Kim Jong Il’s Disappearing Act
by Srdja Trifkovic
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North Korea’s “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il is rumored to be ailing or even dead. Given his furtive ways and the nature of his regime, denials from Pyongyang are meaningless unless he makes a public appearance in real time. Old photos presented as new only feed the rumor mill, initiated by his non-appearance at last month’s 60th anniversary celebration.
The only reason the issue of Kim’s health and eventual succession matters is the existence of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and the anachronistic presence of U.S. troops in South Korea.
Earlier this month the U.S. government agreed to remove Pyongyang from its terrorism blacklist in return for the North’s commitment to dismantle its nuclear program. The deal was reached within the framework of the six-party talks (China, Japan, Russia, the United States, North and South Korea), whereby Pyongyang agreed to allow teams of international inspectors to visit its Yongbyon plutonium-processing facility in return for much needed foreign aid.
It is far from certain that the North Koreans are seriously committed to ending their nuclear capability. The agreement with Washington is confined to the known facilities at Yongbyon, but according to recent reports they are simultaneously working on another top-secret uranium-enrichment program based on the material provided by Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan’s rogue proliferator. Playing the nuclear card has paid handsome diplomatic and economic dividends to Pyongyang over the years. Giving it up altogether would be inconsistent with North Korea’s past record. Five years ago South Korea’s then-foreign minister Yoon Young-kwan warned that North Korea “will probably never give up its nuclear option” unless it receives a speific security guarantee from the United States. Removing the North from the terrorist list is not sufficient reassurance for a regime steeped in Stalinist paranoia.
During a meeting with a South Korean delegation in August 2000, Kim Jong Il reportedly declared that he would establish diplomatic relations with the United States “as soon as tomorrow if the U.S. government removes North Korea from its blacklist.” Delisting took effect on October 11, but there has been no move to normalize relations. Diplomatic standstill may be due to Kim Jong Il’s incapacity, with his second son, Jong Cheol, reportedly developing a high-profile role in the military. At the metaphysical level of North Korea’s dialecticians, however, it is Kim Il Sung – the Great Leader, the Dear Leader’s father – who is still in charge, having been appointed “Eternal President” by the Supreme People’s Assembly in 1994, four years before his temporal death.
The United States has no better way of testing the North’s intentions than offering to sign a formal peace treaty ending the Korean War in return for a more detailed agreement that would not only terminate but also verifiably dismantle North Korea’s nuclear program. Concessions thus offered would cost the U.S. little: Washington is not contemplating a second Korean war for the sake of liberating Kim’s 23 million long-suffering subjects.
Whatever the response, the United States should plan on withdrawing all troops from the Korean peninsula and let those most affected by Pyongyang’s behavior – South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia – deal with it as they deem fit. The policy of disengagement ought to include a green light to Seoul to develop its own nuclear deterrent. The Ford Administration forced South Korea to abandon its budding nuclear weapons program in the 1970s while foolishly agreeing not to withdraw American soldiers in return. If a resurgent Kim or his successors refuse to cooperate, the process should be reversed: the granting of a free nuclear hand to Seoul should accompany the U.S. withdrawal. South Korea has a strong civilian nuclear program with many dual-use activities in place, a physical infrastructure and a technical capability that could result in a credible deterrent within months, rather than years.
The U.S. military intervention in Korea in the summer of 1950 was necessary and just. The fact of communist aggression was blatant and the implications of allowing it to succeed were ominous. For a generation after the war it was necessary to maintain U.S. forces in South Korea as neither Mao nor Brezhnev could be trusted to keep Kim Il-Sung in check. Over the past quarter-century, however, the equation has changed on all fronts. South Korea has become one of the most successful economies in the world and the third largest Asian “tiger,” with the financial and scientific potential to become a regional military power par excellence. North Korea, by contrast, has descended into the nightmare of an Oriental brand of Stalinism that combines militarism, personality cult, and abject poverty. And finally, both Russia and China are more interested in the economic benefits of trading with the South than in the outdated legacy of past links with the North.
Removing the American umbrella from South Korea would be beneficial to both sides. The United States would be disengaged from a spot where the dangers and costs of continued military presence exceed any possible benefits. “Without any connection to the Cold War that ended over a decade ago, and absent a global hegemonic struggle, Korea is relatively unimportant to the United States from a military and strategic standpoint,” regular Chronicles contributor Doug Bandow wrote in Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World. As South Korea acknowledges in its own defense reports, for years it chose to focus on economic development at the expense of military strength, which it could do, secure in the protection by the United States.
American withdrawal would prompt South Korea finally to become a mature, self-reliant regional power responsible for its own protection, as befits one of the most highly developed industrial economies in the world. South Koreans should be told that America has no national interest in retaining troops in Korea or in continuing to protect Seoul. Old habits may die hard, but the 55-year habit of garrisoning the 38th parallel needs to be kicked because it is dangerous, expensive, and unnecessary.
To the argument that South Korea’s military is not strong enough to withstand the threat from the North, the answer is clear: only by removing our tripwire can America finally force South Korea to upgrade its military and to make its people assume the full economic and political burden of defending their own country. For exactly the same reason American troops should be removed from Japan and Germany. A strategic anachronism five decades old would thus be finally ended.
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1 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 26 October 2008:
The United States has no better way of testing the North’s intentions than offering to sign a formal peace treaty ending the Korean War…
My son enlisted in the army and told me that deaths in Korea are reported as “training accidents.” So far this has worked to mollify the mainstream gutter press press, but the truth is that it’s still a shooting match over there. Bring our boys home now! 56 years is long enough! We would be stupid to get into a nuclear war over a peninsula of little or no strategic interest to us.
2 Comment by george on 26 October 2008:
Kim Jong Il probably is dead and I suspect the South Koreans and the US probably know this.
I would imagine they would keep this underwraps because all we need just now is reunification with the North and South.
There would be a mass influx of people travelling to the South and trying to cross into China which is already over populated.
We can’t afford reunification just know Germany’s reunification after 89 cost over $1 billion dollars and that had the most successful economy of te USSR. Unification with South Korea is projected at over $1 trillion.
3 Comment by Lee on 26 October 2008:
I hear that the US’ economic woes will (finally) cause the end of our manned space programs. Maybe we will also be lucky enough to have it end our Asian and European (and African and Latin American) imperial overreach.
4 Comment by Homophobic Horse on 26 October 2008:
“I hear that the US’ economic woes will (finally) cause the end of our manned space programs. Maybe we will also be lucky enough to have it end our Asian and European (and African and Latin American) imperial overreach.”
We can dream.. But maybe Obama will be able to do what George Bush wanted to do but never could: Criminalise all opposition and create a youth movement of fanatics with unswerving loyalty to the prophet of neoconservatism made flesh (as Wilson’s latest makes clear).
“A strategic anachronism five decades old would thus be finally ended.”
America will certainly resist that for as long as possible. Can’t have another rival power of uncertain loyalty trading with China i.e. a potential for new east/west conflict..
But than again, that’s entirely the point isn’t it Trifkovic?
And I for one would approve of this. Russia has given NATO a bloody nose in the recent Caucasus scuffle and once again saved Georgians from themselves. And not a moment too soon either. The sight of a country acting in their own interests makes the Anointed Ones howl with indignation. But they can howl all they want, Russia is liberated now and is no longer a test bed for evil social experiments.
5 Comment by george on 26 October 2008:
@3Lee
But the US is talking about the militarising outer space continuing Reagans Star Wars space program to a whole new level total global supremacy.
6 Comment by Skepsis on 27 October 2008:
The military is a wasteful enterprise that creates nothing. Although its existence is necessary for security, prudence must be an essential element in its governing class.
In the American experience, generals constantly seek to validate and legitimize the needs of the military. This was achieved beyond their wildest dreams with the Global War on Terror. Now, we see certain military leaders who openly collude with administration officials; we see the use of “talking points” and media “shaping”–all tactics of military information operations–used on the American people; we see Army doctrine revolutionized to accommodate the chimera of, “stabilizing destabilized nations.”
Military leaders have no interest in cutting commitments because it will jeopardize their funding and legitimacy. In war, generals are Gods. In peace, they are merely pesky technocrats.
I am afraid that the War on Terror affords too many benefits for both government and military. Henceforth, the this new American estate will take precedence over the average citizen.
You will starve before the government enervates this vehicle of national power.
7 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 27 October 2008:
@6 Skepsis
Which of course begs the question: if we have a Department of Defense, then why do we also need a Department of Homeland Security? Perhaps the former can go back to its old name The Department of War. Coming to think of it let’s call it the Ministry of Peace as some starry-eyed liberals wish, and DHS can become the Ministry of Love.
8 Comment by george on 27 October 2008:
@7Etienne Gervaise
We can’t even get a proper investigation into 9/11.
The report omitted the fact that Mohammed Atta attended US military bases while in Florida, had email contacts with private defence companies or the flight school he attended was run by a CIA flight instructor.
Also the supposed “Islamic militant” was snorting coke and drinking according to eyewitnesses and interview with his girlfriend.
Daniel Hopsicker actually done what the US media does not investigative journalism
http://www.madcowprod.com/06122007.html
No one seems to report the fact that he was recruited by German intelligence with contacts in the Czech Republic and US intelligence and MI6 to fight in Chechnya NWO’s proxy war against Russia just like they did to Serbia in Kosovo in the 90’s.
9 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 29 October 2008:
@8 George
Many years ago I read By Way of Deception by Victor Ostrovsky, a Russian who moved to Israel and joined Mossad. He talked about Canadian passports, and how some printer ran off 10,000 blanks which got distributed. Apparently the 9/11 bombers were using them. I suspect a Jewish connection also because of the arrest of suspects watching the show from Hoboken who declared that we’re all Israelis now!
He also mentioned that top members of Mossad are homosexuals. We’ll never be told the entire truth, so you’re right.
10 Comment by The Fronde on 30 October 2008:
I don’t see what Israel’s Mossad, Canadian passports, and 9/11 have to do with North Korea. The foci of this piece by Dr. Trifkovic are that the US military must be withdrawn from the peninsula and that South Korea needs to step up to the plate. If this is done correctly, it may even result in a more open and non-nuclear North. If not, then we are looking a dangerously escalating situation in Asia, the specifics of which I hope it is not necessary to repeat.
11 Comment by george on 30 October 2008:
@10The Fronde
Because @7Etienne Gervaise mentioned what the purpose of homeland security when the US already has a Department of Defence which is pointless as we already have FBI investigators that were doing just fine and were blocked to investigating clear terror leads leading up to 9/11 or the fact that homeland security is in the hand of an Israel/US citizen who used his authority release 5 Mossad agents arrested by NYC police with possible connections to the 9/11 attacks.
So the point is we are going on a global military crusade fighting a fictitious enemy.
12 Comment by Trifkovic on 31 October 2008:
To #10 The Fronde: I’d dearly like to see some topic-specific discussion myself. Alas…
13 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 1 November 2008:
@ 12 Srdja
My first point is that Korea is still a shooting match. Our Dept of “Defense” should not be shouldering the load for the prosperous South Koreans. The North is maintaining an aggressive stance because 50,000 Americans are posted there by will of the Commander-in-Chief. The next president can withdraw them with a single stroke of a pen, if he has the cojones, which he won’t.