@B9xiRspG: Well the last time the Journal mentioned North Korea firing a missile I cracked the joke that it went off course and hit the centre of Drogheda and did €50m worth of improvements. But the joke was deleted so I won’t crack it again…

@Stephen Duffy: Poor fella, having to live under a repressive regime where your creative talents cannot flourish.

@The Risen: trump probably sells pills that’ll cure that.

@The Risen: you’re hired!

@Patrick J. O’Rourke:
Remind us again, who invaded South Korea?
ps. your 20% figure is completely makey uppey, unless you’re suggesting that the population of NK was well under 2 million.

@Avina Laaf: Patrick likes his dictators. Isn’t he on here regularly defending Putin.

@Mick Jordan: I don’t like dictators at all. I however support the Russian stance in the middle east rather than the US one. I also have personal experience of Syria and its people. As for the Korean war I suggest that you all go and read whatever source you want as long as it’s a military account. It doesn’t matter who invaded who when it comes to the use of weapons designed to annihilate civilians and wooden buildings. By the way, the 20% was a conservative estimate according to even US military sources. It’s up to everyone to go and research academic accounts of historical matters rather than accept the current narrative. I think making jokes about NK is somewhat bad taste myself. Try doing that about Israel.

@Mick Jordan: ps, Have to ever been to Russia and do you speak any Russian? If so you will know that the last thing that Russians see Putin as is a dictator.

@Patrick J. O’Rourke: “it doesn’t matter who invaded”

Good man. You’re delusional.

@Patrick J. O’Rourke: I worry that impressionable people might read this and never know the full story. My Best Friend and Neighbour died last year and the only time I ever saw him cry in 40 years of knowing him was when he recalled his time fighting in Korea to save the south from the aggression of the North before being captured and subject to hell by his North Korean captors. Seems not much has changed in their respect for human life as they starve their own people and send them in thousands to work abroad , with their families held as hostages, and send money home to pay for the development of nuclear weapons while the people live in fear and dread of their ruler , not daring to do anything but feign love and devotion for fear of … execution … no less, because they disappear.

@Patrick J. O’Rourke: Patrick you also support Russia’s illegal invasion and annexation of Ukrainian territory and illegal invasion and annexation of Georgian territory. You also on numerous occasions attempted to deflect the blame away from the Russians over the shooting down of MH 17. And just on this thread you are attempting to defend North Korea and their vile regime. And as for Putin. How would you describe someone that has any serious opposition killed, imprisoned and or exiled. That doesn’t permit any public descent. That tightly controls all domestic media. Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. But according to you it’s a Peacock.

@Malachi:

It’s far from nonsense.

You, as you so typically do whitewash much of the history which reflects poorly on the US. Prior to the invasion, the South with strong support from the US committed large scale atrocities against Koreans most notably the Jeju uprising and Mungyeong massacre. Much of the South-Korean regime contained fascist sympathisers who collaborated with the former Japanese empire. During this time, an impartial observerer could only conclude that the South was the one committing the most heinous crimes.

The US’ history in Asia, from Japan to Korea to Vietnam is one of brutal, savage violence. The North’s invasion of South Korea does not excuse the hideous violence and suffering the US inflicted on the people of Korea. They showed no regard for civilians and killed about 1/3 of the North’s population.

The North Korean regime is despicable and a stain on humanity; The US’ actions since the end of the 2nd World War has contributed to that. Thankfully it appears that the South Korean people favour diplomacy over war as they’ve just recently voted for the candidate which advocates talks with North Korea, Moon Jae-in.

http://www.newsweek.com/us-forget-korean-war-led-crisis-north-592630

@Malachi: So you are saying that innocent civilians caught up in war are valid targets for genocide? I am talking about the systematic destruction of civilians rather than blaming the war on any given party. It’s you that is dangerously deluded.

@Mick Jordan: You seem to forget in all of this you are talking about Russian people. Russia will protect Russian people from governments that indulge in blatant fascism and land grabs. That government made the Russian language technically illegal in Ukraine and that it turn made it impossible for anyone in Ukraine to prove land or any property ownership registered in Russian null and void? As for the MH 17 I still have a problem that the blame has been put on a missile that the separatists didn’t have whilst Ukrainian forces had 43 launchers of the said missile. That’s another discussion. As for the rest of the rant against Putin killing opponents etc etc blah blah that is not the issue. If you want conspiracy look at the Clintons and even Obama. Once again, have you ever been to Ukraine, Crimea or anywhere outside of Ireland and the EU and the US? I suggest your opinion is formed just by western media, which is painfully obvious by the rubbish you spout above about life in Russia.

@Avina Laaf: Go and research the amount of ordnance dropped on NK and then compare it to what was dropped on Japan during WW2 including the nuclear attacks. You will see the scale of what we are are talking about. I’m not supporting Kim’s regime, I’m trying to explain what caused it to be what it is today. My own view is that if the west hadn’t got involved in the Korean war it would have followed a trajectory similar to what Vietnam did when the communists took the victory there. Look at it today. Instead we have a paranoid hermit with weapons.

@Patrick J. O’Rourke: “So you are saying that innocent civilians caught up in war are valid targets for genocide?”

I’d ask you to stick to what I actually said, instead of making things up out of thin air. Innocent civilians are *never* valid targets. My argument is that the blame is not on the UN coalition that intervened to repel the invasion, but on the invaders for flagrantly violating international law in the first place leading to mass slaughter that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

“I am talking about the systematic destruction of civilians rather than blaming the war on any given party”

Ah, so now you’re now against the apportioning of blame after putting it all on the US. Funny how that works.

@Terry Cahill: I could also relate a story in an interview I did in 1979 with a USAF pilot who flew bombers in Korea and Vietnam. He never slept for more than an hour at a time for the rest of his life living with the horror he inflicted with napalm on people. He later went to work, like Leonard Cheshire, helping those people who were survivors of bombings. He attempted to kill himself several times when confronted with the carnage. War is horror, and it doesn’t matter on a human level as to what idiots start it, as blame cannot bring people back.

@Patrick J. O’Rourke: “Goverments that indulge in blatant fascism and land grabs” you have perfectly described the Russian Government right there. And even though all the physical evidence points at Russian involvement in the MH 17 massacre and Russia’s farcical attempts to blame the Ukranian Air force, A mythical Spanish Aircraft Controller, A super stealthy Ukrainian BUK missile launcher that was able to sneak behind enemy lines, set up near a village, launch a missile, and drive back to their own lines without anyone seeing.

@Malachi: The blame of killing people in an agrarian society with advanced weapons of mass destruction can only lie with the people who dropped those weapons. In Korea the destruction was heaped on civilians rather than the army in an attempt to persuade them not to fight. It was pretty much a similar tactic to that used on Germany in 44. However in this case the weapons developed were purely for that purpose by roasting them alive and burning their housing. My big problem with all of this is that it seems fine and dandy to make jokes about Kim and NK whilst ignoring what created him and the dynasty. That US bomber pilot I interviewed (ref in another comment) made the analogy of “it was like going to a boxing match where the American came into the ring with an M16 and a hand grenades to kill the boxer and all of his family who were watching”.

@Mick Jordan: sounds like Patrick likes to make excuses for Russia and N. Korea it’s OK when they do it

@Patrick J. O’Rourke:
South Korea suffered almost double the number of civilian deaths than North Korea did. Why don’t these bother you? Is it perhaps because they were inflicted by your beloved Russia and China, and not by your hated US?
Your notion that ‘whoever started the war is irrelevant’ is frankly ludicrous – with no North Korean invasion (supported by Russia and China) there would have been no war, and hundreds of thousands of lives on all sides would have been saved.

@Jack Cassady: I think you’ll find that you did in fact laugh, “haha”- Jack Cassady 2017

@Jack Cassady: All Trump will do is bombard with tweets, He has’nt the balls to go up against the Nth Koreans and China.

@Jack Cassady: sure didn’t they launch three earlier while he was talking about them and sending ships in the wrong direction?

@Guybrush Threepwood:
Show me a single comment where I’ve been an apologist for Israel’s actions in Gaza etc. Just one. Your chance to put up or shut up is now. I can show you many comments where I’ve condemned Israel’s actions. I’ll wait….

@Avina Laaf: Are you joking? I’ve seen you try to blame Hamas numerous times when Israel kill Palestinian civilians.

@Guybrush Threepwood:
Garbage.
I’ve condemned Hamas for targeting innocent civilians just as I’ve condemned Israel for targeting innocent civilians.