North Korea / Grand Fenwick

The current situation in the Koreas reminds me of that old British movie "The mouse that roared" Where the small dutchy of Grand Fenwick declares war on the USA. Naturally, the Americans cant just obliterate a small nation, so they sue for peace. The Grand Fenwickians then reap the benefits of world recognition and the bounteous foreign aid that then flows from the American coffers.

I will bet that someon high up in North Korea has recently seen the movie and are putting it into practice. I dont believe that the North Koreans have any hostile intentions, other than to "bully" their way onto the world stage and get rid of the sanctions that are stifling their already "trashed" economy.

12 comments

I think we all like to say that North Korea is sabre rattling.
Has anyone thought for a moment that they might have a reason to be upset ? We only know what we are given in the press which paints only one side of the situation - that the North Koreans are a bit crazy.
But we are talking about nuclear war - that to me is well worth worrying about, something I hoped I would never see.

The US and South Korea have lately been engaged in war games on the peninsula, involving up to 40,000 troops and hundreds of planes and tanks. They tell us that these are simply defensive measures, but if the north is just sabre rattling , are they ?

Is it necessary to anger the North with this massive display or could they play their games somewhere else to try and diffuse the situation ?

Fwed, I think we are seeing "sabre rattling" on both sides. These war games are conducted each year, I believe but have never intruded on North Korea or its people, while the north has sunk one of South Koreas ships and shelled one or two of its islands.The South are sick of the "war of words" from the North and are signalling their intent to abandon their long held stance of restraint and will now retaliate against any aggressive act.

The current situation is like me walking into a pub and picking a fight with a first grade football team. Upset or not, the North has buckleys chance of winning such an encounter and they well know it. I think these war games are a "show of force" to the North and a reminder of who and what they are up against should they choose to go beyond talking and actually start a fight. The situation is entirely the making of North Korea and other nations would be foolish to kowtow to them in an effort to "diffuse" a situation that the North has created for its own political ends.

Trust fwed to come out in defence of that mad, overweight, child dictator in North Korea.  The peace threatening war games being conducted by America, are an annual event that they have been holding there for most of the 59 years that they have manned the bases that they created after the end of the Korean War.  They normally have around 28,000 forces there to protect the greatest emerging industrial giant that the World has ever seen.  Note that Kim Jong-un controls an army of over a million of the North Korean working age population of around 8 million, & this boy has recently declared war on South Korea.  He has just exploded his third atomic bomb at a time when it is officially recognised that over 2 million of his people have died of starvation.  The current full time American force numbers of around 28,000 are actually a reduction in numbers because America has actually closed 2 of its permanent bases there.

quote innes "Trust fwed to come out in defence of that mad, overweight, child dictator in North Korea."

I should have known that you would try personal attacks.  I have not come out in defense of any side. I offered an opinion as you did. My opinion is that both sides need a kick in the backside.

We are talking about the use of nuclear weapons in case you have not noticed and both the USA and N Korea are acting like kids saying I have a bigger bomb than you have.

My concern is that it could easily get out of hand with too many lives at risk .

All you want to do is throw insults.

I think that the empty vessel makes the most noise and if he thought he could win then he would have attacked by now.

The solution is to have dialogue between the two nations with the possiblity of them becoming one nation. Bribes and consessions oftered by USA with lifting of sanctions too will bring goodwill. Buy their products around the world.

Keep them talking. 

Now thats the most sensible answer to date....we the ordinary folk cannot ever understand world politics and should concentrate on being amicable in public forums...heaven knows we are very lucky to be alive and have a life in this wonderful world that is slowly becoming trashed with the war machines.......

After China and Japan, North Korea is our third biggest trading partner which would cause  severe difficulties to our economics if a war was to erupt.

I think that you got your North and South mixed up

I think Davey is right Abby.  The last figures available were for 2012 & it was China, Japan, the USA, then South Korea number 4.

Yes innes

Dave is quite right - I got the info from Ross Greenwood on the morning show

and meant south and it just did not come out right.

http://video.au.msn.com/watch/video/money-minute-north-korea-crisis/xf3nar5?cpkey=c458723e-6cb9-40c4-82ac-bd536f1c6627%257c%257c%257c%257c

Lol worked out right eventually..just goes to show that everything we hear on radio aint the real chop...lololol

I realise that it is a little off topic, but can somebody explain to me why we export $11B worth of crude petrolium prodects then import $21B worth?  Please geomac, don't come in & say it is all John Howard's fault.

From what I read recently it is apparently a lot cheaper to process in a place like Singapore, our refining plants and refing process has been closing down since 2007

http://transition.accc.gov.au/content/item.phtml?itemId=906872&nodeId=88cff262bbc806c7d98253a0dd48ecaa&fn=Chapter%203.pdf

Interestingly enough the Australian processing reduction coincides with when ALP came to power

- it just may be John Howard's fault seeing he lost the election :)

Thanks for that Abby.  It makes interesting reading.  BTW, I heard a great story recently.  According to the yarn, John Howard was actually the original fallen Angel & when Lucifer dropped out, he enrolled with Little Johnny for milleniums of training, before Johnny would release him as the Devil !!!  Another little lesser known secret is that he actually caused ingrown toenails as well.

"Interestingly enough the Australian processing reduction coincides with when ALP came to power."

Abby, really? I have a deep suspicion that you may be ticketholder #1 for the Libs. If you read your own link you will notice that refining in Australia has been steadily declining since 2002/03. There are two reasons given in the report:

a) Overseas refineries have caught up with the necessary Australian standards for imported petrol.

b) That countries like Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia have much greater production capacities at lesser costs.

That's how market forces work!

 

For Innes:

Great tale about Howard but since you are talking about the "Grand Master of tricks", did you know that he was responsible for an increase of under-educated Liberal voters?

Good one Nico.  I never had that much time for Little Honest Johnny, but I will have to hand it to him.  To convert under-educated Labor voters into under-educated Liberal voters was definitely a good trick.

Davey......To run a gas line past a Scot, without him getting any, is a good feat too.

Touche, Innes.

But when it came to election time the under-educated Labor voters deserted him again, and we all know the end result. 

Actually Nico, I agree that it was about time that Howard went  The war between Howard & Costello was starting to hurt Australia,  although I didn't think that we would finish up with the incompetance of Gillard, who has gradually got rid of the most experienced & true Labor people holding Labor Seats.  You simply can't replace true Labor people like Crean, McClelland & Ferguson with inexperienced first timers & heavy metal rock stars.  It will be the under educated Labor Voters who will remove most traces of this incompetant woman, although I don't believe that September will bring quite the white wash that the polls suggest.  The polls would suggest that Labor will finish up with around 30 to 35 Seats.  I would put my money on around 45.  The real problem is that either way, after the obvious double dissolution next year, we will be left with no effective Opposition.

Innes...........We live right next to the Bass Strait pipe line which runs to the refinery in Longford and we have to buy bottled gas.

Going North the town of Sale has gas but the next town 10km away ...Straddford no gas but 40km North again Bainsdale has gas.

A gasline running in front of your property heading towards a new development yet the owners of the homes whose road and drive they have disturbed are not allowed to join and have to use gas bottles - height of forward planning.

http://news.yahoo.com/why-north-korea-asking-countries-evacuate-embassies-120400883.html

 

Did you all see that hackers got into Nth Korea internet and drew cartoons of Kim lun lugs super lugs or something like that.( The child soldier is not very happy LOL)

It would be good if they redirected the missiles into boomerangs.

 

I am not sure whether to laugh or cry, Davey? The 'child soldier' seems to be a nervous being with some irrational officers guiding his hands held over a specific button. Can you imagine what could happen if his hand should start to get itchy from the added irritations exuded by some American nutcase making him look like a fool? I guess it may be too late to start crying, hey?

Men will be men and playing with their tools of trade or whatever...I guess they will be the ruination of this planet eventually when all else is lost...even turning to cannibalism wont work if everything is radiated.......all the talk in the world won`t be able to stop that............................actually  there were some similiar doing the same here with terrible wording attacking same man...why does everybody start this attacking america all the while when this country has some of the worst criminals in the world hiding in jail or otherwise.........when I was ikn NY I was told not to say I came from Australia (Iam UK expatriot) as they were renowned for causing trouble and look at the news.... everyday almost there is some Ozzie in bother somewhere in the world...incredible seeing as the population here is small compared with others.......todays news is an Ozzie man was shot  in the Phillipines ........

Men will be men and playing with their tools of trade or whatever...I guess they will be the ruination of this planet eventually when all else is lost...even turning to cannibalism wont work if everything is radiated.......all the talk in the world won`t be able to stop that............................actually  there were some similiar doing the same here with terrible wording attacking same man...why does everybody start this attacking america all the while when this country has some of the worst criminals in the world hiding in jail or otherwise.........when I was ikn NY I was told not to say I came from Australia (Iam UK expatriot) as they were renowned for causing trouble and look at the news.... everyday almost there is some Ozzie in bother somewhere in the world...incredible seeing as the population here is small compared with others.......todays news is an Ozzie man was shot  in the Phillipines ........

Men will be men and playing with their tools of trade or whatever...I guess they will be the ruination of this planet eventually when all else is lost...even turning to cannibalism wont work if everything is radiated.......all the talk in the world won`t be able to stop that............................actually  there were some similiar doing the same here with terrible wording attacking same man...why does everybody start this attacking america all the while when this country has some of the worst criminals in the world hiding in jail or otherwise.........when I was ikn NY I was told not to say I came from Australia (Iam UK expatriot) as they were renowned for causing trouble and look at the news.... everyday almost there is some Ozzie in bother somewhere in the world...incredible seeing as the population here is small compared with others.......todays news is an Ozzie man was shot  in the Phillipines ........

12 comments



To make a comment, please register or login

Preview your comment