North Korea’s Transition: Time of Mistrust and Uncertainty
North Korea’s nuclear weapons remain a threat to its neighbor, but also to the U.S. forces stationed in the Japanese islands. While there is no widely accepted figure for the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, most experts estimate that North Korea possesses at least a handful of nuclear devices.
The North Korean weapons and tactics are not confined in the Korean peninsula — experts believe that North Korea actively helped Hezbollah in the Middle East. The Israel Law Center is representing 30 American Israelis who are suing North Korea and Hezbollah for damages caused by rocket attacks during the Second Lebanon War. Forty-three civilians were killed and 4,262 were injured, according to the suit. Experts such as Professor Barry Rubin, the director of the GLORIA Center in Herzliya, Israel, claim North Korean experts helped Hezbollah build a 25-kilometer tunnel in southern Lebanon. The tunnel was used during the Second Lebanon War to transport, store, and assemble rockets. North Korea continued the supply of weapons to Hezbollah through the Iranian regime — this including M-600 rockets that would allow Hezbollah to strike targets in central Israel.
It is clear that tension in the Korean peninsula is heating up. The power brokers, both from the communist party and the army, might chase their own interests, causing a conflict. The role of the young Kim Jong Un, his family, and the army might decide the future of the Korean peninsula, as the most secretive Stalinist country in the world refuses to unveil its intentions.
Like all Marxist states, North Korea is anti-Israel. The only country it has fought against, other than South Korea and the United Nations force during the Korean War, is Israel. “Egypt’s military relationship with North Korea goes back to the early 70s, when Pyongyang sent an air battalion to Egypt as a sign of solidarity in its war with Israel,” according to an article by Eli J. Lake and Richard Sale in the June 22, 2001, issue of the Middle East Times entitled “U.S. Worries over Egypt-North Korea
.·:*¨¨*:·.MERRY.·:*¨♥¨*:·.CHRISTMAS.·:*¨¨*:·.
(¯`’•.¸(¯`’•.¸HAPPY ♥ HANUKKAH ¸.•’´¯)¸.•’´¯)
Just had to nitpick a little with the line “China has emerged as the country that has the most influence over North Korea”. Ex-squeeze me?
“Emerged”??? At what point in the 60-odd year history of that death camp with a UN seat has China not been the country that has the most influence? Maybe when Stalin was alive, if only then.
The fact is since their 1950 invasion to attack MacArthur’s troops, China has practically owned that miserable little pest-hole. Yes, they will say they might agree that the Kim’s are all psychotic nut cases, and they don’t directly control them, but let’s face it, China is eyeballs deep in responsibility for what has gone on there all these years, and they have allowed it to continue for decades for the most cynical strategic and totalitarian reasons.
When the implosion comes, China may likely be screaming for help in dealing with it. Leaving them to deal with their mess on their own yuan might be a terrible strategic decision for the US and the world, but it would be %100 morally justified.
Talk about “breaking it and owning it”. They own that mess, all the way.
Kim Jong-il, May He Not Rest in Hell
Normally, it’s proper to show respect for the dead. Kim Jong-il, the bloodthirsty Communist dictator of North Korea is dead and deserved no respect, proper or otherwise.
It’s time, though, to reflect on the passing of the man former Democrat president Jimmy Carter and the United Nations mourned and whose designated heir Carter wished great success.
Apparently born Yuri Irsenovich Kim apparently in Siberia, apparently somewhere Kim decided he wasn’t Siberian and became Kim Jong-il and ruled North Korea in high heels for some 17 years until his apparent death on December 17th or 19th.
Many things are only “apparent” regarding the late despot except his official DPRK titles among which were General Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Chairman of that country’s National Defense Commission and Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army–and unofficial titles of “Dear Leader,” “Generalissimo,” and “Great Father of People.”
My favorite Kim title is ”Biggest Fruitcake on the Asian Stage,” not including Hawaii which President Barack Hussein Obama said recently was in Asia.
Among Kim Jong-il’s accomplishments in the “hermit kingdom” were killing millions of his people, starving millions more, maintaining gulags tenanted by 200,000 political prisoners, and establishing North Korea as the most backward nation on the planet this side of Somalia.
As North Koreans were eating the bark off trees to ward off starvation, Kim found the funds to develop missile and nuclear capacities to threaten his neighbors, another feather in his cap not cited by either Mr. Carter or the U.N.
Granted, former President Jimmy Carter has been struggling with senility demons and a desperate search for a legacy following a failed presidency.
Granted, the United Nations is a boil on the world’s arse controlled by the Third World and struggling to seem relevant and objective.
However, have Carter and the U.N. lost what remained of their collective minds to, in Jimmy’s case, send condolences to North Korea and best wishes for success to his son Kim Jong-un and, in the sorry case of the United Nations, offer up a moment of silence in dad’s honor?
Condolences for what? . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=11613.)