DPRK rocket lauch fails, 850 million $ goes into air

loz wrote:

]And yet they still started it first. DPRK started the war.

[...]

What? What does a group of 5 spies have to do with one country declaring war on the other.

When the Monroe’s NAACP shot up a bunch of KKK members, were they the aggressor or responding to KKK aggression?
When the Cuban 5 entered the USA, were they the aggressor or responding to gusano aggression?
When the DPRK entered the RoK, were they the aggressor or responding to imperialist aggression?

The Monroe NAACP was responding to KKK lynching.
The Cuban 5 was responding to gusano terrorism.
The DPRK was responding to USA colonialism.

When oppressed people are meet with violence they have the right to defend themselves.

loz wrote:

I'm not "getting at" anything, i'm just stating the facts.
The Pyongyang clique plays with rockets while the people are on the brink of starvation (not that this is some new "development" though).
These rockets are a massive waste of badly-needed money.

Imperialist countries start war for profits. If the DPRK is able to show enough military strenth to convince the imperialist powers that a war wouldn't be profitable than they don't become a colony/puppet state of imperialism.

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When the Monroe’s NAACP shot up a bunch of KKK members, were they the aggressor or responding to KKK aggression?

Yep, that analogy totally works here. Not.
We are talking about a war between two countries and this doesn't have anything to do with it.

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When the Cuban 5 entered the USA, were they the aggressor or responding to gusano aggression?

They were, i think, spies. Also doesn't have much to do with the Korean war.

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When the DPRK entered the RoK, were they the aggressor or responding to imperialist aggression?

They were aggressors by every meaningful definition of the term. They crossed the border and invaded South Korea.
East German attack on the Bundesrepublik would also be an "aggression" in the same manner.

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When oppressed people are meet with violence they have the right to defend themselves.

Still doesn't change the fact that it was the DPRK that started the war.
In your first "analogy" it was KKK that started the lynching, the second one is about spying and GDR never attacked West Germany.

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If the DPRK is able to show enough military strenth to convince the imperialist powers that a war wouldn't be profitable than they don't become a colony/puppet state of imperialism.

I've yet to see proof that the West would seriously bother with attacking North Korea. There's not much profit to be made, and China wouldn't like that either.
That said, NK already has an army sufficient from deterring any attack.

loz wrote:

Still doesn't change the fact that it was the DPRK that started the war.

Doctrine of self defense. The DPRK had the right to defend itself from US imperialism which was colonizing and setting up a puppet government in the south.

Capitalist propaganda distorts the situation. People who are fighting for their freedom are made out to be aggressors and capitalist states are made out to be the victims.

Loz wrote:

I've yet to see proof that the West would seriously bother with attacking North Korea.

Obama pretty much said that the USA was going to move its focus towards Asia and the Pacific and move away from the Middle East back in January of 2012.

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Doctrine of self defense. The DPRK had the right to defend itself from US imperialism which was colonizing and setting up a puppet government in the south.

This is absurd. Of course that the DPRK had the right to defend itself from US imperialism, but what does that have to do with them attacking the South first?
It is perfectly clear that it was the NK that started the war.

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Capitalist propaganda distorts the situation. People who are fighting for their freedom are made out to be aggressors and capitalist states are made out to be the victims.

I'm just saying that NK was the aggressor here. I don't see how can you deny that?
Anyway, had it not been for China and its million "volunteers", there would be no North Korea today.

The Winter War of 1939, likewise, was objectively a Soviet aggression on Finland, no matter how justified.

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Obama pretty much said that the USA was going to move its focus towards Asia and the Pacific and move away from the Middle East back in January of 2012.

Yes, and what does that mean? There are not even idications, much less anything more serious.
Also: Iran. Obviously the US isn't going to "move away" from the Middle East just like that. A war is looming.

Why are you ranting about "agression" against South Korea. It was and is nothing but a puppet state of the U.S., and has about as much right to exist as Manchukuo and South Vietnam. Who cares who attacked first?

I'm not denying that the South Korea was an imperialist puppet state, nor do i disagree with the country being reunited under Pyongyang.
What i did was just pointing out the fact that they were the first to start the conflict. Another thing is that there would be North Korea had it not been for Mao's China.
And when it comes to Vietnam it wasn't just about the North attacking the South, the Vietcong also played a major role.

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Who cares who attacked first?

Well, for start the endless DPRK rants about aggression coming from everywhere seem a bit fake in the light of abovementioned facts. That, and their constant and seemingly pointless provocations against the South. It is obvious that South Koreans do not want to reunite with DPRK, and who is to blame them for that?
Did E. Germany ever do such things as sending submarines to unload dozens of soldiers to W. Germany?

EDIT: To make myself clear, DPRK should have re-united Korea in 1950. Indeed the "ROK" had no right to exist.

But what's the point with military diversions that continuted up to 2000s?

Loz, it is very convenient for us to think that DPRK was the aggressor in the Korean war, but you have to look at the situation in Korea much more carefully before you buy into that drivel. Recall that in World War II, Kim Il Sung and his associates formed the core of Korean resistance to Japanese imperialism; once Japan was defeated, Kim Il Sung was the natural choice for leader of independent, soveriegn Korea, much like Tito or de Gaulle. South Korea, which was occupied at the last minute by US forces, never had such a resistance figure and was artificially being withheld from the unification process, with the US retaining fascist nutjobs like Synghman Rhee and other Korean collaborators with Japanese empire in the top spot of South Korea and violently suppressing Kim Il Sung supporters (who very much resembled the Viet Cong). If there is anyone who "started" the conflict in Korea, it was the US. A split Korea never had any precedent; Kim Il Sung's actions was part of a civil war that was not of the DPRK's creation.

Loz wrote:

This is absurd. Of course that the DPRK had the right to defend itself from US imperialism, but what does that have to do with them attacking the South first?
It is perfectly clear that it was the NK that started the war.

I'm just saying that NK was the aggressor here. I don't see how can you deny that?

Seen in this context, the question of who fired the first shot on 25 June 1950 takes on a much reduced air of significance. As it is, the North Korean version of events is that their invasion was provoked by two days of bombardment by the South Koreans, on the 23rd and 24th, followed by a surprise South Korean attack across the border on the 25th against the western town of Haeju and other places. Announcement of the Southern attack was broadcast over the North's radio later in the morning of the 25th.

Contrary to general belief at the time, no United Nations group—neither the UN Military Observer Group in the field nor the UN Commission on Korea in Seoul—witnessed, or claimed to have witnessed, the outbreak of hostilities. The Observer Group's field trip along the Parallel ended on 23 June. Its statements about what took place afterward are either speculation or based on information received from the South Korean government or the US military.

Moreover, early in the morning of the 26th, the South Korean Office of Public Information announced that Southern forces had indeed captured the North Korean town of Haeju. The announcement stated that the attack had occurred that same morning, but an American military status report as of nightfall on the 25th notes that all Southern territory west of the Imjin River had been lost to a depth of at least three miles inside the border except in the area of the Haeju "counter attack".

In either case, such a military victory on the part of the Southern forces is extremely difficult to reconcile with the official Western account, maintained to this day, that has the North Korean army sweeping south in a devastating surprise attack, taking control of everything that lay before it, and forcing South Korean troops to evacuate further south.

Subsequently, the South Korean government denied that its capture of Haeju had actually taken place, blaming the original announcement, apparently, on an exaggerating mili-taty officer. One historian has ascribed the allegedly incorrect announcement to "an error due to poor communications, plus an attempt to stiffen South Korean resistance by claiming a victory". Whatever actually lay behind the announcement, it is evident that very little reliance, if any, can be placed upon statements made by the South Korean government concerning the start of the war.4

There were, in fact, reports in the Western press of the attack on Haeju which made no mention of the South Korean government's announcement, and which appear to be independent confirmations of the event. The London Daily Herald, in its issue of 26 June, stated that "American military observers said the Southern forces had made a successful relieving counter-attack near the west coast, penetrated five miles into Northern territory and seized the town of Haeju." This was echoed in The Guardian of London the same day: "American officials confirmed that the Southern troops had captured Haeju."

Similarly, the New York Herald Tribune reported, also on the 26th, that "South Korean troops drove across the 38th Parallel, which forms the frontier, to capture the manufacturing town of Haeju, just north of the line. The Republican troops captured quantities of equipment." None of the accounts specified just when the attack took place.
..
On 26 June, the United States presented a resolution before the UN Security Council condemning North Korea for its "unprovoked aggression". The resolution was approved, although there were arguments that "this was a fight between Koreans" and should be treated as a civil war, and a suggestion from the Egyptian delegate that the word "unprovoked" should be dropped in view of the longstanding hostilities between the two Koreas.
(William Blum, Killing Hope, 2003)

More wasted money. Not that other countries are any better in wise use of resources of course