2/13 N. Korea agrees to shutdown nuclear program in exchange for
1 million tons of fuel oil per year:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-02-11-nkorea-nuke-talks_x.htm
\_ Basically, I'll believe it when I see it. I sure NK is perfectly
happy to get free fuel oil, but I'm a little sceptical of them
keeping up their side of the deal. On the other hand, if China
really signs on, this may be real progress.
\- i agree. [no opinion on the china part, tho].
\_ Pretty much: believe this sort of thing when they hand over
their reactors.
\_ How much is one ton as an oil measuring unit? Is it still 2000lb?
\_ I'm assuming yes. Using 1010 kg/m^3 as the density of fuel oil,
this is about 237 million gallons. For reference, I think that
the largest oil tanker in the world holds ~ 10.5 million gallons.
this is about 237x10^6 gal. For reference, I think that the
largest oil tanker in the world holds ~ 10.5x10^6 gal.
\_ Never negotiate with terrorists.
\_ Just for the record, NK hasn't done any international terrorism
for 20 years. It don't think brinkmanship diplomacy counts as
terrorism. Jump to "6. Terrorism":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_North_Korea
-jrleek
\_ They 'tested' a missile by throwing it OVER japan,
and 5 years ago they threatened to turn the surrounding
area into a sea of flames. They want to be taken seriously
as an international terrorist menace, the US takes
them seriously as an international terrorist menace,
so what's the problem?
\_ Admittedly, this is a little grey, but generally people
think of terrorism as killing large numbers of innocents.
Did either of those event qualify? No? Then it's
brinkmanship. If you think threats qualify as terrorism,
I'm ok with that.
\_ It isn't an act of terror. It is an highly provocative
act begging for war. Many long bloody wars have been
fought through out history over less.
\_ Ok, thanks for agreeing with me.
\_ I agree it isn't an act of terror. Terror is
what non-gvt entities do. When gvt's do the
same things, they are acts of war. When a gvt
sponsors a third party terrorist group, the
terrorist group is committing an act of terror
but the gvt is committing an act of war, even
for the same act.
\_ While I'm on a roll here, what about official north korean
state sanctioned counterfeiting of the US 100 dollar
bill and heroin shipping?
\_ Drug dealers and counterfeiters are terrorists? You
really are an "if you aren't with us, you're with the
terrorists" kinda guy, huh?
\_ The NK government is doing the counterfeiting but
nice try.
\_ I guess I don't understand your response. If an
individual counterfeits, he is not a terrorist, but
if a government counterfeits, they are terrorists?
\_ No. I was directly responding to your implication
that the counterfeiting was being done by non-gvt
entities. The counterfeiting is a form of
economic aggression. What I said above in the
other sub-thread about lobbing missiles over
Japan: many wars have been started over less.
\_ I didn't mean to imply that the counterfeiting
was by non-gvt entities. Re-reading it, I
can't see how you got that. So, again, thanks
for agreeing with me.
\_ I'm not going to quibble with you over
whether the counterfeiting is an act of
terror or an act of war. It doesn't matter
since the point of this whole thread was
that NK is run by psychotic paranoids who
commit evil acts on a continuing and daily
basis. They were not "just" 20 years ago.
They were 20 years ago, they were today and
they were every day in between.
\_ If you wanted a whole thread about how NK
is run by psychotic paranoids, you should
have started one. I just pointed out
that the particular breed of nasty stuff
NK does is not generally considered state
-sponsored terrorism, and provided
evidence. WHICH YOU ADMIT IS TRUE.
However, you seem to have taken this
simple statement as some sort of sweeping
defense of NK's bad behavior, and gone
ape trying to attack that straw man.
Next time try responding to what people
actually write, rather than what the
voices in your head say. (or shut-up)
\_ *laugh*, So anyway, if you want to
quibble over "terrorist" vs. the
more accurate, "act of war", you're
welcome to. Perhaps you can start
a club for the extreme OCD and the
pedantic. The only difference between
NK's actions and any random terrorist
group's action is NK is a state
actor while the RTG is not. And since
you brought it up, you should really
go back and re-read who said what to
see who is screaming in all caps and
going ape-shit and who has maintained
the same simple line of reasoning.
Hint: the all-caps wasn't mine. Have
a nice day and please do try to keep
the personal attacks to a minimum. It
doesn't help your cause and it's quite
boring.
\_ Ha. I like that. Traslation:
"You were right the whole time, but
you're still wrong." Cool.
\_ Hey, wait a minute. I just went
back and re-read everything. This
misunderstand occured because you
don't know what "brinkmanship"
means. Go look it up, and lo, ye
shall be enlightened.
\_ How about kidnapping of foreign nationals (including South
Koreans) in foreign soil (e.g. Hong Kong)?
\_ This may qualify, but how recently? Most incidents I'm
aware of occured >= 20 years ago.
\_ And they're still holding them so every single day
right now.
\_ Most of the Japanese have been returned, or have
died. The vast majority of the abducted were South
Korean, the the SK govt. is kind of ignoring them.
(The SK chinese embassy recently turned away an
escaped SK abductee.) Anyway, I'd chalk that up to
the NK inability to ever admit they were wrong,
rather than contuined terrorist activity. In any
case, I'm not trying to defend NK, I'm just saying
they don't really qualify as terrorist to most
people. Also, those abductions are mostly unknown,
which means that most people aren't "terrified" of
them.
\_ "Most" have been returned. Or they died in
captivity. Very nice. All is good then! Let's
party! And since the SK govt is terrified of a
war with the NK they have cynically decided to
ignore the kidnappings so that must be ok, too!
Yay for the SK gvt making the right moral choice.
Not. And since the NK is emotionally incapable
of admitting fault, that makes kidnapping foreign
citizens ok, too. Yay! Much happiness! And
finally since the gvt and SK media have decided
to bury the issue, most people are unaware of it
so they're not afraid and thus the original act
of kidnapping wasn't a problem. Yay! I'm so glad
you were here to clean all that up. And here I
was thinking all this time the NK gvt is run by a
bunch of evil paranoid psychotics who have been
threatening their southern neighbors for 50+ years
and now have nukes, too. I feel so much better
now. The only thing you missed was how NK is
really the victim of all this and if the West
would just give peace a chance and stop provoking
the NK and respect them it'd all be good.
\_ As I said, I am not defending NK. I'm saying
that "terrorist" has a fairly well accepted
meaning, that NK does not _CURRENTLY_ fit. Is
NK run by an evil bunch of criminals? Yes. Is
every evil criminal a terrorist? No.
\_ They aren't terrorists. Governments are
not terrorist entities. Governments can
however commit the same acts as terrorists.
In those cases we call them acts of war.
\_ Also, for the record, I don't really think
SK reluctance to push these kinds of issues is
due to fear of war. From what I see in SK
politics, it seems like they're more afraid of
having their "Sunshine policy" shown for the
naive drivel it is.
\_ It's either that or Kim torrents a bunch of movies.
Do you support piracy?
\_ Why are so many South Koreans pro North Korea over
the evil satanic United States that stations several
hundred thousand servicemen in SK so the NK does NOT
just come marching in? I don't get it. NK has
tons of artillery pointed at Seoul, they kidnap citizens,
build crazy tunnels under Seoul, have said "WE WILL
BOMB THE FUCK OUT OF SEOUL IN ORDER TO UNITE WITH
OUR BROTHERS", and still many south koreans think
NK is just a bunch of misunderstood dudes.
\_ FUNK SEOUL BROTHERS
\- FUCK SEOUL BROTHERS
\_ Check it out now
\_ Just naivete. SK history teaches that Korea is 1
country and that it's generally "Korea vs the world."
In otherwords, nationalism and xenophobia. Many just
can't believe that their brothers could be more
dangerous than the forieners. I think it's similar to
asking Europeans "which country is the biggest threat to
World Peace?"
\_ Go dubya! I'm sure he knows exactly what he's doing! |