Kim Jong Il dead

Burn in Hell.

The discussion over at Ace’s is largely about whether the North Korean people are screwed, whether they as a country will be able to fend for themselves?

I spent time in Korea, as did a lot of people, when I was in the service, but I spent a lot of time out in town walking ville patrol with the ROK Marine MPs.  In the early and mid-80s South Korea was under the next thing to martial law.  There were strict curfews in parts of the country, everyone had to carry their id papers at all times, there were random sweeps by the police and military, beaches were off limits during hours of darkness, things like that.  Despite that everyday people were trying to sneak out of the North to the South, just like how in Europe they were trying to sneak from east to west because they wanted to be free from the tyranny in the north.  People know what freedom is and large numbers of the oppressed want it*.  As long as that’s true the NorKs have a shot – if we don’t just let business continue as usual.  If the military manages to get a new supreme leader in place before we can bring any pressure to bear well it will probably be business as usual.  Let’s hope that for once Obama’s foreign policy team can drag it’s head out of it’s ass and participate in a positive change.

*That was one of the things that made Reagan great, he realized that as a basic truth.