THE WEIRS TIMES & THE COCHECO TIMES, Thursday, April 26, 2012


9


MISSILE FIZZLE ON KIM’S PARADE UNITED NA -


by John J. Metzler Syndicated Columnist


TIONS—In the bizarre ritual of the Demo- cratic People’s Republic of Ko- rea, a recent rocket launch was intended to put the icing on the dynas- tic cake of the


centennial birthday celebrations of the late dictator Kim Il-sung. The world press had been invited to the reclusive neo-Stalinist state, and the stage was aptly set for the kind of mass rally, goose-stepping parades which defines the DPRK, as well as for the formal political enthronement of Kim Jong-un. But the anticipated climax of the celebrations, a long-range missile launch, fizzled out and dropped into the Yellow Sea. After the rocket’s failure shortly


after takeoff, all eyes averted from the political extravaganza in Pyongyang to the abject failure of a near billion dollar boondoggle which an impoverished socialist state can hardly afford. For a country living on UN humanitar- ian aid, this became an epic em- barrassment. The real question becomes as it


did with two previous missile fail- ures in 2006 and 2009, does the regime go for an encore nuclear test? Or to save “lost face” both inside North Korea and abroad, does Jong-un launch a military provocation with South Korea? The spectacular scientific failure


of the Unha-3 rocket which was purportedly launching a satellite, became an acute embarrass- ment to the hubris of the regime who was commemorating Kim Il-sung’s birthday, as much as it was celebrating the leadership transition to his untested grand- son Kim Jong-un.


In the Marxist


Monarchy which rules North Ko- rea, power had passed from the elder Kim “Great Leader” to his son Jong-il, aka “Dear Leader,” who died in December and now officially to the 28 year old Jong- un.


Following the Friday 13th rocket


fiasco, the UN Security Council came out rhetorically swinging and in a Presidential Statement (although not a formal resolution) strongly condemning the attempt- ed launch by the Democratic


Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) of a so-called satellite, stressing the action as well as any other use of ballistic missile technology is a “serious violation of United Nations resolutions.” The statement by American Ambassador Susan Rice who is President of the Council for April added, “The Security Council deplores that such a launch has caused grave security concerns in the region.” East Asian regional security is profoundly threatened by the antics of a loose-cannon regime in Pyongyang. Earlier UN Secretary General


Ban Ki-moon, himself a South Korean, described the missile launch as “deplorable.” Indeed just months ago, the


Obama Administration was coaxed into offering 240,000 tons of humanitarian food aid to the socialist paradise in exchange for Pyongyang’s promises of good behavior on the missile front. As the Wall Street Journal editori- alized, “The larger Administra- tion error is that it continues to bounce between the equally futile alternatives of engagement with the regime and condemnation at the UN.” A source who recently visited


Pyongyang, the OZ like capital of North Korea, produced amaz- ing photos; of a city with some impressive architecture but with few cars, flickering lights, heroic propaganda posters, and people scavenging for roots and bits of bark. This could have been Main- land China during the “Cultural Revolution,” circ 1967, but it’s the DPRK a few weeks ago! But inside the totalitarian time-


warp that envelops the quaintly titled Democratic People’s Repub- lic of Korea, the surreal becomes the real. Much of the dynastic Kim Cult rests on a mélange of mythology combining Marxist- Leninism, hyper-nationalism, Confucianism, and traditional rural shamanism. This political witches brew has long served the communist elite. I’m intrigued by a haunting


photo of Kim Jong-un standing next to three dutifully clapping army officers; the taciturn faces of the military men look determined, dour, yet somehow not respectful. The new Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un is clapping but looking askance at his military praetori-


by Thomas Sowell Syndicated Columnist


ans who evoke the tale “Speak no Evil, Hear, No Evil, See No Evil.” In a speech to his assembled


minions, Kim Jong-un stressed that his “first, second and third priorities” were to strengthen the military, thus continuing his father’s Military First policies. But has the million man People’s


Army really accepted the untested and untrained rule of Kim Jong- un, a four star general who never as much spent a day in the boy scouts? Time will soon tell.


John J. Metzler is a United Na-


tions correspondent covering dip- lomatic and defense issues.


MIXING AND MATCHING Apparent ly


the soaring na- tional debt and the threat of a nuclear Iran are not enough to occupy the gov- ernment’s time, because the Obama ad- ministration is pushing to


force Westchester County, N.Y., to create more low-income housing, in order to mix and match classes and races to fit the government’s preconceptions. Behind all this busy work for


bureaucrats and ideologues is the idea that there is something wrong if a community does not have an even or random distribution of var- ious kinds of people. This arbitrary assumption is that the absence of evenness or randomness -- whether in employment, housing or innumerable other situations -- shows a “problem” that has to be “corrected.” No speck of evidence is consid-


ered necessary for this assump- tion to prevail at any level of gov- ernment, including the Supreme Court of the United States. No one has to show the existence, much less the prevalence, of an even or random distribution of differ- ent segments of the population -- in any country, anywhere in the world, or at any period of history. Nothing is more common than


for people to sort themselves out when it comes to residential hous- ing, whether by class, race or other factors. When there was a large Jewish


population living on New York’s lower east side, a century ago, Jews did not live at random among themselves. Polish Jews had their neighborhoods, Rumanian Jews theirs, and so on. Meanwhile German Jews lived uptown. In Chicago, when Eastern European Jews began moving into German Jewish neighborhoods, German Jews began moving out. It was much the same story in Harlem or in other urban ghettoes, See SOWELL on 28


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