North Korea's Kim Jong IL has died

aristotle · Dec 18, 2011

N. Korea's Communist dictator is reported dead. It will be interesting to see how this impoverished nation transitions to new leadership. Watching a rogue nuclear regime can be very disconcerting.

greg334 · Dec 19, 2011

Just heard that, but I wonder if there is going to be a stop to the shipment of food that we just sent over to them.

There is speculation that the nutjob son that was going around telling the press he was going to nuke the US is going to be in power or one of the other sons are going to take him out?

Rogue?

Just wondering if we didn't recognized them as a country or if they have no representation on the world stage?

layoutshooter · Dec 19, 2011

No loss to the world.

Why are we sending them food?

Just more messing where we do not belong.

greg334 · Dec 19, 2011

layoutshooter said:
No loss to the world.

True but the media is having a panic attack like it is important. The only ramifications will be for us is our expenditures for moving more troops into the area "just in case".

layoutshooter said:
Why are we sending them food? Just more messing where we do not belong.

Oh do I see a bit of "maybe we don't need to be there at all" forming?

layoutshooter · Dec 19, 2011

Oh do I see a bit of "maybe we don't need to be there at all" forming

As I have said, we need to continue to disengage. Treaties need to be rewritten. It has never been the idea of backing off for me. It has always been about doing so in a responsible manner over time. As we have been doing since the '70's.

greg334 · Dec 19, 2011

Well at the time, the responsible thing was not to be involved at all.

I understand what you are saying but the problem is our law of the land does not get trumped by a treaty, which means our position with national interest and defense means that our military is not to be used to guard anyone else's border except ours unless we are directly attacked. The last time I looked, NK didn't come close to attacking us, so our military needs to do something else.

layoutshooter · Dec 19, 2011

greg334 said:
Well at the time, the responsible thing was not to be involved at all.

I understand what you are saying but the problem is our law of the land does not get trumped by a treaty, which means our position with national interest and defense means that our military is not to be used to guard anyone else's border except ours unless we are directly attacked. The last time I looked, NK didn't come close to attacking us, so our military needs to do something else.

We go into this mess over many years. It will not be fixed in 6 months or even a year.

The reasons for the problems we have now are complicated. We started our disengagement in the '70's and it continues today. If we continue the process in a slow, measured and responsible manner, we will come out ahead. If we just pull out willy nilly, we will lose.

greg334 · Dec 19, 2011

layoutshooter said:
We go into this mess over many years. It will not be fixed in 6 months or even a year.

The reasons for the problems we have now are complicated. We started our disengagement in the '70's and it continues today. If we continue the process in a slow, measured and responsible manner, we will come out ahead. If we just pull out willy nilly, we will lose.

But what will we lose?

Our trading partners?

Our ability to be the world's cop on the beat?

What?

I don't see the losses in contracting off the world stage, what I do see is p*ssing people off who want our money and our stablity to stabilize their own country because they can't/won't do it themselves. We are not in the countries or involved where we really need to be and the threats that there are - Russia, China, to name only the real two, are not threats to us unless we allow them to be.

See Layout, here is the thing, if we have a strong economy, we have more of a voice and this would mean cutting back on spending BIG TIME, and includes a lot of domestic spending. I can't see that happening with a prolonged approach of supporting military deployment world wide at this time. Already we lost Afghanistan - we are talking to the Taliban about releasing prisoners in Gitmo for their "assurance" they would talk to Afghanistan leaders about a peace agreement - that is a move that indicates a big loss.

layoutshooter · Dec 19, 2011

greg334 said:
But what will we lose?

Our trading partners?

Our ability to be the world's cop on the beat?

What?

I don't see the losses in contracting off the world stage, what I do see is p*ssing people off who want our money and our stablity to stabilize their own country because they can't/won't do it themselves. We are not in the countries or involved where we really need to be and the threats that there are - Russia, China, to name only the real two, are not threats to us unless we allow them to be.

See Layout, here is the thing, if we have a strong economy, we have more of a voice and this would mean cutting back on spending BIG TIME, and includes a lot of domestic spending. I can't see that happening with a prolonged approach of supporting military deployment world wide at this time. Already we lost Afghanistan - we are talking to the Taliban about releasing prisoners in Gitmo for their "assurance" they would talk to Afghanistan leaders about a peace agreement - that is a move that indicates a big loss.

We just disagree on timing. I cannot change your mind, nor you mine.

greg334 · Dec 19, 2011

I am not disagreeing with you on the timing but rather would like to know what you see we will lose if we accelerate the process.

skyraider · Dec 19, 2011

This just in: President Orama will be flying to NK to bow down to the Jongs along with Nancy,Harry and Barney and give 10,000 students free education at Princeton, Harvard and Yale. Whoops, I think they are already doing the education thingy.