So now we have the mystery of the missing “Dear Leader” of North Korea, Kim Jong Il, who did not show up in public Tuesday for the 60th anniversary parade to mark the founding of the modern world’s most brutally repressive state.
Is Kim alive? Is he dead? Has he had a stroke? Who knows? There’s even a story making the rounds that Kim died five years ago, and well-trained doubles have been filling in for the rotund tyrant — in which case someone behind the scenes has been doing a thorough job of keeping alive the tradition in which Pyongyang ruling elite swill cognac, build nuclear weapons and extort aid, cash and concessions from the U.S. while millions of ordinary North Koreans starve.
Whatever’s become of the elusive Kim, his current vanishing act highlights the willful idiocy of U.S. policy that has sought, first under President Clinton, and again during the second term of President Bush, to strike nuclear disarmament deals with North Korea that depend on Kim’s promises of future cooperation. The problem is not solely determining whether Kim himself is alive or dead, but that nothing issuing from him (assuming it IS him), or his regime can be trusted, and as we are now observing, it cannot even be verified.
That hasn’t stopped the Bush administration, with the Condi Rice State Department blazing the way, from sending Kim — or whoever it might be in Pyongyang — $25 million in hard cash, re-starting the Clinton era shipments of free fuel, shoveling in aid (which North Korea can all too easily divert from hungry people to its massive military machine) and ladling out a series of dipomatic concessions in hope of pleasing Kim enough so that he will at least provide a full accounting of his nuclear programs — which North Korea has yet to deliver.
More than a year-and-a-half has passed since the State Department trumpeted a breakthrough nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea — which has turned into a debacle. Just last weekend, U.S. special envoy to the Six-Party Talks, Chris Hill, was back in Beijing nattering on about the need for North Korea to provide a “verification protocol” for its nuclear ventures.
Give us a break. Step one ought to be a “verification protocol” for who’s actually in charge, and where he/they are. Step two should be the end of that regime. Not payoffs and dignification of the mystery tyrant.
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6 Comments
1. Sin-U Nam:Kim Jong-il cannot die! He should stay alive and alert until we get him. We have to bring this fat-belly murderer to justice, convict him of genocide, and then hang him like a mad dog, which he was/is all his life. He murdered his own brother when he was kid, he murdered his own father dictator because he could not wait to take over the power, and then he murdered 3 million of his own people just for the fun of it. He cannot die of natural cause just yet!
Sep 9, 2008 - 7:58 pm 2. Dave:First thing to do: Go sink the Pueblo.
Sink it without prior warning or subsequent
explanation.
It is their symbol of invulnerability. A fetish that means they cannot be harmed.
Blow it away and they are toast, starting
Sep 9, 2008 - 8:46 pm 3. The Mysterious Missing “Dear Leader” of North Korea, Kim Jong Il « Evynn’s Weblog:with Kim himself.
[...] clipped from pajamasmedia.com [...]
Sep 10, 2008 - 8:29 pm 4. knickerbocker:KJI’s possible demise adds an interesting twist to Obama’s pledge to sit down with rogue leaders without preconditions. Shouldn’t one of the preconditions be that we’re talking to the real McCoy?
Sep 11, 2008 - 6:33 pm 5. chillguy33:As the climate of Earth cools in the coming decade, and farming conditions degrade, the human tragedy in North Korea authored by Kim Jong Il and recently by Chris Hill will become vastly more costly.
It is imperative to end the communist regime in North Korea with the utmost urgency; every credible indication is that Earth is cooling.
The cost of communism in North Korea can get worse, much worse, as counted in human lives.
Chris Hill thinks the communist system is quite tolerable; he probably also thinks the Earth is warming.
Sep 17, 2008 - 6:23 pm 6. WebElf Report Blogroll News « The WebElf Report:[...] VERIFY NORTH KOREA’S Nuclear Weapons Programs?– Hey, They Can’t Even Find Kim Jong Il …. [...]
Sep 22, 2008 - 10:45 am