N. Korea Executes Leader's Uncle as Traitor
Source: Reuters / Associated Press
@BreakingNews: North Korea's official news agency: Kim Jong Un's uncle has been executed as a traitor - @AP, @Reuters
@Reuters: North Korea says Jang, previously powerful man who helped Kim Jong Un to power, guilty of "attempting to overthrow the state": KCNA
NKOREA EXECUTES LEADER'S UNCLE AS A TRAITOR
Dec. 12, 2013 4:54 PM EST
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) North Korea on Friday announced the execution of Kim Jong Un's uncle, calling the leader's former mentor a traitor and "worse than a dog."
The announcement came only days after Pyongyang announced through state media that Jang Song Thaek long considered the country's No. 2 power had been removed from all his posts because of allegations of corruption, drug use, gambling, womanizing and leading a "dissolute and depraved life."
Jang was seen as helping Kim Jong Un consolidate power after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, two years ago. Jang was the latest and most significant in a series of personnel reshuffles that Kim has conducted in an apparent effort to bolster his power.
Some analysts see the purge as a sign of Kim Jong Un's growing confidence, but there has also been fear in Seoul that the removal of such an important part of the North's government seen by outsiders as the leading supporter of Chinese-style economic reforms could create dangerous instability or lead to a miscalculation or attack on the South.
Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/nkorea-executes-kim-jong-un-uncle
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)Alhena
(3,030 posts)before taking this big step.
iandhr
(6,852 posts)maxsolomon
(33,310 posts)i hope i live to see that regime fall
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)don't fall far from the tree either. That place is just nuts, I can imagine legions of psychologists would love to examine it.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)Itchinjim
(3,085 posts)I pretty sure they wouldn't have me executed.
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)but of course more viciously dictatorial than either.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Talk about needing to be on your best behavior.
egold2604
(369 posts)hugo_from_TN
(1,069 posts)geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Pretzel_Warrior
(8,361 posts)jsr
(7,712 posts)Last edited Thu Dec 12, 2013, 10:23 PM - Edit history (1)
Senior DPRK officials observe Jangs removal from the 8 December 2013 meeting
Jang Song Taek appears before a tribunal of the Ministry of State Security on 12 December 2013
A three-member panel of the Ministry of State Securitys special tribunal hearing accusations against Jang Song Taek
rug
(82,333 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)CFLDem
(2,083 posts)And we will be viewed as equally crazy someday for ignoring the human rights tragedy that is NK.
I really hope KJU pisses off China enough that they take him out.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)He is essentially a semi-diety family gang lord. And your comments relate to the conceptual political mythology that keeps him in power.
http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-winner-effect/201304/the-north-korean-dictator-is-behaving-rationally
The North Korean Dictator Is Behaving Rationally
By Ian H. Robertson, Ph.D. on April 5, 2013 - 12:54am
North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Un is behaving rationally. The survival of his dictatorship depends on maintaining a sense of threat from the outside world, and empowering his impoverished people with images of military power. The 30-year-old is new leader of a gang which has taken over nay, created an entire country, and like any boss he wants to keep his gang in power and build its wealth and status.
He is no different from the Congolese warlords who rule country-size regions of central Africa or Mexican drug cartel bosses running parts of Mexico with private armies better-armed than the states own forces.
Nor is his gang different from the House of Saud, a family which also contrived a country to boost its family fortunes.
Napoleon, self-crowned Emperor of France, plunged Europe into war and successive kings of England plundered Ireland, Scotland and Continental Europe during adventure-wars of the type that Mr Kim Jong-Un is now threatening against the USA, South Korea and Japan.
Kim Jong-Un is as sane. He is not a psychopath he made good friends while in school in Switzerland - and is quite intelligent, being good at mathematics although lazy in his studying, according to his closest friend at school, Portugese diplomats son Joao Micaelo.
He was the fiercely competitive star of his school basketball team and hated to lose. He also, according to Micaelo, listened to the North Korean national anthem thousands of times and was proud of his country. He seems to have had a close relationship with his father.
In spite of the sneering rhetoric in the press prominent BBC broadcaster Jeremy Paxman for instance last night described him as looking like a haggis Kim Jong-Un is a world leader with enormous, albeit malign, influence. But he is little different from many other world leaders over the centuries, except in a couple of respects.
The first is the extraordinary personality cult which his family and its supporters have created through complete control over the media, education and civic life. Kim Jong-Un is essentially a god or at least a demi-god on the way to full godship. Julius Caesar allowed statues of himself as a demi-god to be erected and the pre-democracy English monarchy perpetuated their family gang through the propaganda of the divine right of kings.'
Absolute power changes peoples brains and makes them feel like gods, or at least in communication with gods. In June 2003, George W. Bush told Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen that God had told him to invade Iraq. Osama bin Laden also believed his actions to be divinely inspired.
Kim Jong-Un almost certainly feels god-like because of the drug-like effects the chemical messenger dopamine is a key player that power has on his brain. Power is an aphrodisiac which casts a spell of charisma around the holder and bewitches those he has power over, and if that be millions of people, so be it.
A former North Korean soldier interviewed on BBCs Newsnight last night said that he and everyone else he knew completely believed the world view of the countrys leadership. This held that North Korea was poor because of the unfair persecution by South Korea, USA and Japan, and that it was in constant threat of being destroyed by these enemies, which is why it had to have its nuclear weapons.
MORE
http://www.northkoreanchristians.com/religion-north-korea.html
Today, Juche is no longer just an ideology, but a full-fledged religion that worships Kim Il Sung as god, and his son, Kim Jong Il as the son of god. Whether or not Kim Jong Un is now worshipped as the grandson of god remains to be seen.
In 2005, David Hawke, the respected human rights investigator, interviewed 40 North Korean escapees about religion in North Korea. Here are some of their responses about North Korea's religion:
"Juche is the only religion North Korean people can have."
"We learned that there were two lives: one is the physical life and the other is the political life. We were taught that political life was forever along with the leaders and the Party. Therefore, I believed that my political life was more important than my physical life."
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Kim Jong Un will do anything to hold on to power. Killing people or sending them to gulags is routine. If you escape and get caught there is a good chance you will be killed.
I've heard North Korean defectors speak in person and could see the pain in their eyes as they told their stories. They have gone through hell literally.
Those that escape have to get all the way across China to Thailand or Vietnam. It requires bribing boarder guards and police. Once they get into one of those countries they have to try to get into the South Korea Embassy in order to seek asylum. Those that make it either come here to South Korea or the US. Many in South Korea turn their noses down at the North Koreans that end up here believing they are spies and are beneath them.
On posts like this I always try to add the link:
Liberty in North Korea
http://www.libertyinnorthkorea.org/
jmowreader
(50,554 posts)He's been in office two years and so far he's had what, one purge per quarter? And don't forget this asshole forced his ex-girlfriend's family to watch her being put before a firing squad - and then shipped all the survivors off to prison camps. He also executed 80 people for the heinous crime of watching smuggled-in South Korean soap operas. I would predict a coup in North Korea except that he keeps shooting anyone who might think of challenging his power.
Amonester
(11,541 posts)Maybe he read about Roman Empire's Caligula and wants to out-perform him?
jmowreader
(50,554 posts)Like KJU, Stalin had NO problem with standing his closest advisors up against the wall for reasons that changed on a daily basis.
Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)See my post above.
Sognefjord
(229 posts)joshcryer
(62,269 posts)Normally they'd go "I question the veracity of this story." "Sounds like western propaganda to me."
Except in this instance North Korea's news service itself has confirmed the execution.
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)That actually gives it credibility compared to the tabloid stuff that gets spammed here with no source, follow up, or original author. And of course no comment from any office with any kind of standing to maintain.
If you are savvy and know what to look for, you can tell what's bullshit and what's not. You have to be smart about what you read on the internet.
joshcryer
(62,269 posts)Sites like Chosun (whose English language side is lacking, but Google translates the Korean well enough).
Of course, it's impossible to confirm the rumors that this guy was executed by hungry feral dogs, like that one guy who was supposedly executed via a mortar shell.
People just don't seem to want to accept that North Korea really is an Orwellian nightmare crazy land where the most bizarre of happenings ... happen.
marble falls
(57,077 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)marble falls
(57,077 posts)Th1onein
(8,514 posts)Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)Last edited Sat Dec 14, 2013, 12:34 AM - Edit history (2)
Same justification as in the Koreans' minds.
We could be just like N. Korea!
Th1onein
(8,514 posts)Do you have a link for that thread?
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)EX500rider
(10,839 posts)Ash_F
(5,861 posts)If his uncle was that high up, then the regime is in a precarious place despite having pulled off eliminating him.
jsr
(7,712 posts)Judging from the official announcement, there will be a mass purge to uproot the network of cronies and conspirators that was put in place by the uncle.