Feel the Bern: Another North Korean Nightmare.

By Rich Kozlovich

On July 18, 2019 Josh Smith posted an article with Reuters entitled, Malnutrition, disease rising in North Korea: aid organization, saying:

"Rates of malnutrition and disease are increasing in North Korea as it faces a harvest that is half of what was expected, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Thursday."

As a result of “erratic weather with drought and floods, and a lack of access to resources could lead to a food crisis in a country”.

Let's take a moment and think about this.  If weather is the reason for their crop failures, why isn't South Korea facing the same problem?

Why is there a lack of access to resources? Well, I guess that makes it our fault....right?  Because N. Korea is “under strict international sanctions over leader Kim Jong Un’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.”

It isn’t because of corruption of the N. Korean government. It isn’t because of the incompetence, greed and stupidity of those in power. It isn’t due to an economic system that has never failed to deliver anything except suffering, misery, disease, starvation and early death.  It isn't because they keep threatening the world with missiles and nuclear weapons.  By implication - it’s our fault because the sanctions caused “widening trade deficits, foreign currency shortages and a deepening cash crunch”.

Well, isn’t that what sanctions are supposed to do?

Unfortunately, “rates of malnutrition and water borne diseases like diarrhea and colitis are on the rise”. Furthermore, “North Korea is expected to exhaust its crop reserves earlier than usual this year”.

This isn't anything new for North Koreans. "In the 1990s, a nationwide famine killed as many as one million people.” In 2014 this was a nation of 25 million people, and in 1990 the population may have initially been larger since in the mid nineties North Korean birth rate dropped about 50%.  Based on the 25 million number, the million people who starved to death amounts to about 4% of N. Korea's population.  To get the full impact of that we have to realize if that happened in America that would amount to 12,400,000 people starving to death.  A national human disaster by any calculation. 

To expand on this please note that almost 5% of the North Korean population is serving in the military.  That's close to 1.3 million people in a nation of 25 million people!  How can any nation justify that kind of military spending when the people of the nation are starving? 

The United States has a population of over 325 million people and only has "1.3 million men and women on active duty," and "another 1.1 million serve in the National Guard and Reserve forces." That comes to just a little over 2.4 million people.  Approximately .75%.  If you add in civilian employees, which I doubt North Korean figures do, that's another 669,281 coming to just under 1%.  And America has been actively involved in military action for decades. 

What war is Kim fighting?  Well, actually the Korean War.  It never ended with a treaty, just an armistice.  So Kim keeps telling his people they have to suffer in order to keep the United States and South Korea from conquering them.  Wouldn't that be terrible with starvation and oppression ending.  Of course the people are left in the dark about that by a lunatic who not only kills his own people, he kills his own family. 

The world is now producing food in such quantities there's absolutely no reason why any nation should have starvation.  How could any national leader allow that to happen when the world's food supply is so amazingly abundant unless he's insane. 

What has Kim Jong Un and his cutthroats done to keep this from happening again?   He and his gang continue “to import millions of dollars worth of luxury goods, including at least two armored limousines valued at $500,000 each”.  All for their own benefit without one iota of concern about the poor suffering North Korean people.

It’s reported:

“South Korea will donate $4.5 million to the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), and announced it was also providing 50,000 tonnes of rice for delivery to its northern neighbor. South Korea also recently donated $3.5 million to the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for humanitarian projects in North Korea.”

First of all, I have to wonder how much of that will really get to the people.  N. Korea has in the past imposed a "military first" policy for food and allowed the civilian population to starve.  A population divided into three castes based on loyalty to the regime.  About 25% are in the third caste, which are considered a threat to the regime, and make no mistake about it, they starve.  Secondly, what did South Korea get in return for their generosity and humanity? Kim just recently announced his bankrupt starving country might start testing missiles again.

He can’t find the money to feed his people but he can find the money for luxuries and missile testing?

So he threatens to double down on the activity that caused sanctions and the resulting suffering in the first place.  Why?  I have to believe this is an attempt to intimidate the west into giving him money and food for his starving people. Which will free up money - money he doesn't really have - to promote insanity.  Why insanity?  Because if he ever used any of those missiles with a nuclear device, he and his nation would cease to exist in 24 hours. 

But what about the starving people of his nation? 

He clearly doesn't care about them.  If you're a moral person you have to feel for the pain, suffering and the terrible impact this will have on the people of this nation.  Especially the children. Even if they survive, malnutrition during those development years impacts them negatively for the rest of their lives.

What should be done? 

One thing has been made clear to me over the years is governments like N. Korea, with the Kims, Venezuela with Muduro, Zimbabwe with Mugabe for decades, and others, devastate their citizens to the point it seems impossible for them to rid themselves of these monsters.  And in the cases where outside forces cleared them out and attempted to bring Democratic principles into play, they vote in the same kind of people that devasted them, which we've seen in Muslim controlled nations. 

If we provide medical care and food for these people it merely helps keep the monsters running these countries in power, prolonging the misery and agony they impose.   If we refuse to aid them innocent people suffer and die now.  Either way, these nations represent no threat to the rest of the world because of the greed, corruption and mismanagement of their governments.  North Korea is the exception.  They represent a danger to their neighbors and even the United States because of their missile and nuclear programs, which would have never come into being except for Jimmy Carter and the Clintons.

That, in my opinion, leaves only the military, and not the senior military personnel.  The younger members at the next level down is where any overthrow would have to come from. Is that possible?  No one has any idea, and no one has connections in North Korea to tell anyone, at least as far as has been published, but who knows, except there's a possibility either China or Russia could have access to personnel in N. Korea who they would support in secret.  But they won't!

What would I do? 

Let it all play out no matter how miserable it would make me feel. Stand firm and expand the sanctions.  Prevent their ability to import "luxuries", including food.  Let the leadership survive on what the nation produces and hope someone has what it takes to overthrown the Kim dynasty.  But will they be any better? 

Sometimes you don't have the privilege of being able to pick between a good choice and a bad choice.  Sometimes you're only left with the best bad choice. 

If doubt what I've said please feel free to peruse my N. Korea files, and you may find my article, N. Korean Crisis: Will This Lead to WWIII? profound and provocative.