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North Korea

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Gromit | 14:29 Thu 29th Aug 2013 | News
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// “It was the first time I had seen a newborn baby and I felt happy. But suddenly there were footsteps and a security guard came in and told the mother to turn the baby upside down into a bowl of water,” she said.

“The mother begged the guard to spare her, but he kept beating her. So the mother, her hands shaking, put the baby face down in the water. The crying stopped and a bubble rose up as it died. A grandmother who had delivered the baby quietly took it out.”

The report says that while two of Pyongyang's six know political labour colonies have been shut down, an "extremely high" number of prisoners remain detained on political grounds, while countless others are unaccounted for or have died in detention.

"Through this vast system of unlawful imprisonment, the North Korean regime isolates, banishes, punishes and executes those suspected of being disloyal to the regime," the report said. "They are deemed 'wrong-thinkers,' 'wrong-doers,' or those who have acquired 'wrong-knowledge' or have engaged in 'wrong-associations.' "//

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10273355/Executions-and-torture-are-daily-life-in-North-Koreas-prisons.html

Every bit as evil as Assad, but we do nothing. What is the difference?
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Not much oil in North Korea.
what should we do ?
and it isn't all about oil, that story appeared in my paper days ago, the west should stay out of their affairs, we already fought a Korean war, let's not do another.
Don't believe all you read, The west like to publish stories like these because they are against NK, I doubt any of it is true. If it was like this then there would be a civil war like in Syria and USA/UK puppet would glady help.
They're a nuclear power. That makes a lot of difference when it comes to deciding how they should be treated.
i suspect that a lot of it is true, the gulags or whatever they call them in NK, where people are enslaved do exist.
As you want us to do nothing in Syria surely you are happy with us doing nothing in North korea.
You're avoiding the question doctor (not surprisingly) - what is the difference in your opinion ?
Why (not surprisingly) canary?
I'm simply showing the flaw in the question.

1. why take action in syria but not north korea?
2. why do nothing in syria but take action in north korea?
why not leave them both to it.
Not sure of your point Gromit. Do you want boots on the ground in N Korea? will you be volunteering ?

There is a huge difference between the two problems. For starters one is a civil war with accusations of chemicals used for mass destruction adhoc on a civilian population. The other is targeted.

I'm not backing either of the two regimes, I am just not sure what you are getting at?

Perhaps you would enlighten us to your thoughts?

And, of course, from todays news it would appear we wont be doing anything apart from hot air, which we also direct at N Korera.
I thought Gromit's point was that we contemplate getting involved in one conflict because we feel they have crossed a moral line, and we debate whether we cannot just stand by and let it happen; but elsewhere equally bad things occur and yet getting involved there is not on the political agenda, or even discussed. There seems, on the face of it, an inconsistency.

I think the US had made statements about crossing lines that has come back to haunt them, and they now have to be seen to do something or be shown up as just a sabre rattler. We tend to side with our allies, helping them to achieve what we think is right. Whilst in Korea the US have already had an embarrassing encounter and are in no mood to take them on again, especially since they are now a nuclear power.

olitics is not just driven by what is right or wrong, but also by what is sensible, likely to prove beneficial, politicians need to be pragmatic about these things and pick their battles.
Why would we want to take on North Korea? For a start, appalling though their regime is, we don't normally, as a matter of fact, start letting off missiles etc at people "just" because its leaders do something nasty. That would be a lot of missiles.
The problem with Syria is that it's close to us, the war is causing a knock-on effect of a refugee crisis more or less in our backyard, and the probability (effectively now a reality) of that conflict spreading
Anyway as youngmafbog says in all likelihood nothing will be done anyway (and as stated elswhere not sure I see the point of doing what they seem to be talking about)

I love comments like that by Mike25 - why does "the west" not like N Korea? Perhaps it's because of what we know of their regime, rather than that we make up stories about it just for the hell of it. Just a thought.
In principle there is no difference. Man’s inhumanity to man is inhumane the world over. However, the Middle East and associated regions, and the madmen who control those areas, impacts upon the world in general, and upon the west in particular – and therein lies the definitive difference.
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Naomi,

I'm not sure I agree that Syria impacts on the west at all. The Assads have ruled for forty years, have they changed recently, not sure they have. Syria joined the Coalition in the Gulf War and we weren't really much bothered then what Assad senior was up to.
Well yes they have changed slightly! Assad could have been (and maybe was) drowning babies like there was no tomorrow but Syria was regarded as a stable if repressive country.
It all changed when popular protest broke out turning to violent rebellion after mass repression. As in Libya with Gaddafi, who was our "friend" of sorts in the end.
Mubarak in Egypt similarly. Ben Ali in Tunisia - we cheerfully holidayed in both those countries in the knowledge that they were no oases of peace and love. But once the people rose up against them and we saw that unreasonable force was being used against them ...
Gromit, the mire that is the Middle East in general impacts upon the west.
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The middle east lies on many political fault lines. East meets west. Rich meets poor, Islam meets Christianity. Democracy meets Autocracy. It is almost inevitable that this will be a place of conflict.

But other than a possible disruption to oil supplies, its impact on us is minimal if we want it to be. But we don't. We choose to be in the thick of it. We invade countries, depose rulers, support oppressive puppets, steal peoples land and dump a foreign country on it. The middle east affects us only because we want to affect it.
we have been asked to help in any number of these countries, and when we have, generally it is us who gets caught like piggy in the middle, they won't, don't thank us, and we create ever more potential terrorists on our shores. Why don't we stay out of their affairs

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