Cancel the food aid -- Shoot it down

[shawn a]

Any food aid to north korea would just be relabeled as coming from china anyhow.
If it crosses Japan's airspace it must be shot down.
Forget any chinese and north korean threats.
Opinions, anyone?

[Webmaster]

Any food aid to north korea would just be relabeled as coming from china anyhow.

Ow, so you say China puts those USA titles on them?


US-AID food aid at a Kindergarten in Popdong, DPRK (photo by Erich Weingartner)

Got a source for your claim? I thought US aid is pretty well monitored?

If it crosses Japan's airspace it must be shot down.

The food aid, or the rocket? The food aid is shipped afaik, so I suppose you mean the rocket. If it's gonna cross Japanese airspace it's off-course big time. Better let it crash and be a failure then. That's a better outcome to have.

Forget any chinese and north korean threats.
Opinions, anyone?

North Korea sees the food aid as a precondition for talks on its nuclear program. Without they won't talk and that means continuation of their program, and what then? More embargoes, threats? It just adds to their reasoning for having a nuclear weapon. So great, back to square one, millions of North Koreans starve and put South Koreans at risk. That we're dealing with a self-destructive stupid regime doesn't mean we (as in the West) should not care about the people.

China doesn't want revolution or uprisings that may spread into China. So it is supportive of the regime and sends aid for the population and basic industry. Doesn't mean they are going to risk it all for their "ally".

To bring it back to the topic of the site... take a look at North Korea's orbat? The last deliveries by China were F-7Bs in 1991, the rest is all old stuff, most of it provided by the USSR. Even the USSR ceased deliveries for a decade! My point is, China doesn't give a shit about NK militarily. The aid and surface support of the regime is in their self interest. So they are not going to do more for or against them.


Food aid is humanitarian and for that reason I have no problem with it. But I don't have an answer what should be done about NK.

For the satellite rocket launch, I'd say let them launch and fail. In their mind this launch has nothing to do with their weapon program or the food aid, it's likely to fail, so why make a big deal of it, from what I heard it's pretty pathetic to do something other than take a sat into orbit. If the US wants to use their food aid as leverage, this is not worth using it for imho.

[shawn a]

Niels,
You are an erudite and well-reasoned person.
I do remember reading somewhere that food parcels from the US had been relabeled as coming from china, probably the rice.
I'll look for the source, but it was in a paper publication of some kind and I probably tossed it.
Turns out it didn't get far enough to threaten anything, except marine life.
But what a thinly-disguised attempt to test an intercontinental missile-- a weather satellite? Cheaper to buy weather satellite data from some commercial company these days.
They were fooling no one with that ruse.
When I say you are erudite and well-reasoned, I mean it. Your comments are right on the money. How come no one else has an opinion?
However I saw no people in that photo, let alone kindergarteners happily eating.
I'll try to find the source

[Webmaster]

Well, I think when it is used to feed people, those people won't have a clue where it came from any way. I can't imagine "where did this come from, did our planned economy fail yet again?" being the topic of discussion right there and then.