UN Security Council approves sanctions on North Korea

| August 5, 2017

According to the Associated Press, the United Nations’ Security Council imposed sanctions on the Hermit Kingdom banning a billion dollars worth of exports;

The resolution adopted Saturday afternoon would also ban countries from giving any additional permits to North Korean laborers – another source of money for Kim Jong Un’s regime.

The U.S.-drafted measure, negotiated with North Korea’s neighbor and ally China, is aimed at increasing economic pressure on Pyongyang to return to negotiations on its nuclear and missile programs.

[…]

The resolution bans North Korea from exporting coal, iron, lead and seafood products estimated to be worth over $1 billion. This represents one-third of its total exports last year, estimated at $3 billion.

Category: North Korea

74 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Roh-Dog

So what? Now a bunch of PLA Generals are going to get rich smuggling from NK.
There is only one solution to that problem and it involves a lot of high explosives.

Yef

So, no discussion on the Blackwater ruling?

I say they should go free.

Roh-Dog
DD877

unanimously approved new sanctions on North Korea including banning exports worth over $1 billion. Unanimously… Russia and China signed off???

26Limabeans

Nothing like a UN resolution to put the fear of god in dictators. Why not go all out and draw a red line.

Tallywhagger

“Man’s got to know his limitations”!

Ex-PH2

Someone tell Commissar Commissar what his limitations are, willya? He’s barking at the moon again.

UpNorth

First, the UN has to send a strongly worded letter. If that doesn’t have the desired effect, then they’ll scold the Norks severely. Then, if(when) that fails, they draw the red line. But, they’ll use Baracko’s vanishing ink for that red line.

Commissar

A lot of disparaging comments about sanctions. But they are more effective than doing nothing and have secondary effects that will undermine the Kim regime. 1. They increase the importance of the black market in NK society. This causes major players in the black market to have more influence and control. This distributes influence and power away from the Kim regime. It is also why Kim went after his uncle and killed him. His uncle’s power structures derived from the uncles control of many aspects of the black market was a competing power structure that threatened Kim’s control. There are other black market influencers. Kim cannot go after them all because it undermines their economy since the black market stabilizes the society by providing resources their more centrally controlled “legitimate” economy is unable to provide. 2. It both makes the Kim regime dependent on and in conflict with the black market. Kim Jong Un has to balance the vital resources the black market brings in against the loss of control major black market players draw from the Kim regime. This means the regime has to constantly find a balance between that central conflict over control with the regimes dependence on the market. More sanctions shifts more power away from Kim forcing him to try to consolidate again putting him in conflict with influencers and destabilizing the power structures and economic structure in NK for a time. 3. It increases the perceived legitimacy of future requests the US may need to ask of the UN when the sanctions inevitable have points of failure and the Kim regime inevitable continues to defy them. This increases our international diplomatic leverage in the region in dealing with 3rd parties who are at the table concerning managing the threat the Kim regime and NK presents to the region. Particularly China who not only is a vital player in the negotiations but has veto power in the UN. Essentially, there is no solution to any threat or complications the NK regime presents that will not include China as a vital partner in solving. Plus, sanctions are… Read more »

Ex-PH2

Well, I see that since our Commie-loving COMMISSAR POODLEDICK Commissar couldn’t win the War of Words in the GWOT Memo thread, he diddybopped on over here to try his back luck here, too.

1 – Try using complete sentences, Lars. You become more incoherent and less comprehensible with each passing hour.
2 – Edit your opinions down to five plain sentences and stop boring the living crap out of us. Get to the point, Edna.
3 – Engaging in another bout of contemptuous attitude accompanied by your usual name-calling does nothing but reinforce your reputation as someone who thinks he can convert people to his ideology, an unlikely possibility in this venue.
4 – Might be best, in fact, if you just went back to hobnobbing with your socialismo buddies and stop making an ass of yourself around people who can rebut everything you say, and quickly, too, especially since YOU are the one who starts the proselytizing. And yet, you have not converted even 1/2 of one single soul to your point of view. EPIC FAIL!!!!!

Commissar

I was bored of the ignorant nonsense and ISIS propaganda being spread on that thread. When people started using their religious beliefs to justify their desire to go to war toward other people that hold different religious beliefs because they believe the other people’s religious beliefs are a threat to them I decided to go find a more interesting conversation.

And there are some typos in what I wrote, which may take a moment to figure out in context, but if it is incomprehensible to you that is a failure on your part. Korea is a subject you seem to know fuck all about so it may be hard to put what I say into context.

Ex-PH2

No, you met defeat with an unwinnable position because your arguments were weakened by your refusal to recognize the reality that Islam demands that its members become psychopaths to be acceptable.
You lose again on that score, Piuperdink.

Commissar

“refusal to recognize the reality that Islam demands that its members become psychopaths to be acceptable.”

That is complete bullshit.

It reveals how fucked your head is about Muslims.

I worked with Muslims in Iraq. Ones that risked their lives to help their country and the US.

In fact I worked with FOREIGN CITIZEN Muslims that have and still do far more for the US, than you have done in your entire life.

And they do with because they believe they are doing the right thing for the right reasons and they care about their own communities and both their society and ours.

Your ignorance is astounding to me.

Ex-PH2

And your obtuse denials will get other people killed who have done nothing to deserve it, you worthless appeaser.

David

okay, a substantive response: “bored with”, not “bored of”.

Commissar

And the fact that I have not converted a single person to my point of view says more about the regulars on this board than it does about me.

Hell, you morons still think I am a communist and most of you have no fucking clue what my economic beliefs are and have no clue what a communist is other than some reductionist notion derived from half a century old red scare propaganda.

If you have not updated your understanding of what is or is not communism in a half a century I sure as shit am not going to be able to get you to accept new information.

gitarcarver

And the fact that I have not converted a single person to my point of view says more about the regulars on this board than it does about me.

So if you were to argue that 2+2=5 and no one would agree with you, that doesn’t say anything about you?

Nothing?

Commissar

It does equal 5 for sufficient large values of 2.

Ex-PH2

So as always, you support what is Stalin’s biggest fucking lie, just because you think you can justify it.
Oh, yeah! You are SUCH a consistent suckup to the Communistas. You should move to Venezuela. They would just LUUUUV you, pinhead.

Guard Bum

Personally I just think you are a fucking moron and do not usually read or respond to your drivel but I was laughing at PH2s neutering of you so I actually read a couple of your comments so here goes a response:

You cant figure out why people poke fun at you by calling you a communist when your handle is “Commissar”? Seriously?

Dear god I hope you dont breed.

A Proud Infidel®™

I still think he comes here for any attention he can get after his girlfriend dumped him when she caught him wearing her pantyhose once too often.

Commissar

Another worthless, pointless, trollish post by the supply room 11B.

A Proud Infidel®™

Babbles McButthead, you’re living proof that one can have truckloads of formal education and still be a complete idiot!

mboharra@frontiernet.net

Well, at least he is infantry, which I don’t think you could get farther away from with Civil Affairs branch.

Commissar

I am objectively not a moron substantiated by every standardized means of testing intelligence.

And I adopted the handle “commissar” as a response to being called a communist by this board for nearly two years.

So to claim it is why people call me a communist is ridiculous.

Originally I posted by my actual real name. Then it became an issue when people started trying to extend their dislike for me outside this board by trying to contact people that knew me in real life and trying to disrupt my real life.

I went by “Poodledick” for a while since that is what people were calling me.

Then some fucking asshats whined that I was using a “obscene” term in my handle.

They had no issue with it being used BY OTHER PEOPLE to refer to me. But when I used it myself they starting whining like little duplicitous shitbags.

So I adopted “Commissar”.

A Proud Infidel®™

Babbles McButthead, you’re so brainwashed into a mental oblivion that is unbelievable to most people!

HMCS(FMF) ret

“And the fact that I have not converted a single person to my point of view says more about the regulars on this board than it does about me.”

Then leave TAH… it’s that fucking simple.

Since day #1, you’ve been the one coming here playing God with your political and social viewpoints and shitting all over people here, including me. You’ve gone past the point where people here would be willing to forgive you for your antics – hell, even Jonn has stated here that he’s tired of your never ending bullshit e-mails complaining to him that you’re being picked on. You’ve even gone as far as to blame your “behavior” on your health issues, and there have been times that many here have told you to just back away – and you can’t even fucking do that much.

Fuck you, Commissar, and your opinions… they aren’t worth the electrons used to post them here at TAH.

BTW – sanctions against North Korea… in placed on and off since the Armistice and you still have a KIM running the show. Any more bright ideas, LARS?

Commissar

Sanctions are not intended to remove the Kim regime. Only weaken them and stagnate their economy, reduce their capacity to acquire new technology, reduce their capacity to acquire weapons, delegitimize their credibility in international politics.

It is doing all of those things.

From the standpoint of parity between NK and South Korea, North Korea is weaker than it has ever been in its history.

They are also further behind on technology and modern weapons than ever in their history and fall behind further with every passing month.

The regime is also less stable.

Ex-PH2

I completely refute your opinion of North Korea’s technological status and ability to develop modern weapons.
I have more than enough REAL evidence to back up my rebuttal of your ignorant, uninformed statement. The most recent estimate from the USGOvernment is that the Kim regime is within a hair’s breadth of building and testing a thermonuclear device, also known as a hydrogen bomb. The most recent missile launched, which was last week (Thursday, I believe) was aimed directly at Japan’s west coast and managed to reach a height that was visible to an AirFrance passenger jet. Air France has since rerouted its passenger routes.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/north-korea-intercontinental-ballistic-missile-icbm-air-france-passenger-plane/

If you are actually stupid enough to believe that the Norks are behind the rest of the world in any kind of technology, when they are the prime suspect in a ransomware virus last spring, or that their missiles and other weapons are behind the times, you do nothing but let the rest of us know exactly how ignorant, uninformed and vaingloriously stupid you truly are, COMMISSAR Commissar.

You are an ass. You are a compleat ass, an ass of the most irrelevant and most obtrusive sort.

And none of us wonder why the Democrats have the jackass as their symbol. I think Old Hickory would kick your stupid, worthless, imbecilic, incompetent ass from here to the west side of the Louisiana Purchase.

Commissar

My opinion on Korea may not be worth anything to you. But the US government invested more than a hundred thousand dollars in my being able to develop them and still pays me for them from time to time.

HMCS(FMF) ret

You can make all the money in the world (and I really don’t care about how much money you make), LARS… but the way you come across to people still makes you an asshole!

Ex-PH2

Yeah, he’s right up there with that Shkrelin guy, now convicted of – oh, what WAS that? – fraud. That was it.

Commissar

Calling me a fraud? I actually am trained in analyzing North Korea.

You just make nonsensical blog posts as though you have a damn clue about it.

I guess you got hooked on a South Korean soap on Netflix. Makes you an expert.

Ex-PH2

If you must know, you dimwit, I was referring to Shkreli’s arrogance and smug crap when he was called before Congress to explain his decision to raise the price of an AIDS drug by 5000%, from $13.50 to $750 per pill. He smirked his way through those hearings and kept the price where it was.
He was and is an arrogant ass. That’s exactly what YOU are.

Silentium Est Aureum

You know why it means nothing, Lars?

Because you’re fuller of shit than a Thanksgiving turkey.

11B-Mailclerk

Commissar,

You have carefully and deliberately cultivated the persona of “abrasive dick”. That can be useful in some environments, but you seriously misfired it here. That is why many people here can’t even converse with you when you are singing the same tune as the choir.

You dug that hole, and are proud of the excavation. Seems dumb to bitch about it.

Admit it. You -like- being the oppositional/defiant one. You chase that bone like a starving dog.

I will take a wild guess. If the reaction -here- is way off what you get in -person-, then you are overlooking the nonverbal queues in the conversation.

Seriously.

If you keep getting “why the fork are these guys reacting like this?” Then maybe, just maybe your chosen words are not being buffered by body language.

Because your written persona sure -seems- to be a troll trying to piss everyone off, not normally trying to make conversation or persuade folks. Quite the contrary. And if that -is- the case, you cant really bitch about it when the poo gets flung, eh?

I have run into that a few times myself, here.

Commissar

Anyway, if you don’t like or agree with what I wrote; respond to that.

This trollish habit you have of searching out my posts and making non-substantive attacks on them is tedious and petty.

Ex-PH2

Jam it, asswipe. You couldn’t win an argument about a pool of quicksand.

A Proud Infidel®™

You could say that shit stinks and he’d argue that with you.

Commissar

“You couldn’t win an argument about a pool of quicksand.”

That is completely non-sensical.

Typical Ex-PH2 blithering.

A Proud Infidel®™

If one person calls you an asshole or idiot, no big deal.
If two or more do so, maybe you should look at yourself.
If everyone around you does so and you don’t see it, then maybe you’re an oblivious idiot as well!

Commissar

If I was an asshole or an idiot then I would be called that regardless of the forum.

This is the only place that I am called an idiot.

Asshole is hit or miss.

Silentium Est Aureum

Denial.

Not just a river in Egypt anymore.

Ex-PH2

Blithering? Oh, dear me! I go to the trouble of using a metaphor and Mr. Numbnuts Personified can’t figure that out?
All that tuition money was wasted on his lack of education. It does, however, explain his inability to form cogent sentences as well as the reasons behind his completely ungrammatical responses, comments and posts, not to mention his blatant and awkward spelling errors.

Silentium Est Aureum

No, the fact you come here and pontificate about things which are clearly out of your wheelhouse is what makes the majority of posters here view you as someone who needs to kiss a BART train.

UpNorth

Kiss a BART train? That would be a winner on PPV. I’d pay what he’s worth to watch it, say, 5¢?

Just An Old Dog

Lars,
Most the time its not what you say but how you say it. That and the fact you dislike admitting you are wrong when you get shacked with a truth bomb.
Sanctions are pretty much the only viable option.
However the Norks are so fucking backward, brainwashed and controlled no amount of black market voodoo and underground trade is going to inspire the people to get rid of squat duck dong or whatever the fuck his name is.
The Kim family has been in power for what? 70 plus years? They make Saddam. Castro and Khadaffi look like pikers.
The Black Market in North Korea does not equal thousands of entrepreneurs gaining wealth. Its a system of people who simply kick up to the Communists bastards in charge ( AKA your corrupt Socialist pals).
Sanctions will equal poor poverty for the people, which will in turn be used to make them hate the west and will weaken their ability to sustain any lengthy military action.
Unfortunately it will probably lead to more rhetoric and tests by fat fuck.
The only real solution is the fat fuck dying. Because he is in such control the chance of that happening via coup is minimal.
Sanctions are basically kicking the can down the road, and probably wont do a damn thing to stop his weapons programs

Commissar

I agree that the way I say things annoy people.

But I disagree that the recent I get so much flack is HOW I say things.

This board is so reactionary toward ideas that challenge their worldview that they would react negatively no matter how it is presented.

People say I am rude, and I am, but they seem to ignore the amount of vitriol and obnoxious trollish comments that anything I post invokes. They claim it is me that “started it” but that is bullshit. I was responding directly to the tone I was presented with when I first started disagreeing with members of this board on substantive political and social issues.

I had previously posted on tame issues on which a generally agreed with the group. Noone was angry.

It was after I started arguing about politics that I invoked negativity and responded with the same exact tone from go.

I was called a moron from the moment I disagreed with this board on substantive political issues.

And I get attacked on every post I make. EVEN WHEN I AM OBJECTIVELY CORRECT.

That thread on what is an is not a “Ranger” is a perfect example. I was attacked for an entire day about an issue on which I was OBJECTIVELY CORRECT.

Silentium Est Aureum

About 80 years ago a guy named Dale Carnegie wrote a book called, “How To Win Friends and Influence People.”

Buy it. Read it. Read it a few more times. And then put it into practice.

Fyrfighter

I can’t speak for others on this board commissar, but for myself, I will ALWAYS give you credit when you say something accurate, intelligent, or otherwise appropriate…the flip side is, when you say something stupid, asinine, or flat out ridiculous, I will call you out without mercy… To me, that seems how things should be… if ou disagree, well that’s on you…

11B-mailclerk

Lunatic with Nukes, rapidly developing the ability to hit major cities in 2/3rds of the USA, eventually all of it, soon to have thermonuclear weapons. Would annihilating a couple of major US cities, such as Los Angeles and Seattle be “catastrophic” or “minor” in your above threat calculus? If they keep getting more capable, more belligerent, and crazier, maintaining their 70+ year track record, at what point does military action become reasonable by your estimates? When they have 20+ reliable ICBMs with MIRV thermonuclear weapons? That is a reasonable estimate for DPRK capabilities in a maximum of 20 years, possibly as little as 5. With overt and unlimited help from Pakistan, that could be as little as -two- years from now. They may already have the stockpile of fissile material and tritium to assemble the needed warheads given their proven tunneling ability and track record of covert activities in them. One of the Soviet strategies of the 40s and 50s was to convince the rest of the world,and especially the USA, that the Soviet Union was unbeatable, thus best not dealt with militarily. The resultant Cold War detant allowed them to become so large a nuclear power that they could prevent their own destruction when it woudl have been cheap enough to do so. (Patton correctly saw the opportunity to de-fang that monster when it was still small. Much of their WW2 logistical train was heavily US supported, so in 1945, they could -not- have sustained a war against the USA the same way they did against Germany. Ever since that “unwinnable war” meme was foisted on us by Soviet propaganda, a whole bunch of otherwise clever folks keep advising that the USA coudl not defeat X, for “reasons”. Bullshit. The same nattering Nellies said Iraq in 1991 would inflict 50,000 US dead. Oops. Commisar, you have been poisoned by the left-think that military power doesn’t work, that casualties are not acceptable in any number, and that Evil is best talked to death. Evil actually likes that approach, because it gets to grow big and strong before it finally gets… Read more »

Fyrfighter

11B, that was an amazingly well written summation of the left and their behaviors.
Thank you.

Commissar

Strategic patience is why South Korea is capable of defeating North Korea entirely without our assistance. Something they could not have done a few decades ago.

Strategic patience is why we are dealing with a regime that is weaker than Kim’s father’s and grandfather’s regime.

Strategic patience is why we now have a situation where the NK citizenry is less loyal and less obedient to the regime than ever.

NK is a long way from developing the capability to hit major US cities with nukes.

First, they still have not even developed a Nuclear device small enough to be placed on a missile. Much less a missile that could reach the US mainland.

So, NK still has yet to develop the capability to hit the US.

Let me make that clear; North Korea has never even tested, much less successfully tested a missile capable of hitting the US mainland.

NEVER.

The longest range missile they ever tested is one that *might* be able to reach Alaska and COULD NOT DELIVER A NUCLEAR PAYLOAD.

So they MAY be able to hit Alaska with a conventional missile.

Maybe.

We have already seen what happens when major cities are hit with conventional missiles with the same payload as NK is capable of projecting and the casualties are light. A well car bomb would be FAR more effective than a NK conventional missile.

North Korea has enough conventional artillery to decimate the entire city of Seoul within 24 hours of the initiation of hostilities.

They also have the largest special operation force in the world. One with a sizable percentage of troops specially trained to commit terrorist like attacks in South Korea while wearing civilian clothes or South Korean uniforms.

Far more American civilian will be killed in a war then NK has any capacity to even put at risk using missiles.

A Proud Infidel®™

HEY Babbles McButthead, just who gave nuclear reactors and materials to the Kim dynasty? That’s right, said items came from the CLINTON administration while the Norkies happily issued a fake promise to never use it for making weapons and WTF did that get us?

Ex-PH2

“Let me make that clear; North Korea has never even tested, much less successfully tested a missile capable of hitting the US mainland.” These are YOUR words, COMMISSAR Commissar.

They are completely incorrect. The missile launched last week by North Korea has been judge to be capable of reaching New York City.

I don’t waste my time making stuff up unless it’s for a piece of fiction, which is a LOT more than I can say about you.

You are, in fact, so out of touch with what is going on with North Korea and China that if you were hired to work for the government, you probably wouldn’t last two days before you were shitcanned.

Let’s do remember that Marie Hoff, she who said ‘they just need jobs’ live on TV during the Obama administration, was shitcanned. And the more you post your ridiculous, uninformed and incorrect views of the entire business of everything on this planet, to more clear you make it that you don’t know the smallest, most unimportant thing about ANY OF IT.
You are, however, a perfect example of the appeaser-at-large, the kind of dumb, stump-sucking twit who would do whatever he’s told no matter how obscene it was, no matter how destructive it was, and no matter who got hurt as long as it isn’t he who gets hurt.

11B-Mailclerk

Commissar,

Are you applying the template of the USA “waiting out” the collapse of the USSR? I can see the similarities, but I see one glaring and fatal difference.

The DPRK regime is -nuts-.

The Russians, Soviet or not, take a long-term “protect the Rodina” view. You can take risks, deal dirty, fight wars, etc. But, one may not, shall not, cause the demise of the Motherland.

Thus “MAD” worked. Neither side was suicidal. To paraphrase the song “The Russians love their children too”.

Now, had Stalin lived to reach senility, that might have been different.

The Kims, however, are not showing much sign of breeding increased stability in their very, very hereditary dynasty. I would bet serious chips that Kim III is -nuts- in clear DSM terms. If he wasn’t whelped that way, the absolute power warped him that way. So when his cheese finishes sliding off the cracker, he may just decide to let fly with whatever he has.

Imagine him getting a terminal cancer diagnosis. Assuming any doctor was insane enough to actually tell him.

At some point, he gets enough weapons and delivery systems to gut the USA’s economy, and kill 50 to 100 million people.

Oh, wait. He can do that now. How? Existing, proven warhead tech. Cobalt jackets for max fallout. Put on ships flagged out of Panama. Float into ten major US harbors.

He doesn’t -need- thermonuclear weapons or ICBMs, if he is sneaky enough.

But assume we can prevent the boom-boat scenario. In five to ten, he can do it the missle way.

So -when- is the best time to deal with the DPRK?

The sanctions will impact the top 1% -last-. Kim and crew have a sufficiently vile and thuggish state to keep the lid on any upheaval that doesn’t come from the top-tier.

Maybe, cooler heads prevail in the DPRK and Kim III dies of “a cerebral hemmorage” one night.

I am not counting on it.

So we almost certainly -have- to fight. So when?

Fyrfighter

Unfortunately, it seems the best we can hope for is that the cheese eater nukes one of our cities (hopefully a leftist center of power) and that we respond appropriately, and nuke every “major city” i norkiland… I’d like to think that we could stop this line of dominoes before he can launch at us but that just doesn’t seem likely

AW1Ed
g

I love this picture.

Kim Jong-Turd looks like he just stepped in and got a whiff of a steaming pile of Phil Monkress.

A Proud Infidel®™

What’s tubby ‘lil Kim-Cheese gonna do now, lob yet another missile into the open ocean?

SMAG

Christopher Hitchens wrote an eye-opening piece on NK about a year before his death. It’s ostensibly a book review (and I recommend the work he covers–The Cleanest Race by B.R. Myers–it’s worth it for the illustrations alone), but like all Hitchens reviews it is also a detailed snapshot of the subject, and pretty instructive in itself.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/02/a_nation_of_racist_dwarfs.html

*I’m writing from my phone, so I can’t copy the hyperlink*

If you’re not inclined to labor through the article (it is Slate after all, and even us semi-literate types sometimes need a dictionary to get through a Hitchens article), just read the last paragraph.

Maybe we’ve finally got a president with big-boy pants enough to deliver the long-deserved slap-down the Norks have earned. Then again, we are discussing an article on the latest in a long line of impotent sanctions.

SSDY

SMAG

Hmmm…looks like I was wrong about the hyperlink. Still getting used to the comment field here on TAH.

Silentium Est Aureum

I don’t always agree with Hitchens, but he puts forth pervasive arguments and tried to be coherent.

Unlike Lars.

SMAG

Yep. And you could guarantee that no matter which side of the issue he came down on, he was intellectually honest about his reasons.

E.G.–unlike nearly everybody else on the left, he had the sack to admit that socialism was a dead end, and that militant Islam was the gravest threat facing our country. He also observed that avoiding a small, principled conflict in the short term nearly always results in a much larger, uglier conflict down the road (like removing Saddam in ’91 would have obviated the return trip for OIF in ’03–draw what parallels to NK you wish).

Lefties hated him for his “betrayal”.

Silentium Est Aureum

I still have his copy of, “No One Left to Lie To.”

Frankly, that should be required reading before being allowed to vote.

SMAG

I second that thought.

I also think Heinlein may have been onto something vis requiring Federal service to earn the right to vote.

11B-Mailclerk

Just imagine if the Allied powers had attacked Hitler as soon as he began remilitarizing in defiance of Versailles.

How many millions would not have died?

SMAG

Bingo.

IDC SARC

Imagine if this soldier hadn’t spared Hitler’s life (allegedly).

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-28593256

IDC SARC

I realize it would have been serendipitous, but damn what could have been avoided.

SMAG

No kidding. And it wouldn’t have just been the dead of WWII saved. We tend to forget that it was the exigencies of the War that propelled the Soviet Union from Eurasian backwater to global super-power.

No WWII, no Cold War–the Comintern collapses under the weight of its own failures, and we’re all living in peace and driving flying cars.

That’s history, though. We’re not generally wise enough to see which way the dominoes topple until they land shitty-side up.

Pat

Of course it passed, because it’s not enough. One thing Kim fears more than anything is information and an overthrow from within. He won’t give up his missiles, he knows his fate will mirror Qaddafi and Saddam. And there are options we’re not using – increase broadcasts to NPRK, get more info to the populace, close the financial loopholes Kim is exploiting. The Dandong Bank sanctions are a start. And as long as Kim is appeased no progress will be made. One example: http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2017/08/04/0200000000AEN20170804010800315.html

Still happy about the sanctions even if too little. Moon wants to reopen Kaesong, which was a pipeline of money for weapons, and these sanctions reinforce that door is shut. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/06/30/asia-pacific/defector-alleges-wage-skimming-koreas-joint-industrial-zone-funding-kim-jong-uns-arms-quest/#.WYeKSa3MyRs

USMCMSgt (Ret)

The U.N. proposing sanctions against NK?

The kind of sanctions they’ll never enforce?

Just like all the others?

Okay.