A long wait in an airline terminal yesterday forced me to read USAToday and endure Selig Harrison’s insipid opinion article entitled: “N. Korean ‘Good Guys’ require U.S. Assistance.”
In about a 1,000 words better left unread, Harrison, a creaky old Korea “expert”, essentially tells us that the Bush Administration is foolishly alienating the “moderates” and the “pragmatists” in the magical Blofeld regime back in Pyongyong with its blunt language about regime change. This sort of talk is deeply insulting to the Kim Jong Il and may be counterproductive to reform efforts.
“During my seven visits to North Korea since 1972, I have had increasingly frank exchanges with many officials, often informally over dinner. In contrast with its monolithic image, the country is divided into two camps: hard-liners who favor nuclear weapons and believe reconciling with the U.S. is impossible, and pragmatists ready to dismantle their nuclear weapons program in return for security guarantees, U.S. recognition and economic assistance”
Good God Harrison! That’s thirty years of talking and no action.
How many North Koreans have starved to death, frozen to death, been worked to death, or been bored to death in the hermetically sealed totalitarian wonderland while Selig Harrison has exchanged “frank” opinions with these murderous fascists? I wonder if ever once in these frank discussions words like "cannibalism" came up. Somehow I doubt they got quite that frank.
Why would anyone even consider guaranteeing the security of such a regime much less offer it economic assistance? What’s the point? So that guys like Harrison can continue to have frank exchanges over slightly better food and wine?
“The United States should help the "good guys" win by abandoning its regime-change hopes and pursuing a verifiable, step-by-step process of dismantling North Korea's nuclear capability, with economic rewards along the way.
Even the fantasy of a nuclear disarmed North Korea is still an intrinsically North Korean police state. Why not disarm the regime by eliminating the regime?
Propping up a murderous regime in the name of reforming a murderous regime is absurd.
And saying that there are steps leading toward reform of North Korea is like saying the expedition to look for water on Mars is a step toward eventually holding America’s Cup races in the Gusev Crater Basin.
Why wait another 30 years? Let’s agree that it would be best for everyone, particularly the North Korean people currently imprisoned on the Kim family’s Neverland Ranch, if the regime were not to exist at all.
At the very least that would solve the nuclear problem.
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