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Feb. 8, 2013
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Jewish World Review
Dec. 20, 2011
/ 24 Kislev, 5772
A third Kim has North Korea by the throat
By
Dale McFeatters
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Stalinist dictator Kim Jong Il's death at age 69 or maybe 70 the official mythology varies offers the people of North Korea some small, faint hope that their lives may get better. Certainly they can't get much worse.
The diminutive Kim Jong Il died over the weekend aboard his special luxury train, officially from a stroke due to the stress of overwork, which seems unlikely given his sybaritic lifestyle. (For several years he was the world's largest purchaser of Hennessey cognac, a luxury unknown to his crushed populace.)
Kim Jong Il ruled for 17 years with really one objective: to keep the country his father, Kim Il Sung, founded in 1948 firmly in the hands of the Kim family. Toward that end, he diverted what foreign aid the country could scrounge to the military and senior party officials whose loyalty was essential to keeping him in power.
"Great Leader" Kim Il Sung ruled for 46 years and passed the country on to "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il, who, faced with two unacceptable sons as leaders, belatedly arranged for the baton to be passed to "Dear Successor," Kim Jong Un, who, believed to be in his late 20s, was made a four-star general in 2010, despite a complete lack of military experience.
Young Kim Jong Un seems to be surrounded by a military regency overseen by his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, all of whom may have their own ideas about who should rule. To see Kim Jong Un, with his unlined, untroubled moon face, lined up with his hard-faced, hard-eyed generals does not inspire total confidence in his grasp on power.
Indeed, many diplomats fear he may resort to one of his fathers' regular gambits, small attacks on South Korea, random missile launches, perhaps even a third nuclear test to display his mettle.
What is stunning after more than 60 years is how little we know about North Korea. Until the last two years, no one knew what Kim Jong Un looked like as an adult. Through a policy of brutally enforced isolationism, Pyongyang kept its people from leaving and information about the outside world from getting in. The system was enforced by a gulag of slave labor camps, from which few emerged.
The regime's indifference to the welfare of its people was breathtaking. In a famine in the mid-'90s at least 1 million people starved to death, but credible estimates say the number may be more like 2 to 3 million in a nation of only 24 million.
The administration of President George W. Bush tried to deal with Pyongyang, promising aid if it would give up its nuclear weapons program. Kim Jong Il repeatedly broke his promises, and the Obama administration has conditioned aid on a verifiable abandonment of his nuclear weapons program.
Cruelly, Kim Jong Un's greatest weapons may not be his handful of nuclear weapons or his 1.2 million member armed forces but his destitute and starving population.
Immediate neighbors South Korea and China greatly fear that if the Kim regime falters, they will be overrun by hundreds of thousands of desperate North Korean refugees.
Maybe the bloodlines are running thin, but among the Kim family a ruthless determination to hold on to power seems the dominant gene.
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Previously:
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• 12/15/11 The U.S. government is cashing in its chips, literally
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• 12/12/11 That $1.2 billion? It's around here some place
• 12/09/11 State Department Creates Virtual Embassy For Iran
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• 12/06/11 Stealing elections badly in Russia
• 12/05/11 Sometimes paranoia is common sense by another name
• 12/02/11 When the U.S. truly became one nation
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• 08/05/11: Most 9/11 victims not on federal death records
• 08/04/11: Russian PM calls U.S. a parasite. He should be so lucky
• 08/03/11: Congress goes from one bind to another
• 08/02/11: D.B. Cooper may no longer be a mystery
• 08/01/11: Libya's latest weapon against NATO --- lawsuits
• 07/29/11: He'll always be known as Hot Wheels Handler
• 07/25/11: Recruiting children to save a dying town
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© 2011, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
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