A Crime Syndicate With a Seat at the U.N.
Wasn’t it only yesterday when the Japanese caught a North freighter smuggling in amphetamines? Now look:
During the last two years, Japanese maritime police officers have frequently caught foreign ships leaving North Korean ports trying to smuggle fake cigarettes, the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun reported.
Citing intelligence data from satellites, the newspaper said that the fake cigarettes were at times transferred onto other ships waiting in the South Korean port of Busan or near Taiwanese waters. The foreign ships were from Cambodia, Mongolia and Taiwan.The top cigarette brand forged by North Korea was the American Marlboro. Japanese brands, such as Mild Seven and Seven Star, as well as British tobacco brands were also included in the list.
The Japanese newspaper said in its report over the weekend that North Korean manufactured cigarettes use high-quality wrapping paper, while the tobacco leaves used in the forged cigarettes are inferior to the genuine products.
Maddeningly, the Japanese didn’t seize the cargoes, as they weren’t bound for Japan. There’s more info on North Korea’s fake cigarette smugging here. I even debated former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg about the issue, in a BBC pilot that I’m told never aired. Gregg ducked the issue.
I really wish free nations would create a League of Democracies as an alternative to the UN. The UN has become such an ineffectual joke that sucks up resources and creates a false sense of moral legitimacy.
So what does are these counterfeiting activities have to do with the North Korean government? Sounds to me like just a couple of North Koreans willing to commit crimes to enrich themselves. There are criminals like these all over the world.
There are many Malaysians who commit crimes. Just last year, a couple were raided and the Malaysian police found over a million fake US dollars. Last month, the police raided an illegal online gambling site that grossed over a million dollars a month.
mahathir_fan, Asia’s answer to Forrest Gump.
Obstinate idiocy should come with a price. I say pull the plug on mahatir-fan, who insults the intellegince of all thinking people each time he touches a keyboard.
Obstinate idiocy should come with a price. I say pull the plug on mahatir-fan, who insults the intelligence of all thinking people each time he touches a keyboard.
I’m considering that, simply because (1) comments are intented to contribute to intelligent discussion and correct factual errors; (2) you can’t do either of those without reading the post on which you’re commenting, or following the links that should support facts asserted; and (3) MF’s comments repeatedly reveal that he either hasn’t read the posts and may well be trolling for reactions that provoke no serious thought and simply waste our time.
Bad discussion drives out good discussion, and we’re getting tired of being asked to prove to your vanishing satisfaction that the sky isn’t green. So comment, but only after reading the posts and proving support for rational arguments. Otherwise, you’re going to have to exercise your right to comment somewhere else.
People like ‘mahathir_fan’ exist … for a reason that has yet to be revealed to the rest of us.
It’s a fact of life.
What to do?
Live with it, I guess.
But it might be best for all of us, if we don’t ‘go for the bait’ and allow them to hijack the thread.
They’ll eventually find another playground where they can amuse themselves.
Let me just make this short. Where is the evidence that link these criminal activities to the North Korean government?
The links you provided if you read them carefully are not evidence. They are accusations.
Guys…. MF is laughing his ass off that you guys are taking him seriously. He just pushes people buttons.
I say let him post because I wouldn’t want him to use the ban as proof that censorship is a good thing.
He has the maturity of a teenager…
Which, by the way, How’s that fan club going, Mahathir_Fan? You still didn’t let me know where you keep your autographed picture of him. I know there’s some 13 year old girls that want to join as fellow groupee’s.
mahathir_fan;
Your comments will now go directly to moderation to be approved/disapproved by Joshua, James, or myself. If your comments are in the usual form – unrelated to the post/obviously made w/o reading the post – they will not be approved.
If you reform, you will again be allowed to post w/o going through moderation.
Refer to our Mission and Policy – you have the right to start your own blog, but not necessarily to comment here.
I kinda find him amusing most days. Reminds of some of my Michael Moore/Kossack Democrat brethren in D.C.
You talk to them about the American military successes, increasing competence of Iraqi forces and the growing isolation of foreign jihadis (al-Qaida and such) there.
The next thing you hear from them is not a reasoned rebuttal of the above, but literally “But Bush lied and peopled died.”
And these are the same people who claim that *I* am a “fundamentalist Christian” who is supposedly blinded by my faith to facts and logic (ah, earth to Kossacks, I am not a Christian and don’t subscribe to any organized religion for that matter).
Anway, sometimes I like having “M_F” around, because it is a reminder that 1) there are people in the world who wallow in emotionally or ideologically-motivated fantasy world where North Korea IS a workers’ paradise and 2) sometimes one has to restate the facts and reasoning clearly and concisely (say 4th grade level), because the assumption of a certain level of common knowledge does not hold with some people.
M_F is a great reminder for me that the public debate is not always among reasoned, well-informed people.
And that, as Forrest Gump said, is all I am going to say about that.
His deep commitment to his parallel universe was a marvel to behold, but he was subtracting not adding value to the “debates” he engaged in. If M_F really believed ANY of the shite he wrote, he certainly has more serious problems than his idolization of the corrupt anti-Semite demagogue from whom he took his moniker.
Perhaps. Sometimes I enjoyed reading some of the responses to his ideas. Certainly not all, but some of the responses were very concise, articulate summaries of reality.
A suggestion:
It would make my life a lot easier if this site would change its layout by posting the name of the author of the comment at the beginning of the comment, vice the end.
If this were to be done, it would expedite my scrolling down past the known trolls, rather than ‘suffering through’ yet another mahathir_fan screed.