Harsh.
- Thread starter Jen
- Start date
tobaccoroad
Mayor
Might not be a bad idee to bring it back. Undecided whether they should be carried out by hanging or decapitation. Not many Japanese samurai around of late
Make a lovely scene on the DC Mall on mild, sunny spring or autumn weekend afternoons, crowds gathered, families bringing their picnic lunches, children playing games children play while they wait, vendors selling boxed fried chicken lunches and other refreshments, other vendors selling playbills "Gecher schedules here for the upcoming fun and events! Eric Holder at 1:00PM, William Wilkens at 1:15PM, Lois Lerner at 1:30PM......
One poster on another site said he attended one beheading in Saudi Arabia, everyone moved off to the side to let him through because he was 'Ameriki" giving him a front row view of the proceedings. The condemned first gets goosed sharply forcing him to extend his neck so the swordsman can do his work. He said you can see the eye still moving and eyelids blinking for a short while afterwards.
Make a lovely scene on the DC Mall on mild, sunny spring or autumn weekend afternoons, crowds gathered, families bringing their picnic lunches, children playing games children play while they wait, vendors selling boxed fried chicken lunches and other refreshments, other vendors selling playbills "Gecher schedules here for the upcoming fun and events! Eric Holder at 1:00PM, William Wilkens at 1:15PM, Lois Lerner at 1:30PM......
One poster on another site said he attended one beheading in Saudi Arabia, everyone moved off to the side to let him through because he was 'Ameriki" giving him a front row view of the proceedings. The condemned first gets goosed sharply forcing him to extend his neck so the swordsman can do his work. He said you can see the eye still moving and eyelids blinking for a short while afterwards.
Bugsy McGurk
President
That would probably make more sense as the reason.
fairsheet
Senator
Everything I know of North Korea, suggests a genuine hell on earth. I've never actually feared the North Koreans. I'm pretty confident that if a conflict were to break out between North Korea and non-North Korea, we'd witness a mass surrender on a scale the likes of which the world has never seen.
It almost makes me wish we, the South Koreans, and the rest of the world would commence that invasion tomorrow. But of course....I imagine there are some Kim apologists, even right here in this forum!
It almost makes me wish we, the South Koreans, and the rest of the world would commence that invasion tomorrow. But of course....I imagine there are some Kim apologists, even right here in this forum!
Caroljo
Senator
The first part of your post was pretty entertaining....and I was going to "like" it.
The 2nd paragraph though was really disturbing! Wow! So, I did like your post, just didn't want to click "like".....
Arkady
President
Most likely he was seen as a threat, or as insubordinate. North Korea functions the same way medieval European monarchies did, and in Medieval Europe it was commonplace for people to execute their relatives on trumped-up moral charges because of suspicions of plots to replace them. For example, Henry VI of Enland had his uncle, Humphrey, executed, after Humphrey got wrapped up in some charges directed against his wife for sorcery and heresy. I don't expect Henry VI believed for a moment that there was sorcery going on -- he just thought his uncle jeopardized his own position, and had him removed from the equation.
Arkady
President
I'm doubtful you'll find Kim apologists here. I agree that if war were to break out, there'd probably be mass defections and surrenders among the North Koreans. But the problem is that North Korea has a huge artillery arsenal lined up right beyond the DMZ, and if even a fairly small fraction of it didn't defect, they have enough force there to basically level Seoul (which is in northern South Korea) before they could be taken out. Seoul is a densely-populated city of almost 10 million people, so we could be talking about a death toll over a million people, right there, and the collapse of one of the world's more important economies. And that's not even to get into the fact the North Koreans have nukes. Even if there were just a handful of Kim-loyalist nutjobs who didn't defect, how hard would it be for one to use one of the tunnels under the DMZ to get a nuke into Seoul, or to smuggle it to Tokyo?
For that reason, I'd never want to see major hostilities break out on the Korean peninsula. The potential death toll and economic devestation is unimaginable, even if things went pretty well from the US perspective, with mass surrenders.
No doubt they would just ignite the entire lot of their "fireworks".
fairsheet
Senator
To qualify, I'm not really calling for an invasion of North Korea. I just wish there was something we could do to help those poor people. In most modern instances, I think it's incumbent upon oppressed peoples to take significant steps on their OWN behalfs, before others wade in. I'm not so sure it's fair to expect that of the North Koreans.
Arkady
President
We're talking about something like 20,000 artillery tubes, rockets, and mortars. Conservative estimates say about 700 of those have the range and positioning that they could reach Seoul immediately. That would kill, conservatively, 60,000 South Koreans on day one of the fighting -- basically, like South Korea suffering 20 attacks the magnitude of 9/11 simultaneously. Many of those could be taken out, since firing would reveal their position. But as we took them out, many of the rest of those 20,000 could be moved into range. And that's all without even making the kind of advance that would expose troops to mass surrender (as long as they stayed out of South Korean territory, North Korean units would probably be too afraid of their own leaders to try surrendering and risk having the artillery turned on them). We could be talking twenty 9/11s per day for a week or so, before Seoul had been sufficiently evacuated to stop the bleeding. And the economic devestation would make 9/11 look like a flesh wound. Meanwhile, with those nukes unaccounted for, Japan would be in a panic and markets would be in freefall, even if the nukes never got used.
And that's a conservative estimate. Some military analysts suggest North Korea could kill a million South Korean civilians within the first few hours of the conflict, with conventional weapons alone.
Arkady
President
If you have Netflix, there are a couple interesting documentaries available for streaming that give a view inside North Korea. Very interesting stuff.
fairsheet
Senator
The coolest and most positive thing I've heard recently, was that foreigners visiting North Korea are reporting that they're able to get South Korean service on their cellphones.
Arkady
President
I think, in this case, the best we can do is provided a "city on a hill" example for them to aspire to, and hope eventually they cast off their dictatorship on their own. And we should keep our eyes open for reformers within North Korea, who might pop up, in the hopes we can act in ways that strengthen their hands, and weaken those of their opponents.
That sounds weak, especially from the perspective of a country like ours that has grown accustomed to seeing every foreign problem as something calling for a military solution. But history shows that what seem like permanently-entrenched dictatorships can often fall rather suddenly, to the surprise of everyone, without any significant foreign military intervention. The obvious example is the whole Soviet bloc, which as of the mid-to-late 80s looked like it wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon, and then suddenly the Berlin Wall is down, and the communist regimes start toppling one after another. Nobody had to invade East Germany to start that process. It just turned out that the dictatorship there was a lot weaker than the CIA or anyone else thought.
There are other examples, too. Mobutu Sese Seko, dictator of Zaire, was around for decades, ruling with an iron fist, then suddenly was gone, with no US interventio. Marcos, Suhuorto, Franco, and so on. Sometimes the dictator dies of natural causes and the people see that as chance for a change and sometimes he's taken out from within, or flees. I'm not saying North Korea is necessarily ripe for that, but I think it's important to realize we don't have a good track record of knowing when countries are ripe for it. It often takes us by surprise. So, we needn't think of it as a choice between military action and leaving people under a cruel dictatorship forever. Sometimes the best thing the doctor can do is give the patient time to recover on his own.
fairsheet
Senator
I hear you for sure. I'm just suggesting that IF there's an exception to this rule, it might be North Korea. They don't call it the "Hermit Kingdom" for nothin'.
Frankly, I'm assuming the world is leaving this one in the hands of the South Koreans, as will it should. I'm guessing that the South Koreans have worked too hard for too long, to achieve their current level of prosperity and they aren't quite ready to put it at risk by "re-absorbing" the North Koreans. But..with the passage of time, perhaps they will be.
Bugsy McGurk
President
Maybe he said that Dennis Rodman had a lousy jumper.
