listen, i think japan already has nuclear capabilities. would you expect anything less from the only nation to endure a nuclear attack? i’m not saying they have an actual bomb, but rather, they know how to build it, they’ve assembled the parts, and all that is left to do is put it together. a japan with the atomic bomb does not scare me at all; i’ve been under the impression they already have one for quite some time.

korea too will have to go nuclear.

thank you for your blog. i’m going to try that special ddokbokki dish as soon as i can find a restaurant that serves it!

(snicker)

North Korea is as clever as it is wicked, though, so there is a huge risk that it could wait out ‘04 in the hope of a Kerry victory and the capitulation that that implies. A strong Uri Party showing here in April would also strengthen North Korea’s hand, I fear.

The irony of current Korean anger is that, on the one hand, there’s the attempt to remember Korean toughness. One the other, there’s the belief that Koreans are weak and helpless.

CHOOSE ONE ATTITUDE AND STICK TO IT!

In the meantime, remember that you and the North are NOT “one people.” This is a myth, a lie, a fantasy. If you refuse to view NK as the dangerous country it is, then there’s no reason to complain about an American troop pullback. Go and welcome your harmless, well-fed brothers with open arms! North and South were one people, yes; and maybe they can be one people again. But not anytime soon. Not after all the damage that NK’s regime has done to the minds and bodies of North Koreans. The blame for that rests entirely on the Kim dynasty.

Personally, I’d like to see our troops leave the peninsula entirely. They serve little use and aren’t appreciated, and their presence allows the “victim” folks to whine about “occupation” and “empire,” parroting the nonsense from KCNA.

Until South Korea owns up to its own responsibilities to the region and to its alliances, it has little right to complain. The fact is that South Korea is strong– very strong. All it needs to do is be convinced of its strength.

Shin asks an important question of us Americans, though: if war breaks out, where will we be?

I already know my answer: if war breaks out while I’m living here, I’ll stay here until all my Korean relatives are either safely to the south or out of the country entirely. Until then, I’m not leaving.

By the way, those same relatives think Noh Mu Hyon’s government’s got its head up its collective ass. Heh.

I hope this provides a sincere answer to Shin’s sincere questions.

Kevin Kim

Noone here is advocating nuclear proliferation. The hard fact is that the genie cannot be put back in the bottle and the technology cannot be uninvented.

I’m not a Korean nationalist like Shin — or even a nationalist of any stripe — but I probably share his goal of a strong unified Korea in my lifetime. The only conscionable way that can happen is when North Korea becomes merely northern Korea and the DPRK exists only as a Seoul museum exposition — right there in the room next to the other dark period of 1910-45.

I have to agree with Shin on something — the United States doesn’t have a “right,” so to speak, to tell North Korea not to build nuclear weapons. Or perhaps it would be better to say that North Korea has a “right” to develop and build such weapons. In an anarchic international system, countries are free to do whatever the hell they want. Not the most uplifting way to look at the world, granted, but that’s the particular school of international relations I come from (and for this, I owe a debt of gratitutde to my Korean professors at Kyung Hee University). To be frank, I’m not a huge fan of nuclear nonproliferation; on a theoretical level, it doesn’t seem either logical or practical. Anyway, North Korea has a “right” to build nuclear weapons, but then again, other countries have the “right” to respond as they see fit (i.e., protect their own interests). I have to ask if Mr. Shin if he would be making the same arguments if it was Japan, rather than the DPRK, that was caught developing nuclear weapons. Would he be asking the U.S. to “get tough” with Tokyo, perhaps going so far as to argue that U.N. sanctions be put in place on Japan? Only he can answer that. I simply try (operative word) to be consistent to my system model, i.e. North Korea has the right to go nuclear, as do South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan (heck, Botswana has it, too, for that matter), but those nations need to weigh carefully the potential security benefits of developing nuclear programs against the potential reactions of other states to whom those programs represent a threat to their interests.

Hope I haven’t offended too many people.

Stating that North Korea will probably cheat on any deal because it ALWAYS has cheated on everything it has ever done is PLAINLY not the same as calling for war. Surely your reading ability enables you to understand that. I prefer getting China’s help to pull the plug on the vile DPRK regime: cut everything going in (oil, food, coal, etc) and let everyone who wants to leave leave. Drain the swamp and kill the mosquitos. Chaotic and risky, yes, but better than letting Kim Jong-il hold a gun to anyone’s head.

It is particularly fatuous and unbecoming of Koreans — even rank ignoramuses like shin jong il — to rail on about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Check your calendar, intellectually and morally challenged one. What dates in August did the bombs fall on Japan? What date do you celebrate Gwangbokchul? How did that “gwangbok” come about?
Kim Il-sung was still dining on Russian caviar and hadn’t even murdered his first legitimate North Korean patriot on Aug 15, 1945.