Posted on 07/16/2005 3:29:03 PM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
...Many conservatives in and out of the Bush administration assume that North Korea's population must be seething and that the regime must be on its last legs. Indeed, the Bush administration's policy on North Korea, to the extent that it has one, seems to be to wait for it to collapse.
I'm afraid that could be a long, long wait. The central paradox of North Korea is this: No government in the world today is more brutal or has failed its people more abjectly, yet it appears to be in solid control and may even have substantial popular support.
From a brief visit like mine, it's hard to gauge the mood, because anyone who criticizes the government risks immediate arrest. But Chinese and other foreigners I've spoken to who live in North Korea or visit regularly say they believe that most North Koreans buy into the system, just as ordinary Chinese did during the Maoist period.
...I've interviewed dozens of North Koreans who have fled to China or South Korea, and they overwhelmingly say that while they personally dislike the regime - that's why they fled - their relatives believe in the Kim dynasty with a quasi-religious faith. They say that when everyone is raised to worship the Dear Leader, when there are no contrary voices, people genuinely revere the leader.
Most say the faith is not as strong as it was a dozen years ago, mostly because so many people have heard whispers of Chinese prosperity. But they still laugh at the idea that the Dear Leader is about to be toppled.
"I think we'll have regime change in America before we have regime change in North Korea," says Han Park, a Korea specialist at the University of Georgia. He estimates that 30 percent of North Koreans...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Kristof should return to a subject he knows something about -- Valerie Plame.
I wonder where this fop got this idea. Even on FR I have never heard anyone express the idea that "seething" north korean peasants, half dead from malnutrition, are soon to rise up and overthrow a domestically overwhelming police state. It is much more likely to implode of its own dead weight when the current lunatic demigod keels over.
The NY Slimes merchants continue merrily making it up as they go along.
On the substance, it is clear that Kristof wasted the slimes' money on this junket. Dosn't appear to have learned a thing.
I bet the North Korean people would be as out of place in our country as Mars aliens would be...
But, that doesn't mean that they shouldn't have the chance.
I also think that there are certain foreign policies that are better left untold to the world...so I truly think that President Bush has a method to his "madness".
Actually, I wish the US would talk LESS about their foreign policy plans...
Wrong. It is not 'propping up a regime' to give food aid to save people from starvation, for the simple reason that regimes this brutal can survive the starvation of their people with impunity. For examples, look to USSR in the 1930s (Ukrainian famine), China in the 1950s, etc.
The one thing we should insist on is that this food aid goes directly to the people, and not end up like Saddam's 'oil-for-palaces' program.
They were saying the same thing about the USSR in the 1980's just before it fell apart from internal apathy, intoxication and ennui.
Like the USSR, DPRK will end not with a bang but a whimper.
Only a fool would believe it would get to the people. It is treason.
This was the exact situation with the Clinton regime, wasn't it?
The only enemy the left isn't defeatist to is us.
You'll not convince the fools here on FR who like to go around calling Bush a traitor.
If every NK begged Kristoff to send the message to invade North Korea now, he would simply dismiss them as idiot peasants and publish the story he wrote before he left.
They don't want food
Bump
F/R has a 'no profanity' requirement in posts, and that would be profane! ;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.