Some say he was trying to form a government within the government sort of deal. Personally, I think it was just to prove a point.

What point? That the new boss is every bit as crazy as the old boss?

It depends very much on who actually had him killed, of course. It is entirely possible that Kim Jong-un's puppet masters are making the point to Kim Jong-un that he either keeps in line or his Christmas card list will shrink considerably.

Pure speculation, of course.

Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree

A perfect thread for an Orwell quote dare I say

There's some talk that Jang was a reformist who wanted economic development, but the Party and Kim favoured hard-fisted military rule instead, and so they purged him out because of the conflicting ideologies.

Or maybe Kim just got scared that Jang was getting too powerful.

All threads benefit from an Orwell quote.

All benefits benefit from bad writing and/or plagiarism?

*threads

Economic reform does not entail death: economic reform IS death.

"All benefits benefit from bad writing and/or plagiarism? "

Thanks. ;-)

Point is he was arrested right in the middle of a meeting, and killed off two days later. That's some serious hate someone's got.

"We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men" Orwell

Go on, Putin, find me a thread which wouldn't benefit from that ;)

^I think Elvis has left the building for a nap and will be back with a perplexing defense of N-Korean politics when he gets back.

I don't think even Putin could defend the execution of family members... although at this time of year I see the appeal.

Just know that you are not alone. Perhaps the execution of a naughty uncle every Christmas could really give the party the Stalinist touch the occasion seems to require in these economically difficult times.

Seriously guys, don't act like Kim Jong-Un is the only one that's ever felt like killing all of his relatives around the holidays.

KCNA said in a news release that "despicable human scum Jang, who was worse than a dog, perpetrated thrice-cursed acts of treachery in betrayal of such profound trust and warmest paternal love shown by the party and the leader for him." (read this on Al Jazeera)
Apparently one of the charges against him was "clapping unenthusiastically".

The threshold for killing someone in a totalitarian/authoritarian system like that is much lower than needing to prove a point or punish treason. I reckon that fundamentally, Kim Jong-Un just decided he didn't actually need Jang Song-thaek anymore, so he discarded him. Doing so publicly might also "prove a point", but that's a side effect.

Maybe it happened because Jang got Kim a Lufsig doll for Christmas

We'll never know "why" since North Korea is a closed society with a secret government. It is pretty obvious, however, that this is some sort of power play by someone in the regime. The charges against Jang can't be completely true since they're just too bizarre, but he very well could have been behind some sort of plot. In a country that exercises generational punishment for political crimes it's odd to so publicly denounce an inner member of the Kim clan if nothing's going on.

The thing to take away is that this is just another example of how this authoritarian, wicked government perpetuates itself through savage infighting while the people at large suffer.

Invictus hangs around with plenty of North Koreans and has been to North Korea so obviously he knows.

Did the West gnash their teeth like this when Suharto slaughtered half a million people after a supposed countercoup?

No, they gave him more weapons and laughed about it.

You're at your most ridiculous when you try and defend the indefensible North Korean regime, Putin33.

You're at your most ridiculous when you try and beat war drums against countries you know nothing about, Invictus.

This exchange was completely unexpected

What war drums?

It still strikes me as weird that a committed communist like yourself can continue to support a monarchy like North Korea.

Like I said, you know nothing about the DPRK you just spew hatred like you do with every country on the planet that isn't a puppet of Washington.

They changed the constitution in 2013 so that the party and country must always be lead by the Kim family. How is that not a monarchy?

You're just a useful idiot who licks the backside of every dictator on Earth so long as he's vaguely left wing or sufficiently anti-American/Atlanticist.

He's not a communist, Invictus, he's just anti-US. As long as the country doesn't like us, he likes them.