Here's a dilemma (somewhat NSR)...

They shoudl and they shouldnt.

You have to understand this....how much worse was China before they opened up to the western world? China was a hell hole, now (as my dad who traveled there on business can point out) its not too far from america in the major cities. N Koreans dont leave their country, if we begin to trade with them they too will see the light at the end of the rainbow and eventually Jong Il's regime will fall....

Atthe same time theyre commiting a huge human rights violation and shoudlnt be allowed in the competition. BUt, the competition is in China, so these women will not get to see America or what other free nations have to offer. Basically, they'll stay brainwashed by going to china....I say we force the whole N Korean womens team to play a season in WUSA and broadcast it on Korean TV....

what a way to cut salary expenses

 

since i was in korea for the world cup, i have been exposed to korean culture.

one day I went to the dmz to get a 1st hand look there ..

I went to the conference room where half of it is south korean and the other half north korean, so I briefly entered north korean territory.

south korea is a very safe country, you can go anywhere anything and be very safe.

The South Korean people want with almost 100% unanimity to be reunited with the North, similarly to the process in europe, that is peacefully.

In a friendly soccer match in Seoul in September between North and South, the people of Seoul chanted for 90 minutes about reunification.

The question becomes understanding the rulers of the north, which is I cannot begin to comprehend.

The family structure is the dominant factor in south korean life, and I would assume the same exists in the north, the concept of responsibility to family and to hierarchy.

So ultimately the question at hand is, ban North Korea??

What purpose does it yield?? Would it affect political decisions in the north??

This is soccer!! And North Korea has a huge famine concerns.

Balance those with the concept of some outsider imposing their foreign views on the north. That's the closest I can get to being in the north's shoes.

When I was at the world cup in the south, two teenage south korean girls were accidently killed by USA tanks.

Many south koreans are still not satisified by the apology the usa government has offered.

and on the whole the south is more supportive of their northern brethren than they are of the usa.

it's a battle for peoples minds, something the usa generally is not too good at.

sure they like our culture, but they don't like many ugly americans

and that's the guist of the political problem facing the usa government

 

Sport should not be used as a political pawn. What was achieved by the US boycotting Moscow '80? Or the Soviets LA '84?

I love the story on the WSJ about how a loyal bodyguard of Kim Jong Il made the mistake of smoking inside his private elevator & leaving the butt in the ashtray. He & his entire family was sent to the gulag. They're probably dead by now. As a tyrannical despot, you can get away with anything. Sending people to their deaths. Cognac & teenage virgins every night. Kidnapping an actress he was infatuated with. And having bad hair [nobody dares tell Kim that].

Back to banning NK. If that was so, why play in China in the first place? The Chinese have their own human-rights issues. Your sneakers were probably made by a 10-year-old boy making $1/day. Their one-child policy forces some parents to kill their baby girls, or give them up for adoption. And so on and so forth.

So why kowtow to the Chinese and take a hard line against the NK? Pure economics. China's a market of a billion people. NK is just 20+ million, probably even less now after a quarter of their population died by famine.

It costs over a billion dollars a year to maintain a token U.S. force of 30,000 troops to serve as a trip-wire against the NK. More like 2 billion dollars. Anyway, multiply 2 billion dollars over 50 years - yep, 100 billion dollars have been spent to keep the peace over there.

Nuking NK in 1953, or in 2003, and instituting a Marshall-type plan afterwards would cost the U.S. much much less.

How dare they abuse their own citizens. how dare they adopt a cult of personality. We'll teach them a lesson. Nuking NK would make for a "safer" world.


And THEN . . . . . let's play soccer.

 

no.
you have a madman dictator running the country. punishing everyone else because they are ruled by said dictator is pretty weak.

 

If we want change in North Korea, then exposing more of their people to an outside culture is one step towards change.

Closed societies can't be opened from the outside, I believe it must happen from within.

Just like the racist of circa 1950's willingness to drink from a common water fountain, requires a change of heart, authoritarian elite, whether it's North Korea or Serbia, willingness to share an ounce of power, requires a sea change in their fundamental beliefs.

It's the old story about being able to legislate morality.

Cultural mores of power have different faces.

Those with real power need to mask their power through social convention. In North Korea little social convetion is required. Whereas in other places, elaborate social ritual hides the hand of power.

Ultimately stripping these hands of their force require individual beings to demand autonomy in the decisions controlling their lives.

This is a very daunting task in a place like North Korea.

 

Last time I looked the biggest nuclear threat on this planet happens to be american

And if you ask the american indian about the genocide committed by this country, they'd look at this country througn a different lense.

So this empire of evil stuff, some speech writers words mouthed by an inarticulate jerk who got his job because of birth, what relevance does it have in a humane world.

North and South Korea were well along their way to speaking to one another and beginning to solve the social issue.

Now we have some neanerthal neo-confederate speech writer inflame tensions across the planet to placate a simple minded people.

I guess the USA should be banned from the World cup due to it's war mongering behavior.

 

China was "promised" WWC'03 after Japorea were awarded WC'02.

MacArthur was a hardass anti-commie and would do anything to win. Didn't seem like he learned a lesson from that other madman - Curtis LeMay - who fire-bombed Tokyo & dropped "Fatboy" on Hroshima & then Nagasaki. Tactical nuking at its worst. With such a horrible and destructive weapon, nuke the enemy strategically, not tactically.

Do what the Israelis did in '82 against Iraq. They bombed the hell out of their nuclear program. Speculation had it that had the IAF not bombed Iraq, Iran would have been the 2nd country to be nuked. Then Israel the 3rd.

Otherwise, let NK play. They beat Japan AND china in the Asian Cup. Or maybe the UWNT is just afraid of facing the commies.

 

How very true. The Koreas were well on their way to beginning dialogues, with long-separated families able to visit each other, when a war-mongering politico labeled NoKor as part of the "Axis of Evil". This was uttered during an official state visit to SoKor. Unflattering & disgusting behavior. How would you feel if your party guest started bad-mouthing & making veiled threats against your next-door neighbor? No wonder anti-American sentiments are high in that part of the world.

Amen.

 

true, but if you look, bush pulled back plans that clinton had already established after the 2000 election. bush went to the 'wait and see' attitude freezing any progress in talks and then came up w/ the 'axis of evil after sept 11

 

this is not a democratoc or republican matter..

anyone who read my posts at 911 know I have contacts in CIA and NSA and a federal jusge in arlington.

The month before september 11, in august we all were at the World Track and Field Championships in edmonton together for a couple weeks.

The major subject matter of discussion was the expectation of a MAJOR terrorist incident.

All the signs were pointing to something BEYOND belief.

The CIA guy was the guy who went to Beijing when the USA bombed the CHINESE embassy in BELGRADE!!

In the mirky world of who's on what side, MOST people are GROSSLY ignorant of what's going on.

The phrase AXIS of EVIL, is a speech writers convention, and a speech write whose political philosophy is neo-confederate, bring back the good ole antebellum days.

This is all about power, and oil, and money.

George Bush couldn't care if the poort folk in North Korea starved to death.

It's all about his buddies getting more power and more monry in their pockets.

And that'scapitalism. If you listen to the propaganda, then you miss the real world.

Ever one puts out their own spin.

Is North Korea a repressive regime?

yes...

How can we open their society??

axis of empire sounds like a good idea for a yale brat to me

 

Ahhhh . . . . . another one with information "from the inside".

 

no, not that nsa

FIFA is an organization of sports associations. It is not political and it has more member countries than the United Nations. Wars have been halted for football (soccer) matches. (And football matches have probably started a war or two, too. )

Let 'em play. Let 'em be exposed to the world at large.

Let all of the politicians rot in their own hell.

 

There is precedent for banning countries from international competition, South Africa being an obvious one, and Yugoslavia in Euro 92.

Assume North Korea gets sanctioned, the question is, who in the world would think this is an action of any significance.

What would it accomplish, other than petty childish, I can get my way and you can't come to the party mentality.

Ultimately this is all about power and there are many ugly facets to achieving power, even in the most noble of nations.


So what's the motivation here is getting rid of North Korea??

getting rid of someone who'd be a difficult match for the USA??

Hey, wait till the Chinese fix the draw, and the USA group is NIGERIA NORTH KOREA and CANADA!!

what's the betting line on USA players stretchered off against those three!!

 

Money Ego and Oil

And the love of TexA_ _. I agree Adam. Yep! Pretty soon we'll all be a talkin W/ a drawl And singin The Yellow Rose of TexA_ _. What the Hell was his oldman thikin sendin that countrified Dirt Devil to New England. Probably had something to do W/ not gettin accepted to So. West Texass State. Just wait he'll bring our standard of living down to that Texass level before he's through. Someone has to pay the tab for all this. And it won't be Big Bus. How You'all like yur 401k plans since he took over. Reganomics and Trickle-down, (That means Piss On for You Texans). My $.02, well that blows the hell out of my 401k.

 

He had to come up with something since the moniker "The Great Satan" is still the best.

 

Typical negotiating session by the NoKors.

"Why did you eat my dog you SoKor bastard!"

 

Paul, you know nothing about war.

 

From Gaddafi in Italy, the 1980 Olympics, North Korea in 1966(Remember that at the time they didn't have diplomatic contact with the U.K.) to the ICC recently, politics should have absolutely no place in sports. That is world politics and not the politics of power so often used by the people at Fifa, all the world's association, and soccer organizations around the planet.

 

The ancient Greeks would war amongst one another.

But when the Olympiad approached, the combatants agreed to compete on the field of sport, giving safe passage to Olympia.

Sport can be a cultural exchange, where values differing can meet and discuss the commonality amongst peoples.

If you need to debase sport by imposing a political context, then the limiting of this exchange harms the spirit of sport.

It's the competing that counts.

Some people look at winning and losing, a very common American trait.

But it's the striving for excellence which matters most.

But in some cultures, the value is the title, while in others it's the path of competing.

The latter struggles matters more to me.