Korea situation

[comradesvs]

Hey, how about some discussion on the dangerous situation brewing in Korea?

Here is a statement from the YCL Canada about it to start us off.

No war with Korea! For a made-in-Canada foreign policy of peace!


Central Executive Committee, Young Communist League of Canada
May 2010

Canadian youth and students should be quick to reject and denounce the war mongering stance taken by the Harper Conservative government with regards to the crisis forming between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and South Korea since the Mach 26th sinking of the Cheonan naval vessel.

In a statement released on May 24th, Harper announced the government’s intention to impose harsh sanctions, to support South Korea in a “decisive response,” which did not rule out military action. The statement also condemned the DPRK for “egregious violation of international law,” and “blatant disregard for international law,” statements are darkly ironic coming from a Prime Minister and a government implicated in war crimes and torture in Afghanistan.

Harper’s hypocrisy becomes further evident when considering the recent attack by apartheid Israel against the Freedom Flotilla which left several dead and dozens more wounded. The attack on the Flotilla, a group of unarmed boats bringing desperately needed humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, has incited no condemnation from the Conservative government. While quick to condemn supposed attacks and violations of international law by the DPRK, Harper is unwilling to criticize violations by Israel against the Palestinian people or their supporters.

Little evidence exists to implicate the DPRK in the sinking of the Cheonan. In fact South Korean sources, including the Defense Ministry, have made statements that no North Korean vessels in the area at the time of the attack. Despite this, the South Korean regime, backed by Washington, have presented the case as open and shut with the DPRK implicated in the crime.

The current Korean crisis is part and parcel of the cold war waged by US imperialism, South Korean ruling class, and their allies against the DPRK since the armistice which “ended” the Korean War in 1953. The demonization of the DPRK as part of an “Axis of Evil,” and as a “threat,” is ludicrous when placed beside the reality of the DPRK, a poor country struggling for survival against hostility and economic sabotage by the US and its allies. The goal of this campaign is to achieve the total collapse of the socio-economic system in place in the DPRK and the reunification of Korean on a capitalist basis under US hegemony. It is also interesting to note that fortunes are to be made in arms contracts by keeping tensions high in the region, and that these tensions provide the only excuse for the presence of thousands of US troops in the region including in South Korea and Japan.

Harper’s slavish parroting of Washington’s warmongering threatens to entangle Canada in a new military conflagration on the Korean peninsula. Such a conflagration would be an imperialist war for the benefit of multinational corporations and arms dealers which could cost innumerable lives.

The Canadian working class, youth and students, must categorically reject Canadian involvement in aggression towards the DPRK as they rejected Canadian involvement in the invasion of Iraq. What is needed is an independent and made-in-Canada foreign policy based on peace, disarmament, friendship, and sovereignty. It’s time to run the war mongering Harper Tories out of office and to fight for a new future for youth which is not based on imperialist war and plunder.

[gofatchix]

Let's make a fucking giant crater out of north-korea.:mad:

[Rusty Shackleford]

Let's make a fucking giant crater out of north-korea.:mad:

lolwut?

[AK]

Let's make a fucking giant crater out of north-korea.:mad:
Thanking for teh lulz.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Piece by piece, more evidence is popping up in which shows exactly what a lot of us were saying in the first place - North Korea is innocent. We even have major socialist organizations, the PSL, speaking out on this. One of the most progressive, semi-liberal, news site saying the same thing, AlterNet. And we're even getting reports in on how this "attack" was more likely to have been an accident by an American ocean mine. There's even mass mobilizations going against the claim that N.K. did it.

http://gowans.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/the-sinking-of-the-cheonan-another-gulf-of-tonkin-incident/

http://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/did-an-american-mine-sink-south-korean-ship/

http://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/pyongyang-mass-meeting-denounces-anti-dprk-smear-campaign/

http://www.alternet.org/story/147096/did_a_north_korean_torpedo_really_sink_that_south_ korean_military_vesselt_/

[chegitz guevara]

Piece by piece, more evidence is popping up in which shows exactly what a lot of us were saying in the first place - North Korea is innocent.

Not so much. First, you're posting an article which I've already shown is inaccurate. That would be the first in your list. The second in the list also shows a marked misunderstanding of how modern torpedoes work, thinking it puts a whole in the side of the ship, when they explode under the ship, and use a shock wave of water to break keels and split ships in two, exactly what happened to the Cheonan. It is also how modern mines work, and I have stated from the beginning that it is possible that the Cheonan was struck by a mine. The 3rd article you link is merely North Korean denying everything. If we know anything about North Korea at all, it's not to trust North Korea to tell the truth. If they did sink the Cheonan they'd be denying it, so this tells us absolutely nothing. The final link is just relinks of previous stories, so all you've really got is one new bit of info, the second link, about a possible American mine sweeper.


http://gowans.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/the-sinking-of-the-cheonan-another-gulf-of-tonkin-incident/

http://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/did-an-american-mine-sink-south-korean-ship/

http://redantliberationarmy.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/pyongyang-mass-meeting-denounces-anti-dprk-smear-campaign/

http://www.alternet.org/story/147096/did_a_north_korean_torpedo_really_sink_that_south_ korean_military_vesselt_/

[The Ben G]

Hopefully the two will just implode and a better socialist state will come out of the black hole of the Korean Peninsula.

[The Vegan Marxist]

Not so much. First, you're posting an article which I've already shown is inaccurate. That would be the first in your list. The second in the list also shows a marked misunderstanding of how modern torpedoes work, thinking it puts a whole in the side of the ship, when they explode under the ship, and use a shock wave of water to break keels and split ships in two, exactly what happened to the Cheonan. It is also how modern mines work, and I have stated from the beginning that it is possible that the Cheonan was struck by a mine. The 3rd article you link is merely North Korean denying everything. If we know anything about North Korea at all, it's not to trust North Korea to tell the truth. If they did sink the Cheonan they'd be denying it, so this tells us absolutely nothing. The final link is just relinks of previous stories, so all you've really got is one new bit of info, the second link, about a possible American mine sweeper.

It's not just whether the torpedo could do such damage or not. That's only one question answered out of the rest. Like the fact that the torpedo pieces found were already corroding. Now, I may not know much about specific metals or torpedo's, but they don't corrode within just a few days. Then there's the fact that there was no detection of such on South Korean radars. Either that was a damn good stealth mission, or there was no North Korean ship. And yes, the American mine sounds a hell of a lot plausible.

[Proletarian Ultra]

I talked to a guy I know who works at a major (i.e. neolib) foreign policy think tank in DC. He says their best guess is someone on the NoKo sub either went rogue or fired accidentally. The Norks seem to be genuinely confused and shitting themselves over this. Right now the US's primary concern is not so much the North, as preventing the South gov't from doing a full Netanyahu over this.

[chegitz guevara]

It's not just whether the torpedo could do such damage or not. That's only one question answered out of the rest. Like the fact that the torpedo pieces found were already corroding. Now, I may not know much about specific metals or torpedo's, but they don't corrode within just a few days. Then there's the fact that there was no detection of such on South Korean radars. Either that was a damn good stealth mission, or there was no North Korean ship. And yes, the American mine sounds a hell of a lot plausible.

Fire corrodes metal.

Subs are pretty good at stealth. That's the point. Sub detection is not perfect. Soviet subs were often discovered only after they were well within firing range of American carriers.

I'm not saying that the DPRK did it. But a lot of the "evidence" that they didn't is pretty thin, and the evidence we have is consistent with a torpedo attack. It's also consistent with a mine.

[scarletghoul]

Hey, how about some discussion on the dangerous situation brewing in Korea?

Here is a statement from the YCL Canada about it to start us off.

No war with Korea! For a made-in-Canada foreign policy of peace!


Central Executive Committee, Young Communist League of Canada
May 2010

Canadian youth and students should be quick to reject and denounce the war mongering stance taken by the Harper Conservative government with regards to the crisis forming between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and South Korea since the Mach 26th sinking of the Cheonan naval vessel.

In a statement released on May 24th, Harper announced the government’s intention to impose harsh sanctions, to support South Korea in a “decisive response,” which did not rule out military action. The statement also condemned the DPRK for “egregious violation of international law,” and “blatant disregard for international law,” statements are darkly ironic coming from a Prime Minister and a government implicated in war crimes and torture in Afghanistan.

Harper’s hypocrisy becomes further evident when considering the recent attack by apartheid Israel against the Freedom Flotilla which left several dead and dozens more wounded. The attack on the Flotilla, a group of unarmed boats bringing desperately needed humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, has incited no condemnation from the Conservative government. While quick to condemn supposed attacks and violations of international law by the DPRK, Harper is unwilling to criticize violations by Israel against the Palestinian people or their supporters.

Little evidence exists to implicate the DPRK in the sinking of the Cheonan. In fact South Korean sources, including the Defense Ministry, have made statements that no North Korean vessels in the area at the time of the attack. Despite this, the South Korean regime, backed by Washington, have presented the case as open and shut with the DPRK implicated in the crime.

The current Korean crisis is part and parcel of the cold war waged by US imperialism, South Korean ruling class, and their allies against the DPRK since the armistice which “ended” the Korean War in 1953. The demonization of the DPRK as part of an “Axis of Evil,” and as a “threat,” is ludicrous when placed beside the reality of the DPRK, a poor country struggling for survival against hostility and economic sabotage by the US and its allies. The goal of this campaign is to achieve the total collapse of the socio-economic system in place in the DPRK and the reunification of Korean on a capitalist basis under US hegemony. It is also interesting to note that fortunes are to be made in arms contracts by keeping tensions high in the region, and that these tensions provide the only excuse for the presence of thousands of US troops in the region including in South Korea and Japan.

Harper’s slavish parroting of Washington’s warmongering threatens to entangle Canada in a new military conflagration on the Korean peninsula. Such a conflagration would be an imperialist war for the benefit of multinational corporations and arms dealers which could cost innumerable lives.

The Canadian working class, youth and students, must categorically reject Canadian involvement in aggression towards the DPRK as they rejected Canadian involvement in the invasion of Iraq. What is needed is an independent and made-in-Canada foreign policy based on peace, disarmament, friendship, and sovereignty. It’s time to run the war mongering Harper Tories out of office and to fight for a new future for youth which is not based on imperialist war and plunder.
This is great, but it would have been even better if it included a demand that America withdraw its troops from the whole region, and that Korea be reunified