Carter says it's a human rights violation for US, S. Korea to withhold food aid to North Korea

[The Northerner]

In Seoul, ex-U.S. president Carter says it's a human rights violation for US, S. Korea to withhold food aid to N. Korea - Reuters

Source: http://www.breakingnews.com/item/ahBicmVha2luZ25ld3Mtd3d3cg0LEgRTZWVkGJrVjwMM/2011/04/28/in-seoul-ex-us-president-carter-says-its-a-human-rights-violation-for-us-s-korea-to-withhold-food-aid-to-n-korea-reuters

[WatsonT]

1. North Korea is a human rights violation

we shouldn't be obligated to prop up that regime.

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Getting food to them does not prop it up. If anything, it undermines it.

Hungry people might rebel. Starving people never do. They don't have the will or strength to stand against their own government.

Feeding the starving does nothing worse than save lives.

[WatsonT]

6. Feeding the hungry would be nice

but that's not what happens.

Kim Jong il withholds the food and uses it to feed the army and his political supporters. Then he sells whatever he cares to to bring in foreign capital.

[PVnRT]

7. I wonder, though

how much of that food aid actually gets to people there, and how much is just swallowed up (literally) by the inner circle and other bureaucrats? Frankly, I have a hard time believing that North Koreans can rebel, given the nature of their government and how friendly China is towards that government.

[bighart]

2. Yeah well so is blowing up stuff with unmanned drones

but we are escalating that policy by leaps and bounds.

[Scuba]

3. Hey, it's working so well in Cuba, why not?

[gratuitous]

5. Of course it is

But because food aid doesn't blow people up, it's not really something the United States is interested in. Our national religion is the High Church of Redemptive Violence, and the only intervention we understand has to go boom.

[malaise]

8. That's because Carter believes

in all those human rights thingies!! :sarcasm:

[Rebubula]

9. Perhaps he is correct

However, sending food to North Korea is rife with problems. Mostly that the food will likely never get close to the people that really need the food.


North Korea created these problems itself - OK...Kim Jong Ill created the problem. This is NOT a natural disaster or plague - it is a dictator that steals food from his people to prop himself up.

I feel for the people trapped in North Korea - but sending food is wasting time, effort and food.

[robcon]

10. Huh? It's a human rights violation NOT to provide aid?

Since when? Does Haiti (to choose a country that has food production and distribution problems) have to provide food aid, too?

What are his 'principles'... is it a violation if any country in the whole world doesn't provide aid to North Korea? Does North Korea have to do anything to 'deserve' the aid?

I think Jimmy Carter has gone over the edge.