Prior to writing my own entry about the Cheonan, I commented on Gellar’s. She seems to have deleted it so I put up another one. Here it is in case you care:
Ha! Seems my comment was deleted! Guess I’ll just have to post it again. Here it is:
The North’s belligerence has NOTHING to do with the Obama administration. North Korea puts its military spending ahead of all else, including feeding its own people. The regime perpetuates a lie amongst its people that it is defending the country against US and Japanese capitalist imperialism which already took over the South. stir things up and engage in skirmishes or fire its weaponry at nothing here and there.
The most likely reason incidents such as these have been on the rise lately are due to a couple of factors, none of which has anything to do with a sitting US president:
1. The Dear Leader’s control of the population is waning. Take a look at the recent currency debacle. It was carried out to wipe out the people’s savings and reign in an emerging upper-middle class that gained wealth through black market ventures not sanctioned by the government. After the reform things got even worse with the general population responding by mounting street protests and even clashed directly with the government. Nearly unheard of North Korea.
2. The conservative Lee administration has taken a much harder stance on the North than the string of presidents that preceded him. During the recent Noh and Kim administrations, relations between the two Koreas were slightly better as the South provided more aid and was willing to look the other way while the North shamelessly starved its people and built up its vast military and nuclear arsenal(Sunshine Policy).
There are many other reasons, and the mentioned ones could be much more in depth. But this is a blog comment. Gellar should at least try and look at the situation objectively instead of drawing an asinine conclusion that uses the logic and reasoning becoming of a six-year old.
As for jcgirl1979, I can’t believe that someone who has spent so much time LIVING IN THE COUNTRY holds such an elementary view of the domestic politics and social fabric of the nation she resides in. And as far as your comment that a “skirmish” would be beneficial for South Korea’s social problems, I’m nearly at a loss for words, but not quite.
Are you really in favor using armed conflict as a means to address problems such as alcoholism and suicide??? Of all the possible solutions, you chose WAR?? What in the flying * are you thinking? That is embarrassingly stupid. Plus, do you realize that by missing the old days of the Bush years you are basically saying that the liberal South Korean governments are to thank for “amazing” time enjoyed under GW? How can you not even consider how SK politics affect the North?
Oh, and by the way, by advocating war as a means to heal public ills, you are essentially echoing Big Brother’s strategy of perpetual war as a means to social control which is decidedly totalitarian and a form of government that the right(and I’d guess you too) is so terrified Obama is bent on turning the US into. Think before you speak.
I live in SK as well, jcgirl1979 and if I ever meet you I will make it a point to take you down a peg or two, you twit.
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