Happy 10 Year Iraq War Anniversary!

I would say it's more like Vietnam is. The North and South even reunited on their own. I'm thinking maybe the two Korea could go the same way if US foreign policy will let them.

 

Uh, no. Just...no. There are way, way, WAAAYYYYYY too many problems with a Korean reunification, from China having massive problems with a Korea that won't be their puppets to the gigantic economic costs of bringing up the North Koreans to a 21st century global economy to simple language problems because at this point, spoke North Korean and South Korean are becoming increasingly different to the very simple fact of, why would the Kims want to be unified with the South Koreans and lose their god king status?

For better or for worse, we're witnessing a people diverge into two. And it's a very difficult problem to resolve that really has nothing to do with America - if Korea is reunited within 20 years, I'll be genuinely surprised.

 

Yea, Bush gets too much flack. I HIGHLY doubt he was the mastermind behind it, members of his cabinet had a very strong influence and Rumsefeld/Cheney are very deceptive men.

 

It's funny you mention China would have a problem with it, as if the US would be giddy about it lol.

FYI many many many countries in the world survive with multiple languages. I don't understand why this would be a problem for any country at all.

The problems you mention seem to pale in comparison to existing problems. Moreover, they seem to be focused on what you would not like about a reunification rather than whether Koreans would want a reunification.

 

If Germany can do it, Korea can do it.

 

Statement number two is both unproven and unconvincing as an argument. Bush was competitive and insecure, and a run-of-the-mill corporate manager; network like hell, sabotage anyone who stands out or disagrees with you, make selfish, "bold" decisions for the sole purpose of speaking up first, and rationalize the inevitable screw-ups after the fact.

 

Because Pahiyas was saying that if the United States somehow pulled out, Korea would unite, so I was focusing on the other factors.

First, you completely missed the point about the multiple languages. It's demonstrating that the two Korean peoples are really diverging into becoming two different people, with different cultures and languages and so on.

Secondly, what I'm saying is that NO ONE really wants Korea to be reunified. China doesn't want it, the Kims don't want it ( and really, the North Korean people don't either), the South Koreans don't want it. Aside from that, no, I guess there's no real problem with reunification.

The gap between West and East Germany is tiny compared to the gap between North and South Korea, and even then Germany has had economic problems trying to bring East back up. From the perspective of South Korea, it's just not worth it.

 

We'll see. I agree that the gap between the Koreas is bigger, but before 1989, hardly anybody in either Germany saw the unification coming either. The time has to be right for it, you have to have the right leaders in place, the people have to rise up to do it. None of that is looking like it is happening in North Korea right now, so we will see.

 

True and that is why so few people want to talk about it or remember it.

 

I am forced to agree. Ideally I would like to see the GW Bush Admin. tried and brought to account over Iraq but it will never happen. There is no court in the world that would take a US President to trial. Further even if they did they likely would be exonerated. Like it or not the invasion and occupation of Iraq was legal under US law since Congress authorized use of force. Under international law it falls under a grey area since the Iraq UNSC resolutions did authorize grave consequences for Saddam's regime. While the UNSC didn't authorize invasion they didn't explicitly forbid it.

Not saying any of that is right or just or even completely legal just that a case were ever brought I can see the GW Bush Admin. winning the case.

 

Most of them had bad information.

I think the whole war on Afghanistan was even worse. It seems like they forgot 1000 years of history. What was their plan? Lets bomb the taliban. Afgan is pretty much a lawless land filled with a bunch of tribes. Heck they didn't even catch OBL there.

 

Well said. Apparently enough time has passed that people are forgetting just how unlikely German reunification was before it happened. The stunned world reaction. Heck, Germany is still "digesting" the former East Germany. Someday, if a horrific war doesn't break out first, we will see reunification of the Korean Peninsula. It might be a long wait, but it'll happen, IMO.

 

WAR IS PEACE.

 

As long as the Kim family is in charge of N. Korea, there won't be re-unification. North Korea makes East Germany look like an anarchist utopia. It won't happen.

 

The Kim family IMO is on its last legs. This guy will not hit his 40's as the leader of N Korea. Something's got to give when this many people are essentially starving. A reunification, if it happened, would be forced and wouldn't require the approval of N/S Korean leaders. If it's not forced, then you're right I don't think it would happen through diplomatic means.

Kojirou, I don't know if North/South Koreans don't want reunification, but that would be sad. Perhaps easy to change their minds. The one Korean guy I know is a huge proponent of reunification and speaks of the division as if it's a type of shame they brought onto themselves by trusting the Americans/Russians.

 

Kojirou is Japanese. Japanese people don't want Korea to re-unite.

 

I still remember watching TV in disbelief when it happened. I had grown up never knowing anything but two Germanies, and people would get shot dead at the border. All of a sudden, the East Germans were allowed to come to West Germany. There was so much joy at the time.

Of course, there were also difficulties.

And jokes...because East Germans had less access to media and to exotic fruits and to sex shops...well, guess what they all focused on first.

I still remember the cover of satirical magazine Titanic in the middle of all the joy about the unification.



"Zone" = derogatory word for East Germany (Soviet occupied zone).

Zonen-Gaby: My first banana

 

What.

North Korea isn't building medium-range missiles to lob them at the United States, you know. North Korea's just a nuisance to the US, but it's a legitimate threat to Japan. I'd love for them to go away.

Here's the thing that I think people don't get about North Korea, and by extension the Soviet Union: People in both states are/were actually fairly content with their leaders. One statistic, after all, is that about half of the North Korean refugees who flee to China eventually bribe the Chinese border guards to return to North Korea. Even with all the misery in that country, the North Koreans, thanks to propaganda and such, are generally fine with their lot.

I actually think, despite the Internet and how people love to play the technological singularity and stuff, the Soviet Union could very well have survived up to the present. What undid the Soviet Union is that they couldn't survive up to the present with the status quo and catch up with the American capitalist system, and given that was the whole point of Communism, things went haywire, no thanks to Gorbachev who I've consistently maintained was just a giant idiot who I wouldn't trust to manage the Bobcats, not the hero that he's portrayed as in the West.

North Korea does not justify itself by attempting to show that they're as advanced as South Korea or the West, so they don't need to worry about that problem. In fact, the Kims justify their rule BY their technological inferiority - sure, those South Koreans and evil Americans and Japs may have those wonderful toys, but they lack the spiritual bonds which our glorious Juche gives us blah blah blah.

If North Korea collapses, it will not be through a velvet revolution, because the North Korean people already know, and have known for a long time, that they're well behind the West, and they don't care. It will be through the Kims attempting to reform the system for some reason or another in a way that it can't handle.

 

Do you have a link for this? I am curious to hear more about it.