By GI Korea on May 23rd, 2010 at 10:28 am

Al Jazeera Report On the Current North Korea Crisis

• Tom Langley
  3:29 am on May 24th, 2010 1

  This was a good and informative report as GI Korea stated. Coming from Al Jazeera I am surprised. I think that Kim Jong-Il really stepped on his richard this time. I believe that the SK have had it and that the pressure is going to be ramped up. The policy of appeasement never works, it didn't work with Hitler, it didn't work with the USSR, it's not working with Iran, & it most certainly won't work with NK. I pray to God that there won't be war but it's looking more & more likely I'm afraid. People may hate Bush but he was certainly right when he called NK a part of the axis of evil. The world & certainly Korea will be better off when this psychotic communist feudal regime finally collapses.

• Leon LaPorte
  8:47 am on May 24th, 2010 2

  Al Jazeera seems to be less anti-US than CNN.

• Anonymous
  10:31 am on May 24th, 2010 3

  "(Doing) a decent job" is why Al Jazeera got big, as far as I understand. In an environment without independent media and with all mass media being mouthpieces of either whatever local regime funds them or, in the case of Alhurra, the United States, it doesn't take much to stand above the rest. And with most Arabs not being Qataris, they are likely to prefer an outlet that's not critical of Qatar over one that's not critical of their (i.e. the consumers') own countries.

• Anonymous
  10:33 am on May 24th, 2010 4

  @Tom Langley:

  Calling NK communist is an insult to Marx.

• Tom Langley
  4:00 pm on May 24th, 2010 5

  If Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels could have known about Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, & Kim Il-Sung & the murderous regimes that these evil men would establish I believe they would have taken the Communist Manifesto & burned it. More people have died as a result of Communism than any other philosophy in the history of civilization. My wife lived through Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. Communism was supposed to end all class distinctions. Since this is a blog on Korea we have to remember that in the north Kim Il-Sung founded the regime, his SON Kim Jong-Il took over after his death in 1994, & rumor has it that Kim Jong-Il's 3rd son is in line to take over the family business, i.e. North Korea when he kicks off.

• bdiego
  11:18 am on May 25th, 2010 6

  Marx believed a military dictatorship was a necessity in order to achieve communism. He simply believed it was the lesser evil. So let's not get carried away here.

• KoreaTeacher
  11:59 am on May 25th, 2010 7

  You are not very well-informed. The most destructive philosophy is Social-Darwinism which led to 8 million deaths during the Irish potato famine, millions of deaths in World War I, tens of millions of deaths in World War II, etc. Also, it was the United States that caused the Pol Pot regime (by ousting King Shihanouk and replacing him with a dictator). It was also the United States that helped the Khmer Rouge keep the UN seat long after they had been ousted by the COMMUNIST Vietnamese and their COMMUNIST Cambodian allies. Actually the Communists were fighting the Khmer Rouge throughout the 1980s while the United States and China helped the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge were not Communists but nationalistic fascists who had a racial hatred against the Vietnamese.

• Tom Langley
  2:01 pm on May 25th, 2010 8

  If you would do some research you would find that Mao killed 60 million, Stalin killed at least 20 million, Pol Pot killed 1.7-2 million, Kim Il-Sung killed 1.6 million, etc. The total is believed to be something like 110 million people. You are correct about America's shameful dance with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia which was done for geopolitical reasons in the struggle against the USSR. Sihanouk was overthrown because he gave sanctuary to the North Vietnamese & the Vietcong during the Vietnam war who were killing our troops. Many Cambodian Communist did desert the KR to help the Vietnamese invasion but the KR were originally trained by the Vietnamese Communist. The evacuation of cities that happened under the KR is directly from the Communist Manifesto which stated that the population disparity between urban & rural areas should be equally distributed. If you really don't think the Khmer Rouge(it means Red Cambodians) were Communist then please ask my wife, she lived through that COMMUNIST holocaust.

• Hamilton
  4:27 pm on May 25th, 2010 9

  Wow, again the KoreanTeacher shows an astounding lack of research or logic skills.

  First, by the most agreed upon numbers approximately 1 million, not 8 million were killed by the famine. I suppose someone who rates NoGunRi as a massacre without any bodies can be excused from basic math. Another million immigrated contributing to the rich Irish Culture enjoyed in the US.

  Second Social Darwinism was not a philosphy known by the people of Ireland although they did have a destructive absentee aristocracy which you mistake it for. Small plots equalled high rents which made farming very difficult to sustain.

  Third, the famine was directly caused by the forementioned unproductive plots, over reliance on a single crop the potato, and several potato blights which wiped out at least one entire crop.

  Crack a book for a second before you spout off your uneducated crap, I shudder for your students.

• Tom Langley
  4:42 pm on May 25th, 2010 10

  Oh yeah, let's not get carried away here. There are 6.5 billion people in the world, 110 million are only a drop in the bucket.

• Anonymous
  9:44 pm on May 25th, 2010 11

  I've been thinking about this for a few days now and I think this is a defining moment in South Korean history. The South has been more than forthcoming with the North for over a decade now. Too many times the South has turned a blind eye to the North. The attack in Rangoon, the bombing of the airliner, the murder of the lady in Kumgang; all these events were handled with great restraint. I think one of the prime factors governing the response from the South was the percieved threat a more aggressive response would have on the economy of the South. The reaction of the markets to the Souths announcement of the findings of the investigation are indicative of the fears the South holds. But my sense is that things are different now, that the current administration really means what it says to the North and I don't think they will back down. You can only bully someone for so long, eventually they are going to stand up to the bully.

  I agree and firmly believe that the North has really miscalculated the response from the South and the rest of the world. Only China is calling for restraint, but I believe that they will be more swayed by public opinion than any historical support for the North. At some point in time China is going to have to make a clear decision on where they stand.

  I finally went to China for the first time this year after over 10 years in Korea. There really is no connection between the government and the economy from what I can tell. The government clearly is communist but the economy is purely market based it seemed to me. China stands to suffer a great deal if they hold firm with the North, and I don't think they want that.

  I think the Notorious KJI has lost his high cover!

• Anonymous
  10:45 pm on May 26th, 2010 12

  “Only China is calling for restraint, but I believe that they will be more swayed by public opinion”—whose public opinion?—“than any historical support for the North. At some point in time China is going to have to make a clear decision on where they stand”—Why? They have been just fine without proclaiming their position, and nobody is going to press them to do so.

  “China stands to suffer a great deal…”

  Every government on this planet tiptoes around the PRC and tries hard not to offend her, and the Chinese know it. The worst thing they must expect are press conferences with other heads of state announcing that they “also talked about the problem of human rights in China”. South Korea and the US try hard to give the appearance of doing something about the North (and the PRC) while not actually doing anything.

  I haven't noticed anything yet that wouldn't fit the usual cycle.

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