By SHELTON BUMGARNER
Marmot’s Hole Guest Blogger
The Gray Lady in Sunday’s edition reviews a book previously mentioned several times here at The Marmot’s Hole — Jasper Becker’s Rogue Regime: Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea.
NY Times reviewer Joshua Kurlantzick (on loan from The New Republic) pretty much says that while the policies of Kim Jong Il’s regime have directly lead to the death of an estimated 3 million North Koreans — thus putting the DPRK’s existing political system in Stalin and Pol Pot territory — the United States and other interested parties are in a sticky wicket as to what to do about the situation.
Yet after convincingly demonstrating why North Korean human rights should be as much an issue as North Korean nukes, Becker has only limited policy suggestions to offer readers. He recognizes that removing the Dear Leader by force would be almost impossible — his first chapter contains a detailed war game illustrating the capabilities of Kim’s weaponry. But he also understands that ”when the North Korean crisis is defined as being just about proliferation or restoring the economy, Kim Jong Il has already won,” that any strategy for dealing with Kim Jong Il must try to improve the lives of average North Koreans.
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3 Comments
You can usually get a registration-free, non-expiring link through the New York Times link generator. Since that site seems to be down at the moment, I had to use the Books RSS feed. Anyway, the article.
Registration is required” Not with this puppy:
http://www.bugmenot.com/
Here is another NYT article, only recent about the increase of good Korean restaurants in NYC: “Kimchi Chic”. A part of me wonders if the Korea Power gang hits her up for “protection” money.