Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Kim Jong-Il and Bush - Halloween Round 5


"Good news, everyone! The North Koreans are going back to the 6-Party Talks!"
Fans of the Simpsons spin-off Futurama will recognize the voice here of Dr. Farnsworth announcing some horrible mission for the delivery team. You have to credit Kim Jong-Il's timing once again, seven days before the U.S. mid-term elections. He seems to operate on a time line that demands he does something to get on the front pages every three weeks. This also proves he could give a rat's ass about Republicans or Democrats-they are all the same to him. "Really Kim, the Democrats are nicer, they sent that lovely Mrs. Albright to see you" "Yeah, right, I keep her picture next to Prime Minister Koizumi's -NOW SHOW ME THE MONEY!! President Bush wasted no time in immediately trumpeting the righteousness of doing things his way. But all these talks are doing is trying to return to the point were they were in September of 2005 where the North had agreed to stop its nuke program in return for fuel, economic aid and full diplomatic relations. They had already initialed the document. Isn't that what everyone wanted? So what went wrong then?

Someone at the top forgot to tell the U. S. Treasury Dept to put the brakes on the international banking sanctions they had ready to go against the North. So FOUR DAYS LATER, after we had a deal with the North, these extremely nasty sanctions designed to cut North Korea off from the international banking system went into effect. When the North Koreans asked what the hell was going on the Bush administration said the whole thing was "a coincidence." The Americans said this, really, with a straight face. Kim went, well ballistic, and walked away from the deal. Treasury's sanctions were to punish the DPRK for money laundering in Macau of drug and smuggling profits (cigs and ivory too) and for counterfeiting Benjamin notes. Sure, all that is bad, bad, bad, but if your real goal is to stop a North Korean A- or H-Bomb test you decide your priorities and eliminate 'coincidences.'

Now we have a North Korea with one bomb test notched on its pistol handle. To be fair, the sanctions were beginning to bite. The Swiss announcement of a freeze on the millions of Dollars the NKs have stashed there had them running to the withdrawal window at Credit Suisse and pulling their kids from those discrete private schools. But once again the North can hold its population hostage and the South caves, in refusing to stop the two big momey projects they have already built: the factory zone at Kaesong and the Diamond Mountain tourist complex. China, while happy to make statements rebuking the North for foreign consumption, kept the border open. They also told Kim he would have to go back to the 6-party talks because the bonehead Americans still won't go one on one. FINE, said Kim Jong-Il yesterday. But his boys will come into the conference room with a swagger. Who knows, they might even do a sychronized military dance with flash cards.

Kim Jong-Il may look like a pipsqueak but his dad, the charismatic Stalin clone and instigator of the 1950 invasion of the South, Kim Il-Sung, was not. Together they sat and watched CNN during the 1989-1991 collapse of Hard Line Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR and took notes. These were very simple: Number One-Don't get propped against a wall and shot like the Ceaucescus of Romania (very bad for the legacy thing). Update that - or go on trial like Saddam. TWO-If and when your populace does revolt, make sure your military is loyaler than loyal and will follow orders (thank you Deng Hsiao-Ping for Tianamen Square). And last, THREE-Get that nuke. It will be there just in case number two takes place some day or a future South Korean, Japanese, or American leader decides to call you out at High Noon and you have to go for your guns. Dad is gone, although he is still officially the first dead person to still be the Head of State of sovereign country. He would be proud that junior pulled it off (he always worried about that boy).

The 6-party talks will end quickly again if the Americans don't go off in a side room, go one on one with the Kim team, and offer something up front for the nuclear disarmament of the North. Big stuff, like diplomatic recognition, aid, and a couple of armored Cadillac S.U.V.s. The trouble is Bush, Cheney, and Condi instead may do something completely stupid and demand a complete surrender, depending how the mid-term elections go- they might as well be talking to the Northern Irish Protestants. For the millionth time, all the North wants to be treated as a real country. Just like they were when they were a team member of a big happy evil empire that spread from East Berlin to the DMZ (O.K. nobody was really happy, unless they had jeans and a U-2 album). But they really do want an American Embassy in Pyongyang. They want container ships coming in for their fledgling free-trade zones. Kim Jong-Il wants Netflix and maybe, just one Starbucks. The counterfeit $100s are just an expression of his frustration at not being taken seriously. Like your fourteen year old who's locked in his room, playing Doom III upstairs. Be warned, and still, a little afraid.

P.S. Lingling wants to go with me on a package tour to the DPRK - don't laugh, it's for real - visit www.koryotours.com