North Korea: A Hell of a Place

Fire of Liberty

One area that everyone should agree on is the horrific tyranny that Kim Jong Il has imposed on his people. After reading this piece by Young Howard in The San Diego Union-Tribune, one can truly understand why President Bush and John Bolton have publicly condemned the Hermit Kingdom for it Gulags, severe starvation as well as the mass human rights violations against it's people. Just read a brief snippet of Young Howards great piece:

The sadistic regime led by Kim Jong Il has developed and maintained all kinds of extreme terror machines in order to cruelly suppress any dissident opposition. They range from gulags and the forced abortion of babies of prisoners to public firing squads and execution by burning, though the latter is rare. During the extreme famine of the late 1990s when about 3 million people starved to death in North Korea, public executions were staged nearly every month in every town in order to prevent spontaneous uprisings by the local population, according to Jang Yeop Hwang, the former secretary of North Korea's ruling North Korea Workers' Party. On many occasions, some of the victim's family members came out before the executions and declared: "Though you are my son, you are a traitor and a puppet of imperialists. You therefore deserve your death."

In March, 2005, a video of a public execution in the northern part of North Korea was successfully smuggled out and viewed all over the world. One can see a wooden pole is being set up for the execution before the judge even completes his verdict. The entire process is finished in just 20 minutes with no chance for the condemned to appeal to a higher court or even to defend himself. As part of the execution ritual, stones are placed in the condemned man's mouth to prevent him from shouting criticism of the regime. His legs and arms were already broken. His crime was attempting to help North Korean people flee to China.

If the North Korean leadership is willing to do this to its people, one shudders to think what the regime is likely to do if Kim Jong Il has a bad day especially when he might have some nukes. With this at hand, the World would be better off if Kim Jong Il and his Stalinist police-state no longer existed. After seeing China's weak effort to persuade North Korea to come to the Six Party Talks and South Korea's inability to mark Kim Jong Il as an terrible menace, I think it's time for a reassessment. While I'm not recommending a war with the North Koreans, I think its time to impose harsher sanctions on the North or establish a naval blockade that will cut off their lifeline. I might be "mis-underestimating" President Bush on this one but from the looks of it, Kim Jong Il is sitting on the edge of the shallow end of the diplomatic pool just dipping his feet in the water afraid to get in. If he's waiting for ole GWB to pull him into the shallow end and make a bilateral deal like he did for Clinton and Christopher Perry (that he broke) then he needs better advisors. My suggestion is to remove this stain on humanity before he hurts us. I know in one of the corners of Donald Rumsfeld's or President Bush's desk is a contingency plan for removing Kim Jong Il. Let's leave it to them to figure that one out.