Kim Jong Il is Dead

[American Patriot]

Grasshopper traders?

Cuz... you know, like, they are starving to death and eat bugs?

Oh my God.

Those poor people.

[Malsua]

Let's hope someone with eyes on the seat of power sends a shiv into this new Kim and ends the polluted DNA line.

I'm quite pleased he's dead. I just wish I could visit his grave and take a piss on it.

[Toad]

A South Korean man gestures toward a picture of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as he reads the reports of his death on the newspaper company's display board in Seoul, South Korea, on December 19, 2011. (Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon)

[American Patriot]

I wonder what that gesture means in Korean?


hehehe

I sent it to my co-worker, she will know.

LMAO

[Phil Fiord]

Nope. My first thought when I caught the breaking news blurb was:

Ding dong, Kim Jong is dead

Which Kim Jong? The NK one.

Ding dong, Kim Jong Il is deaaaaad!

I just heard this on the way to work at 6AM this morning. I actually CHEERED in the truck.

Is that horrible of me?

LOL

[vector7]

China vows support to Jong-un in rapid order

중국, 北 김정일 사망 발표 후 발 빠르게… “김정은 영도 아래 전진 믿는다”

Dec 21,2011

BEIJING - China moved with rapid speed to offer condolences to North Korea over the loss of its leader and show support for new leader Kim Jong-un, fueling worries that the emerging giant will try to expand its influence over its communist ally.

Yesterday, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the North Korean Embassy in Beijing to offer condolences on the death of Kim Jong-il, a day after Chinese government agencies, including the ruling Communist Party’s Central Committee, quickly approved his son Jong-un as the new leader.

On Monday, China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi called in North Korea’s vice ambassador to China, Park Myong-ho, to express China’s condolences over Kim’s death and its support for Kim Jong-un. North Korean ambassador to Beijing, Ji Jae-ryong, left for Pyongyang soon after the North announced Kim’s death.

Kim Heung-kyu, a Sungshin Women’s University professor and an expert on China, said there is sufficient reason to believe that China’s quick moves reflect a contingency plan drafted in advance.

“Unlike previous occasions in which it responded cautiously and slowly to an emergency situation, China’s responses after the announcement of Kim’s death felt swift and even bold.”

Kim Heung-kyu said China’s quick proclamation of support for the Kim Jong-un regime contains a calculated message to Washington, Seoul and Tokyo that they should not provoke the North in a time of emergency.

China, which fought for North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War, has long been the North’s closest ally, but it has expanded its influence in recent years as the impoverished North sought increasing aid and investment. Kim Jong-il visited China four times in 15 months through August.

The Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party news outlet, urged yesterday an increase in China’s influence over North Korea.

It called on China to quickly send high-ranking officials to North Korea to communicate with the new North Korean leadership.

Analysts said that China has long prepared for an emergency in the North through increasing intelligence activities, with some saying China may have noticed an emergency situation unfolding in the North as far back as two months ago when North Korea’s leading anchorwoman Ri Chun-hee disappeared from television. Ri returned to the airwaves to announce Kim’s death on state-run television Monday.

[vector7]

Andrei Lankov on post-KJI North Korea

by Robert Koehler on December 21, 2011

In Foreign Affairs, Andrei Lankov discusses the future of North Korea after KJI. Not to spoil it, but here’s the conclusion (HT to Sei Chong):

North Korea’s ruling class also believes that it needs nuclear weapons for diplomatic purposes. Pyongyang does not want starve its population to death; Kim Jong Il probably would have preferred to see North Koreans alive and well, but he sacrificed the common people to maintain stability. And since modernization would undermine that stability, the regime cannot pursue it. The only way for North Korea’s elite to stay afloat is to squeeze aid from the outside world, and the nuclear program allows it to do so. With nuclear weapons as its blackmail, North Korea has managed to attract far more international attention and aid than countries of similar size and per capita GDP.

Under these circumstances, Kim Jong Un is likely to continue his father’s legacy. But that doesn’t mean that the current system will continue indefinitely. No country with a hyper-centralized, Stalinist economy has remained efficient for longer than two or three decades. It is difficult to see how or why North Korea could disprove this rule. The regime may maintain its centrally planned economy and political repression for now, but this will only prolong the country’s unsustainable stagnation. The longer North Korea’s rulers holds on to power, the greater the gap between Pyongyang and its neighbors will be — creating greater potential for future turmoil.

And sadly, I don’t think there’s a damn thing we can do about it except watch.

[Phil Fiord]

I guess it finally was a cold day in Hell.

[vector7]

2012/01/31 10:49 KST
Defense officials of S. Korea, U.S., Japan say N. Korea 'stable'


U.S. - Japan - Republic of Korea Trilateral Meeting in Washington
Representatives from the United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea met January 17, 2012 at the Department of State in Washington, D.C. for a day-long trilateral dialogue. Participants included Special Envoy for Six-Party Talks Ford Hart, Special Representative for North Korean Policy Glyn Davies, ROK Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Issues Lim Sung-nam, Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director General for Asian and Oceanian Affairs Shinsuke Sugiyama, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian & Pacific Security Affairs Peter Lavoy, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Jim Zumwalt. Media Note»

SEOUL, Jan. 31 (Yonhap) -- Senior defense officials from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan consider the current North Korean regime "stable" under its new leader Kim Jong-un, sources said Tuesday.

Lim Kwan-bin, South Korea's deputy defense minister; Peter Lavoy, the U.S. acting assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs; and Masanori Nishi, the head of defense policy at Japan's defense ministry, began their two-day meeting on the South Korean island of Jeju on Monday, sources said. Their conference, held behind closed doors, was the first such trilateral meeting since Kim Jong-un took the helm of Pyongyang from his late father, Kim Jong-il, last December.

According to sources, the three officials believe Kim Jong-un is still in the process of expanding his authority in the communist regime, with no unusual signs detected from the North's leadership ranks.

"With South Korea and the U.S. scheduled to hold major joint exercises starting late next month, the three countries have agreed to maintain close sharing of information on North Korea to prepare against military provocations," one source said.

The South and the U.S. are set to hold their annual Key Resolve exercise from Feb. 27 to March 9, while a second exercise, the Foal Eagle, will take place from March 1 to April 30.

According to sources, the U.S. side briefed its counterparts on the new U.S. defense strategy, unveiled in light of major cuts to Washington's defense expenditure.

They said the U.S. officials stressed that though reductions in spending and troop size are inevitable, there will be no major change to the U.S. commitment to the Asia-Pacific region.

A South Korean defense ministry official said the three nations also discussed cooperation in international relief operations, and added this sort of trilateral meeting "will be held on a regular basis."

[vector7]

Senior DOD Official Extends Hand to North Korea, Warns Others

January 30, 2012 RSS Feed Print



A senior Pentagon official invited North Korea's new leader to the negotiating table Monday after sternly warning other would-be foes that shrinking defense budgets do not equal an American military in decline.

"The ball is in their court" to launch new talks with Washington and four other key nations about its nuclear weapons program, Pentagon policy chief Michele Flournoy said of the new regime in North Korea, headed by the youthful Kim Jong Un.

Flournoy said the Obama administration's goal since taking office has been to engage North Korean officials in the six-nation negotiations that would be intended to convince Pyongyang to give up its alleged nuclear weapons program. "Our top concern" is nuclear weapons moving in and out of North Korea, Flournoy said. U.S. officials worry those deadly arms might end up in the hands of an unstable regime or a terrorist organization.

[Debate Club: Should the US Strike Iran?]

Minutes before extending that olive branch to North Korea's new leader, believed to be in his late twenties, Flournoy sent a muscular message to other potential American foes.

Since the Obama administration unveiled its new defense strategy and a slimmed-down 2013 budget blueprint, some U.S. lawmakers and analysts have said the administration is creating a weaker military. Not so, Flournoy said during a military conference in Washington.

"I am here to tell you I strongly disagree," she said. Comparing President Barack Obama, her boss, to President Harry Truman at the start of the Cold War, Flournoy said the current commander in chief's new strategy and budget was built by officials who were thinking "strategically" and "practically."

In a message to those skeptics and would-be foes alike, the outgoing Pentagon policy chief said there will be no "era of long-term U.S. decline."

She also promised that Washington is not ceding its "global leadership."

[North Korea Open to Disarmament Talks.]

The new defense strategy and budget call for a leaner military, but one with highly trained and agile troops with top-notch equipment. The companion documents shift the military's primary focus from the Middle East to Asia, while also calling for more small bases and new "innovative partnerships" around the globe.

"It is not a question of can we confront more than one [foe] at a time," Flournoy said. "It's how."

That line is preview of one aspect of the brewing fight over the new strategy and smaller budget between the administration and GOP lawmakers. The latter have questioned both, including the casting aside of a planning scenario to aim for a force that can fight and win two big wars at once.

"This new definition of presence is mediocrity at its best," says Virginia Republican Rep. Randy Forbes, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, in a recent interview. The leading GOP presidential candidates have knocked Obama's defense plans, as well.

Forbes said defense-minded House Republican lawmakers intend to make the Obama administration's new definition of military presence a major campaign issue. "We are going to take this to the American people with the hope that by the time we get to November, the American people are going to ask: 'Just what kind of military and defense should we have?'"

[Expert Says Clinton Erred in North Korea Outreach, Warns of Nuke Smuggling.]

The GOP lawmaker and other hawkish Republicans, including the GOP presidential candidates, are betting American voters will side with their vision of a larger U.S. military than the one Obama envisions. Democratic congressional sources are quick to note that Obama is the president who killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, turned the tide in Afghanistan, dismantled al Qaeda's leadership structure and helped remove Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

[Ryan Ruck]

A senior Pentagon official invited North Korea's new leader to the negotiating table Monday after sternly warning other would-be foes that shrinking defense budgets do not equal an American military in decline.