Same country. New idiot.
Posted on 01/03/2012 3:36:28 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Kim Jong-il's Death Is a Blessing
Kim Jong-il's death may be seen as having increased uncertainties in North Korea, but I think the exact opposite is true. The uncertainties in the North have stemmed primarily from Kim's self-obsession and obstinacy. North Korea's elite all seem to view reforms as the only way for the country to survive, but Kim executed anyone who dared to say so.
Strained ties with South Korea are also due to the idiotic choices Kim made without going through a rational process of discussion and decision-making. As a result, his death has eliminated a measure of uncertainty and makes it easier for the world to predict the changes that may happen in North Korea, raising hopes that things will change for the better.
I was most concerned that Kim, who had a massive stroke in mid 2008, would carry on ruling for a prolonged period of time in a weakened mental state. When he was healthy, Kim took calculated gambles that had potential solutions even when he made the most radical moves, so that he would not end up digging his own grave. But nobody knew what calamities Kim was willing to cause once his mind was gone. His sudden death is a blessing.
North Korea said Kim died of a heart attack, but it seems to have been caused by tremendous stress. That stress came from his own wrong choices. Kim had got deeply involved in the last presidential election in South Korea and bet everything on the pro-North Korean candidate winning. He even sent Kim Yang-gon, the director of the United Front Department of the Workers Party, to the South in the final months of the Roh Moo-hyun administration to check the prospects of the progressive camp staying in power.
He was so shocked when conservative candidate Lee Myung-bak won that he spent the next year without formulating any coherent policy to deal with the new government in Seoul. Inter-Korean contacts took place during this time, but Kim was enraged by the new quid-quo-pro approach taken by the South, which contrasted starkly with the generous stance of the previous government in terms of aid and cross-border projects. Kim became obsessed with defeating Lee and began pursuing a consistent hard-line policy. South Korean tourist Park Wang-ja was shot and killed by North Korean soldiers at the Mt. Kumgang resort, the Navy corvette Cheonan was sunk and Yeonpyeong Island shelled. And he meddled in anti-government and anti-U.S. protests in South Korea, seeking to destabilize the government. But Lee stuck his guns and ended up winning the war of nerves.
Although Lee did not aggressively seek to topple the North Korean regime, he halted aid that had been used by Pyongyang to bolster its military power. North Korea's elite were shocked when cash and food from the South were suddenly cut off, but they were unable to convince Kim to change his ways. The botched currency reform in November 2009 angered North Koreans from all walks of life. The closures of markets, which were the only means of survival once state rations had stopped, drove the North's economy further into ruin, and Kim passed on an empty shell of an economy to his son Jong-un. If Kim Jong-un does not undertake bold reforms, he will have to pay for his father's blunders very soon.
By Kang Chol-hwan from the Chosun Ilbo's News Desk
P!
Sounds like what will happen to Democrats when the entitlement checks stop rolling in.
"Paging Captain Obvious"
And John Murtha died in a Navy Hospital. Just sayin', ya know?
The status quo is not de facto better than change, and stability is not a good thing when the stable condition involves death camps.
We need better terminology to describe stable states of evil.
National Geographic. With the sister—posing as part of medical team—of one of those Al Gore TV Liberal Democrat Reporters which later got snagged in North Korea for a foolish crossing of the Yalu River, and were released once North Korea made Bill Clinton, impeached former President of the USA, travel all the way to Pyongyang by private jet to kowtow before those red bastards.
Very well put. Would we say we wanted the stability and status quo of the Fascist German government to continue, were the level of atrocities of Auschwitz and Buchenwald known as we know about Camp 14, Yodok, etc. in Kim’s North Korean gulag? Very well put.
I didn’t know the lady was one of those reporters...interesting.
Even if he is replaced by another psychotic dictator.
Because the replacement generally has less experience.
I’ll bet there were more than a few member of Jong-Il’s inner circle who thought to themselves that Dear Leader was nuttier than a kimchee-flavored fruitcake. However they knew full well that voicing disagreement with Dear Leader meant either prison camp or a firing squad.
Same country. New idiot.
Herbie Popnecker
Hey Tiger I don’t think Chia Chub is running the country I think dear ole Aunt Black Eyes and Uncle Fish lips LOL!
Just think of them as Powerful hand behind the throne
I should clarify the lib dem reporter for National Geographic was not the one snagged by the DPRK border guards later, that was her sister and another woman...bargained out of that hellhole by a personal kowtow visit by Bill Clinton to Pyongyang, to the delight of the Norkies. They domestically broadcast it as a great victory.
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