How Does Anyone Deal With a Regime This Evil?!
It Fattens Its Military at the Expense of Its Own People!
Completely agree with this observation from a recent NYT op-ed on North Korea:
"Pursuing diplomacy with North Korea won’t be universally popular. The regime is far from admirable. It has, among other things, advanced its military capabilities at the expense of its starving and impoverished population."
In fact, it's actually much worse than that and I don't know why the writer is holding back. The regime spends a trillion dollars a year on its military--which it euphemistically calls "defense." To support its insane military spending, the regime has put its people so far into debt that it has to raise an additional trillion dollars a year through taxes and further borrowing just to service the ever-ballooning debt. And even as it continues to fatten its gargantuan military, almost 40 million of its own people live below the poverty line!
I totally agree, how do you even begin to pursue diplomacy with a regime as obviously insane and destructive to its own people as that one?
Hmm, is it possible you missed the point of my post...? If so, I recommend looking up Poe's Law; it is a powerful force on the Internet!
As for "starve" and "famish" in my fiction how-to post, I wasn't using them unironically; just in accordance with their dictionary definitions and ordinary meanings.
Well don't all regimes? hehe
I know too much about Korea having lived there, have friends, won a grant to study unification (has not held up well sorry to say), watched over 200 kdramas (still not fluent in Korean) and you ain't changing that regime. People whole heartedly agree that the supreme ruler is the supreme ruler. Those that don't have left, been killed, or otherwise sidelined. I watched a documentary about an eye doctor who traveled there to give free cataract surgeries for a week to whoever needed them. Instead of thanking the doctor (they were all sitting in a school's auditorium to wait for their surgery) they thanked their supreme leader for letting them see again. And then it devolved into a contest to see who could shout, cry, get hysterical about how much they appreciated the supreme ruler letting them see again. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯