At least 10 alleged U.S.-based facilitators have been federally charged, including one active-duty member of the U.S. Army, for their alleged roles in hosting laptop farms, laundering payments and moving proceeds through shell companies. At least six other alleged U.S. facilitators have been identified in court documents but not named.
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This isn’t an accusation, but from your comments I’m guessing you’re what they call a tankie. I don’t personally care, as I don’t make judgements on things I know I’m not educated about. But I do have a question for someone who is not immediately opposed to North Korea: it’s undeniable that there is an ongoing and long time food shortage. I’ve been told this is due to poor internal policy, and that it is due to sanctions. If you are willing, I’d like to hear your thoughts on why this issue exists and what could realistically be done by North Korea to solve it, whether it be via some external influence or hopefully something they could do internally.
As for your comment, yeah. That’s completely true, and I don’t really have anything to add to that, other than your enemy being wrong doesn’t make you right.
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Yeah, I don’t generally take anything as fact without checking it out, but that gives me some stuff to look into. Also, it doesn’t contradict anything I know to be true, so that’s immediately a good sign as I can easily sniff out bullshit typically. I appreciate your discussion, hopefully your education goes well for you and you have a nice day.
Ont the food shortage front, North Korea kind of got hit by a perfect storm of problems that might not have been so severe, had they not all occurred in short order. In brief, over the span of several years in the 1990s, the DPRK managed to lose their greatest backer and trading partner with the collapse of the USSR, which in turn meant that flaws present in some already failing internal policies could no longer be ignored, and were, in fact, exacerbated. Then they had widespread flooding that devastated domestic agriculture, making a bad situation worse. International sanctions would have also impeded efforts to turn to international markets temporarily to purchase additional food and necessary supplies to turn the situation around. While the US did supply food aid starting in 1996, much like how the US weaponized the embargos on Cuba and sanctions on Iran in a way that worsened their situation during the Covid pandemic, George W. Bush severely cut US food aid, and in some years, it was eliminated entirely.
There’s a whole article on the subject on Wikipedia that is a good start for understanding it. While there are certainly plenty of things to criticize North Korea for, I think the general “Hurr durr, communism is bad, look at all this nice food I have,” take that has become widespread in the US is a pretty reductive bit of anti-DPRK propaganda. Also, I don’t know how much of their relative success before that point was due to the USSR propping up an allied state and how much could be attributed to Kim Il Sung’s capabilities as a statesman, but his successors don’t seem to be his equal either in finding strong parties to ally with or in their statecraft. It’s also entirely possible that they are simply the Juche version of failsons, slowly dissipating their father’s legacy for their own gratification after having grown up fairly privileged and viewing the enterprise left to them (or state, in this case) purely as part of their inheritance to plunder for personal gain.
I just realised that the tankie point of view may be described as thinking countries should get what they deserve based on past wrongs regardless of how many people get thrown into the meat grinder due to the current reality.
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Yeah it’s in the name. They like the idea of an ideological war. They think it’s necessary and that’s once it’s done they just need to suppress dissent and everything will be fine.