UN Sanctions Forbid North Korea Hockey Players Getting Hockey Sticks

US Sanctions Likely Preclude Them Getting Uniforms

When the US and UN try to impose new sanctions on North Korea, as they do every few weeks, the question that inevitably rises is: what’s left to sanction. The Winter Olympics are underscoring just how far this has already gone.

Just participating in the hockey event is a challenge. North Korea is forbidden, by UN sanctions, from buying hockey sticks, because they’re “recreational sporting equipment.” In past events, North Korean participants have had to borrow all sticks, and return them before leaving.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. North Korea also has to find a third party to supply uniforms for them, because the uniform sponsor, Nike, is afraid that doing business with them will violate US sanctions.

Across North Korea’s participation, this is a recurring problem. The singers and dancers they agreed to send are coming by ship, but the ship may not have enough fuel. Buying fuel would be in violation of the sanctions, so the ship is stuck en route.

Samsung is giving all the Olympics participants Galaxy Note 8 phones, but some are claiming they count as “dual use” because of their processing power and GPS capabilities. The suggestion again is North Korea might be forced to give phones back at the end of the event.

Olympic games are meant to be a time to emphasize international cooperation, and while North Korea’s involvement started as an exemplar of sports diplomacy, increasingly it underscores just how obscene the anti-North Korea sanctions already are, and how petty they’ve become.

19 thoughts on “UN Sanctions Forbid North Korea Hockey Players Getting Hockey Sticks”

  1. Because it is the product of pagan ethos, short term thinking, based on hedonistic impulses of greed, viciousness, fear, and the demonization of all others that deny the pleasures of glorious domination. Pagan is either boastful, greedy hedonist, or a furious, viscious creature demanding what is owed them by their bsrgsin with gods. And in defeat, tearful vicims, having no capability to assess their own share in the disaster. Snd when psganism descends into barbarity, nobody can help the mankind. For all its professed Christianity, Europe is still in many ways guided by pagan ethos. Both world wars stsrted in Europe, and no compromise was posdible until tens of millions people — lost lives. One pagan goals are established, the urge to kill mercilessly takes over,
    room for compromise no longer exists, until one side is vanquished, and no face saving exists. One side indulges in hedonistic orgy of boastfulness, while the other is plundered, humiliated, and subjected to long term oppression and exploitation. Germany just paid off their WWI penalties, and WWII is still on going. American policy making departed early in from its Christian roots, and embraced European quasi Christianity, and later, as a part of an ongoing Israel project, became even deeper inmersed in pagan ethos of Judaism. What is left of Christian ethis is instinctively rejecting pagan logic, but in US, the overwhelming power of pagan media, corporate greed and vicious competition, pagan urge to dominate or be vanquished, are erasing even the most fundamental sense of justice and humanity. So why is it that Christian ethos would have made more sense in today’s increasingly globalised world? Because it is fundamentally an ethos of the equality of all human beings, and the foundation of justice, development of legal norms and institutions, and the nation-state legal structure respecting the principle of fences that make good neighbors. It is always in history of mankind that pagan ethos of elites entrusted to msnage societies, that are the cause of setbacks in the history of mankind. The elite greed and the narcissism prevails, and they always underestimate the effort to vanquish their enemy. Then, as pagans always do, fight to exaustion, with no regard to the millions they sent into the meatgrinder. Because elites always find the way to keep their loot after all is said and done. And we are still at it. Europe, Japan and south Korea are not free. Their economic development is abridged, and under continuous military occupation. Si, is there an slternative to pagsn ethos in international relations? There is, but it will take a long time to become a competing model, outside of its own circle of members. Shanghai Cooperstion Organization principles are something new and promising. It is not new in the arena of gials, but it is very new in the arena of actual implementation. It is based on diversity, equal rights of big and small, of golden tule in relationships, do no harm approach to problem solving.

      1. Meltdown; she thinks “Pagans” are the cause of all evil in the world.

        It was Greco-Roman pagan religion that laid the foundations and traditions of logical reasoning and objective, unbiased inquiry. It’s from Norse and Celtic New Year core values of kinship and friendship that make Christmas special, over and above commercialized trees, wreaths, mistletoe and gift giving. Its from North American pagan heathen aboriginals that we celebrate the North American harvest at Thanksgiving. This particular Christian pastiche was particularly brutal; Thanksgiving originally celebrated white massacres of natives.

        The perversion of positive Western and North American heathen, pagan traditions to serve a single foreign deity in the image of a Middle Eastern despot that brought nothing to the table but jealousy and denial of the other has had sad effects.

  2. I agree with your characterization completely Jason. This doesn’t hurt North Korea or Iran all that much. What it does is show the world that despite all its wealth, power, and resources, the United States Govt has the mentality of a street thug.

    1. I totally agree with both you and Jason; this insanity doesn’t hurt the DPRK or Iran one bit; what it does is show the world that despite all its wealth, power and resources, the USG, indeed, has the mentality of a street thug.
      It didn’t use to be this way when its Founders sat down and drew up its Constitution. They intended the new nation to be a Constitutional Republic, with the Central Gov’t in control of only foreign policy and commerce, as well as defending it from external forces .. All the other powers belonged to the individual states. Also, any state could secede if it wanted to, but it wasn’t until after Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1960 that the Southern States seceded, and the war between the North and the South began in the spring of 1861. It was Lincoln who destroyed the 10th Amendment (States’ Rights), that let the USG to what it is today.

  3. Well you have to be a little careful giving the North Koreans Samsung phones. I understand they built a rocket that could launch a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 2000 kilometers.

  4. What is the purpose behind sanctioning North Korea from buying recreational sporting equipment? What possible purpose does that serve? If I were one of those losers who are terrified of North Korea I think I’d rather have them playing hockey or ping-pong instead of working on a rocket, huh? On the other hand, doesn’t the North Korean hockey team already have hockey sticks and other equipment? Why not just bring theirs?

    1. Er, the article mentioned shortages in NK of such equipment. They break or lose any stuff, and its gone.

      It thus makes more sense to borrow equipment when playing abroad, and, anything they borrow abroad technically can’t even be taken back as gifts, because that too would violate sanctions.

  5. Those anti-NK protesters burning NK flags and screaming “Go back” belong to the far-right oxymoronic Korean Patriots Party, likely all bought and paid for by Western non-Koreans.

    Indigenous reunification plans had better take into account South Korean “Stay behind” units, secret militias based on the NATO GLADIO example.

  6. Same with the Russians. The no doubt Independent and Not Kissing Washington Nutsack international Olympic Committee tried to ban Russia from the game. I guess the Team USA feel the only way they can win is if the Russians
    don’t compete. Here’s my take.Awwww… ‘merican athletes don’t get the
    competition eliminated so they’ll have to actually earn any victory.
    Team USA, you can do your gig better than I do. Not that I give three
    quarters of a fat rat’s left testicle, it’s GAMES. If you ever do
    something worthwhile in life, something that actually makes a difference
    to the world or the U.S. … Remember summer games 1972? I do. The U.S.
    basketball team lost by a couple of points to the Russians in what the
    Team Crybaby U.S.A. say was a bad call from the referees, so they as a
    team refused to take the Silver medal and still do. Get over yourselves,
    REAL pro basketball teams have the same thing every week. They don’t
    spend the next 45 years whining about it. Grow Up already. I’m going to
    put this on the NotMyTribe blog here in Colorado Springs.

    Now, for a little more abusive Truth: Remember the “Miracle on Ice”
    nonsense? Where Reagan actually took the credit for the work of the
    athletes and the Stupid Party every 4 years play that stupid movie,
    glorifying it as proof that America is somehow better than Russia
    because of a game which kids play for fun. So, tell me, O
    Non-enlightened Ones, arbiters of all Truth… if the U.S. team beat the
    Russians means Americans are better than Russians, oh and by the way
    there were referee calls that may or maybe not helped the Team U.S.A.,
    why didn’t the Soviets go on a multiple-decades crying spree.? Maybe the
    Russians showed themselves to be a little bit more mature.

    And the basketball GAME a decade back ‘proved’ (by stupid party logic)
    that Russia is better or America worse, really? No, it did NOT. You want
    to show something REAL, how about the FACT there’s homeless AMERICAN
    PEOPLE camps/Hoovervilles right across Fountain Creek from your training
    center right here in the Springs. In a ‘bull market’ that lasted about 9
    years of subsidized but somehow “free market” (only for those who are
    already rich) and you saw it every day when you were “working” out. You
    don’t care about the People and you never did. Go cry to your mommas
    about that bad man refusing to endorse your team. Let me know if you
    ever do anything relevant.I put this on my blog, and craigslist, and yahoo news. There will be hate words thrown my way. Eh… about the only hate speech that can harm me is if I’m walking down the street, a cop cruiser is passing by and some joker points at me and says “He’s Got A Gun!”

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