@JanJal: Okay, I take your points - although I don't see how greed has kept us from war - in fact it hasn't, there are wars in many places - anyway it's impossible to change the past. As for stability, elites ruin it both among nations and within them, sooner or later, and it seems obvious to me that this can't go on into the future, which is really the only important question.
I could go on, but I know I'm drifting from the topic at hand.

To answer mikes question of what happens to 'us' and whether you get kicked out...
If war breaks out, you can say goodbye to any rules or givens. Your religion, ethnicity or background alone may determine your destiny in the hands of the peeved

@ vicar: not sure about no rules or givens, but I agree with you about religion, ethnicity or background - however, I'd add nationality, as that's the prime prejudice and control system in the world these days.

Might add class, too.

For example, "greed" of multinational economic interests was foundation for current stability and peace in western Europe.

Same could perhaps be said about economic relationships between newly declared independent USA and European powers.

When two or more countries are economically linked, ultimately by greed of businessmen, those countries are less likely to attack each other.

The roots for current EU were built after the war, when businessmen considered that integrating economies and market forces between nations would make it impossible for those nations to go to war against each other again. It has worked pretty well there.

And I argue the same has happened between China and western countries, which affects China's possible plays toward DPRK or potential military US intervention there.

If US does strike DPRK, China can lodge complaints, but they have more to lose economically by becoming heavily involved on DPRK side, than if they didn't.

www.counterpunch.org/[...]
“In the early 1950s, during the Korean War, the US dropped more bombs on North Korea than it had dropped in the entire Pacific theater during World War II. This carpet bombing, which included 32,000 tons of napalm, often deliberately targeted civilian as well as military targets. Whole cities were destroyed, with many thousands of innocent civilians killed and many more left homeless and hungry.”

Was any of that bombing campaign by USA somehow a contributing factor to how the Kim regime controls their population?

Lot of shit went on in 50s and years to come, in Korea and elsewhere, but where are we now, and what can we do about it?

I remember being in Ukraine in July 1994 as a Peace Corps Volunteer learning that Kim Il Sung had died. The Soviet Union had collapsed 3 years prior, and before that was the democratic movement here in Beijing.

Communism and it's autocratic leaders, like Ceausescu in Romania, were on their way out. When I mentioned Kim's death to my Ukrainian friend he said something like, "Good, let the world finally be free of such tyrants." There was a real feeling then that N. Korea might change for the better. 23 years later now the situation looks much worse.

I feel sorry for the South Koreans who are attached at the hip with the North. They are the targets if war breaks out.

I feel sorry for the South Koreans who are attached at the hip with the North. They are the targets if war breaks out.