The US is committing Human Rights violations in Korea

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

This is not my assessment but rather the assessment of the former US president, Jimmy Carter.

http://www.examiner.com/human-rights-in-national/carter-food-halt-to-n-korea-is-us-human-rights-violation

He states that by not agreeing to give North Korea food aid, aid that is needed because North Korea sought policies that benefited their military/leadership at the economic expense of their country, the US and South Korea are committing a blatant human rights violation. That the US and South Korea should post-haste aid NK with as much food as it takes to support their people.

Now I can understand the arguments about people suffering and needing our help but this raises the question of whether or not we're losing sight of the big picture by arguing such. First, by stating such, Carter and the Elders are just giving the leadership of Pyongyang the footing with which to claim superior or equal morality. Because us not supporting their regime with food is exactly like shooting political dissidents and running the most oppressive nation on Earth in which way, exactly? Now you may disagree with them making that argument but that will be the argument they'll make. It will be something that resonates just enough with some people to boost their position. I'm sure if we could get a look at their internal agitprop the quote that Carter provided is doing quite well.

Second, why is it our responsibility for their starving? It's their foolish policies that are starving them. The US and the South will gladly give aid but they're not going to do so in such a way that strengthens and encourages the madmen in power over there. What benefit is it to feed a North Korean citizen when the state that starved them will just use that aid to further poison their minds. If a know some neighborhood kids are being starved the moral choice is to stop the kids from being starved. It's not greatly moral if I just give the father food and hope that the kids are fed. When in all likelihood the "bad" kids will be starved and the "good" ones will be fed.

It's times like this that I think it's unarguable that Jimmy Carter is just not good when it comes to a foreign policy that benefits the free world.

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Argh. There is no human rights requirement on other countries to intervene in a hostile country that's actively starving its people. That's... just ridiculous.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Indeed it is.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

"All for one and one for all" -the Three Musketeers

Yes and when Iceland or Greece goes down economically it's not our problem to help them out. Nor is it our problem when Nazi's are killing Jews by the trainload. Nor should we involve ourselves in any foreign war or drought or plague or economic catastophe.

"No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee." -John Donne

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

It is not a crime, though, to not help someone who's under attack. There's a difference between a duty and what should be done, and Carter is arguing that we HAVE to intervene wherever someone else is violating human rights. That's bullshit.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Knowing that somebody is wet, cold, hungry, hurt, vulnerable, etc. and idlely standing by, not helping when one can, is not illegal but is immoral. Jimmy Carter has a point. If you have commitment to human kindness one cannot simply ignore the suffering of others. With that commitment comes duty and obligation.

If you have no such commitment, then go back under your rock. Ignore it and it will go away.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I'm with you though.

We need to overthrow Kim Jong Il.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Maybe.

Obviously if Kim Jong is starving his people on purpose he feels threatened enough that he has tried to weaken them. But maybe he just doesn't have enough food to feed everyone. I don't know.

American solutions for non-American peoples have gone over like lead balloons. Not sure that's ever going to work. Perhaps we can facilitate the people of North Korea with the tools to find their own solutions. Food being the most basic necessity.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

If helping North Korea actually helped the North Korean people Jimmy Carter would have a point. But it doesn't. Enabling Pyongyang to feed itself enables it to keep hundreds of thousands in slave labor camps (http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/05/03-15)
and millions more oppressed, living in fear and bereft of hope.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

We're talking about the guy who eschewed the Zimbabwean Mandela in favor of Mugabe. He has the foreign policy sense of a decaying Rottweiler corpse left in the Sun for two weeks.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Well the situation is a little different than what you describe. It's not just hey we could help N. Korea and not is violating human rights. It's that we *have been* sending food to N. Korea. They have been relying on it, and then we go oh nope, we didn't like what you did, no food you've been relying on. Sorry your people gotta die a bit for your decision.

That's a bit of a different situation now isn't it. And, it really brings up the morality of getting countries reliant on that in the first place. Morality or economic warfare benefit, not sure wich... hmm.

The most moral positions I have read on it is that we should leave food aid out of politics. We should help or not help based purely on the people's need, not on our political warfare with the leaders of said country.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Also though:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13247723

Carter may be wrong about the actual cause of the food not getting to the people. The US state department claims it is N. Korea who stopped food aid, not the U.S. and S. Korea.

Based on my previous post, its rather immoral and wicked maybe, but can you understand the reasons for N. Korea not to want to be reliant on foreign aid?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Except they are reliant on it to keep themselves from being overthrown. Not giving it, however, means they might destroy Seoul, which is what they are actually "negotiating" about. So the rest of the world is damned if it does for supporting this hereditary dictatorship and damned if it doesn't to spark a resumption of a war that in three weeks is likely to exceed US casualties in 10 years of two wars under two Administrations.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

We did not send it, they've been extorting it by using Seoul and 47 years' worth of accumulated artillery as a bargaining chip, most of that food going to the DPRK's leadership. To really change that means that we might see Seoul destroyed and resumption of major war there now that they may find that people are less and less impressed with "Do this or we annihilate Seoul mwhahaehahahahahaha" as a bargaining chip.

But this is the guy who thought Bobby Mugabe would be good for Zimbabwe.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

The reason why they're reliant to a degree is because they had their agriculture industry virtually wiped out in the 90s due to natural and artificial issues.

America has natural disasters too. But we actually have decent planning that can mitigate them. NK does not. Communism being what it is.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

lol @ NK being communist. Good try.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to see you're a fan of Jimmy Carter. Personally, I thought all you cons hated him. It's good to see I was wrong for once.

Oh wait, could it be that you're just agreeing with him because he's saying something with which you can beat the Obama Administration over the head? That can't be, right?

Tell me, are you similarly in agreement with Jimmy when it comes to the plight of the Palestinians (which he puts in much the same context as the Korean issue)? Did you agree with him when he criticized the Bush Administration? Or is this just a one time deal because this time he's bitching about Obama?

The fact is that the US and S. Korea have given millions, if not billions, in food aid to N. Korea since the war because their idiotic policies don't allow their farmers to produce enough food for their people to survive. This food is absorbed by the regime and who knows if it even ends up with those who really need it (those who are starving in the countryside) or if it ends up in the bellies of the elites in Pyongyang who are already relatively well fed.

Why should we throw more good money after bad fattening up the Kim family and their cronies? I highly doubt the government of N. Korea would allow monitors into their country to ensure the food gets to those who need it.

Carter's problem now is the same as it's always been, he's too idealistic. It would be great if we could get food to those who are starving in N. Korea without having to work around the regime. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen until there's fundamental change in the N. Korean government. He just assumes well meaning people can do anything but that's all to often not the case and he doesn't seem capable of realizing that.

[404.livejournal.com]

You sure did spend a lot of time responding to the OP when you totally got it wrong.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Wow. RTFA.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

Wow, you should have read what I wrote and not what you think I wrote.

Because my headline is a summation of what Carter said and everything else is how I think he's wrong.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Er, what? He didn't say a thing about Carter being right, he spent the majority of the post illustrating that Carter's still the same morally incompetent and retarded sonofabitch bastard who put Robert Mugabe in power and dismissed the one guy who might have created a Zimbabwe that's something other than Africa's North Korea.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

In most cases, when we give humanitarian aid to countries, they at least say "thank you". In the case of North Korea it's "feed us or we'll launch an attack on South Korea, build missiles to attack the U.S., and generally go nuts". The oligarchy must be destroyed first - then our humanitarian efforts will produce results. I've usually admired Carter, but he's off base with this.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

Word.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I like Carter as a person, but his foreign policy ideas are just very naive.

[mintogrubb.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that if you feed these people, you are in fact allowing their government to spend more oney on their nuclear weapons programme.

Yes , I am committed to ending starvation and poverty - but it seems to me that the Govermnent in N.Korea ispart of the problem , not a government like the one in haiti or japanthat will use our aid for everyone's benefit.
how do we know that food sent to N. Korea will not end up being sent to feed the trops to support the regime?

It seems that if anyone neds a regime change, N. Korea's people do.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Carter is losing it.