Posted on 02/16/2003 2:37:09 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
The odd thing is many of the 'spies' seem to be less driven by political ideology and more so by what I could only call being 'true believers' in reunification. Koreans culture is a very xenophobic and homogenous one, and deep down some of them want to be reunited at any cost. It's not exactly nationalism, but it is far more than tribalism.
Korea will never be happy until it is reunited. Some South Koreans can't take the strain of waiting, and seek to help the North and the South become one, no matter the price.
BTW, do you recall what the two criteria are for the US being ready to take out NK and let it do whatever it wants to SK before going down? The pull-out of American hostages in SK plus deployment of ABM defenses in Japan? The former hit the headlines the week after I said that. Here's something on the latter.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=574&u=/nm/20030217/wl_nm/arms_japan_missile_dc_1&printer=1
Japan, US to Hold Missile-Intercept Tests
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan has decided to start joint experiments with the United States next year on shooting down ballistic missiles, a response to rising tensions over North Korea (news - web sites)'s suspected nuclear weapons program, a Japanese newspaper reported on Monday.
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said Tokyo and Washington planned to carry out the experiments from the financial year starting in April 2004, as Pyongyang appeared likely to resume missile tests amid the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.
Japan and the United States have been jointly studying a theater missile defense (TMD) system aimed at shielding U.S. troops in Asia and its allies, but they have not yet conducted tests aimed at intercepting incoming ballistic missiles.
Tokyo began studying the technology for such a system with Washington after North Korea launched a ballistic missile that passed over Japan in August 1998, but has stopped short of moving the project to the development stage for fear of angering China. Beijing is opposed to a U.S.-led regional missile defense system out of concerns that it would be extended to include Taiwan, which it views as a renegade province.
A Japanese Defense Ministry official declined to comment on the report.
The paper said Tokyo and Washington will decide whether to move to full-scale development of the system after completing the joint experiments, to be held in Hawaii for two years.
In an interview with Reuters last week, Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Japan ought to develop a missile defense system with the United States, since it lacks the capability to defend itself from missile attacks from North Korea.
He said an unspecified number of Rodong missiles with ranges of 750 miles were already deployed in North Korea.
In 1993, North Korea upset Japan by test-firing a medium-range Rodong-1 missile into the Sea of Japan.
And in August 1998, North Korea launched a three-stage Taepodong-1 missile over Japan, demonstrating that major population areas including Tokyo were within the estimated 600 mile range of the missile.
U.S. officials said last week that Pyongyang had a three-stage Taepodong-2 missile that could reach the West Coast of the United States, but that the missile had not been tested.
A standoff over North Korea's suspected nuclear program has been simmering since October, when Washington said Pyongyang had admitted pursuing a program to enrich uranium in violation of major international treaty commitments.
Since then, North Korea has expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors, withdrawn from a treaty which aims to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and said it is ready to restart a mothballed reactor capable of producing plutonium for bombs.
Most of unification-at-all-cost crowds are left-leaning. The political left co-opted the issue of unification as their own. This view is of the third world left-wing ideology, which is big on national liberation and anti-imperialist struggle.
Many do not realize that they are duped by these leftists. They think that denouncing the previous military dictatorship is perfectly OK but denouncing the N. Korean regime is anti-unification, reactionary behavior.
They also think that N. Korean regime thinks like they do on the issue of Korea and her future. Nothing can be further from the truth.
That is the part that I've never been able to figure out. The unification types seem to intellectually realize that North Korea is a bad place lead by bad people. Emotionally they seem to think that Koreans would never really want to hurt other Koreans, and that reunification would solve the North / South differences.
"If only Korea was unified, then the war would end, the Americans would leave, and the land would be healed."
A fairy tale, perhaps, but after living for fifty years under the threat of war and death, an understandable one.
As you said, there is a strong latent desire to solve the division of Korea which was imposed by big powers.
The left use it to ignore the brutal oppression in N. Korea. To them, the division is worse than the details, such as the brutal nature of N. Korea. The left is appealing to the twisted kind of nationalism or patriotism, which is that standing up to big power matters over all other considerations, even if it means the wholesale oppresseion of one's own kind.
The left made it politically correct thing to do. The closest analogy is Israeli's accomodation at all costs under Barak gov. The accomodation was PC in Israel until the Temple Mount riot started the current series of unending suicide attacks.
I am not sure if the withdrawal of troops and the deployment of fully operational ABM can be both done in two years. I think that the current crisis won't drag that long.
I do not see Bush admin backing away that easily even if its rhetoric could appear to vacillate from time to time.
In my opinion, N. Korea also believes that giving 2 years of time to U.S. will guarantee that U.S. will go after it with full diplomatic and economic pressure back up by full military force eventually.
N. Korea thinks that it is racing against time. It has to get significant concessions from U.S. fast or it will deploy nukes or new missiles with better range.
N. Korea must feel that creating the current crisis is the risk worth taking, given their disastrous economic and political situations within.
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