The blood and bones of thousands of North Koreans.

The worst part of the 1990s famine? —-

Kim Jong Il and crew learned how much North Korea can suffer and still maintain their style control of the nation.

Everything else is gravy to them now….

evidently, there are trucks in the northern part of the country that run on wood. there’s a furnace in the middle and they have to keep stoking it. supposedly runs for four hours.

The lesson from the end of the Soivet and China sponsorship should have been that, despite the fact North Korea claimed and many in South Korea and even in the United States believed, North Korea was a more developed nation than South Korea (even politically speaking — this thought had some sway up to the 1980s) it was a basketcase whose development was totally predicated on a life line to Moscow and Beijing.

In the late 1990s, some people seemed giddy with “economic reform” in North Korea — but all of it was predicated on one thing — that these reforms were a sign of “a willingness to change” on the part of Pyongyang. And as I’ve pointed out ad nauseum, to me, the fact that NGOs often pack up and leave North Korea, because the Kim Jong Il regime is so paranoid of the world it won’t let them distribute food and other aid to the people who are dieing without it, means North Korea is willing to suffer over the long term until it gets a new sponsor, and with the nukes, it is eyeing the United States for this (now that Japan has gone off the table over the kidnapping thing), and are willing to settle for Seoul and Beijing.

So, North Korea isn’t going to collapse. Who knows — how many people were saying the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse, with all its vast material resources, back in the 1980s?

But, I don’t want to see the United States financing the North Korean regime.

Kimbob seems content with the default gravatar. Can’t say I blame him. Maybe he’s the only serious commenter in the bunch. Heh.

re: judge judy’s “one boat” comment

That does seem to put China’s $200 million contribution in perspective. In the larger picture, it’s still not all that much, despite the quantum leap from 2003 to now. I can’t imagine China’s all that happy about upping its contributions so radically. Possible hospital analogy: it’s a bit like moving from a single IV drip to 200 simultaneous IV drips in a short period of time.

Kevin

http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/S.....080012.asp

Yes we have. As far as I know, they all dropped nukes except Russia. But let’s face, South Koreans would insist on keeping the North’s nukes if China didn’t get them first.