Definitely opposing the invasions and probably praising the "reunification" of Korea.
That being said I do see the anti-war movement seriously divided over Korea.
Bush vs. The Axis of Evil - TL
That being said I do see the anti-war movement seriously divided over Korea.
Speaking of which, we could have North Korea be the first country formally expelled from the United Nations ITTL (Apartheid South Africa was merely suspended and the “Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” got booted from the UN and forced to reapply due to issues with state succession).
Sorairo has already done this in the Death of Russia timeline, I recall that North Korea was expelled after using biological weapons against the Far Eastern Republic in the Battle of Vladivostok, but he could very well re-use this ITTL, I have zero problems with it.
I recall that South Africa was prevented from being expelled due to the UK vetoing it?
That's correct, with China politely abstaining from such a move to expel the DPRK.
IIRC, the US and France also voted against such an expulsion in the UNSC.
There are not a lot of realistic-ish "ends" to North Korea that alternate history/military thriller writers can come up with, North Korea either reunites with the South (never happening ITTL after the mass killings, mass rapes, and child abductions, now ITTL South Koreans don't even view North Koreans as humans, much less as fellow Koreans), or it falls under American/UN/South Korean occupation (China will never allow US military troops on its border, and South Korea no longer cares about reunification), or the most likely, China gets fed up with everything, invades North Korea before the Americans/South can invade it, and turns it into its own full-blown puppet state, this post-Kim Dynasty North Korea remains a dictatorship, but it is a less insane and more pragmatic dictatorship.
Or, you could have a mixture of both of the latter ones, like this map below, where China does invades North Korea, but only after the ROK and US armies have already pushed a lot into its territory, so China tries to get their remaining share before ROK and US troops reach their border, meanwhile, Pyongyang (that is presumably a wasteland looking even worse than the 1951-1952 US bombings of the city, assuming that chemical/biological/nuclear weapons were used in their 1945 Berlin-esque last stand) falls under UN administration, in an anti-climactic and ironic end:
A scenario that I do not see being used a lot in Second Korean War scenarios, is of North Korea saying "fuck it" and committing suicide by attacking China with its biological/chemical/nuclear weapons, as a final "fuck you" before it inevitably falls to the PLA, since in their view, China has betrayed North Korea by "siding with the Americans" and treacherous Southerners, so they wish to go out in a blaze of glory by attacking their northern traitor.
Although in the Death of Russia, once PLA troops invaded North Korea, there was very few fighting between PLA and KPA troops, the majority of starving KPA troops simply surrendered or defected, but since ITTL, Juche is all but shown as if it is an Islamic extremist-esque religious belief in its own right in this alt-War on Terror, Kim could try to get his most fanatical loyalists to attack China like how he got suicide bombers to blow themselves up in the name of Kim Il-Sung in the World Cup stadium, in TDOR, the Fascists in Petrograd only groomed and trusted the most fanatically devout racists to nuke the non-Russian areas of what remained of the Russian state.
The reports of KPA soldiers committing suicide also makes me fear that Pyongyang might pull a 1945 Berlin, Okinawa suicide cliffs, or Jonestown, but with mass suicides on an even bigger scale, if North Korea is faced with imminent annihilation by ROK and US troops, the former of which are bloodthirsty for revenge and had become just as brutal as the invading KPA troops, "if they seize us they're going to enslave us and torture our children, so let's go out in a blaze of glory" is the logic here, while Kim is getting more and more mentally unhinged in his Führerbunker.
In TDOR, once it was invaded by China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea still retained its previous name, did not lose any territory (minus no unification), the Worker's Party of Korea was still in complete control of the state and society, and it was now being propped up by their long-term ally and self-proclaimed Socialist and anti-Western country, it was still North Korea but just without the Kims, so it was much easier for the North Korean establishment and society to accept this new reality, but being faced with humiliating defeat by the Americans and South Koreans isn't.
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Probably the same way that anisemites are justifying the October 7th Hamas attacks.
"Something something American puppet state something something colonialism something something brave resistance against occupation something something."
As for the atrocitied, they'll either pretend that they aren't happening or that the South Koreans deserve it for fighting "for the evil inperialist America", depending on their level of delusion.
I'm not happy that the awful Moonies are taking advantage of the situation. On top of all the bloodshed, that cancerous sect will be ruining Korea and Japan.
Yeah....
Not if the Neocons let it flourished too much. Same as Taliban and Assad.
This is why Galloway is (somewhat) right, but of course when the other option is to let South Korea brutalized by the North, there is no other way.....
The basic breakdown of non-Republican America is like this:
1) We support the troops: The Joe Biden/Liberman wing of the Democrat Party, holding off on any major criticism of the President apart from not taking the war seriously enough, not reversing the tax cuts, etc.
2) The Iran and Korean conflicts are just, going through Iraq was stupid: The position of a certain aspiring senator in Illinois
3) Invading Iran was wrong, Iraq disgraceful, and this led to the Korean invasion which is a just war since our boys were attacked: The position of the respectable anti-war Left, Senator Wellstone holds this position as well as Dennis Kucinich.
4) All three conflicts have America in the wrong or were all America's fault: The Noam Chomsky position - while this element certainly gained prominence IOTL in the mid/late 00s it's actually more subdued here because the Korean invasion was so monstrous.
The problem is that these groups are significantly at odds with each other and the Right has mostly consolidated, especially after the introduction of a Communist country to the fray. So at the moment the Anti-War Left is having a very hard time coordinating and are spending most of their time yelling at each other, especially over Korea. The Democrat base is mostly split between two and three but is moving more anti-war, not less.
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The saner ones, especially with how utterly divergent Juche has become compared to the Soviet model or even Maoist China, would probably go "Juche isn't true communism, I swear to Marx", the more insane ones, OTOH, would either be justifying or glorifying it.
Given the author of the extract is a reference to a character in the show featured in the below clip, this would likely be just as appropriate.
It's Hitchens losing himself - while the American audience won't understand it, Hitchens and Galloway very much will (especially Hitchens given he was in Cuba at the time of the Prague Spring and remembers the disconnect between the average Cuban and the Castro regime on the issue) - it was certainly in common usage in the British Left since at least the 1980s. Hitchens isn't talking to the presenter or audience anymore, he was talking directly to Galloway.
I also hope at least some found the surrealism in Galloway suddenly hating Assad because of his Western alignment.
Hitchens's lodestar was his concept of freedom, one in which he considered the Abrahamic God particularly antithetical due to the impossibility of escape (hence his description of Christianity's world as 'A Celestial North Korea'). He considered his alignment with the Neocons on the issue an extension of Trotsykism's calls for world revolution by invading and regime changing the least free parts of the world, and indeed anithetical to conservatism itself since he wasn't 'conserving' anything but remaking - he did not extend this revision of his views back to justifying American intervention in the Vietnam War which I find contradictory. Hitchens very much remained on the Left all his life, his last words being 'Smash Capitalism', and he considered himself in the same line as Orwell.
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Regarding the repeal of Article 9, I would say that it will not be a serious problem unless someone decides to make it a serious problem.
I mean, of course, that another country decides to start protesting and try to make a international fuss about it.
Except there are no candidates available to do such a thing: the usual suspects, the United States and South Korea, are too manpower-starved to protest when they need Japanese support.
North Korea's opinion does not matter to anyone, and in fact their protest could lead to GREATER support for the repeal of Article 9.
Something similar will probably happen with China: even if they protest, no one will pay attention to them, because they are China and They are too close to North Korea.
The rest of the neighbors are more concerned about the threat from China than any hypothetical Japanese resurgence, so they are probably willing to tolerate it if it means Japan will distract China from trying to threaten them.
This assumes going for full repeal, which I find doubtful: I think it's more likely to simply interpret Article 9 more broadly rather than unnecessarily alienating the Japanese population by trying to repeal it.
I mean, of course, that another country decides to start protesting and try to make a international fuss about it.
Except there are no candidates available to do such a thing: the usual suspects, the United States and South Korea, are too manpower-starved to protest when they need Japanese support.
North Korea's opinion does not matter to anyone, and in fact their protest could lead to GREATER support for the repeal of Article 9.
Something similar will probably happen with China: even if they protest, no one will pay attention to them, because they are China and They are too close to North Korea.
The rest of the neighbors are more concerned about the threat from China than any hypothetical Japanese resurgence, so they are probably willing to tolerate it if it means Japan will distract China from trying to threaten them.
This assumes going for full repeal, which I find doubtful: I think it's more likely to simply interpret Article 9 more broadly rather than unnecessarily alienating the Japanese population by trying to repeal it.
Article 9 probably gets amended to allow for a defensive military with limitations to allowed weapon types. That will not piss off reasonable politicians in East Asian countries.
I mean, that’s what they already have IRL
I can see them going even faster and further than IRL. Earlier return to carrier aviation, probably allowing cruise missiles, and major expansion of all branches of the SDF.
And on that note, a similar clause in the Italian Constitution is a thing yet Italy has a de jure Armed Forces.I mean, that’s what they already have IRL
Speaking of which, will he still have a fatal plane crash or would it be butterflied, with how you explicitly noted him as holding such a position?
Also people haven't commented on this yet:
Nice Spy × Family reference right there, but the main focus that I have in this title is that I originally misread the name of the book as "The Last Days of Sodom", pretty apt name for what is happening in Iraq.