North Korea issued a statement on Friday through its state-run media outlet, citing the Sanctions Damage Investigation Committee’s spokesman warning that the UN-imposed sanctions are causing “colossal damages” to the civilian economy.
Since sanctions against North Korean military and nuclear programs were imposed many years ago, these new sanctions are largely just hitting any parts of the economy that weren’t totally cut off from the rest of the world.
North Korean officials say this isn’t having any effect on the nuclear program, which is unsurprising. The statement added it “indiscriminately infringes upon the right to existence of the peaceful civilians” of their country, which tends to be the case with UN sanctions.
Despite having been under sanctions practically forever, it is extremely rare for North Korea to acknowledge that it’s having an impact, even if it’s just an impact on their civilian population. Historically, however, such harm is not a successful way for the international community to impose policy change, and rather makes the public even more dependent on the government supposedly being targeted.
“…UN-imposed [US] sanctions are causing “colossal damages” to the civilian economy.”
But, that was the purpose of the sanctions. Sanctions are an act of war by countries that don’t have the stomach for actually sending their own people to die for a political diplomatic problem.
Well, then how about saying what you would recommend doing.
How about diplomacy – something they haven’t tried (nor wanted, it seems.)
Everyone has a price – it just takes effort and a give-and-take attitude to find it. Arrogance and blanket demands will not bring about a solution.
Most sane people who have been in close proximity to the death and destruction associated with war will tell you that war is not the answer. War is not the answer – and nuclear war is absolutely the wrong answer.
Exactly what was done in the early 1990s under Clinton.
NK agreed to dismantle its weapons programme that was in its very early stages. It kept its word and destroyed a number of facilities, witnessed by foreign observers.
In return, it was to receive half a million tons of fuel oil and 2 power stations from the US.
Bush took office in 2000. He immediately came out with all the Axis of Evil crap and welshed on the deal, refusing to supply either. So NK reactivated its nuclear programme.
If the US had honoured its commitments, it could have been the beginning of improved relations. Instead, we have the current crisis.
The US has broken every agreement and treaty it ever made (ask the Red Indians.) Bush did not feel obliged to honour Clinton’s deal with NK. Just like Trump does not feel obliged to honour the Iran nuclear deal.
Any deal with the US is just so much toilet paper. It isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
I don’t see, after having bombed N.Korea to smithereens during the first war with N.Korea, how any amount of further talk could prevent the continuous escalation of nuclear weapons and missile stockpiling and advancement. Hard to see how allowing endless beefing up of the N.Korean nuclear and ICBM arsenal could increase world safety either. Looks like only choice is to continue to bait them until a rash act will justify war to put them down sooner rather than later. Tell me another method that would work — I really don’t like my own conclusion.
HeII yeah. For once the rhetoric coming from Washington matches that of Pyongyang in terms of vitriol. NK is unfinished business, they’ll never give up till they’re dead. They could have been smart like the Vietnamese, but too much pride is a mortal sin. I’ll shed some gator tears when they’re a charcoal briquette, but other than that I don’t see much of a better solution. We can’t let them threaten the US and the allies with nuclear annihilation on a daily basis. They have to give up the nukes or else.
US instigated sanctions against Iraq killed 500,000 children under 5 from 1991 – 2003. Sanctions have killed children in Iran and Syria. Russia and China have acted as US accomplices in imposing these – the latest example being NK. The third rate excuses for human beings responsible place no value on human life or the lives of children. They are just pawns in their dirty games. They are a thousand times worst than the most perverted and degenerate serial killers like Dahmer or Bundy.
Always considered the handling of Iraq to have been awful. Saddam wasn’t even building nukes before Bush Jr. invaded.
In the case of NK there is no denying what is happening. We cannot say that the fault is not on both sides at the very minimum. The NK leader didn’t have to build nukes, and he too would rather see the children starve than diminish his ego by the least bit. NK was not about to be invaded by the West. The Chinese would have acted as sufficient deterrent. No one, except a few brave, if foolish, Christian missionaries in the West really cares what the Kim dynasty does in it’s area — except when NK threatens others with nukes.
I’d love to be convinced there is a way through this, based on more than the significant amount of guilt I concede that we in the west should feel for missteps there and elsewhere.
“NK was not about to be invaded by the West. … No one, except a few brave, if foolish, Christian missionaries in the West really cares what the Kim dynasty does in it’s area”
If the US doesn’t care about what the Kim dynasty did in its area, why has it kept tens of thousands of troops on North Korea’s border for long enough that had those troops been born there, they would be looking for the mail to deliver their first Social Security checks about now? And why has it conducted provocative, annual “preparing for an invasion” type military exercises on North Korea’s border and off North Korea’s coast for decades? And why did it keep its own nuclear weapons right on North Korea’s border for nearly 40 years (that it admits)? And why did it dub North Korea part of “the axis of evil?”
The timeline of North Korea’s development of a nuclear deterrent is a quarter of a century long, peppered with statements that it would do so unless the US knocked off the bullshit. The US didn’t knock off the bullshit. Now there’s a bunch of whining about how North Korea did what it said it would do.
Hi Tomas, Thanks for the further feedback.
I am sincerely interested in understanding all reasonable perspectives.
You say: ” If the US doesn’t care about what the Kim dynasty did in its area, why
has it kept tens of thousands of troops on North Korea’s border for long
enough…?” Not sure if we are understanding “area” in the same sense. I mean in the area of NK not meaning to say that we didn’t care about SK.
My understanding is that US kept troops there to deter breaking the armistice, but not to invade at the first chance. Is it accurate to say that the annual exercises were of the “preparing for an invasion” kind? Can anyone document that posture as being the fact? Why would the US posture preparing to invade for 40 years and then not do it?
And if it had nukes on the border for 40 years, please then suggest why it never used them. Or if the USA never intended to, why bother?
Finally, if it was the USA that provoked NK, and it was all bullshit, is that not water under the bridge. Question is what to do now — let every small country dictator have nukes? Can we trust 50 coiuntires like that? It’s bound to end badly. Even if it is the fault of the USA to get to this point, is there really any option that we can expect to save us?
I
Austin,
The US political establishment’s view of North Korea is this: Rattle sabers at them, menace them, threaten them, while using their reciprocity in that regard to justify the gigantic US military footprint around the globe. The purpose of US foreign policy is to make the tax cows at home submit more meekly to the milking. Keep in mind that I’m not defending the Kim dynasty here. They’re just as bad.
It is not up to “us” to “let” anyone do anything. If a country with sufficient money and motivation wants nukes, it is going to get nukes. I’ll take the US position on that matter seriously once the US has given up its own nukes.