It's certainly an interesting flavor of English. Seems to be from a combination of run-on sentences, excessive political rhetoric, and bad grammar. Learn when to skip over those and you can get the gist of it.
On a technical note all styling is inline and the body background should be `file:///C:/images/kabe-0.gif`.
The article can also be found on http://www.kcna.kp, but the site is currently down, probably due to the attacks reported earlier today. Note: the IP addresses resolved is in the currently well-known block: 175.45.176.0/22.
What's the matter you never read Dadaist poetry? Jokes aside I found it interesting to read something you know is propaganda, the rhythm and efforts to influence were different.
It's interesting how clearly we see the effects of the English -> Korean -> English translator. Where Obama referred to "proportional response", this statement directly quotes it as "symmetric counteraction".
An interesting takeaway from this, perhaps, is how willing this statement is to defend and mark the 'defenders of peace' group as supporters of the regime.
If an anonymous hacker attacked a cause that you supported but you didn't know what they were going to do next, would you publicly support them?
The main goal with propaganda like this is to subvert other messages so they align with your own intentions. IE: Guardians of Peace hacked Sony because the US is a bully, etc.
> 3) They claim they have nothing to do with the Sony hack, although they approve it.
Nope, they just say that the US shouldn't jump to conclusions, that they've never performed a "cyber-attack" on "south Korea" (which is irrelevant here) and that they don't know who the "GOP" are or where they are. No denials apart from that.
>It is said that the movie was conceived and produced according to the "guidelines" of the U.S. authorities who contended that such movies hurting the dignity of the DPRK supreme leadership and inciting terrorism against it would be used in an effective way as "propaganda against north Korea".
This is what I thought the first time I heard about this movie. I thought that it's either puerile and immature or crafted and malicious (while still being immature). Then again screenwriters have always been desperate for ideas...
North Korea fascinates people in the US and Europe. (North Korea even knows that and uses that to its advantage. Just look at the tours they sell and how much those cost.)
In that context it seems like quite the leap to suspect some sort of conspiracy here to get this movie made.
Places that fascinate people and get their imagination going will get movies made about them and that’s that. The plot is also quite obvious. What do Americans do with tyrants? They kill them. Wow, what an outlandish trope no one ever thought of before …
Make that a comedy and you get this movie. No conspiracy needed at all.
I'm just tired of the Western view of North Korea as a joke. Yes, the Kims are ludicrous. They're also monsters, some of the worst in human history, who have crushed one of the world's most beautiful and functional cultures under their brutality and insanity.
Nobody considered Hitler or Stalin to be laughing matters during their purges. But somehow we can all ignore the horrific crimes of these bastards because the father was ridiculous and the son is fat. Nobody gives a damn if the Kims rape women, torture civilians, or murder innocent families so long as their victims are Korean. No, the first time we see even vaguely appropriate anger toward these dictators is when they might have hacked a goddamn MOVIE STUDIO.
MacArthur was right. Truman was horribly, horribly wrong. And innocent Koreans have paid for Truman's cowardice and vanity with half a century of utter brutality. The only thing wrong with The Interview movie was that it was a comedy rather than a true story.
MacArthur publicly stated dropping nuclear weapons on the northern border of the Korean peninsula to prevent the Chinese hordes from invading was necessary to secure peace in the Korean peninsula. Truman fired him because the long-term strategy the US had with the Chinese had a threshold of military conflict that MacArthur was far surpassing. Truman and the strategists involved believed the conflict with the Chinese had to remain on the Korean peninsula. They believed MacArthur's plans to drop nuclear weapons on the Chinese side of the Korean border would escalate the conflict to a point of becoming an uncontrollable conflict in the region.
Yep, MacArthur was a great military strategist, but very politically naive. Truman really had no choice but to relieve him after MacArthur went off the rails and tried taking executive authority he didn't have to further military goals.
Somebody more knowledgeable than me can elaborate on this, but in a nutshell he was an american general during the Korean War, who had a sort of aggressive diplomatic and military stance (he wanted to nuke North Korea in 1951, too) and was relieved by Truman.
In short, the UN forces were able to drive North Korean forces out of South Korea. They then began advancing into North Korea. At this point China entered the war (under the guise of the PVA) on the side of the North Koreans, which was not something which had been anticipated. This resulted in several defeats, and the UN forces being pushed back towards the prewar boundary. MacArthur wanted the option to expand the scope of the war by using nuclear weapons against North Korea and northern China, which Truman didn't want because he was afraid that doing so would mean full-scale war against China and the USSR, and possibly an invasion of Europe by the latter while the US was tied down in Asia. The Wikipedia links posted by some of the other users make for interesting reading.
It should also be noted that North Korea, while the instigator of the war and a Communist country, was in a very different position in the 1950s. It was a richer country than South Korea until the 1970s, and South Korea at the time was an American-backed military dictatorship. While there may have been a moral argument to roll back Communism as far as possible, Truman's concerns about the geopolitical implications of expanding the war were very real, and calling them cowardice is a rather crude mischaracterization.
MacArthur is possibly one of the finest generals in American history. But while he's widely beloved across Asia for his work in Japan and especially the Philippines, his American legacy is tarnished after Truman publicly disgraced him for threatening China with war after Chinese troops had overrun American forces in Korea.
The Chinese intervention in Korea was overwhelming, and Americans were forced to retreat -- and considered evacuating the peninsula altogether. MacArthur, fresh from Japan and the Philippines, was determined to save Korea from its modern fate and threatened China with war if they would not withdraw from what is now North Korea.
Truman had already significantly interfered with MacArthur's prosecution of the war, and eventually relieved him entirely when he felt MacArthur was too provocative. That led to the use of North Korea as a Chinese buffer state, much as Stalin used Eastern Europe, and to the situation we have today.
It's one of the worst blunders in the history of American foreign policy. Now, not only is North Korea a paranoid dictatorship with more than enough conventional arms to reduce South Korea to rubble within hours, they're armed with nuclear weapons and increasingly hostile even to their Chinese sponsors.
Since I identify as mostly liberal, I always defaulted to a defense of Truman. But I was wrong. Truman's failure should have stained his legacy, not MacArthur's. And for exactly the same reasons I outlined, MENA states dominated by fundamentalist Islam must not be allowed to gain nuclear weapons. Rogue states and lunatics have ruined too many lives to be protected by a kneejerk fear of war.
The principle of democratically elected civilian leadership of the military in the US was the issue, not a specific military strategy in the Korean peninsula.
MacArthur undermined the chain of command. That's why he was relieved. Full stop.
It's too bad how it work out for all parties involved, particularly the people of North Korea.
Are you saying that America should have gone there and spread freedom? Or that western views might have influenced China in the 1960s+ who closed their doors to the west? Or maybe Russia...who would then have helped DPRK open up?
I'm trying to think of this alternative scenario that Western cultural sensitivity would have helped , considering their propaganda for 70 years has been targeting America with unbridled hatred.
Even in modern times there are very few options other than China and recently South Korea's attempt to start collaborating on industry. Economics is the only way out for them. And the burden of which is on surrounding Asian countries. There is a zero chance war will result in any good. Or that being nice to them will win their hearts.
That being said I have called out comments this week where people said:
> Wouldnt it be awesome to watch NSA go all out on DPRK? Replying with:
> Yes, and more poverty and starvation for all too! /s
I agree partially with you. And to add to that. The probable problem with the US approach to this is the "rate of change" ("probable" because it is too hard to call it anything more, since this is world affairs we are talking, we can't talk loosely)
Spreading freedom is right, and I can see the good side of US authorities in this. I imagine there might be lot of people living in North Korea under medieval set of freedoms (but we all lived through that and is it that bad?).
But people can't open up easily, even if you are trying to help them. It takes time. If we want NK to come to terms with upholding human rights, we need to give them time. While at the same time pushing them a bit as well. Sometimes I wonder if that is what is happening. US the lash, Russia/China the console. If that is so, then the culprit is neither US or NK or Russia, but us, for over-reacting in certain senses.
For example, in the above translation there is a line: "all war spaces including cyber warfare space to blow up those citadels."
I think the above line was for 'biased or mistaken/unbiased' reasons miss-quoted/translated by some in the US media, as 'North Korea threatens to blow up US buildings'(creating unnecessary tension based on the events of 9/11). Instead it might have meant "breaking a nexus". But anyways, quite a few media outlets ran that story. And I guess, to some extent the comedic approach to North Korea is thus needed. But that should not mean disgracing its leader directly. Tease but don't Touch!
Korea, of all places, is possibly the most crystal-clear example of the success of American intervention. The unparalleled success of South Korea is a direct contrast to the horror of North Korea.
Perhaps I shouldn't say unparalleled -- Germany succeeded under American guidance, as did Japan despite a radically different culture and people. There was a time when we could rebuild countries successfully.
Notably, of course, Germany was full of Germans and Korea was full of Koreans. Cultural values allowed these countries to succeed, just as they ensure the failure of secular states in the Middle East. I don't advocate intervention everywhere -- and I think it's idiotic to try to set up democracies, even puppet ones, in countries hostile to essential Western values -- but the success of South Korea displays the huge loss the world has suffered from the Communist domination of North Korea.
It's simplistic to declare that "there is a zero chance war will result in any good." We sacrificed American lives to save Europe and much of East Asia from hellish regimes, and those were the right calls. It would have been the right call to save Korea as well. War hasn't helped Afghanistan -- because nothing will help Afghanistan -- but we used to have the wisdom to know when intervention was worth the cost.
Do you realize that North Korea didn't develop by itself but was created by agreements between the US and the Soviet Union? The US even blocked democratic elections that would have avoided the split. North Korea is just as much a product of American intervention as South Korea. Perhaps it didn't have American guidance, but it was a deliberate creation of America.
Its development absolutely was by itself, even if its borders and autonomy were not. In fact, you can probably say that more about North Korea than any other country, given its policy of strict isolationism.
I'm not saying the North Koreans didn't directly influence the development of their country, but they were absolutely influenced and trained by the Soviet Union. The UN passed the American resolution for elections in 1947 but without Soviet Support. It was obvious this was going to split the country indefinitely when only the American half participated. There was momentum and international support at the time for a country-wide election, but due to the Cold War, it never happened. I don't know anyone who says that the developments in Korea were anything other than Cold War proxies.
I agree ...and I might get downvoted for this but what the heck. The story would've been different if North Korea was in the middle east or the Kims followed a certain religion that seems to be consistently demonized these days.
The Korean war was a conflict just as substantial as the Vietnam conflict. Withdraw was wise considering that the US suffered major casualties and lost a number of key battles. What else were they to do? Keep throwing men into the breach? "The enemy gets a say, too".
Honest question: how is the "North Korea is bad" problem our fault, or our problem? Do you believe the US is obligated to intervene with anything that's bad?
Law and order are everyone's problem. Why should the North Korean government be allowed to torture, imprison and enslave large parts of its nation with impunity? These things are international crimes (as are many actions of the CIA and the IDF, incidentally) and everyone in every country should be clamouring for justice for civilians attacked by their, or someone else's, governments.
Ok, so how the US could be punished for making international crimes on a regular basis (CIA actions, 150,000 civilian deaths in Iraq ( https://www.iraqbodycount.org/ ) etc) ?
How is a much bigger question. I have a much bigger answer, but I'm not typing it out here (the most recent version was on a server that died I'm afraid).
Short version: international treaties building up to a "we will enforce international law" army, where everyone else in the treaty has to turn on one of its members if they are accused. The army's job isn't to wage wars, it is to forcibly arrest suspects, to be tried at the Hague. Suspects must be "members of a government" (any soldier, civil servant, elected official, spy, etc)
the idea requires lots of definitions first (not least who is in a government), but that's the gist of it. This is not an idea I throw around lightly, as people tend to misunderstand it readily. I know that it is far-fetched, etc, no need to remind me :)
Simply hilarious. Each sentence is more ridiculous than the next. The only reason we (NATO) has not crushed them is because of humanitarian reasons, we feel bad for their people being enslaved and fear that engaging in war would starve their people and send their already weak army into a war they are not equipped to fight.
"The only reason we (NATO) has not crushed them is because of humanitarian reasons, we feel bad for their people being enslaved and fear that engaging in war would starve their people and send their already weak army into a war they are not equipped to fight."
There's also the fact that if we actually militarily threatened them there'd be thousands of missiles fired, and Seoul would be ashes. There's also a risk that they could use nuclear weapons or chemical weapons on S. Korea. N. Korea is a state that has sacrificed everything to prop up a military regime, and invests more in its military than any other part of society. S. Korea with the US as an ally would certainly win a conflict, but N. Korea could cause some seriously devastating carnage before it was over.
What sources do you have to back that statement? Its quite bold of NATO to say they're not engaging them in war because we feed bad. Remember, there isn't really a good reason to attack. They're minding their own business for the most part, albeit not handling the country in the best regard, and not aligned with our views, but that really isn't reason enough to pursue in combat. If the U.S did, what support could they provide for the refugees? Its fairly common knowledge that the U.S isn't in the best position to be supplying support.
Unleashing an entire nation of uneducated, brain washed and tortured people would wreck havoc on Asia. I'm all for freeing those people, but there needs to be a plan other than bomb the shit out of (freeing) them.
Such a great question. After 9/11 I was really hoping for a huge humanitarian, economic, and serious political effort in the Middle East along with the inevitable military actions. Didn't happen. No one even talked about such an idea (a Marshall Plan for the Middle East sort of thing), and whatever minor efforts have been made along those lines get no press.
I'm not an expert on this topic, but tried to look up why "we haven't crushed them", i.e. why those poor, suffering people were not given the option for change is that it is against the interests of the USA. If North Korea were liberated then South Korea would almost automatically become an atomic power and that would create new problems. As I said, this is what I found, but there may be other reasons, like oil or who knows. What I'm certain about is that the decision is not based on a moral backbone of some sorts. But would an idealistic approach be any better?
It seems like that statement was written and translated outside the usual channels. Other press releases from today were written in much better and coherent English[1][2]. It would be odd for the English to be so good in all the other releases but so terrible in this one -- it's like a higher-up wrote it and ran it through a computer translator, then demanded it be printed verbatim without editing by an English speaker.
Sony were pretty dumb to even let this movie get off the starting blocks. Did they somehow imagine it wouldn't be controversial?
Free speech or not, it is in poor taste and i'm damn sure that if the protagonist had been Obama instead of Kim it would definitely not have been made.
Sony, you made a bad call, you got p0wned. Take it like a man.
please do share, if you found a picture of noteworthy legitimacy that shows even 1% of the figure quoted above i.e 20 million. (btw the population of DPRK is 24 million as per wikipedia, thus 20 million seems a lot inflated.)
Does anyone have source for the analysis of the "program" used that the statement claims the FBI used as their grounds for the accusation? I still cannot find any details
There's a large-ish North Korean population in Japan that has some significant links to the DRPK. Many are actually used as a means to get hard currency into the country. To a limited (very limited) extent they reduce reliance on China.
78 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 115 ms ] thread- http://www.businessinsider.com/north-koreas-official-stateme...
- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-30573040
And an "annotated version":
- http://www.vox.com/2014/12/22/7434177/north-korea-sony-trans...
On a technical note all styling is inline and the body background should be `file:///C:/images/kabe-0.gif`.
>> www.kcna.kp. 5226 IN A 175.45.177.74
>> www.kcna.kp. 5226 IN A 175.45.176.71
If an anonymous hacker attacked a cause that you supported but you didn't know what they were going to do next, would you publicly support them?
I can't even begin to contemplate the lulz that would be had if GoP turned their attention to attacking North Korea.
But from the tone of it, and from the actual text, I could understand:
1) They claim that US State Department helped in the creation of "The Interview" and that the movie promotes terrorism.
2) They claim that the Sony hack was perpetrated by terrorists, because terrorism breeds terrorism.
3) They claim they have nothing to do with the Sony hack, although they approve it.
4) They claim they are really, really angry at US behaviour of accusing them, and they will retaliate, including militarily.
Interestingly enough, they don't mention their own networking getting killed.
Nope, they just say that the US shouldn't jump to conclusions, that they've never performed a "cyber-attack" on "south Korea" (which is irrelevant here) and that they don't know who the "GOP" are or where they are. No denials apart from that.
So they are denying both attacks.
Here are the only two statements that could be assumed to be a denial based on the broken English present in this:
> though it is not aware of their [GOP's] residence.
> Yet, we do not know who or where they are but we can surely say that they are supporters and sympathizers with the DPRK.
Even these two strongest denials are entirely consistent with the DPRK "hiring" the "GOP" to do this task for them.
Also, two broken images:
* file:///C:/images/kabe-0.gif
* file:///C:/images/02mm.gif
This is what I thought the first time I heard about this movie. I thought that it's either puerile and immature or crafted and malicious (while still being immature). Then again screenwriters have always been desperate for ideas...
In that context it seems like quite the leap to suspect some sort of conspiracy here to get this movie made.
Places that fascinate people and get their imagination going will get movies made about them and that’s that. The plot is also quite obvious. What do Americans do with tyrants? They kill them. Wow, what an outlandish trope no one ever thought of before …
Make that a comedy and you get this movie. No conspiracy needed at all.
Nobody considered Hitler or Stalin to be laughing matters during their purges. But somehow we can all ignore the horrific crimes of these bastards because the father was ridiculous and the son is fat. Nobody gives a damn if the Kims rape women, torture civilians, or murder innocent families so long as their victims are Korean. No, the first time we see even vaguely appropriate anger toward these dictators is when they might have hacked a goddamn MOVIE STUDIO.
MacArthur was right. Truman was horribly, horribly wrong. And innocent Koreans have paid for Truman's cowardice and vanity with half a century of utter brutality. The only thing wrong with The Interview movie was that it was a comedy rather than a true story.
Could you expand on this?
There's the escalation with China/nuke part of things, and there's the total rejection of civilian control of the military part of things.
Perhaps it's best he didn't get a chance to do all that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_MacArthur
It should also be noted that North Korea, while the instigator of the war and a Communist country, was in a very different position in the 1950s. It was a richer country than South Korea until the 1970s, and South Korea at the time was an American-backed military dictatorship. While there may have been a moral argument to roll back Communism as far as possible, Truman's concerns about the geopolitical implications of expanding the war were very real, and calling them cowardice is a rather crude mischaracterization.
http://my.firedoglake.com/inoljt/2012/11/30/how-north-korea-...
The Chinese intervention in Korea was overwhelming, and Americans were forced to retreat -- and considered evacuating the peninsula altogether. MacArthur, fresh from Japan and the Philippines, was determined to save Korea from its modern fate and threatened China with war if they would not withdraw from what is now North Korea.
Truman had already significantly interfered with MacArthur's prosecution of the war, and eventually relieved him entirely when he felt MacArthur was too provocative. That led to the use of North Korea as a Chinese buffer state, much as Stalin used Eastern Europe, and to the situation we have today.
It's one of the worst blunders in the history of American foreign policy. Now, not only is North Korea a paranoid dictatorship with more than enough conventional arms to reduce South Korea to rubble within hours, they're armed with nuclear weapons and increasingly hostile even to their Chinese sponsors.
Since I identify as mostly liberal, I always defaulted to a defense of Truman. But I was wrong. Truman's failure should have stained his legacy, not MacArthur's. And for exactly the same reasons I outlined, MENA states dominated by fundamentalist Islam must not be allowed to gain nuclear weapons. Rogue states and lunatics have ruined too many lives to be protected by a kneejerk fear of war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_Truman's_relief_of_Ge...
MacArthur undermined the chain of command. That's why he was relieved. Full stop.
It's too bad how it work out for all parties involved, particularly the people of North Korea.
I'm trying to think of this alternative scenario that Western cultural sensitivity would have helped , considering their propaganda for 70 years has been targeting America with unbridled hatred.
Even in modern times there are very few options other than China and recently South Korea's attempt to start collaborating on industry. Economics is the only way out for them. And the burden of which is on surrounding Asian countries. There is a zero chance war will result in any good. Or that being nice to them will win their hearts.
That being said I have called out comments this week where people said:
> Wouldnt it be awesome to watch NSA go all out on DPRK? Replying with:
> Yes, and more poverty and starvation for all too! /s
Spreading freedom is right, and I can see the good side of US authorities in this. I imagine there might be lot of people living in North Korea under medieval set of freedoms (but we all lived through that and is it that bad?).
But people can't open up easily, even if you are trying to help them. It takes time. If we want NK to come to terms with upholding human rights, we need to give them time. While at the same time pushing them a bit as well. Sometimes I wonder if that is what is happening. US the lash, Russia/China the console. If that is so, then the culprit is neither US or NK or Russia, but us, for over-reacting in certain senses.
For example, in the above translation there is a line: "all war spaces including cyber warfare space to blow up those citadels."
I think the above line was for 'biased or mistaken/unbiased' reasons miss-quoted/translated by some in the US media, as 'North Korea threatens to blow up US buildings'(creating unnecessary tension based on the events of 9/11). Instead it might have meant "breaking a nexus". But anyways, quite a few media outlets ran that story. And I guess, to some extent the comedic approach to North Korea is thus needed. But that should not mean disgracing its leader directly. Tease but don't Touch!
Perhaps I shouldn't say unparalleled -- Germany succeeded under American guidance, as did Japan despite a radically different culture and people. There was a time when we could rebuild countries successfully.
Notably, of course, Germany was full of Germans and Korea was full of Koreans. Cultural values allowed these countries to succeed, just as they ensure the failure of secular states in the Middle East. I don't advocate intervention everywhere -- and I think it's idiotic to try to set up democracies, even puppet ones, in countries hostile to essential Western values -- but the success of South Korea displays the huge loss the world has suffered from the Communist domination of North Korea.
It's simplistic to declare that "there is a zero chance war will result in any good." We sacrificed American lives to save Europe and much of East Asia from hellish regimes, and those were the right calls. It would have been the right call to save Korea as well. War hasn't helped Afghanistan -- because nothing will help Afghanistan -- but we used to have the wisdom to know when intervention was worth the cost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_Korea
Short version: international treaties building up to a "we will enforce international law" army, where everyone else in the treaty has to turn on one of its members if they are accused. The army's job isn't to wage wars, it is to forcibly arrest suspects, to be tried at the Hague. Suspects must be "members of a government" (any soldier, civil servant, elected official, spy, etc)
the idea requires lots of definitions first (not least who is in a government), but that's the gist of it. This is not an idea I throw around lightly, as people tend to misunderstand it readily. I know that it is far-fetched, etc, no need to remind me :)
They think doing what they do is good, you think it is bad, who's right?
Are we going to start a war every time we disagree with the choice of a country? Might as well nuke the whole earth.
There's also the fact that if we actually militarily threatened them there'd be thousands of missiles fired, and Seoul would be ashes. There's also a risk that they could use nuclear weapons or chemical weapons on S. Korea. N. Korea is a state that has sacrificed everything to prop up a military regime, and invests more in its military than any other part of society. S. Korea with the US as an ally would certainly win a conflict, but N. Korea could cause some seriously devastating carnage before it was over.
[1] http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2014/201412/news21/20141221-01ee.... [2] http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2014/201412/news21/20141221-11ee....
Free speech or not, it is in poor taste and i'm damn sure that if the protagonist had been Obama instead of Kim it would definitely not have been made.
Sony, you made a bad call, you got p0wned. Take it like a man.
Obama, why are you even in this conversation.
DPRK, hire a better translator, yours sucks.
http://time.com/3640774/the-interview-sony-north-korea-movie...
The major failing of this movie is that it was going to suck. The trailer screamed "unwatchable".