Well, as predicted, North Korea has totally got away with the murder of 40 odd South Korean sailors. The UN has issued a totally anaemic comment that does not blame North Korea for the sinking of the Cheonan, even though a multi-national investigation concluded beyond reasonable doubt that NK was guilty. This has enabled the gruesome NK regime to crow “victory”.
It seems that China insisted on no blame being attached to North Korea as a condition of the UN statement being issued.
One can only conclude that A) China is ignoring and/or condoning this murder, and is therefore complicit in it and B), the free world doesn’t really give a damn because their business with China overrides all else, in particular morality.
They – and Obama in particular – seem not to understand that A) you never cower before bullies and B) China needs us as much as if not more than we need them.
The North Korea regime is an obscene and tyrannical scar on the planet and has brought unimaginable suffering to its people for long decades. Many of its citizens have been born and died without ever knowing freedom, either of travel or of the mind. If the free world cannot make a firm and principled stand over this then it shames all of us.
Obama is a major disappointment. Here, as in US relations with Israel, I see no intention of standing up for what is right, i.e. freedom, democracy, self-determination and justice. How long must we wait for real statesmanship in the free world?
But is Kim-Jong Il (leader of North Korea) insane or just clever?
Or of course both?
There is after all no rationale or logic to the NK gulag, merely the survival of its gruesome regime.
For this the brainwashed people’s attention needs to be constantly diverted away from the utterly-bleak moral, intellectual, spiritual and physical deprivation of their lives to some external enemy. And of course if no such enemy exists, then it is necessary to invent or – in this case – provoke one.
I would not be surprised if some sort of hostilities broke out, if not from calculation then from miscalculation, as NK is playing a dangerous game.
Could this at last be the turning point we who identify with the NK prisoners have long waited for? The sanctions will definitely hurt an already tottering NK economy (if you can call it that). Even the North Koreans, past-masters at brinkmanship, had one day to overplay their hand, as there are hints that they may have now done.
And should hostilities occur, while no doubt they could initially do a great deal of damage to Seoul I wonder if – like all such shoddy regimes – it could all fall apart like a pack of cards?
It is not only the NK people who are habitually starved – NK soldiers are also reported to be undernourished and low on morale. And what have the people to fight for? Merely to support the regime’s continued existence on a diet of fine foods, fast cars and other imported luxuries while they starve?
But as ever, all depends on China, which materially and politically supports NK, which is in effect no more than a vast prison camp led by a bloody, murderous gang of utter scum who must surely one day have their Nuremberg (or perhaps Mussolini/Ceausescu) moment.
This alone begs the question of why the free world so constantly sucks up to China and more importantly sustains its economy by buying its artificially-cheap products.
Yes, the land of the free and home of the brave is the major trading partner of a dictatorship that could put an end to the North Korean people’s suffering, but chooses not to. Not only that, any poor soul managing to escape from their NK prison is sent back by the Chinese. You couldn’t make it up …..
The total triumph of greed for cheaper washing-machines and thousands of tons of shoddy plastic artefacts versus support for an entire and utterly oppressed people?
As for the Chinese, one can imagine them inwardly seething at its ally’s (Christ, what a shameful fact) lunacy. For China can in this case no longer sit on the fence. The unprovoked murder of 46 innocent South Koreans has put them on the spot. Ban Ki Moon himself is making angry noises.
Can China REALLY afford a situation where it is NK & China against the entire rest of the world? The next few days will tell, but if – as one fears – China as usual delays and obfuscates, then where will Obama and Clinton sit? The fence is exceedingly uncomfortable, after all.
Some final points. It is often said (principally I believe by China itself) that it fears an NK collapse and mass immigration into China by its people. Surely this is silly? There might WELL be a big exodus in the case of all-out fighting, but I believe this would be brief and, of course, after it is all over the South would take over and – as in Germany – do whatever was necessary to reunite and help all the people. And the idea that NK refugees would feel they had better prospects in China rather than a reunified and free Korea is bizarre.
No, China is still trapped by its post-revolutionary insanity and inhumanity. Oh God, please free them from the chains of their past and from their obsession with not losing face ……
An optimist (are there any left?) might see these latest events as the death throes of the world’s most horrible regime. A pessimist will consider the latest posturings as just another scene in the longest-running political tragedy of our generation. I am in this case an optimist, but of course one who has usually been disappointed.
POSTSCRIPT: I notice that a NK football team just drew 2-2 in an international “friendly” with Greece. Can anyone explain why the West banned sport with South Africa over apartheid but seems to rejoice in allowing sport with North Korea?
The apartheid regime was nasty; no problems with the boycott for me. But there is no comparison in the awfulness of NK with the old SA regime, nasty though it was. Do the Greek footballers have ANY idea of the barbarity of the NK regime? How can Greece – home of democracy – PLAY with representatives of mass-murderers? A serious reality check is in order here.
The Prize for “Understatement of the Century” has just been awarded to the following statement, even though the century has barely begun. The Awarding Committee decided that no other comment could ever possibly be made that could come close to beating this one from the leader of North Korea.
Kim Jong II
That being said, there was one other entry that had the judges briefly interested: “Gordon Brown is the worst Prime Minister in British History”, but in the end the NK leader won out, since the committee felt that Ethelred the Unready was worse, even if he was usually more ready than Gordon Brown.
Last month Mr Kim said: “We have already reached the status of a strong country in the military field, let alone politics and ideology, but there are still quite a number of things lacking in people’s lives.“
Learning from Dogs 
