North Korea Still North Korea
by Richardson ~ October 30th, 2008. Filed under: North Korea, Terrorism.Today North Korea condemned the U.S. for allegedly conducting a raid into Syria that the Syrian government claims killed eight people, including a family with four children. The North described this as, “an unpardonable inhuman criminal act” and “terrorism.” Anonymous U.S. officials – aren’t they always, in cases like this – described the operation as targeting the leader of a Syrian group that smuggled arms and individuals into Iraq.
On Tuesday, however, North Korea engaged in a textbook case of terrorism – the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes – when a spokesman threatened to turn the South into “debris,” a variant of “sea of fire” or “ashes” threats.
The North Korean regime is stunningly hypocritical, as usual, but makes the U.S. government look even more foolish for delisting them.
October 30th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Just as ROK gets a government with more backbone, our own government decides to throw in the towel.
Timing is… something.
November 12th, 2008 at 3:06 am
Of course, it could be argued that listing or delisting states as sponsors of terrorism is a mere rhetorical move. It has been said that our enemies who engage in acts of terrorism are terrorists, but when our friends do the same thing, they’re freedom fighters or they’re upholding democracy.
That bit of semantical masturbation having been said, I wonder how feasible it would be to completely isolate the regime from all trade. It might take a bit of work to get China (and perhaps the Obama administration) to go along with something like that, but I think it’s the only way to get the DPRK to can it with the gratuitous saber-rattling.