it is nonetheless a real sentiment that rumbles through the national subconscious.

The UN is utterly and viscerally opposed to use of decisive force by any Western or classically "imperialist" nation upon another nation that is less developed or somehow more pitiable. This is reflective of the many member-state's historical experiences under the thumb of imperialism and even current resource issues to a great extent. So folr them, the narrative is instantly: "Big Bad USA and pals comes down on Poor, Helpless, Starving North Korea. Support the Underdog!" No critical thinking; only the application of a crude algorithm-like formula.

edit on 11/24/10 by silent thunder because: (no reason given)

the gov't of north korea and its oppressed, indoctrinated, starving citizens are two different things, the UN understands that.

reply to post by piddles


But they don't seem to understand that the cause of those people being poor and oppressed is the damn government.

If they bend to keep the masses warm and fuzzy, they're pandering to the government that put them there, thus teaching the country as a whole that if you act badly enough, eventually you will be rewarded.

I have a way better idea.

Let's stop threatening to fight them, stop attacking their ability to feed themselves, and end PR campaigns against them and treat them like they're humans too. Then maybe they wouldn't find it necessary to shell island villages.

reply to post by Endure


I'm disappointed you use Fox news as factual source. Do you have any other links?