Semi-Daily Journal

So when will we be invading? Those people suffer under a brutal tyranny. This would also start a wave of domino's of democracy through the region. After our soldiers cakewalk in their, receive their flowers and kisses, they can head back home.

We attack them when they attack the South. It's the only option that the government there has that wasn't listed in the above overview.

When DPRK's government is on its last legs, it will probably attack the south. This will be the moment that they are most dangerous, but it will also be the moment when they are most vulnerable and weak politically and elsewise.

I don't think there is anything the US can do to avoid that eventuality.

We should invade, but a substantial portion of the U.S. - especially the Left - would be against it.

I find it interesting that there are large numbers of people who swear that a Holocaust will "never happen again" and then do NOTHING when they DO happen again during their own lifetime. For example, every year a holocaust film or documentary gets nominated for an Oscar (TM) and the same people who produce and direct them protest against throwing out tyranny around the world.

Sure. Why not invade North Korea. Now here is a country with a huge disciplined well equiped armed forces, a country that surely has chemical weapons and delivery capability and perhaps nuclear weapons, a country that can lay waste to Seoul, South Korea when attacked. How many American troops would it take to invade North Korea? Wonder if Britain would help? Of course, why not let Britain attack while we watch? War is lovely. Go to it, but not with me.

"We should invade, but a substantial portion of the U.S. - especially the Left - would be against it."

I disagree. While there is a fringe left that opposes any use of force by the US, many liberals would have no problems with principled application of force, e.g. a US force sent to the Congo to stem an impending genocide. The conservatives, however, have over the last few decades have squandered all credibility in this matter -- the Cold War shenanigans and current hypocrisies ("Musharraf is still tight with us on the war on terror", using a legal loophople to put prisoners in a Gitmo no-man's-land) cause one to doubt the newfound conservative sensitivity to human rights.

Pretty much as I thought - 'human rights' was brought out of the dungeon by the right for Iraq. It has been stuffed back into the dungeon, until such time as needed.

Do we have a shrink for Kim Jong Il? I remember hearing about a psychologist/psychiatrist who was our expert on the mind of Saddam Hussein. Do we have someone like that for Kim Jong Il?

I ask because I'm curious as to what makes Kim Jong tick. Any tyrannical dictator wants to retain and maximize power and pretend his people worship him -- that's a given. Many have empire fantasies; Hitler's Third Reich, Saddam's dream of resurrecting the Ottaman Empire. Some have an ideology to drive their work; Stalin and Mao had their versions of Communism, and post-colonial dictators like Mugabe rely on Stop The Evil White Man rhetoric. I think all those I've named, except perhaps Mugabe, liked the idea of being venerated by their peoples even after their deaths.

But what's up with Kim Jong Il? He loves the power, he makes people wear little pictures of him. Does he want an empire? Does he have a Communist ideology, or is this one of those times when Communist just means "totalitarianism and nothing to eat"?

I'm skeptical of any predictions of what will happen with North Korea that make no attempt to account for how an action by Kim Jong will, at least in his view, help him achieve a goal. As a general rule, tyrannical dictators are rather unreasonable, but they can be rational in the sense of trying to use means to reach an end.
What end of Kim Jong Il's would be served by letting his people eat? by invading South Korea?

North Korea's human rights violations and economic strangling of their own population are all evil, but a war with NK would result in millions of North and South Koreans dead. It really isn't clear that invading would be the right thing to do from a human rights perspective, because there is always the possibility the government will collapse and a lot less people will die overall.
Now, I hate the way the right has pretended to care about human rights in Iraq, but the failure of people to push for war with NK isn't just hypocrisy. It's also because that war would be really, really horrible for EVERYONE. Now, I do think it stinks that conservatives talking about human rights in Iraq AREN'T talking more about the Congo or Burma or anywhere else. They'll leave those to the left, even though we COULD make a big difference with our military with almost certainly much lower casualties than in NK (though not necessarily as low as Iraq, which was the perfect terrain for our armies).
Just, keep in mind that NK is the hard situation no one has a plan for, though I personally think that we can contain them until collapse, which may be best considering how horrible a war would be. Don't know enough though, but notably it's not something people on the Right OR Left really have different clear, definitive plans for.

"North Korea's human rights violations and economic strangling of their own population are all evil, but a war with NK would result in millions of North and South Koreans dead. It really isn't clear that invading would be the right thing to do from a human rights perspective, because there is always the possibility the government will collapse and a lot less people will die overall."

I think it's highly unlikely that "the government will collapse"...at least in the next decade, or more. (Of course, if you'd told me, in 1980, that the entire Soviet Union and Eastern Block would collapse, with essentially no shots fired, all around 1990, I would have thought you were dreaming.)

I think the war in Iraq demonstrated clearly that our technology isn't anywhere NEAR up to the task, but if there was a way to simultaneously and instantaneously kill the top 50 or 100 people in North Korea (most definitely including Kim Jong Il), that might result in the lowest possible total number of deaths.

The huge, huge problem with the above scenario, aside from the fact that our technology(and intelligence) is currently woefully inadequate to the task, is that any such action would certainly need to be accepted by the people of South Korea, who are most likely to lose, if we goofed up. And since we can't very well have a secret referendum that involves everyone in South Korea, but isn't discovered by anyone in North Korea, the scenario seems merely to be wishful thinking.

Any analysis of the North Korean famine needs to consider the Ceaucescu Factor. Prior to the Communist takeover, Romania was a land of cheap, plentiful foods. That changed - and the inefficiencies inherent in planned economies were only part of the problem.

Historically, Communist regimes prioritize spending on intelligence (foreign and domestic) and military over all else. They also loot the public coffers for the ruling elite in varying degrees. Citizens' physical needs are low priority - the State is supreme, after all, and the citizen is merely an expense.

Ceaucescu was so driven toward various military and intelligence ventures that he ignored the physical needs of the people altogether. In the midst of severe food shortages he would insist that the people "tighten their belts" because Romania presumably needed (among other things) an expanded military export industry than it needed more agricultural production - as if both couldn't be accomplished at the same time.

To what degree is North Korea's famine attributable to systemic failure, and to what degree is it due to the same callous disregard of the agricultural sector exhibited by Ceaucescu?

I don't really see how the reverse policy would lead to much short term improvement though. That is, just as in East Germany, productivities would remain around the same for a while and merely demobilising the military wouldn't increase food production on the time scales needed (since you can starve in the short term).

So where's the gain for them from merely reversing the policy errors that led them to neglect self sufficiency in the name of defence? And where's the gain in losing what to them is independence merely to allow food imports? You have to measure these things in their terms - opening up would not only make them dependent, it would involve selling their resource base after wrapping it up as assets.

This remains the case regardless of whether the mess was entirely of their own making (which I will stipulate, though I doubt it). Indeed, they have stated rational motives for going nuclear: more bang for the buck will allow them to wind back other defence commitments over time, with no additional cost since they are committed to not making any short term changes anyway.

Why do you doubt "the mess was entirely of their own making,"
P.M. Lawrence? The marxists have had absolute power in
North Korea for nearly fifty years.

On a different subject: as I understand things the U.S. military
doesn't really have the manpower needed to continue a prolonged
occupation of Iraq. Between Iraq, Afghanistan, the former Yugoslovia,
and the necessity to maintain at least some reserve, the U.S. military
is fully occupied. Where actually are the soldiers going to come
from to liberate the people of North Korea?

Beyond that practicality, any such act (invasion of North Korea)
would come at risk and great cost to americans. I'm less than certain
in asserting this, but given the cost to ourselves, I don't think
we are obligated to help North Koreans even knowing something of
the nightmare that exists there.

And that statement prompts the question of where the rest of the
planet is. Why it is that so relatively few have the perception
that North Korea is an outstanding disaster. After reading via
the internet a great many world newspapers (always in english)
I have come to the conclusion that in the first instance the
explanation is simple. Most people don't know. Whether it's
India, Pakistan, Turkey, Japan, Norway, and many others, it
seems to be the policy of the papers and journals to never
report on horrible things unless the subject is an immediate
neighbor that the country of origin is in conflict with. When
there is an exception the subject seems almost always to be
an alleged american sin.

Why it is that so many intellectuals around the world feel an
affinity for or at least the desire to cover for governments like
North Korea and the former Iraq I just don't know. But if there
were a way to understand this and reverse that circumstance...

"Why it is that so many intellectuals around the world feel an
affinity for or at least the desire to cover for governments like
North Korea and the former Iraq I just don't know. But if there
were a way to understand this and reverse that circumstance..."

Why it is that most rightwing citizen of the USA do never care about the millions of peoples killed by their friends in oppressive regimes whose control they could easily effect? As a citizen of a State that had to suffer a murderous dictatorship, Spain under Franco, that supressed most liberties for most people for a full generation, I feel no reason to trust any goodwill from the USA people or government. As long as dictators can claim to be anticommunists genocide is fine.

DSW

"Why it is that most rightwing citizen of the USA do never care about the millions of peoples killed by their friends in oppressive regimes whose control they could easily effect?"

What "millions of people" are killed by "friends in oppressive regimes whose control (U.S. rightwing citizens) could easily affect"?

I did not write "are killed" but "killed", since it is a process that has been going from at least the Spanish Civil War. Look at all rightwing dictatorships and add. And I am not thinking in civil wars deaths, but in peace time killing of people these regimes choose to do. In fact a lot of the Iraquis killed by Saddam are in this category, communists were amongst the first to be persecuted by Saddam.

And "effect" is the word I meant to use.

DSW

"I did not write "are killed" but "killed", since it is a process that has been going from at least the Spanish Civil War. Look at all rightwing dictatorships and add."

Well, first, you'll have to define "rightwing" for me. If you say the Nazis (the National Socialists of Germany) are "rightwing," then you have "millions" right there. But it's a tad odd to have National Socialists in the "rightwing" column (though many put the Nazis there).

So you'll have to provide some examples of "rightwing". For example, I assume you'd count Pinochet in that description, but as far as I know, the total killed by Pinochet's regime was on the order of 3,000. That's several thousand too many, but an awfully long way from "millions."

This Guardian newspaper estimates 35,000 killed by Franco:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4462829,00.html

So, we're up to about 40,000 now. Again, essentially 40,000 too many, but a long way from "millions."

"And I am not thinking in civil wars deaths, but in peace time killing of people these regimes choose to do. In fact a lot of the Iraquis killed by Saddam are in this category, communists were amongst the first to be persecuted by Saddam."

Saddam Hussein, who by most accounts worshipped Josef Stalin--had a whole personal library devoted to Stalin, and wore a mustache to look like Stalin--is a "rightwing" dictator??! That's very surprising!

What other regimes do you call "rightwing"?

"And 'effect' is the word I meant to use."

Yes...and "effect" ("The power to produce an outcome or achieve a result; influence") is quite laughable! The idea that "rightwing citizens" of the U.S. can achieve the result of the "control" of rightwing dictators in foreign countries is ridiculous. Do you think leftwing citizens in the U.S. can control leftwing dictators around the world? (If so, please tell someone in Hollywood to "effect" Kim Jong Il to slit his wrists open in a warm bath... :-/)

"About 35,000 people are believed to have died this way, without trial or after rapid, meaningless courts martial. Up to now nobody has paid attention to any but the most famous victims."

So the 35000 is not the total tally.

And since fascist parties, of which the nazi are part with a racist twist, are born out of the military mind, they are rightwing except for the people more on the right.

As to effect, I would think that someone who handle millions of dollars has an easier task to control a foreign power than people who have a hard time finding ways to fund their own lives.

DSW

"Why it is that so many intellectuals around the world feel an affinity for or at least the desire to cover for governments like North Korea and the former Iraq I just don't know. But if there
were a way to understand this and reverse that circumstance..."

This is an idiotic statement. Idiotic, rubbish. I can not imagine what intellectuals are being referred to. The idea on the right is to forever bash intelligence while hoping against hope that they turn out children who are intellectuals. Imagine wandering the halls about Berkeley and finding intellectuals happily praising the government of Norht Korea. Rubbish. Remember, rightists, send your kids to Berkeley.

Arthur,

Actually as it happens I do know of intellectuals on the internet,
people who reason remarkably like Noam Chomesky, who do praise the
government of North Korea. Now I don't know what people are saying
at Berkeley but that doesn't matter because I wasn't speaking of
Berkeley or even especially these people above I just mentioned.

When I said intellectual I was speaking in the global sense and
assuming that many newspapers, particularly outside the U.S.,
reflect in some part the thinking there. And the striking thing,
the prima facie evidence of support of the government of North
Korea and the former government of Iraq and many other like cases,
is that it is so extremely hard to find news articles offering
information on the circumstances of people living in these states
or atrocities documented.

As for your implication that 'intellectual' and 'right-wing' are
disjoint sets, well it depends upon what you mean when when you
say 'right-wing,' but I disagree. I guess looking back at what
I wrote it might have been interpreted that I meant 'intellectual'
as a synomyn for 'left-wing,' actually I didn't say that and
didn't mean that but was merely bemoaning that so many, certainly
not all, intellectuals cover for states like North Korea. Further
the real focus of my attention was on what's going on outside
the United States, where the support and apologetics for states
like North Korea is more substantial.

Antoni Jaume, you said, "And since fascist parties, of which
the nazi are part with a racist twist, are born out of the
military mind, they are rightwing except for the people more on
the right."

Now my impression, from reading from first hand accounts is that
the german military was in fact relatively late to National
Socialist domination. From page sixty-three of Nora Waln's
"The Approaching Storm: One Woman's Story of Germany 1934-1938,"
quote: "The army," I heard, "is the only force capable of
resisting National Socialism."

The anonymous quote, on the occasion of Field Marshal von
Hindenburg's death, is from 1934 and the point being that
in 1934, at a time when the nazis dominated so much of
public life it was conceivable that the military might have
staged a coup. Now it would be unnatural to suggest this if
the nazis had their origin in the military.

At the same time there are militiristic conformity motifs to
much of the nazi vision for the human future. I could give
countless examples, I'll skip them. But couldn't be the same
be said for socialist imagination in general? For example, quoting
Edward Bellamy's vision for utopia:

"It is October 15, 2000, and Boston, like other American
cities, is abuzz with the annual Muster Day festivities.
Throughout the city, 45-year-old veterans and 21-year-old
inductees, accompanied by friends and family, head to
industrial army offices for the formal ceremonies. Meanwhile,
thousands throng the broad, tree-lined avenues of downtown
to view the great parade, while the city's sprawling,
wooded parks are scenes of picnics and concerts and speeches
and rallies."

(and)

"Do you think there's a lesson to this story?" the grandfather
asks. "Yes," the little boy replies quickly, as if he has heard
similar questions many times before, "in the age of individualism
everybody has to fend for himself, but now in the modern age
we all take care of each other."

(Above is from "Looking Backward: 2000-1887" by Edward Bellamy,
quoted by Brink Lindsey in "Against the Dead Hand: The Uncertain
Struggle for Global Capitalism".)

Reading Bellamy's vision for a socialist future and Waln's
biographical account of the nazi reality, the two seem in many
ways astonishingly alike.

I do not claim that the nazis were the military, only that their mindset was borne out from the military life and mindset of 1914-1918 war, Hitler was a former low-ranking officer, Mussolini, the archtypal fascist, modeled his party on the military. It does not means that carrier military had any appreciation for them.

DSW

For Mark Amerman, who writes 'Why do you doubt "the mess was entirely of their own making," P.M. Lawrence? The marxists have had absolute power in North Korea for nearly fifty years.'

No, there is a confusion of language and thought here. They have only had absolute power WITHIN North Korea. If their defence needs had been purely and simply for internal policing, the rest of the argument would apply - but it does not. Their defence needs are largely determined by outside circumstances.

This remains true regardless of whether people believe they "ought" to roll over and surrender their future to what others think right; one can only measure it in its own frame of reference. They could not now exist in the form they do without the defence budgets they have.

For Antoni Jaume: Hitler was only a "low-ranking officer" in the continental European sense of the term, which does not translate well. He was actually a corporal, i.e. a Non-Commissioned Officer or NCO.

"And since fascist parties, of which the nazi are part with a racist twist, are born out of the military mind, they are rightwing except for the people more on the right."

I'm not sure I understand your argument. You seem to be arguing that fascists and the Nazis were "born out of the military mind" and so are "rightwing." (You later point out that Hitler and Mussolini were shaped by their experiences in WWI.)

If a militaristic mindset is a characteristic of "rightwing" people, what does that say about North Korea, the former Soviet Union, and the former members of the Eastern Block, as compared to, say, the U.S., Britain, France, and West Germany?

If a militaristic mindset is a "rightwing" characteristic, why does North Korea have huge military parades, and why did the former Soviet Union and Eastern Block countries have such parades, while the U.S., Britain, France and West Germany do not? (I can't think of ANY day of parades in any of those latter countries, where a big show of military might is a key to the parade.) This can be contrasted with North Korea, the former Soviet Union, and former Eastern Block nations, where the biggest parades frequently consisted mainly of shows of military strength:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Guardian/gallery/image/0,8543,-11504562633,00.html

And who are you referring to by, "...they are rightwing, except for people more on the right."

Who, in your opinion, are the people furthest on the right, both historically, and in the present day?

The French have the 14th of July if I'm not out of date. They are rather on the right from my perspective, and their Constitution was done by a military: Général De Gaulle.

Then it seems Mark Bahner is not aware of lies. They're cheap to make.

For one, US "libertarians", who are the first I ever heard claiming the nazis were socialistics, that make them more right-wing than the nazis.
Libertarians and nazis remind be of locusts, these have to forms, one in low density of population, which is individualistic, the other in high density of population, which is gregarious
and change its aspect, donning a different "uniform", still they are the same species, in fact the same individuals. The USA is still a low density country.

PMLawrence, I'm not especially informed on the military details, so I do not know what imply the expression "[non-]commissioned officer", but to me corporal is the first level in military rank, the lowest ranking that has some degree of command. It seems to me it is just at this level that the fascism has its stronger appeal.

DSW

Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I think this thread is needlessly divisive. Totalitarian regimes or falangist regimes like those of Spain and Latin America really reflect deep divisions within that particular society; I don't really think it's a good idea to describe them as "right wing" or "left wing." This is a problem, I think, in political debate: people who live in nothing like a totalitarian dictatorship, and who have the freedom to make useful plans, argue over whether Saddam is rightwing(?) or leftwing(?), whether Kim Jong Il is worse than Pinochet, and if so, what is an appropriate measure of badness.

Totalitiarianism is a disaster, for capitalists and workers alike; the calamity may fall in an uneven way, and it might be arrested (or made worse) by foreign intervention; but it originates in the composition of the society itself. It is a sickness of society, and leads to the death of society. I don't think it's enlightening to imply that "Hitler is compatible with Republicans" because Hitler was anti-Communist; I think that's something of a red herring. Similarly, I don't think it makes a lot of sense to say, "Europeans, being socialist (!) have a natural fondness for the socialist Saddam."

(I freely concede I'm quoting no one. Feel free to accuse me of attacking a straw man. But I do think a lot of people, in debate, would like to tar their opponent with association with someone else far more extreme.)

The reason I think it's misleading to characterize totalitiarian regimes as "leftwing" or "rightwing," is that the "left" or "right" in any debate are debating what should be optimized. A totalitarian regime isn't about optimization. It's about panic, and social pathology. You can't vote on those.

For Antoni Jaume: in the English language, a casual reader seeing your expression "officer" would think you meant at least a lieutenant. He or she would not think of corporals, sergeants, warrant officers, etc. That's what I meant about how "officer" doesn't translate well - the category described in European languages doesn't match up with one described in English. We don't put NCOs and officers in the same category.

"They are rather on the right from my perspective, and their Constitution was done by a military: Général De Gaulle."

The French system of government is on the "right"? Amazing! Is there anyone to the right of them--except U.S. Libertarians, of course--in your opinion?

"For one, US "libertarians", who are the first I ever heard claiming the nazis were socialistics, that make them more right-wing than the nazis."

The Nazis called *themselves* socialists! That's what "Nazi" means...National Socialist!

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERnazi.htm

But yes, I *agree* with you that the U.S. Libertarian Party is to the right of EVERYONE...except anarcho-capitalists, who don't think there should be any governments at all.

"Libertarians and nazis remind be of locusts, these have to forms, one in low density of population, which is individualistic, the other in high density of population, which is gregarious
and change its aspect, donning a different "uniform", still they are the same species, in fact the same individuals. The USA is still a low density country."

Your analysis merely shows that you don't have a single clue about political philosophy. Nazis and Communists are far, far closer to each other than Nazis and U.S. Libertarians. Libertarians support extremely limited government and nearly absolute freedom of individuals (limited only to not physically harming or defrauding others). Both Nazis and Communists totally denigrate the rights of individuals, and exalt the power of the State to totalitarian levels. Like North Korea, for example.

This is another case where the simple classifications "right" or "left" just don't work. Generally speaking, in the Americas, the collapse of civilian rule tended to be very different in character from that in Europe or N.E. Asia. In the latter, there was an extreme praetorian state in which absolute power over everyone was concentrated. This meant that, for example, the Nazis took complete control over the direction of the economy. Business enterprise was subordinated to the state. For what? That is the question that allows people to say the Nazi state was "right wing," because it tended to favor a throwback to older forms of social relations.

In contrast, the falangist states of Latin America and Spain exempted business enterprise. They were not quite as thorough in their repression because large swathes of the population were not targets. Where they did have a target, they were obviously very repressive indeed--but they also allowed the survival of independent, if sympathetic entities such as Opus Dei. Falangist states (if I may be pardoned this usage) tend to be more likely to resort to death squads--repression on the cheap, as it were.

But the latter tends to follow neo-liberal policies in the economic sphere, at least officially; in practice, this is less likely to be so.

Now, libertarians oppose powerful states. They tend to argue for state inaction. As such, they are a sort of "counter-ideology." It is a bit creative to say they are "to the right of the Nazis" because of their criticisms of the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP, in German) emphasized that it had socialist pretensions. I'm not a libertarian, but it's not really fair to say that of them.

You could merely say they're mistaken (in calling Nazism a variety of socialism), but saying they're "to the right of the Nazis" is, to my judgement, a very daring claim indeed. No libertarian would endorse concentration camps.

"...but saying they're "to the right of the Nazis" is, to my judgement, a very daring claim indeed. No libertarian would endorse concentration camps."

"No libertarian would endorse concentration camps," is certainly true.

But what makes you think concentration camps are an aspect of being "right wing"? After all, there were certainly plently of concentration camps in left wing dictatorships, in the 20th century: the gulags of the former Soviet Union, communist China (especially during the Cultural Revolution), Cambodia (during the time of Pol Pot).

Actually, Mark, that's a good point. In a way, you caught me making the very error I was criticizing! Yes, what I ought to have said was, "The claim doesn't make sense. I can neither agree nor disagree with it. Applying the term 'right' or 'left' to a totalitarian society, which crushes all classes and interests beneath its heel, is absurd." Stalin and Mao seem to have cynically abused "leftist" rhetoric in infinite parody, and as it happens, Hitler also tried to co-opt some Leninist rhetoric. But both categories of dictatorship--those which are vaguely regarded as "l" and those so regarded "r"--are about regimentation, massive paranoia, arbitrary threat of violence, and a complete betrayal of every human value.

Whereas, I think "right" and "left" apply to competing (conflicting?) rankings of social good. The above-cited regimes are just social calamities.

Yo, I thought this thread was about North Korea.

Nobody's mentioned a very critical point: NK claims to have fissile material on hand. And if so, it can sell such material to terrorists very easily.

We can't just sit back, and wait for NK to collapse. If we appease - accede to their demands, step up aid - it will only embolden NK to make increasingly insupportable demands. If we deny aid, NK will sell its fissile material to the highest bidder. Even if we meet all of NK's demands, it may still sell its fissile material to the highest bidder. We have absolutely no idea how much fissile material NK has - and NK won't let us find out.

The most important justification for decisive action is the possibility that fissile material will fall into the wrong hands - Al qaeda possibly. And unlike the WMD/links to terrorists canards employed by Bush with regard to Iraq – NK likely poses a real threat in that regard.

Yo, I thought this thread was about North Korea.

Nobody's mentioned a very critical point: NK claims to have fissile material on hand. And if so, it can sell such material to terrorists very easily.

We can't just sit back, and wait for NK to collapse. If we appease - accede to their demands, step up aid - it will only embolden NK to make increasingly insupportable demands. If we deny aid, NK will sell its fissile material to the highest bidder. Even if we meet all of NK's demands, it may still sell its fissile material to the highest bidder. We have absolutely no idea how much fissile material NK has - and NK won't let us find out.

The most important justification for decisive action is the possibility that fissile material will fall into the wrong hands - Al qaeda possibly. And unlike the WMD/links to terrorists canards employed by Bush with regard to Iraq – NK likely poses a real threat.

There is no reason to believe that we can not deter North Korea as the Soviet Union was deterred, and with no war.

I read an amazing essay today by Karl Marx and feel the
overwhelming temptation to to share some choice quotes. It
does connect to North Korea in that North Korea is a marxist state
and presumbably in some form or other this is part of their
worldview, especially since the United States is actually
mentioned.

The essay is titled "The Jewish Question" and in it Karl Marx
writes,

"What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What
is his worldly God? Money."

[and]

"An organization of society which would abolish the preconditions
for huckstering, and therefore the possibility of huckstering,
would make the Jew impossible. His religious consciousness would
be dissipated like a thin haze in the real, vital air of society."

[and]

"In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the
emancipation of mankind from Judaism."

[and]

"The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only
because he has acquired financial power, but also because,
through him and also apart from him, money has become a world
power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical
spirit of the Christian nations."

[and]

"Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism
over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and
normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and
the Christian ministry have become articles of trade,..."

[and]

"Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other
god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man -- and turns
them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established
value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole
world -- both the world of men and nature -- of its specific
value."

[and]

"The view of nature attained under the domination of private
property and money is a real contempt for, and practical debasement
of, nature; in the Jewish religion, nature exists, it is true,
but it exists only in imagination. "

[and]

"Christianity had only in semblance overcome real Judaism. It
was too noble-minded, too spiritualistic to eliminate the crudity
of practical need in any other way than by elevation to the skies."

(The full text of Karl Marx's essay, "The Jewish Question," is
at http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/)

Obviously this above also touches on the debate about the
alleged profound difference between Communism and National Socialism.
Antoni Jaume, I don't think this looks very good for the position
you've taken. Were you aware of this essay? Do you still think
the two are opposite or even profoundly different?

To remind you of what the nazis said, here's some quotes from
a Joseph Goebbel essay: "We Demand." Quote:

"We are just good enough that international capital allows us
to fill its money sacks with interest payments."

[and]

"The Jew lives in the palaces and the proletarian, the front
soldier, lives in holes that do not deserve to be called
"homes."

[and]

"The Jew is rootless, a ferment of decomposition. Whether
he lives as a capitalist or a Bolshevist, his nature remains
the same..."

[and]

"...Jews sell Germany piece by piece and turn it over to the
world dictatorship..."

[and]

"Six hundreds small businesses have gone bankrupt due to Jewish
department stores this Christmas season in Berlin alone!"

[and]

"But Christ the man learned that one cannot always get by with
love. When he saw the Jewish moneychangers in the temple, he took
a whip and drove them out of the temple."

(The full text of Joseph Goebbel's essay, "We Demand," is
at www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/angrif05.htm)

Please remove the above anti-semetic essay. The poster is obviously a maniac.

To whomever it is that hides behind the initials "mn".

Somehow I don't think hiding one's head in the sand is the
way to deal with evil.

Type in "Karl Marx" on google. Notice how many of the sites
you'll encounter praise him.

"Please remove the above anti-semetic essay."

It's anti-semitic to point out that Karl Marx was an anti-semite?

"The poster is obviously a maniac."

Not being a psychiatrist, I can't comment on his mental state. But I *can* say that I learned something new...I'd never heard or read that Karl Marx was bigotted against Jews. (One more of many similarities between Nazis and Marxists.)

"The most important justification for decisive action is the possibility that fissile material will fall into the wrong hands..."

It's too late for that. It's already in the wrong hands...Kim Jong Il's.

"It's too late for that. It's already in the wrong hands...Kim Jong Il's."

True, but he's likely to use it only as a bargaining chip - or in retaliation to a pre-emptive strike. Most commentators don't believe he will attack unprovoked. But if Al-qaeda gets its hands on it, they are very likely to use it on the U.S. And I don't think Kim Jong Il has any scruples against selling to the highest bidder.

"What "millions of people" are killed by "friends in oppressive regimes whose control (U.S. rightwing citizens) could easily affect"?"

Indonesia, Guatamala, Chilie, Argentina ...
No, they do not represent the American right. These facist regimes were not what the American Right wanted to achieve in America. But the American right tolerated and aided these regimes in the fight against Communism. Perhaps the most relevant example today was the funding and encouragement of the Muhajadeen of Afganistan to fight the Soviet invasion. We all know where that eventually led.
So the point our Spanish friend was trying to make before you confused him in a debate about the nature of ideology and the definition of "right" was that American Conservatives do not hold some sort of moral high ground in commentary about international affairs and foreign policy.

As for attacking North Korea. Its not really a left right thing, as in fact the Iraq War was not a left right thing. Is more a question of force being effective in creating a political change for the better. Its also about risk management.
Iraq has gone well militarily but the political end game is not done yet. So I think we should all reserve judgement, as indeed president Bush has asked us to do.

As for North Korea. Two points
1. Can you do it without the South Korean capital being incinerated
2. Don't you need an agreement from the Chinese about Korean unification first? I mean this is why Korea I was a stalemate. Poor judgement of a General/Hero brought the Chinese into the war.

Scott McArthur,

I appreciate your point that the Korean War quickly transformed
into a war between China and America and that given the brutal
previous experience and the potentials for disaster in such
a conflict it seems unlikely that a U.S. government would invade
North Korea without having chinese support of such an invasion.
Which seems unlikely. (And if it were for some reason forthcoming
then why wouldn't a U.S. government simply urge a chinese government
to do it themselves?)

The one thing I don't understand, or that point of history I
missed, is why you blame that prior conflict on General
Douglas MacArthur?

(I googled MacArthur and Korea and quickly found that he is blamed
for failing to anticipate the war with China -- not causing it.)

I remember being taught in school that politics is a circle, if you go far enough left or right you wind up in the same spot.

There seems to have been a bit of an argument about whether nazis, fascists, etc. are right wing. We consider them right wing because they (nazis and fascists) called themselves right wing and we don't really have any better definition of right wing. Communists are as militaristic as fascists, but they call themselves left wing and we don't really have any better definition of left wing, so we call communists left wing.

On a side note, the Islamic parties in Pakistan today are referred to, in Pakistan, as the "religious right"

The Korean War was 100% the responsibility of the North Koreans who attacked the South without cause in 1951. Blame lies 100% with the North Koreans for starting the war not MacArthur.

However, General MacArthur does bear some responsibility for the Chinese intervention and the widening of the war. Some historians suspect that the Chinese were itching to get in all along. But the concensus opinion is that Red China had just come into being in 49 and the country and army were exhausted after 15 years of War. First with Japan and then civil war. We think that Mao acted because he beleived the United States would finish Korea and then move on China and overturn the revolution. Some US hawks in the 50s talked about taking back China but that just wasn't on with Truman in office. Did the hawks spook Mao? Its debatable what Mao and the PRC really thought at the time.

What is clear is that MacArthur's actions fed Chinese paranoia and made it very easy for them to justify intervention. The general pursued the N Koreans right to the Chinese border and allowed the USAF to bomb N Korean units that had retreated just inside China. Other branches of the US government at the time were urging MacArthur to pull up short to avoid any incidents, but MacArthur felt that would limit the military victory. As it turned out he managed to placed US forces in a situation where they suffered a horrible defeat.

I would love to see North Korea united with South Korea. In fact, I think it is going to happen in my lifetime. I just don't recommend a quick unilateral campaign. A lot of political work has to be done with all the neighbours before we can have a successful military campaign. And the Chinese are key to the campaign itself and the aftermath.

Scott,

That's a dismaying scenario you draw. What an obscenity if
war in Korea between China and the U.S. and the twenty-four
nations allied with the U.S. began because of a misunderstanding.
The millions of people that died as a consequence -- it's
just incredibly perverse if true. Even the suggestion that
the bulk of the Korean War started in such a manner would
have been incredibly demoralizing for americans and perhaps
even more so for their allies.

That last is a problem with evaluating the truth of the
idea -- it's definitely not a disinterested proposition. It
would have been to the advantage of the chinese government
and communists in general for the world, outside China, to
believe this. If it is true I have difficulty understanding
the thinking of the chinese government. After all the
United States had just defeated the Japanese an opponent with
which this same government was intimately familiar and if
they knew nothing else that said volumes about U.S. capabilities.

Why start a war that you might lose? Why run to start a
conflict before it's even clear that the other side is
the enemy?

And what about nuclear weapons? Something the chinese didn't
have and something the Soviet Union barely had. A genuine
all-out war between the U.S. and China would have been a
cataclysym for China. And they risked that, in fact they
invited that.

It didn't happened because the U.S. recoiled from the
horror of it -- but the chinese government could not have
predicted that ahead of time.

So what are we left with? Almost any way you look at it the
chinese leadership was incompetent, took incredible risks,
didn't understand the implications of a one-sided nuclear
power, and was in some ways very, very lucky.