Why Do North Koreans Hate Us? One Reason | Hacker News Reader

Why Do North Koreans Hate Us? One Reason

theintercept.com

21 pointsuyoakaoma19 comments

Years ago I remember watching was was supposedly leaked anti-west propaganda from the DPRK. Weather it's really made/displayed in North Korea is a subject of debate, but you can find such videos around the Internet.

What was interesting is that a lot of what they describe is the video are valid criticisms of the west: our obsession with celebrity, our materialism, et cetera.

Of course the DPRK is still a slave state, with terrible suppression of any deviating political beliefs and labour camps producing the minimum resources for the nation to survive.

It's interesting though, that a little bit of the truth mixed in with a lot of lies, can keep so much control. And What we don't realise in the west is that the same system is in place. Before it was "fake news," it was just called "news," and the majority of our networks sprinkle in blatant falsehoods with many truths.

It's like Final Fantasy 7 where Rufus says his father tried to control the world with money, but that took too much effort so he was just going to use fear.

In the west, we're not in slave states and many countries have high standards of living and a relative high freedom of protest and expression. It gives people the illusion they are free when their governments will simply support their richest demographic and go to wear despite the will of the people.

+1 for FF VII reference

I found the following interview with two north koreans who escaped very insightful and touching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyqUw0WYwoc

Truman wouldn't let MacArthur win the war, and so we've had this shit sandwich in our laps for the last sixty years.

MacArthur was batshit insane and wanted to use nukes:

    "Of all the campaigns of my life, 20 major ones to be exact, [Korea was] 
    the one I felt most sure of was the one I was deprived of waging. I 
    could have won the war in Korea in a maximum of 10 days.... I would 
    have dropped between 30 and 50 atomic bombs on his air bases and other 
    depots strung across the neck of Manchuria.... It was my plan as our 
    amphibious forces moved south to spread behind us—from the Sea of Japan 
    to the Yellow Sea—a belt of radioactive cobalt. 
 
    It could have been spread from wagons, carts, trucks and planes.... 
    For at least 60 years there could have been no land invasion of 
    Korea from the north. The enemy could not have marched across that 
    radiated belt.[0]"

The only nation to ever use nuclear weapons in warfare then normalizing their use would have created a far worse fate for the US than not winning the war in Korea decisively.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Truman%27s_relief_of...

There is a reasonable argument that the use of nukes would haven saved millions of lives, like it did in Japan.

Ulysses S Grant was criticized for the heavy losses his armies took and inflicted, but he ended a stalemated war that was killing hundreds of thousands of people a year.

There is also a reasonable argument that the use of nukes would have demonstrated the US, being the only power to ever use nuclear weapons in combat until that point and having thus proven willing to continue doing so indiscriminately, to be a much greater threat to the world than the Axis powers were, or the Communist powers at the time.

That some might not understand is a poor reason to sentence half the world to slavery and death. Many of the peaceniks of the 50s grew to regret their positions when they found out what was really going on behind the iron curtain.

Remember when Bertrand Russell was advocating a pre-emptive nuclear war to ensure it would be the last nuclear war?

That is, unless NK decides to use some or all of their few dozen(?) nukes. Then, that line of thinking will be laughable.

Of course, we won't know until NK no longer exists as a belligerent country who is correct.

You mean by letting MacArthur nuking Korea and start bombing China? Do you really believe this would have helped making anyone safer?

I'm not wholly convinced that preventing Mao from enacting the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution would be worse than an atomic war with early 1950s technology, in terms of absolute human suffering.

Hindsight is pretty clear that we had a massive nuclear and military advantage over the Soviets and Chinese and didn't use it. Instead hundreds of millions were enslaved and killed.

Summary: War is still heck and water is still wet. Author would have preferred millions to die in re-education camps instead of combat.

So that's where we are. And the US did terrible things. It shameful and it should never do those type of things again.

But the conflict should have been finished rather than being left to fester for decades. The society could have been rebuild and almost certainly would have prospered.

So now we have a problem. I don't think Kim can be left alone, he simply is too dangerous. Talks and negotiations and sanctions haven't worked. I doubt they are likely to in the future. I believe he will simply continue to acquire destructive technology affecting the balance of power in the region and possibly the world and at one point may well use it as he continually threatens to do.

I am pretty anti war. Extremely anti-colonialism. But in the case of NK I think the situation needs solving and soon. I believe they should be disarmed, by force if necessary and I'd support this even though I support almost no other US military adventures. It's a shame we let it get to this point but we did somehow. I say this as an American with American and allies interest in mind. I suppose there are other perspectives.

>I'd support this even though I support almost no other US military adventures.

Two problems - China and Russia, both allies of North Korea, and both nuclear powers.

Neither particularly likes North Korea, but they like American military power in Asia much less.

Ya well, like I say, it is a mess. But Kim can't be left to continue. Regardless of how Russia and China feel about the situation.

And I'm pretty sure neither will embrace the final solution and cause their own demise in defense of Kim.

Sooner is better than later in this case. The ideal time was 60 years ago.

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