I am wrong as often as not when I venture a prediction. So, I am always happy to point out when I am right. When Roh suspended rice shipments to North Korea in the wake of its missile tests, I said this in a comment at Oranckay’s blog:
Suspending rice shipments (which can just as quickly be unsuspended) is a pretty underwhelming response. With the spring hunger past and the fall harvest just around the corner, the DPRK can probably cruise on its stores and Chinese food aid until next spring.
If the rice shipments are still suspended by June of 2007 I will experience one of those “eat my hat” moments.
We did not even have to wait for the end of summer. Of course the renewed aid is being sent as ”flood relief.” If flood aid is now the official vehicle for sending money and materials to Pyongyang, I suspect that the flooding may last for years.
And just what do Kim Jong-il’s boys want?
North Korea formally asked South Korean civic groups for humanitarian aid for its flood victims ― but it doesn’t want instant noodles.
The country said it does want construction materials, construction equipment, blankets and medicine, according to a fax sent from the communist country to a South Korean civic group.
Blankets and medicine seem fine but I hope that Roh at least insists on monitors for construction materials and equipment. After all, they can be used to rebuild bridges or construct launch pads.
At least Kang Jae-sup is talking some sense (or at least suggesting a step in the right direction):
The leader of South Korea’s main opposition party proposed Monday to send a fact-finding mission to North Korea to assess the extent of flood damage in the communist country. “It’s a good idea to visit North Korea to grasp exactly how broad the damage is.”
Assess the damage and monitor the aid. Sounds like a plan to me. As I have said before, I am not against sending humanitarian aid to the North but it must monitored.
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Its unlikely the construction material will be monitored. The destruction came from bad management and deforestation, not just flooding–in fact it came from diverting most of the country’s resources to its military. Will S. Koreans say anything about that? Hell no.
Dear Southern Bretheren,
We had another flood. Please send 10 billions of US dollars, 14 Daewoo heavy construction vehicles, some Chik-Fil-A, and 7 pounds of weapons grade uranium. That should be enough to get us through this flood.
XOXOXO,
Kim Jong Il
P.S. If you don’t, I will turn Seoul into a sea of flames.
“…. P.S. If you don’t, I will turn Seoul into a sea of flames.”
Should have put a “because I love you” line on the end
You know, like a drunk husband/father beats his wife/children “because he loves them.”
Didn’t the North ask for computers and T.V.s after that train explosion a few years ago? And didn’t South Korea actually give them that stuff???
Why set an exception for humanitarian aid? As Gen. Sherman of the Union Army in the American Civil War understood, any deaths of the civilian population are the responsibility of the regime in power in NK, not the ROK, US or any outside force. It’s their totalitarianism that’s ultimately causing the misery, even when the proximate cause is a natural disaster. No aid should be sent. Period. I only wish the US understood that in the cases of Afghanistan, Iraq and now Lebanon.
I can only see assistance from the ROK as a way for the political class there to avoid ending up like the politicians in unification Germany did — paying to keep the North’s economic collapse away long enough for it to become the next administration’s problem.
I won’t name names, but I will pull out quotes.
“In a way, these missile tests were the best thing that could happen to South Korea.
For it can no longer ignore North Korea’s threat in front of the international community as it seemed to be doing prior to the launches. It must now actually do something besides downplaying.
And quite unlike how I felt leading up to these tests, I think South Korea will actually show that it does indeed have guts and good sense. I believe these missile launches have changed everything regarding what we saw before coming out of the south.”
In all fairness, it did change everything coming out of the south. Roh and his cabinet of appeasement-whores actually waited until a natural disaster to resume financing North Korea’s military, whereas in the past, they didn’t even bother with a fake excuse.
Nothing short of an actual attack on the South will change the appeasement-monkeys’ approach to their beloved brethren.
Ive met intelligent Koreans who understand the government is supporting Kim Jong Ill’s evil regime because the South doesn’t want to/can’t deal with the North, at least not without massive help from the rest of the world (AGAIN). YET, these same people at the same time say they have a love for the Northen people as if they are one great family. So they support their oppression cos its better than unification, and they love them at the same time and dream of the day when unification will happen. Am I wrong or is that double think? This seems to be quite common in Korea (and probalby all over the world for that matter). What ever happened to logic?
I predict the sun will rise tomorrow.
I predict Koreans will still be eating kimichi 6 months from now.
Mention of the fact the GNP called for emergency aid/storm relief before Uri or Roh would’ve been nice.
Kang only started talking about a fact-finding mission (as mentioned in your post) when the government decided to do what the GNP told it to.
So Roh is actually doing what the GNP says now? I guess that means he will be getting out of the private school business soon.
I am still waiting for your point. I said in your post and in this one that I support emergency aid to North Korea if it is monitored. Kang supports something similar (although he does not go far enough on insisting on monitors, IMHO).
What I am against is Roh’s using flood aid as a pretext for slipping more unmonitored goods to his little poofy-headed buddy in Pyongyang. If the GNP wants the same thing (and so far it appears that they do not) then they would be just as wrong as Roh.
as long as there is cabbage, koreans will be eating kimchi forever and ever and ever. god help us.
yeah but, we’re not at “war” stupid, coldhearted reptile.
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