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A comment on US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea blockchain presentation. Parent comment

Re:US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea b... by tptacek on Wednesday April 13, 2022 @05:47PM (#31020707)
We should not continue the Cuba embargo. It serves no public policy purpose. We should continue and enhance sanctions on North Korea, which actively works to destabilize the rest of the world, unlike Cuba. Iran is a trickier case, but on balance the world would be better off with more normalized relations with Iran, and its trajectory forward after normalization would very likely be better than it is with sanctions. The opposite is true of North Korea.

You can disagree with any or all of this, but the underlying point is: we are within our rights to coordinate sanctions on any country for a diversity of reasons.

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Re:US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea b... by s1artibartfast on Wednesday April 13, 2022 @08:31PM (#31022042)
>You can disagree with any or all of this,

I really appreciate you staking concrete positions on the countries. I mostly agree, but am on the fence about north Korea.

>You can disagree with any or all of this, but the underlying point is: we are within our rights to coordinate sanctions on any country for a diversity of reasons.

I think this is where we differ. Modern sanctions means we take everything that the opposition cant militarily stop us from taking. We seize bank accounts, ships, planes, loaned assets, all without respect for ownership.

In the might makes right context, yeah, we are within our rights. But this is in the realpolitik sphere where I have the right to murder every person that cant stop me.

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Re:US sentences crypto expert to 5 years after North Korea b... by tptacek on Wednesday April 13, 2022 @08:54PM (#31022194)
If there was a real system of international law, I'd have more sympathy for this position. But there isn't.

Sanctions always involve balancing interests, and it's worth calling out that they have costs even when we believe we're right. But the balance of interests for all of humanity strongly favors sanctioning the DPRK.

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