31–40 of 118 posts
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I've seen this come up a lot recently. Antisemitic, alt-right grifters have been using this incident as some sort of dogwhistle
Dogwhistle for what? I'm genuinely curious, I don't know what that could be used as a dogwhistle for.
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> The boat? Not much. It’s the act that offers value. The value of invading another sovereign nation's territory in order to repatriate some hunk object that has purely symbolic value? Hardly seems worth the cost and massive fallout that would ensure.
you mean the boat that was illegally seized during the cold war, and still is illegally held?
A foolhardy idea would be to surreptitiously go there while some other action is happening elsewhere and tug it out. Now, it’d be difficult to pull off and offers no upside and lots of downside, but it’d be very intrepid to pull off.
Always interesting to be reminded of all of these incidents from past operations.
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> The boat? Not much. It’s the act that offers value. The value of invading another sovereign nation's territory in order to repatriate some hunk object that has purely symbolic value? Hardly seems worth the cost and massive fallout that would ensure.
First it’s not an invasion, it’s an incursion. Like I said upthread, it’s got lots of downside but little upside. But the upside would be quite triumphant.
This is a really weird hair to try to split, given that the two words are essentially synonymous.
> When an army crosses a border into another country for battle, they are making an incursion into enemy territory. An incursion is an invasion as well as an attack.[0]
> [An incursion is] An aggressive movement into somewhere; an invasion[1]
> Invasion is a synonym for incursion in attack topic.[2]
...and so forth.
[0] https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/incursion
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There's a school called the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology ( https://pust.co ) that invites foreigners to come teach North Korean citizens. I spent 2 semesters teaching computer science at PUST and it was a wonderful experience. You really get to know the locals (both students and staff) much better than on a short tourist trip. Some highlights include teaching Dijkstra's algorithm by showing them goo…
> All the students I met with were surprisingly well informed about both events in the US and American history. This is surprising to me. I imagine they read some news/propaganda about the events, rather than reading the NYTimes, WAPO, or BBC news directly. Can you comment on that? > As a former naval nuclear officer Did you have to get special approval?
Their history lessons certainly have a different emphasis than American history lessons. They emphasize things like slavery in the US and the CIA's interventions in Latin America in service of US businesses, but from all my conversations with students none of them had learned anything that was actually incorrect. They get their news mainly from government run newspapers, but also word of mouth spreads news pretty quickly.
> Did you have to get special approval?
It had been long enough since my time in service that non of my clearances were still valid, and so there was no special risk of me disclosing anything. I just contacted the American embassy in China and informed them of my plans.
A foolhardy idea would be to surreptitiously go there while some other action is happening elsewhere and tug it out. Now, it’d be difficult to pull off and offers no upside and lots of downside, but it’d be very intrepid to pull off.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/14/max-hardberger...
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How were you able to visit it, honest question? As an American myself, I wouldn't dare set foot in that country. Was a visit there an easy experience? Would you go back?
I went when Americans were still allowed to go, with Koryo Tours, who I'd recommend strongly. As the only way to get in is with a tour agency, it's actually a very easy trip to arrange. All you have to do is get to Beijing, the agency takes care of the rest. That said, I wouldn't call it an easy destination while you're there, depending on your personality type. You have no freedom of movement, are pretty transparent…
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You visited North Korea?
Based on their spelling of “armoury” they don’t seem to be American. As far as I’m aware, the only country that forbids travel to NK is America.
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How were you able to visit it, honest question? As an American myself, I wouldn't dare set foot in that country. Was a visit there an easy experience? Would you go back?
I went when Americans were still allowed to go, with Koryo Tours, who I'd recommend strongly. As the only way to get in is with a tour agency, it's actually a very easy trip to arrange. All you have to do is get to Beijing, the agency takes care of the rest. That said, I wouldn't call it an easy destination while you're there, depending on your personality type. You have no freedom of movement, are pretty transparent…
Funny, all the people I know that do dumb things can't imagine themselves acting dumb.