I think Suri is right. If we don’t bomb soon, the whole thing might blow over. Where is the profit in that?
2.
Davis X. Machina
Longish comment chain on this article at Lawyers, Guns, and Money, including some reminiscences from this fellow’s former students.
3.
Suffern ACE
Yes. I wholeheartedly agree. The hawks play chess like I do. I just assume that the other player won’t move his pieces in response to my moves. I win 10% of the time. I’ve never quite figured out the game, to be honest, but I’ll get 1,000 wins if I play enough.
4.
Mnemosyne
Frankly, I am of the opinion that this is China’s pile of shit to deal with. If they can’t get their boy under control, it’s their goddamned problem, not ours.
5.
Brad
I think ignoring North Korea is the best policy. They rattle sabers and we respond by sending all manner of hardware over there. What would happen if we didn’t respond at all? Leaving Lil’ Kim all alone to suck on his type-o-dong.
For just a second there, I thought you were telling us what your phone thought about it.
7.
ChrisNYC
Just googled Suri and he’s affiliated with the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Ahem.
8.
trollhattan
Hey, they spelled Siri wrong,
“Siri, who should I bomb?”
“I don’t understand, photobomb or exploding bomb?”
“Exploding, of course.”
“You could bomb North Koran.”
“Great idea, Siri, thanks!”
9.
gbear
This is good news for John McCain.
10.
Walker
Did these people not pay attention to the whole “sea of fire” wargame they played out on Nightline last time NK was mouthing off.
11.
Suffern ACE
Rereading the piece, it’s like South Korea doesn’t have any agency at all. It’s like we just tell them we’re going to bomb and that’s their entire role.
12.
David Koch
I still can’t forget North Korea for shooting down Henry Blake.
13.
The Dangerman
Jeremy Suri to the tumbrels before it’s too late.
14.
jl
@Suffern ACE: Thanks to commenters above I checked the Lawyers Guns and Money blog. Apparently Suri has studied Kissinger in detail, though the reviews of Suri’s work are decidedly mixed.
Anyway, looks like Suri is of the antiseptic chess grandmaster hyperpower bigghot school of international relations.
15.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: I think the biggest problem right now is China doesn’t have control over their unruly child. But they won’t cut off the regime entirely, so here we are.
16.
Garbo
I have a list of people, places and things I would also like to bomb. Where do I send my Op-Ed for immediate publishing in NYT?
and of course once we do this, the role of North Korea is to just kind of sit there and contemplate what message we’ve sent. Hopefully Kim relishes the role of Hamlet in this drama.
Honestly, I don’t think the Obama administration has any interest in doing anything about North Korea other than getting them to STFU. It would be one hell of a shitstorm if NK lobbed even a conventional bomb at Seoul, but even then I’m pretty sure it would be our president on the phone to China telling them to deal with the problem.
(Corrected a couple of pronouns for clarity)
22.
Omnes Omnibus
Bombing should never be the first option. Anyone who advocates bombing as a first option is probably either an idiot or a ghoul.
23.
Corner Stone
China? Who cares what they think? Like whatta they gonna do about us bombing NK, amirite?
also.. Maureen Dowd has once again written on oped worth reading. Granted that it’s probably the second of the year which could be a record but worth a read nonetheless. link
27.
ChrisNYC
“Washington and Beijing stressed they would handle tensions on the Korean peninsula through dialogue and consultation.” It’s not the paradise that was 1983, but it’s something.
It would be one hell of a shitstorm if they lobbed even a conventional bomb at Seoul
Seoul just elected a right-wing President. I have zero doubt she’d retaliate and insist the US assist her government in doing so. Not to mention solving the reunification issue has been a big factor in South Korean politics since the armistice. None of this is pointing to ending well right now.
“First of all, I think we need to pray,” Graham, the CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian humanitarian organization, said in an interview on CNN’s “Starting Point.” “We need to pray for our president, we need to pray that God will give him wisdom as he makes decision at this point. This is a very critical time, right now, for our country and we need to come behind our president and support him with prayer.”
Through Samaritan’s Purse, an organization founded in 1970, Graham has visited North Korea four times over the last 13 years. The group’s slogan is “Helping in Jesus Name” and it describes itself as a “Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world.”
Rereading the piece, it’s like South Korea doesn’t have any agency at all. It’s like we just tell them we’re going to bomb and that’s their entire role.
Not to encourage a neocon or anything, but honestly, wtf is SK gonna do about much of anything?
36.
raven
@Yutsano: I talked with a Korean prof last week and he said the South Koreans are very worried about the idea of reunification with the shape their economy is in already.
37.
Corner Stone
@trollhattan: If we take out the North Koran how will the radical Muslins know who to attack next?
38.
jl
@Corner Stone: Well, Suri is an historian, so I guess if there were any history about China taking rash actions if it got too concerned about how things were going on the Korean peninsula, he would have said something about it.
Something or other big happened there. I remember something about it from the Back to School movie.
39.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: There is a reason John Kerry is in China right now.
40.
raven
@jl: The freezin season at the frozen Chosin. . . dawg.
41.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Ask Pat Lang what he thinks of that.
42.
David Koch
@Omnes Omnibus: he’s there talking to General Tso, but everyone knows General Tso’s chicken.
43.
Yutsano
@raven: I’m sure they’re looking at what happened when Germany reunited and gulping like mad. Their economy wouldn’t be able to handle the shock without a shit ton of financial and logistical assistance from other countries. It would be a mess for decades, not to mention the huge amount of unlearning that would have to happen with the North. Vaya con Dios is all I can say about that.
44.
jl
Suri says we should notify China first and reassure them that we do not intend regime change and are just bombing to eliminate ‘clear and present’ danger.
It would be interesting to listen in on that conversation.
Heck, the last preventive war turned out just as expected, right? So why is everyone harshing on this totally excellent war mellow?
Actually doesn’t sound as good as McCain’s version.
‘Pyongyang’ works better than ‘NK’, but neither will work as well as ‘Iran’. ‘Iran’ rhymes with the original. At least, as McGrumpy pronounces it.
We’ve all heard by now of the Chinese nicknames for the Kim family, right?
51.
Dolly Llama
@David Koch: I don’t know if anybody was looking at the tail-end of the last open thread, but this is a change of handle for me. I’m retiring “Evolving Deep Southerner” because I’m tired of it. But I’m that guy.
52.
raven
@jl: The General that never spent ONE night on the ground in Korea during the war? Check out the Coldest Winter by Halberstam sometime. Dugout Doug as my old man called him.
@Dolly Llama: Don’t you have to get name changes approved by BJ Central Directorate?
56.
Corner Stone
North Korea is still part of the Axis of Evil, IIRC. So, clearly we need to tell China to step off our nuts because we’re taking these fuckers out before we wake up to the warning being a mushroom cloud or something something.
57.
Dolly Llama
@David Koch: And that is so fucking corny I don’t know why I’m still sitting here laughing at it.
@Redshirt: Nah, I switched back to my FDL name after a couple of years of stuckinred
61.
raven
@Corner Stone: Trenchant, bunkers, foxholes, you name it.
62.
Dolly Llama
@Redshirt: Well, I posted in the last open thread to get my “moderation time” out of the way. But I reckon if you’re upfront about it and not posting under 20 handles intermittently, they let you. I was in moderation about half an hour on the other thread, but once they green-light you, you’re good.
63.
Dolly Llama
@raven: Dawg, hope you’re paying attention. “Evolving Deep Southerner’s” jersey has been retired. I’m Dolly Llama now. Just saying.
@Dolly Llama: No no, not in that sense. What about us, the BJ’ers? All we are our names. When you change them, then, well, I don’t handle change well.
For instance, who’s the poor guy who has to travel the world fixing jalopies? He changed his name and now look, I have no idea!
How am I supposed to know if I automatically agree or disagree with you now?!
65.
Dolly Llama
@Redshirt: I’m sure after a period of adjustment, we’ll both get used to it. I was just tired of getting “Needs moar EVOLVING” or “maybe one day you’ll EVOLVE into something human” or whatever. It just makes it too easy. Besides, it’s kludgy. Always has been. It was either “Dolly Llama” or “Don Peyote,” and I went with the more benign one.
66.
? Martin
Well, the better military-industrial complex move is to leave NK alone. Lots of money to be made selling our weapons to SK, Taiwan, Japan, etc. I doubt Congress will want to bomb.
@Dolly Llama: Well, get ready for accusations of being a troll. In fact, this is your chance to become a troll. Think how popular you could be?!
68.
Corner Stone
“Before It’s Too Late” for what exactly? Why would it ever be too late to bomb NK?
I kind of feel like bombing them on Monday. But I’m going to take Sunday to think about it.
If I change my handle, I promise to keep the alien. Martin isn’t actually my name, after all.
70.
Tripod
I very much recommend the documentary “Chosin”, which is available on Netflex.
71.
Dolly Llama
@Redshirt: Nah. Don’t have the self-discipline for it.
I’ll tell you what the Internet needs more of, it’s whatever the opposite of a troll is. Somebody who hangs out on blog threads and just randomly agrees with people.
“Excellent point! Who could argue with that!”
“This!”
“Tell it!”
“I was about to post this same thing, but you said it far better than I ever could have.”
“Thread over!”
I mean, coming up with shit like that can’t be much harder than being a conventional troll.
72.
Yutsano
@? Martin: Can we get into the discussion about how using nyms on the Internet is cowardly? That was getting epic until the guy gave up suddenly.
73.
Suffern ACE
@? Martin: what do you mean you’re not Martin. My given name is ACE.
Speaking of bombing people, Big Bomb by Chris Carter on the Astros! 2 run shot to dead fucking center field at LAA.
76.
Dolly Llama
@Yutsano: You mean your real name isn’t Yutsano? My parents were hippies who were high as fuck when they named me Dolly Llama. Unfortunately, they were only quasi-literate and fucked up the spelling. Only now, on the Internet, do people think it’s cool. The taunting I took in grade school … don’t get me started.
@raven: I missed it the first time through. Who are they letting play Sanford?
80.
p.a.
It’s too opaque to know what goes on behind-the-scenes, but maybe NK is to China as Israel is to the US. The tail wagging the dog. I don’t think there is a pro NK lobby in Chinese society and gvt. the way we have a neocon/Likud/Christianist lobby here, but I don’t think China has much leverage over a NK gvt. that doesn’t seem to care about its own people.
@Dolly Llama: Cuz no one will feel compelled to correct the anti-troll. Whereas if I were to post something like
“If Obama only used the Bully Pulpit more effectively we’d have Single Payer, Gitmo would be closed, and ponies would be so common we’d have to discuss a pony hunting season.”
@Dolly Llama: I posted as “cialis shoes” for a while, but the power that be quickly tired of lifting me out of moderation. I wonder if they will do it this time.
85.
Dolly Llama
@raven: I’ve got no real grasp on scale when it comes to music tours anymore. Is Jason Aldean such a BMF that he can draw that many people to a stadium? I didn’t think such acts existed anymore.
@p.a.: An interesting angle. Except, what does China get from NK? The prestige of a client state, and NK can act as a thorn in America’s side without involving China. Anything else? I can’t think of anything.
CM Male Vocalist of the Year Jason Aldean is approaching one of the biggest moments in his career tomorrow as he is set to play for more than 60,000 fans at the University of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium. Aldean is already in Athens preparing for the first show to ever be held there. Tickets for this 2013 NIGHT TRAIN TOUR stop sold out in less than an hour last October.
89.
Dolly Llama
I don’t know how I feel about concerts in Sanford – I guess it’s not really anything to me one way or another – but I can tell you when I went with a coworker to one of the Olympic soccer games there in ’96, with no hedges and everything a turquoise-toilet-bowl blue, it was unsettling.
90.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Redshirt: That’s what I was thinking, buffer state and proxy opponent for the US. I’m more ignorant about China than I should be, given their importance, but the unchanging state of NK and the dramatic changes in China in the last twenty years or so make me wonder how much influence they really have
91.
Dolly Llama
@raven: Well, he must be a BMF sure enough. 60K. Hell, that’s Rolling Stones/Eagles/Fleetwood Mac territory. I don’t know if the Beatles could draw 60K in Athens even if the dead two came back alive for the tour.
92.
raven
@Dolly Llama: I went to every one of those except the women’s final because I gave my ticket to one of my wife’s pal. When I first moved here my office was in Memorial Hall and seeing the swat teams all over there was a trip. My best memories of the Olympics was all the greedy motherfuckers that lost their asses throwing people out of their rentals and getting NOTHING and the Tech game where they let people take pieces of the hedges.
@Redshirt: a counter to the US support of Taiwan. Sure, we’ll stop supporting NK who drives you wild. How bout you stop selling arms to Taiwan?
95.
Yutsano
@Redshirt: The old reasons were to oppose the US and to help spread the ideology of Communism and protect it where it had taken root. But the Chinese have decided being massive capitalists is working out much better for them. An Little Brother North Korea is getting a wee bit too close to losing them their piece of the action. The real wild card is how much influence China has over Young Eun. So far that seems to be little to none since they’re not cutting off oil and food supplies. At least not yet.
@Dolly Llama: He’s also a native of Georgia, so I’m sure that helps his sales some.
96.
BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin: After I upgraded to Windows 8, it no longer shows up as a square.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I know enough about each to be dangerous, but other than the vagaries of history, NK offers China relatively little – few resources, for example, or even cheaper labor (though there’s some of this on the NK border with China).
A weapons client, too. Which is something. Also I assume that most illegal trade is done via China as well, and there’s no doubt money to be made in that.
I think it’s mostly historical inertia and symbolism. Thus, I would not be surprised if China were to change their NK policy in dramatic ways either. At this point, I’m sure they appreciate SK way more than NK, due to the trade.
98.
raven
@Dolly Llama: The manager of a very famous Athens band just Facebooked a picture from the show!
“Between the hedges w my homeboy JD at a country show with a guy singing a pop song about Beyonce. What a world. Fun. Rock.”
99.
Villago Delenda Est
@Yutsano: The ongoing joke when I was stationed in the ROK was that the US forces (a division and some change, basically) were there to prevent the North and the South from going after each other.
Yeah, when I was in the ROK (87-88), the crushed beer can was at Fort Ord, before it (Fort Ord…the 7th was an experimental “light infantry” division in ’86, 9ID helped with the concept evaluation that summer) was shut down and turned into a real estate developer’s dream.
104.
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est: I think that’s been everyone’s role. Yeah, we’ll be there to defend you as long as you don’t start anything and if you do don’t expect us to be much help is kind of our role there. If we really wanted to unite the peninsula, we’d let both sides know that Japan would be handling those duties going forward.
Whoa! In Korea, them’s fightin’ words! Japan is nation non-grata as far as the Koreans are concerned. As you allude, that’s the one thing that North and South can readily agree upon.
106.
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est: that’s why the powers that be won’t let me be Secretary of State. I’d be constantly yanking those chains.
we’d let both sides know that Japan would be handling those duties going forward.
Ouch.
You either don’t know the history of Japan there or you really know the history.
Because that’s heinous.
108.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: They spent a bunch alright.
Last night Josh Hamilton got doubled off 1st on a foul pop fly and tonight Pujols (may he burn in hell) didn’t even leave the plate on a grounder to third.
These guys (LAA) don’t seem to have their head in the game.
109.
p.a.
@Redshirt: Inertia until it costs ya. Could be some LBJ/RMN/HenryK ‘support the fuckers so we don’t appear weak’ BS also. I’d like to give the Chinese more credit than that, but you never know.
he’s there talking to General Tso, but everyone knows General Tso’s chicken.
That’s Spaceballs territory, there.
111.
Ked
…to play devil’s advocate for just a moment here, I can see where taking out North Korea could, in the most simplistic analysis, be the moral thing to do. I’m not so much worried about their nuclear capability, not so much worried about them pal-ing around with terrorists (unless you count Rodman), but the fact is that they effectively have a gun to the head of South Korea. If NK shoots first, modern democratic Korea dies.
When you have a seemingly insane person waving a gun wildly at innocent civilians, you shoot first.
But.
1) While we could do it, any serious discussion of how to sucker punch the NK forces within range of Seoul probably has to begin and and with nukes, and not just a few.
2) You have to figure out ahead of time how you’re going to occupy and rebuild North Korea. And no fair passing this off on China and or South Korea, who surely don’t want to deal with it.
3) China might be more than a little annoyed at the loud noises we’re making on their southern border.
4) Do you really think that the NK’s haven’t been watching the last decade in Iraq and Af-Pak and planned for some style of post-conquest insurgency? Not sure how well the underpinning motivations would work, it’s so hard to evaluate NK civilian psychology from the outside, but there’s be something.
5) Doing this unilaterally will make the South Korean population really really hate us. If we do it right, with bunches of mushroom clouds visible from their capital, I guarantee an anti-American insurgency in the South.
And we don’t want to piss off Psy. He might make a video.
China might be more than a little annoyed at the loud noises we’re making on their southern border
Northeastern, you mean. And the only way to keep China out is some type of quid pro quo involving Taiwan. Which ain’t gonna happen.
Doing this unilaterally will make the South Korean population really really hate us. If we do it right, with bunches of mushroom clouds visible from their capital, I guarantee an anti-American insurgency in the South.
There is already an undercurrent of anti-American resentment in South Korea. But there is also the grudging fact that they could not defend themselves from the North without massive US assistance. No way do they turn to Japan for that, and it would be illegal for Japan to do so anyway. SK will agree to move with us should we decide to do so. But there’s no reason to do so.
113.
Howard Beale IV
Who does this historian think he is-Niall Ferguson? This country isn’t big enough for two of ’em, ferchrissakes….
114.
Corner Stone
Who the fuck drops an outfield fly ball?
115.
Nerull
Nothing stabilizes a region like bombs.
116.
The Moar You Know
If we really wanted to unite the peninsula, we’d let both sides know that Japan would be handling those duties going forward.
@Suffern ACE: Oh boy. You really know how to piss people off. Right in the sweet spot!
I spent time over in both Korea and China back in the 1990s, was puzzled about the lack of Japanese cars, and asked about it. Ho man. The word that comes to mind about the responses would be “diatribe”. Those people are still fucking pissed. REALLY pissed.
Would achieve reunification, though. Very quickly.
@Yutsano:
“Not to mention solving the reunification issue has been a big factor in South Korean politics since the armistice.”
Lots of South K. don’t want reunification. An everyone share equally reunification will cut the South’s standard of living in half. They went from a very, very poor war wracked place to an American standard of living in two generations. All the elderly can remember shitting in privies and hauling water in buckets. They are not longing to lose all their luxuries.
119.
RaflW
Wingnuts really just don’t have answers to anything that doesn’t involve fantasizing about firepower.
120.
Mike G
It’s times like this I’m glad we don’t have a disinterested preening rich tool, with a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk full of daddy issues, in the White House being led around by sleazy neocon warmonger chickenhawks — Bush or Rmoney.
” And the only way to keep China out is some type of quid pro quo involving Taiwan. Which ain’t gonna happen. ”
China might also request a little help with possible refugees, which may be considerable, if the NK regime becomes ‘unsettled’, if not toppled.
That would make our immigration debate more interesting.
122.
Yutsano
@peggy: It will be more like the East German reunification, where there will be some initial support as institutions get replaced, but an actual equal split would be impossible. And as I said, it won’t happen without outside support. The SK economy can’t absorb that shock.
123.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I would. This, of course, is one of many reasons that I do not play professional baseball.
” I’m not so much worried about [NK] nuclear capability, not so much worried about them pal-ing around with terrorists”
But to take care of dealing nuclear devices with terrorists, you would have to know you bombed where all the warheads were stored. How could we possibly know that?
Bombing would be much more effective at crippling care of missile launch capability, and if we knew enough about where the sites were, more production.
I don’t see how we could know whether we targeted where all the warheads were stored.
125.
NobodySpecial
@Corner Stone: They’ll get back to playing baseball as soon as they’re done counting their salaries.
German reunification was no walk in the park, even with the very strong BRD economy taking the absorption hit, assimilating a relatively strong (for a Warsaw Pact country) DDR economy…of course quite weak in comparison to the BRD’s.
Took 10 full years, but the Germans knew this upfront and were willing to take the hit, because reunification had been a seemingly impossible dream for so long.
127.
Yutsano
@Villago Delenda Est: Heh. I remember the biggest terror over German reunification was that Germany would go back to its warmongering ways. Now they’re economic bullies. HOOCODANODE??
There won’t be Korean unification unless and until there’s a huge pledge of financial support behind it. And the two biggest candidates are China and the US. Neither are all that palatable to the Koreans.
128.
fuckwit
@The Moar You Know: I once worked for a company owned by a Korean immigrant.
We did an OEM deal with Sumitomo. When the Sumitomo guys came over from Japan, our Korean CEO wouldn’t even look at them, wouldn’t shake their hand, wouldn’t talk to them, nothing. Our almost exclusively American executive team was baffled and a bit embarassed by this.
But then it took asking anyone from the almost-exclusively Korean manufacturing team about this, and we got the answer. It was an eye-opener.
Most folks in general could not be expected to quickly forgive a people for raping their grandmother. Especially when said grandmother is still alive and certainly hasn’t forgotten it herself.
It’s too opaque to know what goes on behind-the-scenes, but maybe NK is to China as Israel is to the US. The tail wagging the dog. I don’t think there is a pro NK lobby in Chinese society and gvt. the way we have a neocon/Likud/Christianist lobby here, but I don’t think China has much leverage over a NK gvt. that doesn’t seem to care about its own people.
There’s a certain client-state-status issue, as others have said. But I’ve also been told by people who know the current situation (including James Fallows, IIRC) that right now the better comparison, to the average PRC native, is that NK is to China as Mexico is to the US — the primitive, backwards, teeming hordes just on the other side of the river. Of course they don’t want other Big Power states messing around with North Korea, any more than your average Texan would be happy about China threatening to bomb Mexico City. But apart from the international-prestige issue, the day the North Korean Glorious People’s Army loses its central command is the day every remaining NK citizen (including the rest of the NKGPA) tries to slip into China. And nobody in the Chinese management class wants to be known as “the guy responsible for all the [wetback-equivalent] ‘economic refugees’ coming over here to steal our jobs and take advantage of our already overstrained social services”.
130.
raven
@peggy: They hauled their shit in “honey buckets” to fertilize the rice paddies when I lived there.
131.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I mentioned that practice to my wife, she grew up in Seoul. She said, yup, grows the best veggies.
Also, here’s a clip of a man with a drunk pig on his bike going to market! I showed this to a young Korean professor a couple of weeks ago and he was amazed!
133.
gelfling545
@raven: What on earth would he know about it that is more insightful than any person on the street?
Yeah, the differences economically between North and South are so great that it would take massive help from both China and the US to make it happen. The North is really something of a wasteland in many ways, and it started out as the industrial powerhouse portion right after WWII.
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Baud
I think Suri is right. If we don’t bomb soon, the whole thing might blow over. Where is the profit in that?
Davis X. Machina
Longish comment chain on this article at Lawyers, Guns, and Money, including some reminiscences from this fellow’s former students.
Suffern ACE
Yes. I wholeheartedly agree. The hawks play chess like I do. I just assume that the other player won’t move his pieces in response to my moves. I win 10% of the time. I’ve never quite figured out the game, to be honest, but I’ll get 1,000 wins if I play enough.
Mnemosyne
Frankly, I am of the opinion that this is China’s pile of shit to deal with. If they can’t get their boy under control, it’s their goddamned problem, not ours.
Brad
I think ignoring North Korea is the best policy. They rattle sabers and we respond by sending all manner of hardware over there. What would happen if we didn’t respond at all? Leaving Lil’ Kim all alone to suck on his type-o-dong.
Dolly Llama
@Baud:
For just a second there, I thought you were telling us what your phone thought about it.
ChrisNYC
Just googled Suri and he’s affiliated with the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Ahem.
trollhattan
Hey, they spelled Siri wrong,
“Siri, who should I bomb?”
“I don’t understand, photobomb or exploding bomb?”
“Exploding, of course.”
“You could bomb North Koran.”
“Great idea, Siri, thanks!”
gbear
This is good news for John McCain.
Walker
Did these people not pay attention to the whole “sea of fire” wargame they played out on Nightline last time NK was mouthing off.
Suffern ACE
Rereading the piece, it’s like South Korea doesn’t have any agency at all. It’s like we just tell them we’re going to bomb and that’s their entire role.
David Koch
I still can’t forget North Korea for shooting down Henry Blake.
The Dangerman
Jeremy Suri to the tumbrels before it’s too late.
jl
@Suffern ACE: Thanks to commenters above I checked the Lawyers Guns and Money blog. Apparently Suri has studied Kissinger in detail, though the reviews of Suri’s work are decidedly mixed.
Anyway, looks like Suri is of the antiseptic chess grandmaster hyperpower bigghot school of international relations.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: I think the biggest problem right now is China doesn’t have control over their unruly child. But they won’t cut off the regime entirely, so here we are.
Garbo
I have a list of people, places and things I would also like to bomb. Where do I send my Op-Ed for immediate publishing in NYT?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@gbear:
Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb NK
Suffern ACE
and of course once we do this, the role of North Korea is to just kind of sit there and contemplate what message we’ve sent. Hopefully Kim relishes the role of Hamlet in this drama.
Baud
@Dolly Llama:
My phone seriously could do a better job running our foreign policy than these neocons.
Spaghetti Lee
“Yeah, OK, we totally fucked it up ten years ago, but you can trust us this time, for sure!”
Mnemosyne
@efgoldman:
Honestly, I don’t think the Obama administration has any interest in doing anything about North Korea other than getting them to STFU. It would be one hell of a shitstorm if NK lobbed even a conventional bomb at Seoul, but even then I’m pretty sure it would be our president on the phone to China telling them to deal with the problem.
(Corrected a couple of pronouns for clarity)
Omnes Omnibus
Bombing should never be the first option. Anyone who advocates bombing as a first option is probably either an idiot or a ghoul.
Corner Stone
China? Who cares what they think? Like whatta they gonna do about us bombing NK, amirite?
Mnemosyne
@The Dangerman:
Why bother? Pointing and laughing is about all this idiocy deserves.
raven
CNN had fucking Franklin Graham on holding forth about what we should do in Korea too. Morons all.
JPL
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Actually doesn’t sound as good as McCain’s version.
also.. Maureen Dowd has once again written on oped worth reading. Granted that it’s probably the second of the year which could be a record but worth a read nonetheless. link
ChrisNYC
“Washington and Beijing stressed they would handle tensions on the Korean peninsula through dialogue and consultation.” It’s not the paradise that was 1983, but it’s something.
Corner Stone
@Baud:
My teddy bear could do a better job. Of course he’s very forgiving, which should be noted.
Corner Stone
Did every player on the LAA roster forget the basics of baseball?
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Like I said, an idiot or a ghoul. Oh, fuck, you are right; could be both.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@raven: Good lord. Why would anyone ask that crackpot about anything, much less foreign policy?
David Koch
@Dolly Llama: Hello Dolly!
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne:
Seoul just elected a right-wing President. I have zero doubt she’d retaliate and insist the US assist her government in doing so. Not to mention solving the reunification issue has been a big factor in South Korean politics since the armistice. None of this is pointing to ending well right now.
raven
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Corner Stone
@Suffern ACE:
Not to encourage a neocon or anything, but honestly, wtf is SK gonna do about much of anything?
raven
@Yutsano: I talked with a Korean prof last week and he said the South Koreans are very worried about the idea of reunification with the shape their economy is in already.
Corner Stone
@trollhattan: If we take out the North Koran how will the radical Muslins know who to attack next?
jl
@Corner Stone: Well, Suri is an historian, so I guess if there were any history about China taking rash actions if it got too concerned about how things were going on the Korean peninsula, he would have said something about it.
Something or other big happened there. I remember something about it from the Back to School movie.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yutsano: There is a reason John Kerry is in China right now.
raven
@jl: The freezin season at the frozen Chosin. . . dawg.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Ask Pat Lang what he thinks of that.
David Koch
@Omnes Omnibus: he’s there talking to General Tso, but everyone knows General Tso’s chicken.
Yutsano
@raven: I’m sure they’re looking at what happened when Germany reunited and gulping like mad. Their economy wouldn’t be able to handle the shock without a shit ton of financial and logistical assistance from other countries. It would be a mess for decades, not to mention the huge amount of unlearning that would have to happen with the North. Vaya con Dios is all I can say about that.
jl
Suri says we should notify China first and reassure them that we do not intend regime change and are just bombing to eliminate ‘clear and present’ danger.
It would be interesting to listen in on that conversation.
Heck, the last preventive war turned out just as expected, right? So why is everyone harshing on this totally excellent war mellow?
raven
@Yutsano: That’s what the dude was saying.
Corner Stone
@jl: You mean something something Chinese troops crossing into North Korea as they have done since recorded history something something else?
raven
@Corner Stone: North Korea shit.
Redshirt
We should bomb Iran to show NK we mean business.
Fuck it. Let’s bomb everyone.
jl
@efgoldman:
” Maybe Truman should just have let McArthur keep going. Yeah, that’s the ticket. ”
Well, see. Suri agrees with a legendary general ON THE GROUND! Can’t argue with that. Generals ON THE GROUND, legendary or not, can never be wrong.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@JPL:
‘Pyongyang’ works better than ‘NK’, but neither will work as well as ‘Iran’. ‘Iran’ rhymes with the original. At least, as McGrumpy pronounces it.
We’ve all heard by now of the Chinese nicknames for the Kim family, right?
Dolly Llama
@David Koch: I don’t know if anybody was looking at the tail-end of the last open thread, but this is a change of handle for me. I’m retiring “Evolving Deep Southerner” because I’m tired of it. But I’m that guy.
raven
@jl: The General that never spent ONE night on the ground in Korea during the war? Check out the Coldest Winter by Halberstam sometime. Dugout Doug as my old man called him.
Omnes Omnibus
@David Koch: What’s the matter, Colonel Sanders? Chicken?
raven
@Dolly Llama: Who’s that comin down the track?
60,000 in the stadium for a fucking country music show. Remember when they said no to the Boss between the hedges?
Redshirt
@Dolly Llama: Don’t you have to get name changes approved by BJ Central Directorate?
Corner Stone
North Korea is still part of the Axis of Evil, IIRC. So, clearly we need to tell China to step off our nuts because we’re taking these fuckers out before we wake up to the warning being a mushroom cloud or something something.
Dolly Llama
@David Koch: And that is so fucking corny I don’t know why I’m still sitting here laughing at it.
Redshirt
@efgoldman: Stimulus! Make more bombs, blow up bombs, create worldwide animosity requiring more bombs and so on. Fool proof economic golden age.
Corner Stone
@raven: Hmmm, that’s trenchant dude.
raven
@Redshirt: Nah, I switched back to my FDL name after a couple of years of stuckinred
raven
@Corner Stone: Trenchant, bunkers, foxholes, you name it.
Dolly Llama
@Redshirt: Well, I posted in the last open thread to get my “moderation time” out of the way. But I reckon if you’re upfront about it and not posting under 20 handles intermittently, they let you. I was in moderation about half an hour on the other thread, but once they green-light you, you’re good.
Dolly Llama
@raven: Dawg, hope you’re paying attention. “Evolving Deep Southerner’s” jersey has been retired. I’m Dolly Llama now. Just saying.
Redshirt
@Dolly Llama: No no, not in that sense. What about us, the BJ’ers? All we are our names. When you change them, then, well, I don’t handle change well.
For instance, who’s the poor guy who has to travel the world fixing jalopies? He changed his name and now look, I have no idea!
How am I supposed to know if I automatically agree or disagree with you now?!
Dolly Llama
@Redshirt: I’m sure after a period of adjustment, we’ll both get used to it. I was just tired of getting “Needs moar EVOLVING” or “maybe one day you’ll EVOLVE into something human” or whatever. It just makes it too easy. Besides, it’s kludgy. Always has been. It was either “Dolly Llama” or “Don Peyote,” and I went with the more benign one.
? Martin
Well, the better military-industrial complex move is to leave NK alone. Lots of money to be made selling our weapons to SK, Taiwan, Japan, etc. I doubt Congress will want to bomb.
Redshirt
@Dolly Llama: Well, get ready for accusations of being a troll. In fact, this is your chance to become a troll. Think how popular you could be?!
Corner Stone
“Before It’s Too Late” for what exactly? Why would it ever be too late to bomb NK?
I kind of feel like bombing them on Monday. But I’m going to take Sunday to think about it.
? Martin
@Redshirt:
If I change my handle, I promise to keep the alien. Martin isn’t actually my name, after all.
Tripod
I very much recommend the documentary “Chosin”, which is available on Netflex.
Dolly Llama
@Redshirt: Nah. Don’t have the self-discipline for it.
I’ll tell you what the Internet needs more of, it’s whatever the opposite of a troll is. Somebody who hangs out on blog threads and just randomly agrees with people.
“Excellent point! Who could argue with that!”
“This!”
“Tell it!”
“I was about to post this same thing, but you said it far better than I ever could have.”
“Thread over!”
I mean, coming up with shit like that can’t be much harder than being a conventional troll.
Yutsano
@? Martin: Can we get into the discussion about how using nyms on the Internet is cowardly? That was getting epic until the guy gave up suddenly.
Suffern ACE
@? Martin: what do you mean you’re not Martin. My given name is ACE.
Dolly Llama
@? Martin: I very much like and envy the alien.
Corner Stone
Speaking of bombing people, Big Bomb by Chris Carter on the Astros! 2 run shot to dead fucking center field at LAA.
Dolly Llama
@Yutsano: You mean your real name isn’t Yutsano? My parents were hippies who were high as fuck when they named me Dolly Llama. Unfortunately, they were only quasi-literate and fucked up the spelling. Only now, on the Internet, do people think it’s cool. The taunting I took in grade school … don’t get me started.
raven
@Dolly Llama: You didn’t see my reply to you?
Corner Stone
Sit down Trumbo!!
Dolly Llama
@raven: I missed it the first time through. Who are they letting play Sanford?
p.a.
It’s too opaque to know what goes on behind-the-scenes, but maybe NK is to China as Israel is to the US. The tail wagging the dog. I don’t think there is a pro NK lobby in Chinese society and gvt. the way we have a neocon/Likud/Christianist lobby here, but I don’t think China has much leverage over a NK gvt. that doesn’t seem to care about its own people.
raven
@Dolly Llama: Jason Aldean?
Redshirt
@Dolly Llama: Cuz no one will feel compelled to correct the anti-troll. Whereas if I were to post something like
“If Obama only used the Bully Pulpit more effectively we’d have Single Payer, Gitmo would be closed, and ponies would be so common we’d have to discuss a pony hunting season.”
And then just wait…
Corner Stone
@Dolly Llama: THIS. A thousand times this.*
*sorry for stealing your shtick Yutsano.
joes527
@Dolly Llama: I posted as “cialis shoes” for a while, but the power that be quickly tired of lifting me out of moderation. I wonder if they will do it this time.
Dolly Llama
@raven: I’ve got no real grasp on scale when it comes to music tours anymore. Is Jason Aldean such a BMF that he can draw that many people to a stadium? I didn’t think such acts existed anymore.
Redshirt
@p.a.: An interesting angle. Except, what does China get from NK? The prestige of a client state, and NK can act as a thorn in America’s side without involving China. Anything else? I can’t think of anything.
Dolly Llama
@joes527: Apparently so.
raven
@Dolly Llama:
Dolly Llama
I don’t know how I feel about concerts in Sanford – I guess it’s not really anything to me one way or another – but I can tell you when I went with a coworker to one of the Olympic soccer games there in ’96, with no hedges and everything a turquoise-toilet-bowl blue, it was unsettling.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Redshirt: That’s what I was thinking, buffer state and proxy opponent for the US. I’m more ignorant about China than I should be, given their importance, but the unchanging state of NK and the dramatic changes in China in the last twenty years or so make me wonder how much influence they really have
Dolly Llama
@raven: Well, he must be a BMF sure enough. 60K. Hell, that’s Rolling Stones/Eagles/Fleetwood Mac territory. I don’t know if the Beatles could draw 60K in Athens even if the dead two came back alive for the tour.
raven
@Dolly Llama: I went to every one of those except the women’s final because I gave my ticket to one of my wife’s pal. When I first moved here my office was in Memorial Hall and seeing the swat teams all over there was a trip. My best memories of the Olympics was all the greedy motherfuckers that lost their asses throwing people out of their rentals and getting NOTHING and the Tech game where they let people take pieces of the hedges.
raven
@Dolly Llama: The Dead could!
Suffern ACE
@Redshirt: a counter to the US support of Taiwan. Sure, we’ll stop supporting NK who drives you wild. How bout you stop selling arms to Taiwan?
Yutsano
@Redshirt: The old reasons were to oppose the US and to help spread the ideology of Communism and protect it where it had taken root. But the Chinese have decided being massive capitalists is working out much better for them. An Little Brother North Korea is getting a wee bit too close to losing them their piece of the action. The real wild card is how much influence China has over Young Eun. So far that seems to be little to none since they’re not cutting off oil and food supplies. At least not yet.
@Dolly Llama: He’s also a native of Georgia, so I’m sure that helps his sales some.
BillinGlendaleCA
@? Martin: After I upgraded to Windows 8, it no longer shows up as a square.
@Corner Stone: LAA?
Redshirt
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I know enough about each to be dangerous, but other than the vagaries of history, NK offers China relatively little – few resources, for example, or even cheaper labor (though there’s some of this on the NK border with China).
A weapons client, too. Which is something. Also I assume that most illegal trade is done via China as well, and there’s no doubt money to be made in that.
I think it’s mostly historical inertia and symbolism. Thus, I would not be surprised if China were to change their NK policy in dramatic ways either. At this point, I’m sure they appreciate SK way more than NK, due to the trade.
raven
@Dolly Llama: The manager of a very famous Athens band just Facebooked a picture from the show!
“Between the hedges w my homeboy JD at a country show with a guy singing a pop song about Beyonce. What a world. Fun. Rock.”
Villago Delenda Est
@Yutsano: The ongoing joke when I was stationed in the ROK was that the US forces (a division and some change, basically) were there to prevent the North and the South from going after each other.
Corner Stone
Lucas Harrell is spotting fucking dimes!
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Some change! The crushed beer can must have rotated by then!
Corner Stone
@BillinGlendaleCA: Angels of Anaheim or whatever the heck the baseball team fka Angels is now called in CA.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven:
Yeah, when I was in the ROK (87-88), the crushed beer can was at Fort Ord, before it (Fort Ord…the 7th was an experimental “light infantry” division in ’86, 9ID helped with the concept evaluation that summer) was shut down and turned into a real estate developer’s dream.
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est: I think that’s been everyone’s role. Yeah, we’ll be there to defend you as long as you don’t start anything and if you do don’t expect us to be much help is kind of our role there. If we really wanted to unite the peninsula, we’d let both sides know that Japan would be handling those duties going forward.
Villago Delenda Est
@Suffern ACE:
Whoa! In Korea, them’s fightin’ words! Japan is nation non-grata as far as the Koreans are concerned. As you allude, that’s the one thing that North and South can readily agree upon.
Suffern ACE
@Villago Delenda Est: that’s why the powers that be won’t let me be Secretary of State. I’d be constantly yanking those chains.
Corner Stone
@Suffern ACE:
Ouch.
You either don’t know the history of Japan there or you really know the history.
Because that’s heinous.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman: They spent a bunch alright.
Last night Josh Hamilton got doubled off 1st on a foul pop fly and tonight Pujols (may he burn in hell) didn’t even leave the plate on a grounder to third.
These guys (LAA) don’t seem to have their head in the game.
p.a.
@Redshirt: Inertia until it costs ya. Could be some LBJ/RMN/HenryK ‘support the fuckers so we don’t appear weak’ BS also. I’d like to give the Chinese more credit than that, but you never know.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@David Koch:
That’s Spaceballs territory, there.
Ked
…to play devil’s advocate for just a moment here, I can see where taking out North Korea could, in the most simplistic analysis, be the moral thing to do. I’m not so much worried about their nuclear capability, not so much worried about them pal-ing around with terrorists (unless you count Rodman), but the fact is that they effectively have a gun to the head of South Korea. If NK shoots first, modern democratic Korea dies.
When you have a seemingly insane person waving a gun wildly at innocent civilians, you shoot first.
But.
1) While we could do it, any serious discussion of how to sucker punch the NK forces within range of Seoul probably has to begin and and with nukes, and not just a few.
2) You have to figure out ahead of time how you’re going to occupy and rebuild North Korea. And no fair passing this off on China and or South Korea, who surely don’t want to deal with it.
3) China might be more than a little annoyed at the loud noises we’re making on their southern border.
4) Do you really think that the NK’s haven’t been watching the last decade in Iraq and Af-Pak and planned for some style of post-conquest insurgency? Not sure how well the underpinning motivations would work, it’s so hard to evaluate NK civilian psychology from the outside, but there’s be something.
5) Doing this unilaterally will make the South Korean population really really hate us. If we do it right, with bunches of mushroom clouds visible from their capital, I guarantee an anti-American insurgency in the South.
And we don’t want to piss off Psy. He might make a video.
Yutsano
@Ked:
Northeastern, you mean. And the only way to keep China out is some type of quid pro quo involving Taiwan. Which ain’t gonna happen.
There is already an undercurrent of anti-American resentment in South Korea. But there is also the grudging fact that they could not defend themselves from the North without massive US assistance. No way do they turn to Japan for that, and it would be illegal for Japan to do so anyway. SK will agree to move with us should we decide to do so. But there’s no reason to do so.
Howard Beale IV
Who does this historian think he is-Niall Ferguson? This country isn’t big enough for two of ’em, ferchrissakes….
Corner Stone
Who the fuck drops an outfield fly ball?
Nerull
Nothing stabilizes a region like bombs.
The Moar You Know
@Suffern ACE: Oh boy. You really know how to piss people off. Right in the sweet spot!
I spent time over in both Korea and China back in the 1990s, was puzzled about the lack of Japanese cars, and asked about it. Ho man. The word that comes to mind about the responses would be “diatribe”. Those people are still fucking pissed. REALLY pissed.
Would achieve reunification, though. Very quickly.
Redshirt
@Nerull: Moar Bombz? Is always the answer.
peggy
@Yutsano:
“Not to mention solving the reunification issue has been a big factor in South Korean politics since the armistice.”
Lots of South K. don’t want reunification. An everyone share equally reunification will cut the South’s standard of living in half. They went from a very, very poor war wracked place to an American standard of living in two generations. All the elderly can remember shitting in privies and hauling water in buckets. They are not longing to lose all their luxuries.
RaflW
Wingnuts really just don’t have answers to anything that doesn’t involve fantasizing about firepower.
Mike G
It’s times like this I’m glad we don’t have a disinterested preening rich tool, with a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk full of daddy issues, in the White House being led around by sleazy neocon warmonger chickenhawks — Bush or Rmoney.
jl
@Yutsano:
” And the only way to keep China out is some type of quid pro quo involving Taiwan. Which ain’t gonna happen. ”
China might also request a little help with possible refugees, which may be considerable, if the NK regime becomes ‘unsettled’, if not toppled.
That would make our immigration debate more interesting.
Yutsano
@peggy: It will be more like the East German reunification, where there will be some initial support as institutions get replaced, but an actual equal split would be impossible. And as I said, it won’t happen without outside support. The SK economy can’t absorb that shock.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I would. This, of course, is one of many reasons that I do not play professional baseball.
jl
@Ked:
” I’m not so much worried about [NK] nuclear capability, not so much worried about them pal-ing around with terrorists”
But to take care of dealing nuclear devices with terrorists, you would have to know you bombed where all the warheads were stored. How could we possibly know that?
Bombing would be much more effective at crippling care of missile launch capability, and if we knew enough about where the sites were, more production.
I don’t see how we could know whether we targeted where all the warheads were stored.
NobodySpecial
@Corner Stone: They’ll get back to playing baseball as soon as they’re done counting their salaries.
Villago Delenda Est
@Yutsano:
German reunification was no walk in the park, even with the very strong BRD economy taking the absorption hit, assimilating a relatively strong (for a Warsaw Pact country) DDR economy…of course quite weak in comparison to the BRD’s.
Took 10 full years, but the Germans knew this upfront and were willing to take the hit, because reunification had been a seemingly impossible dream for so long.
Yutsano
@Villago Delenda Est: Heh. I remember the biggest terror over German reunification was that Germany would go back to its warmongering ways. Now they’re economic bullies. HOOCODANODE??
There won’t be Korean unification unless and until there’s a huge pledge of financial support behind it. And the two biggest candidates are China and the US. Neither are all that palatable to the Koreans.
fuckwit
@The Moar You Know: I once worked for a company owned by a Korean immigrant.
We did an OEM deal with Sumitomo. When the Sumitomo guys came over from Japan, our Korean CEO wouldn’t even look at them, wouldn’t shake their hand, wouldn’t talk to them, nothing. Our almost exclusively American executive team was baffled and a bit embarassed by this.
But then it took asking anyone from the almost-exclusively Korean manufacturing team about this, and we got the answer. It was an eye-opener.
Most folks in general could not be expected to quickly forgive a people for raping their grandmother. Especially when said grandmother is still alive and certainly hasn’t forgotten it herself.
Anne Laurie
@p.a.:
There’s a certain client-state-status issue, as others have said. But I’ve also been told by people who know the current situation (including James Fallows, IIRC) that right now the better comparison, to the average PRC native, is that NK is to China as Mexico is to the US — the primitive, backwards, teeming hordes just on the other side of the river. Of course they don’t want other Big Power states messing around with North Korea, any more than your average Texan would be happy about China threatening to bomb Mexico City. But apart from the international-prestige issue, the day the North Korean Glorious People’s Army loses its central command is the day every remaining NK citizen (including the rest of the NKGPA) tries to slip into China. And nobody in the Chinese management class wants to be known as “the guy responsible for all the [wetback-equivalent] ‘economic refugees’ coming over here to steal our jobs and take advantage of our already overstrained social services”.
raven
@peggy: They hauled their shit in “honey buckets” to fertilize the rice paddies when I lived there.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: I mentioned that practice to my wife, she grew up in Seoul. She said, yup, grows the best veggies.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Look what I found!
Also, here’s a clip of a man with a drunk pig on his bike going to market! I showed this to a young Korean professor a couple of weeks ago and he was amazed!
gelfling545
@raven: What on earth would he know about it that is more insightful than any person on the street?
Villago Delenda Est
@Yutsano:
Yeah, the differences economically between North and South are so great that it would take massive help from both China and the US to make it happen. The North is really something of a wasteland in many ways, and it started out as the industrial powerhouse portion right after WWII.