As the grandson of a South Korean Army officer who fought against the communists in the Korean War, nothing would please me more than to see the Communist government of North Korea get crushed whether it be through a covert operation or an uprising within the North Korean military. Sadly, an open conflict would lead to too many casualties for South Korea where I still have relatives.

The current North Korean dictator seems to be following in his father's footsteps already in terms of sabre rattling. I'm just concerned that the Communists are plotting covert actions against South Korea kind of like the Rangoon Bombing back in the 1980s which killed several top South Korean government officials.

I don't necessarily disagree with you on that (even if there has been a gradual reduction in nuclear arms worldwide since the introduction of the treaty), but my point was not to argue the feasibility of the treaty, but the erroneous assumption that it is the US alone telling these countries they aren't allowed to have nukes. Technically, no country is allowed to have nukes, including the US.

Yes, they face sanctions because the only other options available are :

1. Outright warfare.
2. Letting the bizarre family of dictators running the show do whatever they want.

Since both of those options are horrendous, sanctions happen. And sorry, that IS entirely their own fault. The Chinese have shown a willingness in the past to deal with them, but even they have backed away both diplomatically and economically because not even they know what the North Koreans will do next. NK has created their own isolation.

I said that the West went and fought a war that North Korea started. I said ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about them 'deserving what they got', that was purely you in an attempt to sound dramatic. Had it been taken to the extent that they deserve what they get, they would have been entirely occupied and conquered. That didn't happen for a variety of reasons, but most in the West didn't support the attempt to do so in the first place.

Their foreign policy is ridiculous. They're essentially a national version of the 3 year-old throwing a tantrum in a toy store because mom won't buy her a doll. For years they got away with empty promises leading to them receiving food and machine parts. Eventually, the rest of the world stopped playing, but they seem completely incapable of evolving their own policy. And at this point, the benefits that sort of policy brings even the ruling family seems to be dwindling.

As for the 1993 meetings with Israel, meetings based on Israel trying to get NK to stop supplying rocket designs to Iran in exchange for food aid and help with some mining operations. It was just another example of NK using the threat of one thing to get something else. And yes, they were halted in one of the earliest examples of the US (and soon the UN) sanctioning NK for illegal nuke development. Again, SELF INFLICTED.

I'm not trying to sound dramatic, it IS dramatic history most people are not aware of. Thats why I am mentioning it, not sure why you dont like it. When people think of the korean war they think of mash and heroism, not an entire country destroyed with millions dead and an incredible 20% of the population killed by saturation bombing alone.
Sanctions are useless, that is well understood. Sanctions only help repressive regimes stay in power. Thats why Saddam stayed in power while the brutal US/UN sanctions killed around half a million people in the 90s, thats why the iranian democracy movement is strongly opposed to the current sanctions.
Repressive regimes will sooner or later get overthrown when there is no external threat/scapegoat to terrifiy the populace with. Just like Pinochet,Mubarak and all the other US supported terror regimes that fell.
The 1993 deal is a perfect example for US rejectionism in this NK matter, thank you for providing the details.

It's a minor note but MASH is supposed to be in Vietnam but Robert Altman was getting too much crap for putting it there seeing as it was a black comedy and the U.S. was still over there, so with a wink and a nudge he changed it to Korea.

The wages of war are death; always have been, always will be.

The key, though elusive, is to prevent war.

Cannot always be, idiots on every side, but provocation is to invite it.

Nuke are useless as weapons, but deadly as threats.

In other words you don't build nukes to use on someone else, you build nukes to stop someone else using nuke on you.

Call me lazy but I'll throw my opinion without reading the nine preceding pages.

The thing is that North Korea is a military dictatorship, as such the military needs to prove its importance. North Korea doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things and we're only feeding into their attention seeking problem by acting like they do. They'll never have nukes, but by taking our overreactions and showing them to their people they can make their people think that they're a lot more accomplished then they really are.

Actually according to the man himself he didn't want to set it anywhen though he knew people would think vietnam, the studio made him add the scroll for fear of outcry

I should know that, it's only one of my favorite movies. Thanks for the correction.

Speaking about banklords, did you watch the Zeitgeist movie? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z9WVZddH9w

It was Japan's own fault that we ended up using the atomic bombs on them.

The war was basically won and Japan wouldn't surrender because their emperor couldn't swallow his pride and ignored the warnings even after the first atomic bomb dropped.

So we decided instead of more traditional warfare that would needlessly cost possibly 1-2 million more lives we decided to use the bomb. Even films like Barefoot Gen reinforce the fact that from a Japanese point of view that the government Japan had back then just had too much pride and wouldn't yield the war effort even though they couldn't win.
So circular logic of preventive warfare?

As for the United States dropping the bombs on Japan to end the war ... I think a strong message (as a warning) for the Emperor and military leaders to watch a demonstartion of our capabilities and at set time Vaporize an uninhabited island with the bomb would have worked just as well ... In fact, even better ... to show it wasn't a fluke; then an hour later at set time vaporize a second uninhabited island for added measure of warning.
And then tell them the next one(s) will hit Tokyo and or other major cities within an hour.

Thanks ... Watching it now and seems very Interesting as well as informative ... Much more than just on Banklords; seems will be a very rewarding watch for many reasons.