perfidy

Loyal reader #0009 Mapgirl has pointed us at a Guardian article on the horrors contained within the borders of North Korea:

Over the past year harrowing first-hand testimonies from North Korean defectors have detailed execution and torture, and now chilling evidence has emerged that the walls of Camp 22 hide an even more evil secret: gas chambers where horrific chemical experiments are conducted on human beings.

Witnesses have described watching entire families being put in glass chambers and gassed. They are left to an agonizing death while scientists take notes. The allegations offer the most shocking glimpse so far of Kim Jong-il's North Korean regime.

Kwon Hyuk, who has changed his name, was the former military attaché at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing. He was also the chief of management at Camp 22. In the BBC's This World documentary, to be broadcast tonight, Hyuk claims he now wants the world to know what is happening.

'I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber,' he said. 'The parents, son and a daughter. The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing.'

There can be little argument that the nightmare masquerading as a sovereign government in North Korea is the most hellish, brutal and perverse on Earth. The obscenely surreal rhetoric that issues forth from Pyongyang only gives us the tiniest glimpse into what life is like in that benighted country. This picture is from a composite satellite image of the earth at night: 

You can see where light and prosperity end at the northern border of South Korea. Political, moral and literal darkness. The North Koreans are devoting much of their energy to the acquisition of nuclear weapons and delivery systems for same. They already have missiles capable of hitting Japan, and soon they may have missiles that could deliver a nuclear warhead to the west coast of the United States. (No thanks to Pakistan) The consensus is that North Korea may already have two or more bombs.

That nuclear capability makes the problem of North Korea much more complicated than that we faced in Iraq or Afghanistan, or than we might face in Syria, Iran or Saudi Arabia. As well, even though in a conventional fight the North is no match for the South, let alone the US and the South together - a surprise attack combined with the use of nuclear or chemical weapons could wreak enormous destruction before the eventual defeat of the North. Seoul, the capitol of South Korea, is within artillery range of the North.

Perhaps the best hope we have is that the system will collapse under the weight of its own delusions and there will be a peaceful anschluss with the south. American strategy has been to angle for the isolation of the North, possibly in the hopes of accelerating this process. But there are several complicating factors even with this slim hope. First, the government in the North is by any metric we could use completely insane. Desperation on top of insanity might provoke an attack if the regime and its Dear Leader felt there was nothing to lose. Second, China's strategic considerations make all outcomes doubtful. China's desire to be a regional hegemon and not have a close US ally on their border will be a big factor however it plays out - in the event of a Northern collapse and especially if there is fighting. Third, the completely understandable (meaning four, for those who followed the Winds of Change debate) reluctance of the South Koreans to do anything to provoke the raving lunatics next door.

North Korea is an integral part of the world market in WMD, and American stands to suffer should these weapons get into the hands of some well heeled 'splodeydopes in the Middle East. The brutality of the regime, and the suffering of the North Koreans should put Kim on everyone's better dead list. That doesn't stop Jimmy Carter from hanging out with the Dear Leader, of course. They all have free health care, you know. It's hard to see what anyone can do to solve the problem without massive 'collateral damage' - to the South, to Japan, or even to the US. Yet to leave it alone is unacceptable for both moral and national security reasons. I think the only practical course is to wait - but it is a galling choice.