Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
I can't be bothered to quarrel about North Korea with anyone. Like I said, I've been following it on and off since I visited there, 1990, so I have a better idea than most what I am talking about. Obviously I am well aware of the "concentration camp" accusations and I am not saying there isn't some truth to it. But that's by no means the full picture.
There is always one thing that makes country a "concentration camp" regardless of ideology of the regime it's freedom of travel and relocation. Not only north koreans are being refused simple right to travel and move they are being divided geografically according to social classes they belong to. All that makes the social system to look feudal.

Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
Alex, I think you know (or maybe you don't know?) what the USA was spewing out about the Soviet Union back in those days, and that you also know from personal experience (or that of your parents) that a lot of it was pure nonsense and exaggeration. It may have had many faults but it was not 24/7 hell, as the US would have people believe, was it? And some aspects to it were good. Why should this be different? If you choose to believe they hype you are meant to, by all means! I won't stop you. I thought most people in Russia were smarter than that though. There is no black and white on things like this, and a Yeltsin in North Korea would make things even worse than today.

I know how the USSR was depicted in the west and especially in the US (i lived in the US quite a long time) and i lived in the USSR ro 20 years of my life. But that's different story. There's nothing like anti-soviet US propaganda here in Russia about north Korea.
There are a lot of north koreans here who came to work both legally and refugees. I had some chances to get information straight from the tin.

Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
I am sure you in Russia (ex USSR) for the most part wanted to change/improve of your own initiative, not have somebody else invade or dictate what you should do, because that's what the US or Western Europe thinks...

North Korea deserves the same right, doesn't it? Including the right to keep their system if they don't care enough to bring it down, or its not incompetent enough to fail on its own.
I don't deny that NK have all its rights. I just state how things are.

Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
Just look at Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Iraq etc. That's what happens when foreign powers meddle in countries they don't understand, and don't have to live in themselves.
It does NOT get better for the population. The only effective and fair change is what a country's own population brings about. And they do, if it's bad enough. We are not God and we are not responsible for what happens in North Korea. The North Korean people are.
That's a plain eutopia.
If you are small and not in alliance with someone big then someom=ne else big will come to get his profit out of your weekness.