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Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

Welton's law of online discussions:

At some point, somewhere, someone will posit that "it's all the US' fault!".

This doesn't necessarily mean it's not true, but in certain cases, like the fall of the Roman empire, the evidence is probably kind of weak, unless your alien friends have let you in on the existence of a CIA time machine.

You guys can downvote all you want, but the law is true. Get a big enough discussion on any political topic, and someone will explain how the US is the root cause of whatever problem.

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>This doesn't necessarily mean it's not true, but in certain cases, like the fall of the Roman empire, the evidence is probably kind of weak, unless your alien friends have let you in on the existence of a CIA time machine.

The evidence for covert operations is by definition weak.

The historical precedent though of other acts (that have been verified or been unclassified) in the past 60 years, speaks volumes...

Let's put it this way: countries with global reach, and interests in controlling the whole world, especially areas with natural resources, trade ways and such, are not that many. Even less have worldwide operations, tons of equipment and expertise, the most well oiled armies/agencies in the world, and a historical penchant for messing outside their borders (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh )and crude propaganda (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird ). And even fewer believe in things like "Manifest Destiny" or that they are the model country for the world (hardly any European country believes such crap, besides maybe Germany, and that didn't turn out that well for them).

I don't think NK is one of them. It might qualify for some stuff (dellusion, crude propaganda, but then again noone outside their borders believes it), but it hardly qualifies for others...

Like North Korea are a bunch of innocent boy scouts? Just because the US does dirty stuff doesn't mean that all dirty stuff is per force carried out by the US.

It seems that you are putting your conclusions ahead of the few known facts.

No, it's just a third world country, with limited means. The worst things are what they do internally to their people -- where they have reach.

Even if they indeed hack Sony, that still puts them in "innocent boy scout" territory compared to most advanced countries.

Sorry to be picky, but North Korea is a Second World Country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

They are developing a nuclear weapon and have the fifth largest army in the world (even if it is not the most modern). They also have limited support of China. Most of the peole may be poor in this country, but I would not considered North Korea as a state with limited means.

No, it's just a third world country, with limited means.

The military budget of North Korea is estimated to be around $10 billion USD. It has a million active troops, 6,600 tanks, 700 MLRS, 460 fighters, and so on.

The country is perilously poor. Many people starve. But the means are there for an operation like this, especially if sponsoring foreign groups, if the motivations allow.

And to counter the growing narrative that the NK thing came out of nowhere as a convenient excuse -- the country was very offended by this movie six months+ ago, long before the hack, to the point of threatening military retaliation if it was released. Engaging in or hiring hacking groups to put the pain to Sony seems entirely within the realm of the possible, though threatening actual terrorism is a bridge too far, and overplayed their hands if they were involved with that.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28014069

The budget figure is probably BS. Their whole GDP is about 12 billion USD in toto -- and they give around 10-15% of state expenditure to the military budget (the peak was 30%, according to wikipedia, back in the seventies).

But even that figure ($10b) is comparable to places like The Netherlands, Quatar or Poland (hardly forces to be reckoned with), and 1/3 of what South Korea spends:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm

The budget figure is probably BS.

All military figures are BS. North Korea has 1,000,000 active member troops. Canada has 68,000 active member troops.

North Korea has more of everything than Canada, including aircraft, boats, and even nuclear weapons.

Canada spends $23 billion per year.

And as to forces hardly to be reckoned with, if you're talking in a convention war with the US or something, sure. To put that into contrast with hacking Sony, though, is utterly ludicrous. The latter could likely be achieved paying a group less than it costs to operate a single fighter aircraft for a year.

While North Korea does have enough capacity for trouble, your figure of "6,600 tanks" etc. should be taken with a big grain of salt. Those tanks are ancient.

Remember how US tanks handled Iraqi ones?

Just keeping that many people so tightly controlled shows the leadership of N Korea is not dumbt, but smart.

I forevermore dub this: davidw's law

This is how the world works. Everyone pretends that the US only is the problem and says 'well it's the US so we can't do anything' but in reality the entire West acts as one. I mean what are you going to do hate the entire West?

A lot of people do.

> ... in reality the entire West acts as one.

You might have to narrow the definition of 'reality' somewhat for that to become true.

Where is Snowden welcome in the West?

I think that you have a different definition of "acts as one" than most people. Most "Western" countries have extradition treaties. Even if they didn't, it is known that the CIA operates within their borders, even if they don't like it.

Also, there are plenty of non-Western countries were Snowden wouldn't go too. I'm pretty sure that had he remained in China, he wouldn't be in as good of a position as he is now. Is China part of the "West" that "acts as one?" Hardly.

European governments did not say you are welcome to come but the CIA still might get you, they said he is not welcome. The longer Europeans pretend that their governments are not complicit the easier it is to keep the status quo.

Saying "I don't want to deal with this issue" is also different from saying "I am acting in concert with you, we are part if a hive-mind that speaks with a single voice, and 0 dissent," which is what you originally implied (and held up the treatment of Snowden as 'proof' of).

Iceland, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Norway all said they'd consider his asylum request if he made it from their soil, as their laws require.

We don't have to go far to find examples that disprove your "West acts as one" assertion. This is a thread about North Korea, so I give you Hans Brix (or Hans Blix if you prefer), and the failure of the USA to secure a UN resolution in 2003. The USA couldn't even convince France or Germany that the Iraq invasion was justified (let alone wise). If it wasn't for Tony Blair the list of US allies would have been very very thin indeed.

So you have one example of one disagreement about a war which was run from Germany even though they disagreed.

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