We all see and hear what goes on over there. Kim will execute kids if they don’t cheer hard enough at his birthday party or something? He’s always threatening to nuke countries and is probably has the highest domestic kill count out of any world leader today.

So I ask? Why don’t any other countries step in to help those people. I saw a survey asking Americans and Escaped North Koreans would they migrate to North Korea and to the US if given the chance (hypothetical for the refugees). And it was like <0.1% to 95%. Obviously those people live in terror.

Why do we just allow this to happen in modern civilization? Nukes on South Korea? Is just not lucrative to step in? SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME PLEASE!?

  • OceanSoap@lemmy.world
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    Because China.

    China sees NK as a buffer to the US, sort of a little brother that’s a bit too crazy so they have to tug on the leash to get them to chill every now and then.

    We’ve already got bases in SK, but the Yellow sea separates us from China. NK is the land barrier.

  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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    china is the only reason why NK doesnt collapse right away, the ccp uses NK as a buffer against SK and the west. NK is a true vassal state of china, and ccp has recently begun making headways into russias natural resources.

      • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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        yea thats why ccp is so friendly with NK, its a good buffer against South korea and the asian neighbors and eu and usa. i think they are the only ones that have major trade with them, russia is probably only convenient right now.

  • susurrus0@lemmy.zip
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    We all see and hear what goes on over there.

    Do we? We only get a little bit of news from there, and I wouldn’t be sure how reliable it is.

    Why don’t any other countries step in to help those people.

    Help how? Go to war and slaughter most of their population? They are already heavily mobilized, and no doubt they’d conscript a lot more in case of a conflict. Not to mention they have nukes.

    Why do we just allow this to happen in modern civilization?

    Who is ‘we’? No offence, but this sounds like some oblivious American patriot asking why America hasn’t saved the world yet.

    Is just not lucrative to step in?

    Most countries don’t have their own nukes, so they will never even consider getting into a conflict with a country that does have them. Most countries don’t have even a fraction of the resources needed for any sort of operation.

    Plus, North Korea has powerful allies (like China) and is technically a member of the UN, so you can’t just disregard everything and conquer it.

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    Generally frowned upon to invade countries.

    Ludicrously costly. Your tax payers will want to know why it’s more important than everything else you do with their money.

    Immense suffering. Mostly by the people you’re trying to liberate but also your own troops and their families.

    They have nukes and could probably blow up at least a few regional cities. If the regime is threatened they will most likely use them.

    South Korea or China or Russia are the only countries with land borders. China and Russia find NK useful to have arround to annoy US. Seoul is within artillerty range of the border.

    Building up a new state in it’s place is very difficult. Remember how the Taliban took back power about 15 minutes after the US left Afghanistan?

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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      That’s not how it would play out or herw, but even in the best case scenario, you’d end up with a huge area with rampant poverty and discontent that would take generations to develop. We’ve had something similar in Germany. Even after thirty years and vast amounts of money spent, East Germany is still way behind and there are areas that have no perspective at all.

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    World powers typically let countries do whatever they want to their own citizens, it’s only when they do stuff to people of other countries that they get involved.

    • xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day
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      Simple and to the point. WW2 didn’t happen just because the Nazis were killing Jews, it happened because Hitler decided to barge into other countries.

    • ximtor@lemmy.zip
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      More like when it threatens some status quo or be inconvenient for them to deal with or might cause a shift to some power dynamics.

      I mean nobody(western leaders) gives a fuck about whatever is going on in Africa and Asia. And it’s quite literally mindboggling how the shit in Urkaine and Palestine is still ongoing without any major consequences for the aggressors other than mayyyybe harsh words or hurrdurr sanctions. Soo…as long as it does negatively not impact then, world leaders don’t give a shit about what other countries do.

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    Oh absolutely the west would love to effect regime change in North Korea. Morale win, keep the military industrial complex going, grow the economy, get rid of some pesky poors in combat, maybe hoover up some natural resources.

    The problem is China, NK is strategically important to them as a source of said natural resources and as a buffer zone against South Korea. Plus lots of slave labour, global economies can never have enough of that.

    So yeah, messing with North Korea means messing with China. Despite some real grade A morons in power nobody has been that stupid yet.

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    America was never about helping the people of the world. Many who believe that are mostly victims of propaganda. It’s all about American interests. If it’s in their interest they will give some reason like liberating a people as a pretence to enable military action.

    Also to directly answer the question, they have nukes trained on Seoul, have the backing of China which considers it a buffer against western influenced south kr

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    Why should we, as the collective west, spend soldiers lifes and money on “liberating” a population that hates us? Oh, and please mind: “Liberating” a country normally also includes killing a shitton of civilians in this process.

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    America already tried to save the North Koreans once. It was called the “Korean War”.

    We bombed them back to the stone age, then permanently isolated them from most of the world. Despite having good reasons for the start of the war, America treated NK like Israel currently treats Gaza.

    Even if North Koreans tried to forget that America bombed every hospital, every water purification plant, all the electricity production, etc; the Kim regime’s propaganda will make sure they never forget.

    If we actually wanted to help those people, the first step would be removal of economic sanctions. There is no clean way to remove dictatorship, but the “Arab Spring” model is much more effective and humane than the “Afghanistan War” model.

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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      the Kim regime’s propaganda will make sure they never forget.

      It’s the peak of chauvinism to think people would need propaganda to remember you leveling their entire country.

      • Krono@lemmy.today
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        Yes I agree.

        If you use context instead of cherry picking a half-sentence then maybe you would understand that is part of the broader point I am trying to get across to a western, chauvinism-brained audience.

      • Krono@lemmy.today
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        You have obviously misunderstood me.

        I was comparing the United States actions in the Korean War(1950s) to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. The mass civilian bombing campaigns, complete destruction of civilian infrastructure, manmade famine, widespread preventable disease, and imposed economic isolation are very similar between the two cases.

        I am not comparing current-day North Korea to current-day Gaza, and I agree with you that would not be a good analogy.

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            So your thesis is that the 1950s war was inconsequential, and then you lay the entire blame on the Kim regime and their policies?

            My dude, how do you think the Kim regime became a dictatorship?

            Before the 1950s war, Kim was a weak puppet leader propped up by the Soviet Union. By the end of the war, the Kim regime had dictatorial power, which persists to this day.

          • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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            The issue as you see it:

            clings on to a pseudo-scientific economic ideology

            The prescription you suggest:

            pseudo-scientific economic ideology

      • Dogyote@slrpnk.net
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        If you read the previous comment more closely you’ll realize that the commentor wasn’t comparing today’s NK to Gaza, but Korea during the Korean War to Gaza. That is a reasonable comparison, as nearly every standing structure was bombed.

              • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                You can’t really “invade” your own country. North and South Korea were two sides in a civil war, with both sides claiming each other’s territory and aiming towards unification. It’s like saying that George Washington “invaded” Yorktown or that Lincoln “invaded” Virginia.

                • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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                  The South did invade the North though in the US civil war.

                  The Maryland campaign (or Antietam campaign) occurred September 4–20, 1862, during the American Civil War. The campaign was Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North.

                  And if you don’t want to use the word “invaded”, I guess you could just say that North Korea attacked the South, kicking off the war

                • RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz
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                  If Donbas was at the time part of Russia it would be like that. So it’s not really like that. Since North Korea actually went into South Korea with the intention of taking it over.

              • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                What war? The Korean War from 70 years ago? Because they’ve been at peace since then, but some loonies in this thread want to go over and start trouble with them.

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    Short answer is that NK is pretty much self-contained. Occasional Kim might rattle his sabre but no one is too worried about it. Until they start making serious threats to the stability of other countries it’s just a case of leave well enough alone.

    Sure it sucks what the people of NK have to endure but it’s not for other countries to tell them how they should live unless they directly ask for help or start threatening the sovereignty of other countries.

    As someone else in the comments mentioned, WW2 wasn’t an intervention to protect the German citizens that were being persecuted, it was a reaction to German invasion of other nations.

      • novibe@lemmy.ml
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        Why would you believe your media regarding a country they admit is “closed off”?

        Do you seriously believe they execute ppl for having the same haircut as Kim? And then execute ppl for having a different haircut from him?

        They execute generals all the time, then the generals appear alive a few months later. That’s that mystical Juche necromancy for ya.

        • VeryFrugal@sh.itjust.works
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          I fully agree that a lot of the shittalk about them is exaggerated and ill-informed. They don’t execute people for having wrong haircut (dyeing can get you into some trouble), no, I do not believe that.

          People live there. It’s certainly not nationwide Auschwitz as you might think.

          But they also execute/punish people(and their family members) for trying to leave the country for good or talk shit about their supreme leader. I don’t know you but if that’s not a red flag I seriously don’t know what is.

          They execute generals all the time, then the generals appear alive a few months later. That’s that mystical Juche necromancy for ya.

          Can’t get all the shit right, yes. That doesn’t make their countless crimes-against-humanity testimonies and proof any less valid. And since they are so closed off that even the whereabouts of high-ranking generals are often hard to know, it really is just the tip of the iceberg.

          But I’m very sure that you are going to say all the defectors and reporters are liars and parrot all the wild cringe tankie shit that no less than 14 should you have outgrown and that’s fine. You do you. I hope someday you can make a personal visit to North Korea and leave the horrific, capitalistic hellhole of a society the West is.

              • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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                It’s not a tu quoque when NK isn’t hurting anyone but themselves and the Americans are burning down the fucking planet. One is an urgent situation, the other is political theatre that most of us are unqualified to even analyze due to the embargoes, censorship and pervasive propaganda.

                Being worried about rumors that:

                they also execute/punish people(and their family members) for trying to leave the country for good or talk shit about their supreme leader

                from a tiny, insignificant backwater nation when the so called leader of the free world is disappearing people from potentially every country on Earth, when the most powerful trading nation is intentionally destabilizing the global economy, well it reeks of looking for a distraction. The US government has as much to do with what is happening to NK people right now as the NK government does.

                • pishadoot@sh.itjust.works
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                  NK is one of the most exceptionally successful aggressors in cyber crime. They perform heists in the 10s or 100s of millions of USD at a time, about 2 billion in the past two years. Their targets are global and indiscriminate, and their scope and skill set is growing at an alarming pace.

                  If it helps you sleep better at night that they’re only physically terrible to their local neighborhood, then whatever - I would argue that their reach is only limited by their lack of wealth, but that still has a radius that can reach nations as far away as Japan and they constantly threaten them, and would do so to others if they had the means, but again, if that doesn’t bother you then ok I guess.

                  But to say that they don’t affect anyone outside their borders is at best ignorance and at worst willful misinformation.

                • VeryFrugal@sh.itjust.works
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                  Calling it a distraction when they literally harm our people and bomb our land. Thanks.

                  To us, it’s at least as urgent and as the U.S. crap and it has been that way for quite a long time.

        • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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          Why do .ml’s get so triggered with this topic? And y’all invariably paint NK as these absolute saints when we know what totalitarian regimes do and have done throughout the ages.

            • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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              Your reply doesn’t really follow the conversation. This is tangential to the main thread. We’re talking about how we present and defend information as a meta commentary on these threads, and not how the egging on of an invasion of a totalitarian country upsets some folks.

              Also, did you just make an account to participate in this thread? Your account is brand spankin’.

                • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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                  The bunch of sheletered idiot worry about their little games

                  This you?

                  It takes huge balls to go around calling people stupid only to miss the entire point yourself. Terrible troll, honestly.

          • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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            When you recognize the amount of bullshit propoganda that is consumed daily and realize how false it all is it’s very easy to switch to “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” mode.

            Additionally it’s harder to break others (and oneself) out of the propoganda soup without an extremely sharp distinction between the lies being spoonfed and the material reality. The material reality often ends up getting distorted as a result and the cycle continues.

            • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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              I fully support the idea that we have a problem with bias in the news and people profiting from scandals, and we also don’t need to downplay what the government does. We can push back against misinformation without accidentally bootlicking.

              • SinAdjetivos@lemmy.world
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                We can push back against misinformation without accidentally bootlicking.

                It depends entirely on how you define “accidentally bootlicking” because I think [email protected] has done an excellent job of calling out how you have been making that distinction.

                Taking a step back and decontextualizing how do you think one should make that distinction?

                • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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                  I’m sorry, but Objection has taken the wrong idea and run with it. If you think they’re making a great point, I’d suggest you reread with what I’ve said in mind. I do own that I’m a little hasty to judge .ml accounts from experience, but that’s about it. The rest is Objection assuming things with extra dressing to frame the conversation.

                  Tbh, I don’t even know what the fuck they’re arguing about now, and I can’t be bothered. Seriously, go take a look a that word salad and the embedded quiz of them just being an extra little argumentative gremlin.

              • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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                Let’s just review this conversation, shall we? What the other person said was:

                Do you seriously believe they execute ppl for having the same haircut as Kim? And then execute ppl for having a different haircut from him?

                They execute generals all the time, then the generals appear alive a few months later. That’s that mystical Juche necromancy for ya.

                So, that’s two examples of egregious misinformation that they pushed back on. How did you respond?

                And y’all invariably paint NK as these absolute saints

                We can push back against misinformation without accidentally bootlicking.

                The reason we “”“bootlick”“” and “”“treat them as absolute saints”“” is that you chatacterize any attempt to push back on blatant misinformation as “”“bootlicking.”“” So no, it is impossible push back on misinformation without “bootlocking,” because, by your standards, anything short of uncritically accepting every bad thing said about a US rival (that is, anything short of actual bootlicking towards the US) counts as “bootlicking.”

                If I’m wrong, then show me what in their comment led you to conclude that they were bootlicking, aside from refuting misinformation.

                • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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                  I think you’re connecting two things in my mind that were completely separate, and are using that as a springboard to jump to conclusions about my supposed standards based on one flawed premise, then about me uncritically accepting things, and also that I’m explicitly against US enemies. Brother, I’m not even American. Can I not talk about a pitfall that I often see with people defending NK, as an “inb4” if you will? Because I hope you reread the sentence that way.

                  If anything, my only direct comment about the person I’m replying to was the first question: Why so eager to jump in like that about a known violator of human rights that has voiced unconditional support for Russia, a country actively picking a fight with the entire West side of the world? A tyrannic, totalitarian regime is everybody’s enemy as far as I’m concerned.

                  But sure, maybe I’m reading the other person wrong too, and I’m unnecessarily assigning blame because of my previous experience with this exact same topic with other .ml accounts behaving that way and swarming the person commenting.

              • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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                We can push back against misinformation without accidentally bootlicking.

                Can you? You don’t’ seem to be able to.

          • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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            Why do .ml’s get so triggered with this topic?

            Because we’ve seen what the real life effect of this kind of mindless jingoism and chauvinism is; millions killed by American bombs.

            And y’all invariably paint NK as these absolute saints

            No, .worlders just can’t stop themselves from strawmanning.

            we know what totalitarian regimes do and have done throughout the ages.

            That’s an absurdly broad generalization, and one I’m going to present as proof that you see things in a cartoonish “good guys vs bad guys” framing.

  • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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    iirc one of the issues is that even if things go perfectly on a military front no one is quite sure how to handle and de-program/rehabilitate 25.5 million people a large quantity of which likely lack any skills that would be useful in western economies.

    • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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      a large quantity of which likely lack any skills that would be useful in western economies.

      What an alarming thing to say…

      • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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        I’m not saying its a good reason, just a reason. We could easily afford it if we took some of that magic money that goes into military funding blackholes or magical infastructure projects that never get built yet somehow break records on cost. Sadly the decision is being made by people with no sense of empathy or value for human life.

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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          No, the alarming part is that you view North Koreans as subhuman animals with no skills.