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Comment by andymorris | Hacker News Reader

Have we seriously learned nothing from Iraq? Take out the leadership, and you are left with a failed country and a population that is likely to be hostile.

Next you'll tell me that we'll walk into NK as liberators...

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It is not another Iraq. Iraq has a very specific nationality problem between Shi'ya and Sunni, and it is a separate nation from 1920s. People in both side of Korea are connected through blood and family relationship, South Korea have a very strong will to help restore the government/police/economic system in NK. The U.S. wouldn't have got into such bizarre situation as in Iraq.

Are you kidding me? Do you even know Iraqis?

The whole Shi'a/Sunni division is blown out of proportion by intelligence agencies, both foreign and local, trying to alienate Iran.

If the Koreans are "connected", the Iraqis are intertwined. Intermarriage is very common, with couples maintaining their own sectarian identity.

I was raised as Sunni (not in Iraq) but have attended a Shi'ite religious school for a whole year .. without realizing. That's how similar the two are.

Now, that's not fair. By most measures NK is already a failed country...

It won't make its population any less hostile (and armed) when they find out that their beloved leader has been assassinated by the exact people they've learned to hate for as long as they can remember themselves.

Yes, "liberate" the people with bombs and assassination.

History appears to like iteration.

It annoyed me for a while. People didn't kill themselves and bomb for an ideology; they do so to realize a political goal. Sometimes, the religion pursuit serves as a very good medium to convince people into such extreme action, nevertheless, it is not meaningless. In your post, you imply that such suicide attack would invoke in the process of reunification but IMHO, it is very unlikely. Most of suicide bombers hold a religion belief and a very strong desire to realize or just spell out a particular political pursuit. Someone would argue that the Communism ideology is a religion, but you should look at Russia, at East Europe, even if it is a religion, it must be a very unpersuasive one. There must be a loads of troubles when you try to reunite two countries, but I guess that would be much more peaceful process than the Iraq or Afghanistan.

It was sarcasm man. I'm not defending using suicide attacks to invoke the process of reunification. Personally I would let the Korea peninsula future alone, where koreans would take care of themselves.

But again, what do I know? I'm a westerner programmer with limited sociopolitical knowledge.

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