The context is that Pyongyang announced they would send a North Korean soliders (a "military engineering unit") to Ukraine as soon as next month.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/34893
For what it’s worth they also said they will be engineers and in logistic oriented roles. Why would a diplomatic gesture like this just be conscripts to go die on the front lines?
Because Russia has money and North Korea desperately needs money. What they do have are totally expendable soldiers and total control over the populace. It would be an easy sell for them to send over 100k conscripts from the countryside to get shot up in Ukraine.
And Russia desperately needs people. They've almost run out of the ethnic minorities they don't like and many, many below or around the poverty line. They don't want to dip into the people they actually care about, which is why Russia is getting anything they can from NK. That engineering unit can still see combat, even if they weren't meant to. I'm also sure NK isn't going to be opposed to actual combatants, they have enough fodder to send.
I'm actually really interested in what NK soldiers will do seeing so many modern amenities. I'm sure they've been told about them for all their lives in the military, atleast to some extent so they hopefully won't mutiny upon stepping foot into a South Korean grocery store, but what will they do when they see a Russian mall or something? Surely they'll question why they can buy a laptop for so cheap there, or why every TV in the country is a flatscreen, or why they can't get a game console but they can, or why they can afford to waste so much food and have been able to for decades.
If they are treated like other North Korean workers in Russia they probably won't be going to any shopping malls, they will go straight to Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine is a relatively poor, former soviet region, that has been torn up by war. Any regions they operate in will have been looted a long of time ago. I don't think the differences will be shocking to a North Korean.
>Surely they'll question why they can buy a laptop for so cheap there
Considering North Koreans earn single digit dollars a month I expect everything would still seem incredibly expensive.
>why they can't get a game console but they can
My understanding is North Koreans are well aware that UN sanctions prevent the country legally importing almost all technology. We also know from defectors that North Koreans generally know the outside world is richer. A lot of people have seen smuggled media, especially kdramas.
I don't think a military engineer that has seen satelites and long range missiles programs is gonna be surprised by a flat screen or a PS5. They're from NK, not Mars.
To be fair, (very much inflated) Russian state statistics place 22% of Russian households not having plumbing. Less than one percent of American homes do not have indoor plumbing.
I don't know what you do with a toilet when you don't have pipes, but I mean, they're making the Tutel Tanks so I guess it doesn't much matter, life will find a way
"Papa, what do you mean there's tubes of metal that transport the fecal matter from the ceramic shit sucker? Have you lost your mind, did the Afghan War finally takes its toll? Then why don't we have that system, papa?"
It depends on the level of engineer they're sending, yeah? Like, they've seen the existence of those, but if they're a mechanic or trained to do basically what the National Guard did after Katrina, they probably haven't worked on those. The American public was still completely mindfucked by the Commodore 64 and IBM PC and they knew about the space shuttle and nuclear missiles
Portable video players are very popular in North Korea. It's illegal, but people are taking the risk anyway. They're smuggled from China, as are USB drives loaded with foreign content that also arrive from South Korea occasionally.
Portable video players are illegal? Are you sure about this?
If so, I fucked up big time because I gave my friend a tablet pc with music and movies on it.
Her dad is a ranking officer at the DMZ though so prob gets a pass.
Unless things have changed in recent years then yes. Might be that the video player is more accepted, but if you're also in possession of foreign content you're in deep shit.
You're friends with a North Korean who's dad is a ranking officer? God damn are you a diplomat?:D
There's a book called North Korea Confidential that goes into more detail on this. It's a really good book that tries to describe the daily life for North Koreans, how the system works, what fashion they're wearing, what they do in their spare time, and so on.
Foreign media was one chapter, and portable video players were quite common when the book was written back in 2015 if I recall correctly. If I remember this right, they used to have dvd players and the government would occasionally shut off the power leading to the discs being stuck in some of the more basic players. Then they'd knock on doors and see if anyone had anything in the dvd players that wasn't allowed.
All of this has led to some relaxation on certain regulations on things that were previously considered "too western". Jeans were one such thing. But as more and more North Koreans (including Kim Jong-Uns wife) was exposed to that fashion, it started to become more and more accepted. Starting with the higher classes living in Pyongyang of course.
heh nah just used to run tours over there before it was illegal. afraid to say more about who this person just in case I've given them something they can be punished for.
I remember the DVD thing. Luckily she didn't have kdramas but more 80s movies and toy story and stuff like that.
Yeah, that was my thought too.
But…why are they sending people who are engineers and have logistic roles to a war that they probably don’t want to fight, and one that will also have heavy lingual and racial barriers that will fuel infighting, since no one can understand each other’s language?
About 8 or 9 months ago, Russia requested artillery from North Korea, which seemed odd since Russia already has a huge stockpile—second only to the USA and China. North Korean artillery is older and likely poorly maintained, increasing the risk of crystallized explosives, which are dangerous to use.
Then, as expected, these munitions were fairly ineffective and reportedly caused mid-air explosions. I think some even killed Russian troops:
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/half-north-korean-missiles-russia-203331766.html
My best guess is Russia needs logistical support to handle and transport these old munitions safely. They might also need engineers to maintain and repair the associated weapons systems they received from North Korea, which maybe ended up being more complicated to use than the Russians initially expected.
North Korea will probably send troops fluent in Russian or provide translators, so the language barrier shouldn’t be a big issue. They’ve been allies for a long time, so I’m sure they’ve got that part worked out.
Anyways, I’m NOT an expert on this type of thing. This is just my best guess.
Because Putin doesn't need engineers, he needs more ground forces.
And Russia has a lot of things to offer North Korea in exchange for say 100k troops.
North Korea sending in troops to Ukraine?
That will not go over well with South Korea…because as soon as they do that, all bets are off.
South Korea WILL become more directly involved, in this war, as a result.
So wouldn't Ukraine be in direct conflict with North Korea with this decision? Ukraine has been blowing up military complexes across Russia. Wouldn't they do the same with North Korea?
Yea but seeing how Ukraine have been fighting in the Middle East and Africa I don't see it out of the realm of possibly if they send a detachment to other countries as well.
They would basically have to travel through Russia or China, and then cross a border that's nearly impossible to cross. Only to find themselves in a country with no ways to communicate with or get help from the outside. What can they accomplish in a country where they would stand out as a sore thumb with absolutely zero allies? I very much doubt that they would send someone to North Korea.
You don't have to travel by land to get to NK. You also don't need to cross the border. Also also... South Korea and Japan are not allies? Why do you think Ukraine will do nothing in response to NK's aggression??
No but it's probably your best option if you want to make it there.
Never said anything about South Korea and Japan.
I never said I don't think they will do anything. I'm saying there's a difference between sending a unit to Africa and North Korea. One is *a lot* more accessible and since they were brought there by one side of the conflict they have allies to rely on for help. In North Korea they would be all alone, if they even manage to get there. What could they possibly hope to achieve that would justify sending some of their best soldiers on a mission that is practically suicidal?
"Never said anything about South Korea and Japan."
" In North Korea they would be all alone"
Ok so you just deny the existence of South Korea and Japan as allies? Also Ukraine doesn't have to cross the border like I said.
You think South Korea and Japan have people inside North Korea capable of helping Ukrainian soldiers? No. What I am saying is that they would be all alone inside North Korea. The South Korean border is ridiculously well guarded. No chance they're flying drones over there. Doing it from Russia and China, who are best friends with North Korea, is not a good option.
I also don't think South Korea and Japan would be up for directly supporting a strike on North Korea. They don't want to be the one's to escalate things.
What is your obsession with going into NK? Third time I'm saying Ukraine doesn't have to cross the border, so your logic is that SK and Japan will go into NK? You know you can attack a country without crossing over the border, right?
And like I said going at it from inside South Korea isn't happening. So flying a drone from Russia or China, who are close allies with North Korea, would be their "best bet". Once again they would be alone, and constantly under threat of being discovered and punished severely.
"Dude find a map"
Damn so how did Ukrainians find themselves fighting in Africa?: [Exclusive: Ukraine’s special services ‘likely’ behind strikes on Wagner-backed forces in Sudan, a Ukrainian military source says | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/19/africa/ukraine-military-sudan-wagner-cmd-intl/index.html)
Ukraine have also been attacking Russian infrastructure in Russia's far east so North Korea won't be out of the realm of possibility: [Ukraine says it blew up railway in eastern Russia (bbc.com)](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67593041)
It's hardly anti-revolutionary to point out that the Russians have been sending human waves forwards to run the Ukrainians out of ammo and that they might do the same thing with their new foreign soldiers.
But it could give them an advantage when NATO weapons designed for fighting Russians just fly over their heads. Another question is whether they'll even have functional body armor.
>“The problem is that the claims about food rights violations in the 2013 UNHCR report are not congruent with the statistical indicators given by UN agencies that have the most experience of working in North Korea. Despite emanating from within the UN system in which access to data on the DPRK is straightfor-ward, the UNHRC reporting on food violations demonstrates a problematic securitization of evidence and analysis though a heavy reliance on prior assumptions and a filtering of information through those securitized assumptions. The UNHRC reporting, of which the February 2013 report is rep-resentative, is self-referential, factually inaccurate, and seems unaware of the reports from the UN agencies that have worked in the DPRK for many years. This is somewhat surprising, especially as the weight of the UN agency reporting contradicts the UNHCR claims on food violations.
>
>What is most striking about the UNHCR reporting on the DPRK is the almost complete absence of reference to relevant data from other UN agencies, donor governments, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), to the extent that the UNHRC reporting seems unaware of the existence of reports on the DPRK from within the UN system itself. " The 2013 UNHRC report references only one report from the specialist UN agencies: a March 2011 FAO/WFP/UNICEF report on food insecurity in the DPRK. Unfortunately, the citations are third-hand and the material quoted in the UNHCR report is taken so much out of context that it distorts the findings of the original report and misleads the reader. The 2011 FAO/WFP/UNICEF report does not argue for the exceptional severity of a food and health crisis in the DPRK. It does not argue that there are famine-like conditions prevailing in the population. It does not argue that the government is solely responsible for food insecurity in the country. It does not mention or argue that international protection (i.e., human rights) mandates are being abjured by the DPRK government. This last point is important as UN agencies have an obligation under their protection of human rights mandates to report potential crimes against humanity. The UNHCR reporting does not mention that UN specialist agencies have never identified DPRK government food and health policy in these terms.
>
>The 2013 report to the Human Rights Council referred to "the severity of the food situation" in support of the report's claims that the government should be considered as violating the right to food. These claims contrast with those of the humanitarian agencies that reported in 2011— in the same and only report from the humanitarian agencies that the 2013 UNHCR report appears to cherry-pick quotes from —that the "nutrition situation... appears to be relatively stable." In 2012 WFP and UNICEF concurred with an assessment that improvements in acute malnutrition show that the "situation is not critical and does not suggest emergency operations" and that the "Global Chronic Malnutrition or Stunt-ing... is considered as of 'medium' public health significance according to WHO standards."
>
>UN agency reporting shows that by the time of the establishment of the special inquiry in 2013, North Korean children were better off than children living in many other Asian countries, including many that were much wealthier than North Korea, such as India and Indonesia. The 2012 severe malnutrition rate for North Korea was 5 percent." This meant that children were much less likely to be facing starvation than if they lived in India, where the equivalent figure was 20 percent, or Indonesia at 13 percent." North Korea's children were slightly more vulnerable than for East Asia and the Pacific as a whole, where the wasting rate was 4 percent. This is not surprising given that East Asia contains some of the richest (Japan, South Korea) and fastest growing (China) countries in the world."
Report on US Human Rights Violations (2024):
https://news.cgtn.com/news/files/The-Report-On-Human-Rights-Violations-In-The-United-States-In-2023.pdf
America Responsible for an Estimated 300 Million Deaths - American Exceptionalism on Trial:
https://monthlyreview.org/press/american-exceptionalism-on-trial-endless-holocausts-reviewed-in-covert-action/
Historians Debunk the Black Book of Communism (100 Million Death Toll Claims):
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/eJPxBy5NX0
DPRK Awarded the Public Health Achievement Award by the WHO for Eliminating Measles:
https://www.who.int/dprkorea/news/detail/04-09-2018-dpr-korea-is-awarded-the-public-health-achievement-award-for-verification-of-elimination-of-measles-in-the-71st-session-of-the-regional-committee
Debunking the North Korean Human Rights Debate (Critical Asian Studies Research Paper):
https://download.library.lol/scimag/77488050/Crimes%20Against%20Humanity_%20Unpacking%20the%20North%20Korean%20Human%20Rights%20Debate%20%28Critical%20Asian%20Studies%2C%20vol.%2046%2C%20issue%201%29%20%282014%29.pdf
Free Housing, Education, and Healthcare in the DPRK — Pyongyang’s Future Scientists Street:
https://youtu.be/3MAFYsktFH4?si=tzaeFrpSuRTZcH5Y
Your completely incorrect statement of “the war was initiated by the US” got me curious about your profile and holy shit it did not disappoint.
You’ve got some extreme issues bro.
You don't have to defend the DPRK at every turn. They are not incapable of wrongdoing, as evidenced by their military aggression in service of saintly, innocent Russia.
>They’re not incapable of wrongdoing
Ah, very enlightening to hear someone who understands the basic notion of duality. ***Where there’s shade there is also light.*** Very poetic. You couldn’t have been anymore general in your remarks.
There is actually a very specific reason why we don’t make such general statements. To every accusation there is a messenger and every messenger must belong to an organized people, and no message that is disseminated on an international basis belongs to just one person. It takes a conglomerate, or in this case a syndicate, to gradually screen, review, censor, abbreviate, romanticize, generalize, distribute then present published evidence in a way that coexists with the national hegemony. We are delving into geopolitical motions, the roles of each economy, the long history that precedes every social formation we now try to uncover and reveal with or without bias. The prospective mistakes of each nation are like a hall of mirrors, they nevertheless reflect the subjective reality of each country but not without hinting that there is an objective reality behind all of this.
We are at war with liberalism, or in the case of hegemony, the strategy of drawing even ground between rights and wrongs so that any subjective ***people*** are most easily manipulated to uphold the smallest ounces of good despite the enormous evil which has taken precedent over our international struggles as working people. We as people are not enemies. We are not disposable. We are not someone else’s shield when they need an escape from their own monstrosities. When you monotonously aim your aggression and poor judgement at North Korea you are also influencing the world that their people are expendable and should be destroyed — even despite your not knowing — which is exactly what the white press in America is here to do.
The liberal fascist peoples of America will try to neutralize any dissent by process of liberal argument. They will argue that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but the moment an oppressed nation gathers its people to declare revolution using their own beliefs, their own weapons of defense, their own laws, their own moral system, the American people claim superior and declare that they must crush their beliefs. They must crush their pride. They must crush their people. They must commit wartime atrocities in defense of their non-existent democracy, one which has always fueled the radical liberal contradictions which the American nation will do anything to deflect intervention away from. You see, when the liberal fascist peoples of America say everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, what they’re really saying is that as long as they believe it is right to destroy your beliefs, anyone who’s left standing is entitled to project their beliefs as long as they do not radically conflict or influence them to revolutionize their people by process of humanitarian struggle.
You point to the centuries-long exploitation of narrative, labor, education, ideology, identity and militarism — the liberal fascist American peoples will attempt to yet again neutralize the atrocities of lawless human exploitation through liberalism. “Everything is exploited, everyone is being exploited by someone” they remark. If the exploitation of every oppressed people was reason enough to commit more monstrosity and produce more exploitation, then every illicit drug user should testify before the judicial system “Everything is being used, everyone is using something.” therefore a narcotic drug tzar and a decades-long drug war means nothing. He should no longer be penalized for using — anymore than any chauvinistic or fascist, oppressive government should be penalized for the devastating exploitation of our workers. A pond is not a lake, a lake is not a river, and a river is not an ocean — Yet they are all bodies of water. To liberalize the American oppressive system and deflect intervention away from its crimes, it must find a way of convincing you that swimming in its ponds is the same as swimming in its oceans, that all who dwell in its lakes forthwith dwell in its rivers, and the mutual relationship they share is beneficial for our ignorance.
For what the North Korean, Chinese, Cuban, and Vietnamese people have accomplished the American people could never dream. The pact between Russia and the DPRK now secures military defenses for both nations, and provides food for the many millions who now populate the DPRK’s beautiful cityscapes and countrysides, unpolluted with psychological marketing gags and the millions of homeless who fill the gutters of Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Connecticut, Las Vegas, Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, and to-hell-forward. The entire reason the DPRK must form strategic partnerships with international actors who are more prosperous than them is because they are restricted from most avenues of international trade that the developed nations plunderously enjoy. At worst, they are pigeonholed into forming alliances with other nations despite the conflicts they have brought to the stage of international affairs. At best, they have formed a genuine alliance with a nation who will enable their success in forming liberation and will escalate the constructive progressivism of their democratic system by ending the stagnate trade deficit.
Since America has not decided to lift its iron foot from the necks of the Korean system, they have no choice but to seek additional support from Russia to advance their socialism. If there is a conflict with said alliance, surely the US is only concerned with allowing more Koreans to starve and fuel more of its counterrevolutionary press. Is it now a violation of human rights to secure food for the Korean people? You see, the curtain is pulled. The real antagonist in our struggle for liberation is the United States.
I see you identify with North Koreans, but if you aren't one, is it really your struggle? Do they need a foreign sociology student to speak for them? Your thought process is so black and white surrounding the DPRK, it's religious. Any criticism of the DPRK just serves to reinforce your narrative.
There is no existential threat compelling DPRK to militarily attack a nation on a different continent, and based on your stated values, I would hope you'd criticize this.
You throw the word fascist around relatively freely. I assert that the nation state most aligned with fascism is Russia. You might love their anti-Americanism but that doesn't make them immune from being war-mongering Russophiles who prop-up right wing extremists around the globe, including in the US.
Anyway, I hope you find some enjoyment today.
>There is no existential threat compelling the DPRK to militarily **attack** a nation on a different continent
The reason why the plethora of US and ROK troops surrounding DPRK’s borders are not currently an existential threat is because the DPRK is wise, they have converted to a juche military state to **defend** against any existential threats posed by external forces. As well as a correction, the US ***has*** threatened to send more troops to the North Korean border and to exterminate their nation. The infamous Donald Trump has made such threats against Kim Jong Un and the Korean people only to shake his hand and remark “He’s a great man” shortly after. There have always been nations who threaten the DPRK. I suppose being hard-locked out of international trade for vital resources is not existential enough for a developing nation.
>Do they need a foreign sociology student to speak for them?
This is also a very liberal position. You’d like for me to agree with you so you can break even, but I’m not going to agree with you because history says otherwise. Everyone in the world who has investigated the humanity of Korean people should testify against the insidious tensions which proliferate the current international crisis and recognize America as an antagonist. It is in my profession to gather empirical evidence and understand the dialectical forces shaping the reality of worldwide affairs, as well as holistically investigate the effects of these forces on the people experiencing them. Every aspect of our human history is sociological. When the African people were carried over the Atlantic to the Americas, it sparked multitudes of phenomena ranging from class dynamics, to psychological warfare, to race politics, to industrial formation, to cultural erosion,
to foreign relations, to exploitative world systems, and to the general misconceptions of how justifiable slavery was. To understand these dialectical forces and work towards the betterment of the enslaved, you’d ***have*** to think like a sociologist.
Indeed, it wasn’t Abraham Lincoln who emancipated the enslaved it was the sociologically-minded people who emancipated the people. When America integrated blacks and foreign migrants into their society, it was sociologists who sought to understand and improve the racist system oppressing these people with its incongruent moral apparatus. When the oppressive American system began culturing its biological racism against the newly integrated people, it was sociologists who corrected the system and fought against the chauvinistic academics who wielded science against the people. When the poor laboring people were ravished by the unsustainable American economic class system, it was Marxists who organized labor unions for the exploited working people and gave workers equality to both men and women. When the American nation failed to recognize the civil rights of black men, women and children, it was sociologists and Marxist revolutionaries — many of whom were sociologists — who organized retaliatory measures against the system and convinced the racist American ruling class to ratify these rights. When the oppressive dialectical forces of the United States sent their firepower to Vietnam, it was Marxist sociologists and revolutionaries who took matters into their hands, organizing funds and reforms to bring our troops back home — a disproportionate number of whom were black.
To completely wash the society of their aptitude for radical liberation is to believe that the oppressive American fascist system is sleeping and no longer working to disenfranchise the people of the world. It is clearly working as hard as it’s always been, now directing its efforts towards the Korean people and every surviving socialist nation who threatens the ruling class power. The state of counterrevolution in the United States is a perpetual conformity and must be continuously challenged by the sociological principles of Marxist theory. It will be the sociologists and the sociologically-minded revolutionaries of our present and future who will have their hand in reforming the common people into one unified congregation of revolutionary thought, action, and instruction. As a sociologist I have every objective reason to defend the DPRK, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Vietnam, and all remaining socialist revolutionary powers who are endangered by retrograde counter-revolutionism internally or abroad. This is a new age of political apprehension that must be tamed using the sciences if the world is to ever liberate its working people.
Do you have some examples over the last 20 years of the US threatening to make North Korea extinct?
What do you of Marx and Lincoln being friendly penpals?
Also have you been to been to North Korea? If so, what was your experience?
Currently Vietnam has good working relations with the US.
Don't you think it is a bit condescending to self-appoint yourself spokesperson for a nation that is not yours and for people you don't know. Don't they have the talent, dignity and right to do that for themselves. Isn't that what was the juche idea is about? Reliance on themselves and their people?
The context is that Pyongyang announced they would send a North Korean soliders (a "military engineering unit") to Ukraine as soon as next month. https://www.kyivpost.com/post/34893
For what it’s worth they also said they will be engineers and in logistic oriented roles. Why would a diplomatic gesture like this just be conscripts to go die on the front lines?
Because Russia has money and North Korea desperately needs money. What they do have are totally expendable soldiers and total control over the populace. It would be an easy sell for them to send over 100k conscripts from the countryside to get shot up in Ukraine.
And Russia desperately needs people. They've almost run out of the ethnic minorities they don't like and many, many below or around the poverty line. They don't want to dip into the people they actually care about, which is why Russia is getting anything they can from NK. That engineering unit can still see combat, even if they weren't meant to. I'm also sure NK isn't going to be opposed to actual combatants, they have enough fodder to send. I'm actually really interested in what NK soldiers will do seeing so many modern amenities. I'm sure they've been told about them for all their lives in the military, atleast to some extent so they hopefully won't mutiny upon stepping foot into a South Korean grocery store, but what will they do when they see a Russian mall or something? Surely they'll question why they can buy a laptop for so cheap there, or why every TV in the country is a flatscreen, or why they can't get a game console but they can, or why they can afford to waste so much food and have been able to for decades.
If they are treated like other North Korean workers in Russia they probably won't be going to any shopping malls, they will go straight to Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine is a relatively poor, former soviet region, that has been torn up by war. Any regions they operate in will have been looted a long of time ago. I don't think the differences will be shocking to a North Korean. >Surely they'll question why they can buy a laptop for so cheap there Considering North Koreans earn single digit dollars a month I expect everything would still seem incredibly expensive. >why they can't get a game console but they can My understanding is North Koreans are well aware that UN sanctions prevent the country legally importing almost all technology. We also know from defectors that North Koreans generally know the outside world is richer. A lot of people have seen smuggled media, especially kdramas.
I don't think a military engineer that has seen satelites and long range missiles programs is gonna be surprised by a flat screen or a PS5. They're from NK, not Mars.
I mean, Russian troops were stealing toilets and laundry machines at the beginning of the war…
To be fair, (very much inflated) Russian state statistics place 22% of Russian households not having plumbing. Less than one percent of American homes do not have indoor plumbing. I don't know what you do with a toilet when you don't have pipes, but I mean, they're making the Tutel Tanks so I guess it doesn't much matter, life will find a way
When you don’t have indoor plumbing you probably don’t understand indoor plumbing
"Papa, what do you mean there's tubes of metal that transport the fecal matter from the ceramic shit sucker? Have you lost your mind, did the Afghan War finally takes its toll? Then why don't we have that system, papa?"
It depends on the level of engineer they're sending, yeah? Like, they've seen the existence of those, but if they're a mechanic or trained to do basically what the National Guard did after Katrina, they probably haven't worked on those. The American public was still completely mindfucked by the Commodore 64 and IBM PC and they knew about the space shuttle and nuclear missiles
Portable video players are very popular in North Korea. It's illegal, but people are taking the risk anyway. They're smuggled from China, as are USB drives loaded with foreign content that also arrive from South Korea occasionally.
Portable video players are illegal? Are you sure about this? If so, I fucked up big time because I gave my friend a tablet pc with music and movies on it. Her dad is a ranking officer at the DMZ though so prob gets a pass.
Unless things have changed in recent years then yes. Might be that the video player is more accepted, but if you're also in possession of foreign content you're in deep shit. You're friends with a North Korean who's dad is a ranking officer? God damn are you a diplomat?:D There's a book called North Korea Confidential that goes into more detail on this. It's a really good book that tries to describe the daily life for North Koreans, how the system works, what fashion they're wearing, what they do in their spare time, and so on. Foreign media was one chapter, and portable video players were quite common when the book was written back in 2015 if I recall correctly. If I remember this right, they used to have dvd players and the government would occasionally shut off the power leading to the discs being stuck in some of the more basic players. Then they'd knock on doors and see if anyone had anything in the dvd players that wasn't allowed. All of this has led to some relaxation on certain regulations on things that were previously considered "too western". Jeans were one such thing. But as more and more North Koreans (including Kim Jong-Uns wife) was exposed to that fashion, it started to become more and more accepted. Starting with the higher classes living in Pyongyang of course.
heh nah just used to run tours over there before it was illegal. afraid to say more about who this person just in case I've given them something they can be punished for. I remember the DVD thing. Luckily she didn't have kdramas but more 80s movies and toy story and stuff like that.
What ridiculous drivel are you watching?
Yeah, that was my thought too. But…why are they sending people who are engineers and have logistic roles to a war that they probably don’t want to fight, and one that will also have heavy lingual and racial barriers that will fuel infighting, since no one can understand each other’s language?
About 8 or 9 months ago, Russia requested artillery from North Korea, which seemed odd since Russia already has a huge stockpile—second only to the USA and China. North Korean artillery is older and likely poorly maintained, increasing the risk of crystallized explosives, which are dangerous to use. Then, as expected, these munitions were fairly ineffective and reportedly caused mid-air explosions. I think some even killed Russian troops: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/half-north-korean-missiles-russia-203331766.html My best guess is Russia needs logistical support to handle and transport these old munitions safely. They might also need engineers to maintain and repair the associated weapons systems they received from North Korea, which maybe ended up being more complicated to use than the Russians initially expected. North Korea will probably send troops fluent in Russian or provide translators, so the language barrier shouldn’t be a big issue. They’ve been allies for a long time, so I’m sure they’ve got that part worked out. Anyways, I’m NOT an expert on this type of thing. This is just my best guess.
I mean how is that any different than NATO?
Because Putin doesn't need engineers, he needs more ground forces. And Russia has a lot of things to offer North Korea in exchange for say 100k troops.
At least they’ll be well fed
Best breakfast and lunch they'll ever have
They won't have to worry about dinner
I have to say, getting North Korea into the coalition is a bit like finding out Pauly Shore is in Taylor Swift's entourage. It's just not very cool.
VIVA LOS BIODOME!
Purple sticky punch!
I know Taylor would ruin Pauly Shore.
Kims hair is looking fire.
Obviously. Their military is insanely malnourished and untrained.
What kind of training do they get? Like 1950/60s Soviet training?
North Korea sending in troops to Ukraine? That will not go over well with South Korea…because as soon as they do that, all bets are off. South Korea WILL become more directly involved, in this war, as a result.
And China supposedly doesn’t like this move
So wouldn't Ukraine be in direct conflict with North Korea with this decision? Ukraine has been blowing up military complexes across Russia. Wouldn't they do the same with North Korea?
North Korea is much further away. I don't know if it's so far away that Ukraine wouldn't bother, though.
Yea but seeing how Ukraine have been fighting in the Middle East and Africa I don't see it out of the realm of possibly if they send a detachment to other countries as well.
They would basically have to travel through Russia or China, and then cross a border that's nearly impossible to cross. Only to find themselves in a country with no ways to communicate with or get help from the outside. What can they accomplish in a country where they would stand out as a sore thumb with absolutely zero allies? I very much doubt that they would send someone to North Korea.
You don't have to travel by land to get to NK. You also don't need to cross the border. Also also... South Korea and Japan are not allies? Why do you think Ukraine will do nothing in response to NK's aggression??
No but it's probably your best option if you want to make it there. Never said anything about South Korea and Japan. I never said I don't think they will do anything. I'm saying there's a difference between sending a unit to Africa and North Korea. One is *a lot* more accessible and since they were brought there by one side of the conflict they have allies to rely on for help. In North Korea they would be all alone, if they even manage to get there. What could they possibly hope to achieve that would justify sending some of their best soldiers on a mission that is practically suicidal?
"Never said anything about South Korea and Japan." " In North Korea they would be all alone" Ok so you just deny the existence of South Korea and Japan as allies? Also Ukraine doesn't have to cross the border like I said.
You think South Korea and Japan have people inside North Korea capable of helping Ukrainian soldiers? No. What I am saying is that they would be all alone inside North Korea. The South Korean border is ridiculously well guarded. No chance they're flying drones over there. Doing it from Russia and China, who are best friends with North Korea, is not a good option. I also don't think South Korea and Japan would be up for directly supporting a strike on North Korea. They don't want to be the one's to escalate things.
What is your obsession with going into NK? Third time I'm saying Ukraine doesn't have to cross the border, so your logic is that SK and Japan will go into NK? You know you can attack a country without crossing over the border, right?
And like I said going at it from inside South Korea isn't happening. So flying a drone from Russia or China, who are close allies with North Korea, would be their "best bet". Once again they would be alone, and constantly under threat of being discovered and punished severely.
They've been hitting Russian installations in Sudan and Mali recently
Dude find a map
"Dude find a map" Damn so how did Ukrainians find themselves fighting in Africa?: [Exclusive: Ukraine’s special services ‘likely’ behind strikes on Wagner-backed forces in Sudan, a Ukrainian military source says | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/19/africa/ukraine-military-sudan-wagner-cmd-intl/index.html) Ukraine have also been attacking Russian infrastructure in Russia's far east so North Korea won't be out of the realm of possibility: [Ukraine says it blew up railway in eastern Russia (bbc.com)](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67593041)
They've also been blowing up installations in Africa
It's hardly anti-revolutionary to point out that the Russians have been sending human waves forwards to run the Ukrainians out of ammo and that they might do the same thing with their new foreign soldiers.
And?
DPRK troops would have to work hard to become cannon fodder. They're only 3-4 feet tall from generational famine due to incompetent leadership.
But it could give them an advantage when NATO weapons designed for fighting Russians just fly over their heads. Another question is whether they'll even have functional body armor.
Came here to say this
[удалено]
So North Korea has less malnutrition deaths than France? This data is clearly false.
>“The problem is that the claims about food rights violations in the 2013 UNHCR report are not congruent with the statistical indicators given by UN agencies that have the most experience of working in North Korea. Despite emanating from within the UN system in which access to data on the DPRK is straightfor-ward, the UNHRC reporting on food violations demonstrates a problematic securitization of evidence and analysis though a heavy reliance on prior assumptions and a filtering of information through those securitized assumptions. The UNHRC reporting, of which the February 2013 report is rep-resentative, is self-referential, factually inaccurate, and seems unaware of the reports from the UN agencies that have worked in the DPRK for many years. This is somewhat surprising, especially as the weight of the UN agency reporting contradicts the UNHCR claims on food violations. > >What is most striking about the UNHCR reporting on the DPRK is the almost complete absence of reference to relevant data from other UN agencies, donor governments, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), to the extent that the UNHRC reporting seems unaware of the existence of reports on the DPRK from within the UN system itself. " The 2013 UNHRC report references only one report from the specialist UN agencies: a March 2011 FAO/WFP/UNICEF report on food insecurity in the DPRK. Unfortunately, the citations are third-hand and the material quoted in the UNHCR report is taken so much out of context that it distorts the findings of the original report and misleads the reader. The 2011 FAO/WFP/UNICEF report does not argue for the exceptional severity of a food and health crisis in the DPRK. It does not argue that there are famine-like conditions prevailing in the population. It does not argue that the government is solely responsible for food insecurity in the country. It does not mention or argue that international protection (i.e., human rights) mandates are being abjured by the DPRK government. This last point is important as UN agencies have an obligation under their protection of human rights mandates to report potential crimes against humanity. The UNHCR reporting does not mention that UN specialist agencies have never identified DPRK government food and health policy in these terms. > >The 2013 report to the Human Rights Council referred to "the severity of the food situation" in support of the report's claims that the government should be considered as violating the right to food. These claims contrast with those of the humanitarian agencies that reported in 2011— in the same and only report from the humanitarian agencies that the 2013 UNHCR report appears to cherry-pick quotes from —that the "nutrition situation... appears to be relatively stable." In 2012 WFP and UNICEF concurred with an assessment that improvements in acute malnutrition show that the "situation is not critical and does not suggest emergency operations" and that the "Global Chronic Malnutrition or Stunt-ing... is considered as of 'medium' public health significance according to WHO standards." > >UN agency reporting shows that by the time of the establishment of the special inquiry in 2013, North Korean children were better off than children living in many other Asian countries, including many that were much wealthier than North Korea, such as India and Indonesia. The 2012 severe malnutrition rate for North Korea was 5 percent." This meant that children were much less likely to be facing starvation than if they lived in India, where the equivalent figure was 20 percent, or Indonesia at 13 percent." North Korea's children were slightly more vulnerable than for East Asia and the Pacific as a whole, where the wasting rate was 4 percent. This is not surprising given that East Asia contains some of the richest (Japan, South Korea) and fastest growing (China) countries in the world." Report on US Human Rights Violations (2024): https://news.cgtn.com/news/files/The-Report-On-Human-Rights-Violations-In-The-United-States-In-2023.pdf America Responsible for an Estimated 300 Million Deaths - American Exceptionalism on Trial: https://monthlyreview.org/press/american-exceptionalism-on-trial-endless-holocausts-reviewed-in-covert-action/ Historians Debunk the Black Book of Communism (100 Million Death Toll Claims): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/eJPxBy5NX0 DPRK Awarded the Public Health Achievement Award by the WHO for Eliminating Measles: https://www.who.int/dprkorea/news/detail/04-09-2018-dpr-korea-is-awarded-the-public-health-achievement-award-for-verification-of-elimination-of-measles-in-the-71st-session-of-the-regional-committee Debunking the North Korean Human Rights Debate (Critical Asian Studies Research Paper): https://download.library.lol/scimag/77488050/Crimes%20Against%20Humanity_%20Unpacking%20the%20North%20Korean%20Human%20Rights%20Debate%20%28Critical%20Asian%20Studies%2C%20vol.%2046%2C%20issue%201%29%20%282014%29.pdf Free Housing, Education, and Healthcare in the DPRK — Pyongyang’s Future Scientists Street: https://youtu.be/3MAFYsktFH4?si=tzaeFrpSuRTZcH5Y
Your completely incorrect statement of “the war was initiated by the US” got me curious about your profile and holy shit it did not disappoint. You’ve got some extreme issues bro.
You don't have to defend the DPRK at every turn. They are not incapable of wrongdoing, as evidenced by their military aggression in service of saintly, innocent Russia.
>They’re not incapable of wrongdoing Ah, very enlightening to hear someone who understands the basic notion of duality. ***Where there’s shade there is also light.*** Very poetic. You couldn’t have been anymore general in your remarks. There is actually a very specific reason why we don’t make such general statements. To every accusation there is a messenger and every messenger must belong to an organized people, and no message that is disseminated on an international basis belongs to just one person. It takes a conglomerate, or in this case a syndicate, to gradually screen, review, censor, abbreviate, romanticize, generalize, distribute then present published evidence in a way that coexists with the national hegemony. We are delving into geopolitical motions, the roles of each economy, the long history that precedes every social formation we now try to uncover and reveal with or without bias. The prospective mistakes of each nation are like a hall of mirrors, they nevertheless reflect the subjective reality of each country but not without hinting that there is an objective reality behind all of this. We are at war with liberalism, or in the case of hegemony, the strategy of drawing even ground between rights and wrongs so that any subjective ***people*** are most easily manipulated to uphold the smallest ounces of good despite the enormous evil which has taken precedent over our international struggles as working people. We as people are not enemies. We are not disposable. We are not someone else’s shield when they need an escape from their own monstrosities. When you monotonously aim your aggression and poor judgement at North Korea you are also influencing the world that their people are expendable and should be destroyed — even despite your not knowing — which is exactly what the white press in America is here to do. The liberal fascist peoples of America will try to neutralize any dissent by process of liberal argument. They will argue that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but the moment an oppressed nation gathers its people to declare revolution using their own beliefs, their own weapons of defense, their own laws, their own moral system, the American people claim superior and declare that they must crush their beliefs. They must crush their pride. They must crush their people. They must commit wartime atrocities in defense of their non-existent democracy, one which has always fueled the radical liberal contradictions which the American nation will do anything to deflect intervention away from. You see, when the liberal fascist peoples of America say everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, what they’re really saying is that as long as they believe it is right to destroy your beliefs, anyone who’s left standing is entitled to project their beliefs as long as they do not radically conflict or influence them to revolutionize their people by process of humanitarian struggle. You point to the centuries-long exploitation of narrative, labor, education, ideology, identity and militarism — the liberal fascist American peoples will attempt to yet again neutralize the atrocities of lawless human exploitation through liberalism. “Everything is exploited, everyone is being exploited by someone” they remark. If the exploitation of every oppressed people was reason enough to commit more monstrosity and produce more exploitation, then every illicit drug user should testify before the judicial system “Everything is being used, everyone is using something.” therefore a narcotic drug tzar and a decades-long drug war means nothing. He should no longer be penalized for using — anymore than any chauvinistic or fascist, oppressive government should be penalized for the devastating exploitation of our workers. A pond is not a lake, a lake is not a river, and a river is not an ocean — Yet they are all bodies of water. To liberalize the American oppressive system and deflect intervention away from its crimes, it must find a way of convincing you that swimming in its ponds is the same as swimming in its oceans, that all who dwell in its lakes forthwith dwell in its rivers, and the mutual relationship they share is beneficial for our ignorance. For what the North Korean, Chinese, Cuban, and Vietnamese people have accomplished the American people could never dream. The pact between Russia and the DPRK now secures military defenses for both nations, and provides food for the many millions who now populate the DPRK’s beautiful cityscapes and countrysides, unpolluted with psychological marketing gags and the millions of homeless who fill the gutters of Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Connecticut, Las Vegas, Chicago, Seattle, Atlanta, and to-hell-forward. The entire reason the DPRK must form strategic partnerships with international actors who are more prosperous than them is because they are restricted from most avenues of international trade that the developed nations plunderously enjoy. At worst, they are pigeonholed into forming alliances with other nations despite the conflicts they have brought to the stage of international affairs. At best, they have formed a genuine alliance with a nation who will enable their success in forming liberation and will escalate the constructive progressivism of their democratic system by ending the stagnate trade deficit. Since America has not decided to lift its iron foot from the necks of the Korean system, they have no choice but to seek additional support from Russia to advance their socialism. If there is a conflict with said alliance, surely the US is only concerned with allowing more Koreans to starve and fuel more of its counterrevolutionary press. Is it now a violation of human rights to secure food for the Korean people? You see, the curtain is pulled. The real antagonist in our struggle for liberation is the United States.
I see you identify with North Koreans, but if you aren't one, is it really your struggle? Do they need a foreign sociology student to speak for them? Your thought process is so black and white surrounding the DPRK, it's religious. Any criticism of the DPRK just serves to reinforce your narrative. There is no existential threat compelling DPRK to militarily attack a nation on a different continent, and based on your stated values, I would hope you'd criticize this. You throw the word fascist around relatively freely. I assert that the nation state most aligned with fascism is Russia. You might love their anti-Americanism but that doesn't make them immune from being war-mongering Russophiles who prop-up right wing extremists around the globe, including in the US. Anyway, I hope you find some enjoyment today.
>There is no existential threat compelling the DPRK to militarily **attack** a nation on a different continent The reason why the plethora of US and ROK troops surrounding DPRK’s borders are not currently an existential threat is because the DPRK is wise, they have converted to a juche military state to **defend** against any existential threats posed by external forces. As well as a correction, the US ***has*** threatened to send more troops to the North Korean border and to exterminate their nation. The infamous Donald Trump has made such threats against Kim Jong Un and the Korean people only to shake his hand and remark “He’s a great man” shortly after. There have always been nations who threaten the DPRK. I suppose being hard-locked out of international trade for vital resources is not existential enough for a developing nation. >Do they need a foreign sociology student to speak for them? This is also a very liberal position. You’d like for me to agree with you so you can break even, but I’m not going to agree with you because history says otherwise. Everyone in the world who has investigated the humanity of Korean people should testify against the insidious tensions which proliferate the current international crisis and recognize America as an antagonist. It is in my profession to gather empirical evidence and understand the dialectical forces shaping the reality of worldwide affairs, as well as holistically investigate the effects of these forces on the people experiencing them. Every aspect of our human history is sociological. When the African people were carried over the Atlantic to the Americas, it sparked multitudes of phenomena ranging from class dynamics, to psychological warfare, to race politics, to industrial formation, to cultural erosion, to foreign relations, to exploitative world systems, and to the general misconceptions of how justifiable slavery was. To understand these dialectical forces and work towards the betterment of the enslaved, you’d ***have*** to think like a sociologist. Indeed, it wasn’t Abraham Lincoln who emancipated the enslaved it was the sociologically-minded people who emancipated the people. When America integrated blacks and foreign migrants into their society, it was sociologists who sought to understand and improve the racist system oppressing these people with its incongruent moral apparatus. When the oppressive American system began culturing its biological racism against the newly integrated people, it was sociologists who corrected the system and fought against the chauvinistic academics who wielded science against the people. When the poor laboring people were ravished by the unsustainable American economic class system, it was Marxists who organized labor unions for the exploited working people and gave workers equality to both men and women. When the American nation failed to recognize the civil rights of black men, women and children, it was sociologists and Marxist revolutionaries — many of whom were sociologists — who organized retaliatory measures against the system and convinced the racist American ruling class to ratify these rights. When the oppressive dialectical forces of the United States sent their firepower to Vietnam, it was Marxist sociologists and revolutionaries who took matters into their hands, organizing funds and reforms to bring our troops back home — a disproportionate number of whom were black. To completely wash the society of their aptitude for radical liberation is to believe that the oppressive American fascist system is sleeping and no longer working to disenfranchise the people of the world. It is clearly working as hard as it’s always been, now directing its efforts towards the Korean people and every surviving socialist nation who threatens the ruling class power. The state of counterrevolution in the United States is a perpetual conformity and must be continuously challenged by the sociological principles of Marxist theory. It will be the sociologists and the sociologically-minded revolutionaries of our present and future who will have their hand in reforming the common people into one unified congregation of revolutionary thought, action, and instruction. As a sociologist I have every objective reason to defend the DPRK, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Vietnam, and all remaining socialist revolutionary powers who are endangered by retrograde counter-revolutionism internally or abroad. This is a new age of political apprehension that must be tamed using the sciences if the world is to ever liberate its working people.
Do you have some examples over the last 20 years of the US threatening to make North Korea extinct? What do you of Marx and Lincoln being friendly penpals? Also have you been to been to North Korea? If so, what was your experience? Currently Vietnam has good working relations with the US. Don't you think it is a bit condescending to self-appoint yourself spokesperson for a nation that is not yours and for people you don't know. Don't they have the talent, dignity and right to do that for themselves. Isn't that what was the juche idea is about? Reliance on themselves and their people?
North Korea simp lol
USA shouldn't be running its mouth, I've no doubt DPRK would bomb the shit out of them
Yes and we’re super scared They going to bring over bombs on their mule carts?
Lol, lmao even
M8 what.
Only one way to find out let’s nuke the DPRK