Has it ever occurred to you that refugees are well known to significantly exaggerate their experiences as to secure their status?
You have but to ask any agency in EU that has to work with refugees to get a valid opinion on that particular aspect of refugees, and it's going to be the opposite of pretty.
Can't. I live in another state with long border with Russia. Finland. Unless you're calling for me to get out of my home country, I cannot exit the situation.
And NATO with help of our single pro-NATO party are slowly pushing us into situation which Ukraine is today, in spite of massive popular opposition to independence.
Have you ever heard of "universal conscription"? Ukraine has that. That means that almost every male of age is a trained soldier in reserve. Of those, quite a few are going to be trained special forces in reserve.
We also know that these local police and army units have defected to their side when the conflict started. Western media likes to call those "occupation of buildings" when in reality it's more of a police and army defecting to the protesters' side and using their resources to arm the reservists among the protesters.
That's why they have such an amalgam of gear in most cases. They just grab whatever gear and uniform is available, and that's often a mix of various camo patterns for different seasons and from different branches of forces. Before the defections, they had an even greater of a mix, there are images of people wearing things like surplus German army jackets and similar stuff. But having 10 men in same gear is nothing out of the ordinary. Most barracks and police stations would likely have much more of the same kind of gear in storage.
I'm sorry, but you'll have to look elsewhere for the "smoking gun" that these are Russian forces. This ain't it even by a long shot.
You appear to have swallowed the propaganda line of the West. That is simply not true - out of three countries with land borders with North Korea, two do not have views you describe.
As for economics, similar things happened to all USSR-supported economies worldwide after USSR collapsed. The only thing that differed was severity. And it's not like North Korea doesn't have a decent economy today, they actually have a blooming industrial sector to which even Western companies started to outsource work, you have places like Kaesong where South Korea manufactures a lot of things that need cheap workforce and they are even exporting various weapons, usually to regimes that are under West and UN sanctions blocking weapon exports. And recently, they actually had a very strange jumpstart of private sector, with privately owned, technically illegal business being born and operating in the country with tacit acceptance from central government.
Last one is likely the result of success of South Korea's long term goal of tying North more and more to itself financially, which is causing changes in North's internal structures.
You may have noticed that even when succession happened within family, in controlled fashion, with significant preparation by the predecessor and power structures, the road to becoming a new leader was very bumpy.
Removing one suddenly by force is going to cause a much greater rift in the power. One has to understand that North Korea - style stalinist dictatorships have extreme ties of all sectors directly to the leader. Not people around the leader as more bureaucratic nations around the world usually have, but the leader himself. As a result, uncontrolled change in leadership would cause a collapse of that network if successor wasn't trained and accepted by network already.
Fact is, you're looking at 10 men who managed to score same outfits, ignore the much larger mass shown on the very same page and ignore countless footage collaborating all that footage including eyewitnesses and reports from all reporters in the area, choosing to extrapolate 10 men over almost everything.
I could do the same to conclude that US army is nothing but a ragtag military band by simply looking at a picture where soldiers with different camo happen to be shot in one picture and extrapolating in face of all other facts.
You appear to mix micro level of conflict with macro economic politics. Local hatreds are wholly irrelevant to macro politics. Look up the recent study which showed that US is oligarchy to see just how impact micro level public opinion has on policy even in US, and consider how much less it would have in China, North Korea and Russia.
So you are probably correct on all accounts. But when it comes to long term macro strategy, they are also irrelevant.
They already signed many agreements that left then vulnerable. Kaesong had huge South investments for example. It had several problems with closures recently, but it's still operating.
Fact is that among other things, financial assimilation is part of South's long term strategy in how to handle the North, so any increase of North's dependence on South's money will likely be welcomed, even though those incapable of seeing long term strategy for short term risks will oppose it.
You seem to view situation as absolute rather than relative. As in relative to what would happen in event of North's collapse. Instead, you apparently think that if North were to collapse, it would just vanish with no negatives involved.
Do they enjoy the current North? Of course not. Is it much better than collapsed North on their border? Of course. North's collapse would cause at least a temporary collapse of social and economic order in the South due to influx of refugees from the North in such an event.
Status quo is MUCH better for South than that scenario. Occasional scuffle with a few lives lost and having to keep a stable border is a whole lot easier than trying to absorb millions of North refugees which are known to be extremely difficult to acclimate to South. Former scenario has been stable for decades. Latter would likely cause at least a temporary collapse of both social and economic order in the South.
1. China is in fact allied with North Korea. Much of the "old guard" of Chinese party still remembers Korean war where Chinese were fighting on North's side. Additionally they have a lot of interest in both using North Korea as a suitable proxy for dirtiest clandestine business as well as a massive destabilizer for its regional geopolitical enemies like Japan and South Korea as well as US who has a lot of forces tied countering it. If these forces were freed, they would move to counter China. Also, NATO with direct land access to Chinese heartland would be an existential threat to China who remembers very well what happened to it last time it allowed itself to be vulnerable to current Western powers. 2. China does not want reconciled Korea for financial reasons either. It has no interest in powerful industrial South suddenly getting access to extremely cheap workforce, becoming more competitive with China itself. 3. Russia has same uses for North Korea as China geopolitically, as a destabilising agent in the region against its geopolitical enemies.
Assassinating North Korean leadership would be fairly easy for US today if it wanted to do it.
The reason it's not been done is the fact that sudden power vacuum would cause a collapse of North Korean state, and North Koreans have proven to be extremely difficult to acclimate to South Korean society, where they would massively flood to.
Believe it or not, the biggest proponent of keeping the current leadership in power is South Korea. They are the ones who would take by far the biggest hit from North's collapse. They advocate long term assimilation policy instead, where North Korean leadership is slowly made more and more dependent on South's money until eventually they have to open their own country enough for cultural exchange to start to happen, demolishing the power base.
Against Russia's will? Unlikely. You have to remember, this isn't going to be just about the South Korea, and North Korea is completely dependent on China and Russia due to its isolation.
That and they really like hard currency they'll be getting as transit fees in the North Korea.
In long term, massively. South Korea will get much cheaper gas, and it might have a stabilizing effect and North Korea will likely be even more closely tied to South through the financial benefits of the functioning pipeline, such as transit fees.
The main problem is that North Korea may start behaving like Ukraine with the gas, stealing it from the pipeline and even using it as a weapon against South Korea. But potential of getting gas pipeline in South Korea will likely far outweigh the cons.
Also, "identical battle dress"? So BBC, CNN, and everyone else is lying and falsifying video footage? Because they all seem to agree that these guys are wearing a mish mash of crap, including German army outfits, sneakers and so on, and carry weapons ranging from old AK-47s (army uses AK-74m) to hunting rifles.
No. Those killed were random people on the both sides. Bullets miraculously missed everyone important on both sides. Must've been some shitty snipers, considering most of the key figures in the uprising were on the Maidan stage much of the time, elevated and free to pick off.
And in spite of the massive outcry, shooters still haven't been investigated, much less found.
Right Sector themselves admitted to having about 400 guns in the crowd on the day of overthrow. You can find their interviews even on Western news sources.
More realistic estimates have been in low to medium four digits.
Nope. Berkut was hopelessly outgunned by Right Sector. That's why he lost. There have been quite a few interviews with police forces after the fact, and all agreed on one part. Police were completely outgunned by demonstrators in the end - that is why they lost.
Slashdot Mirror
Cheap work force. One of the most valuable commodities in the world for capitalist megacorps, and South Korean chaebols fit that description to a tee.
It's raison d'etre for Kaesong industrial complex.
Has it ever occurred to you that refugees are well known to significantly exaggerate their experiences as to secure their status?
You have but to ask any agency in EU that has to work with refugees to get a valid opinion on that particular aspect of refugees, and it's going to be the opposite of pretty.
Can't. I live in another state with long border with Russia. Finland. Unless you're calling for me to get out of my home country, I cannot exit the situation.
And NATO with help of our single pro-NATO party are slowly pushing us into situation which Ukraine is today, in spite of massive popular opposition to independence.
Here's a fairly reasonable opinion piece on what's going on in there:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indep...
Have you ever heard of "universal conscription"? Ukraine has that. That means that almost every male of age is a trained soldier in reserve. Of those, quite a few are going to be trained special forces in reserve.
We also know that these local police and army units have defected to their side when the conflict started. Western media likes to call those "occupation of buildings" when in reality it's more of a police and army defecting to the protesters' side and using their resources to arm the reservists among the protesters.
That's why they have such an amalgam of gear in most cases. They just grab whatever gear and uniform is available, and that's often a mix of various camo patterns for different seasons and from different branches of forces. Before the defections, they had an even greater of a mix, there are images of people wearing things like surplus German army jackets and similar stuff. But having 10 men in same gear is nothing out of the ordinary. Most barracks and police stations would likely have much more of the same kind of gear in storage.
I'm sorry, but you'll have to look elsewhere for the "smoking gun" that these are Russian forces. This ain't it even by a long shot.
You appear to have swallowed the propaganda line of the West. That is simply not true - out of three countries with land borders with North Korea, two do not have views you describe.
As for economics, similar things happened to all USSR-supported economies worldwide after USSR collapsed. The only thing that differed was severity. And it's not like North Korea doesn't have a decent economy today, they actually have a blooming industrial sector to which even Western companies started to outsource work, you have places like Kaesong where South Korea manufactures a lot of things that need cheap workforce and they are even exporting various weapons, usually to regimes that are under West and UN sanctions blocking weapon exports. And recently, they actually had a very strange jumpstart of private sector, with privately owned, technically illegal business being born and operating in the country with tacit acceptance from central government.
Last one is likely the result of success of South Korea's long term goal of tying North more and more to itself financially, which is causing changes in North's internal structures.
You may have noticed that even when succession happened within family, in controlled fashion, with significant preparation by the predecessor and power structures, the road to becoming a new leader was very bumpy.
Removing one suddenly by force is going to cause a much greater rift in the power. One has to understand that North Korea - style stalinist dictatorships have extreme ties of all sectors directly to the leader. Not people around the leader as more bureaucratic nations around the world usually have, but the leader himself. As a result, uncontrolled change in leadership would cause a collapse of that network if successor wasn't trained and accepted by network already.
All but one account. I stand corrected.
These are long term plans, put in action years ago.
Likelihood of them being relevant to current conflict is very low.
Same link, Luhansk.
Fact is, you're looking at 10 men who managed to score same outfits, ignore the much larger mass shown on the very same page and ignore countless footage collaborating all that footage including eyewitnesses and reports from all reporters in the area, choosing to extrapolate 10 men over almost everything.
I could do the same to conclude that US army is nothing but a ragtag military band by simply looking at a picture where soldiers with different camo happen to be shot in one picture and extrapolating in face of all other facts.
You appear to mix micro level of conflict with macro economic politics. Local hatreds are wholly irrelevant to macro politics. Look up the recent study which showed that US is oligarchy to see just how impact micro level public opinion has on policy even in US, and consider how much less it would have in China, North Korea and Russia.
So you are probably correct on all accounts. But when it comes to long term macro strategy, they are also irrelevant.
They already signed many agreements that left then vulnerable. Kaesong had huge South investments for example. It had several problems with closures recently, but it's still operating.
Fact is that among other things, financial assimilation is part of South's long term strategy in how to handle the North, so any increase of North's dependence on South's money will likely be welcomed, even though those incapable of seeing long term strategy for short term risks will oppose it.
You seem to view situation as absolute rather than relative. As in relative to what would happen in event of North's collapse. Instead, you apparently think that if North were to collapse, it would just vanish with no negatives involved.
Do they enjoy the current North? Of course not. Is it much better than collapsed North on their border? Of course. North's collapse would cause at least a temporary collapse of social and economic order in the South due to influx of refugees from the North in such an event.
Status quo is MUCH better for South than that scenario. Occasional scuffle with a few lives lost and having to keep a stable border is a whole lot easier than trying to absorb millions of North refugees which are known to be extremely difficult to acclimate to South. Former scenario has been stable for decades. Latter would likely cause at least a temporary collapse of both social and economic order in the South.
You are wrong on ALL accounts.
1. China is in fact allied with North Korea. Much of the "old guard" of Chinese party still remembers Korean war where Chinese were fighting on North's side. Additionally they have a lot of interest in both using North Korea as a suitable proxy for dirtiest clandestine business as well as a massive destabilizer for its regional geopolitical enemies like Japan and South Korea as well as US who has a lot of forces tied countering it. If these forces were freed, they would move to counter China. Also, NATO with direct land access to Chinese heartland would be an existential threat to China who remembers very well what happened to it last time it allowed itself to be vulnerable to current Western powers.
2. China does not want reconciled Korea for financial reasons either. It has no interest in powerful industrial South suddenly getting access to extremely cheap workforce, becoming more competitive with China itself.
3. Russia has same uses for North Korea as China geopolitically, as a destabilising agent in the region against its geopolitical enemies.
Assassinating North Korean leadership would be fairly easy for US today if it wanted to do it.
The reason it's not been done is the fact that sudden power vacuum would cause a collapse of North Korean state, and North Koreans have proven to be extremely difficult to acclimate to South Korean society, where they would massively flood to.
Believe it or not, the biggest proponent of keeping the current leadership in power is South Korea. They are the ones who would take by far the biggest hit from North's collapse. They advocate long term assimilation policy instead, where North Korean leadership is slowly made more and more dependent on South's money until eventually they have to open their own country enough for cultural exchange to start to happen, demolishing the power base.
Please. He doesn't need to hold them. He can levitate them with his mind after trying it for the first time.
No wait, North Koreans don't have an equivalent of Marvel...
Against Russia's will? Unlikely. You have to remember, this isn't going to be just about the South Korea, and North Korea is completely dependent on China and Russia due to its isolation.
That and they really like hard currency they'll be getting as transit fees in the North Korea.
China and Russia are its traditional allies, and are treated very differently.
In long term, massively. South Korea will get much cheaper gas, and it might have a stabilizing effect and North Korea will likely be even more closely tied to South through the financial benefits of the functioning pipeline, such as transit fees.
The main problem is that North Korea may start behaving like Ukraine with the gas, stealing it from the pipeline and even using it as a weapon against South Korea. But potential of getting gas pipeline in South Korea will likely far outweigh the cons.
Also, "identical battle dress"? So BBC, CNN, and everyone else is lying and falsifying video footage? Because they all seem to agree that these guys are wearing a mish mash of crap, including German army outfits, sneakers and so on, and carry weapons ranging from old AK-47s (army uses AK-74m) to hunting rifles.
No. Those killed were random people on the both sides. Bullets miraculously missed everyone important on both sides. Must've been some shitty snipers, considering most of the key figures in the uprising were on the Maidan stage much of the time, elevated and free to pick off.
And in spite of the massive outcry, shooters still haven't been investigated, much less found.
Right Sector themselves admitted to having about 400 guns in the crowd on the day of overthrow. You can find their interviews even on Western news sources.
More realistic estimates have been in low to medium four digits.
Nope. Berkut was hopelessly outgunned by Right Sector. That's why he lost. There have been quite a few interviews with police forces after the fact, and all agreed on one part. Police were completely outgunned by demonstrators in the end - that is why they lost.
... and take nothing from it anyway?
Hilariously, that is the first actually valid reason to switch from 7 that I've ever heard.
Admittedly I had a misconception that they were the same thing, and now that you mention it, it's obvious that they are not.
Thanks for clarifying.