Life in North Korea
June 14th, 2010
Views Show How North Korea Policy Spread Misery: This article about the conditions in North Korea is just brutal. How long will the population put up with this? It seems quite obvious that their leader is mentally disturbed, yet they continue to allow him to govern and even set up a line of succession among his own family.
As if conditions weren’t bad enough historically, the arbitrary currency devaluation that happened last year destroyed the meager savings of most families. It set of a furious bidding war for goods right before the currency was destroyed. This section is particularly heart-breaking.
The three said they returned home with 66 pounds of rice, a pig’s head and 220 pounds of bean curd. The construction worker’s daughter had managed to purchase a small cutting board and a used pair of khaki pants. Together, he said, they spent the equivalent of $860 for items that would have cost less than $20 the day before.
His daughter tried to comfort him. “Father, I will keep this pair of pants until I die!” she pledged. He told her the cutting board would be her wedding gift.
“At that moment, I really wanted to kill myself,” he said.
What will it take for this regime to fail? At what point does the citizenry say, “Enough!”
I look at this differently than Iraq, because North Korea has no appreciable exports or resources. Iraq had oil, which provided a fantastic revenue stream to keep Hussein in power. I can’t imagine the North Korean military would be able to mount much of a defense should the population rise up (hell, they’d probably join in), but perhaps I’m being naive.
So, why doesn’t the U.S. invade? Lack of oil, probably. And I don’t mean that in the sense that we’re only interested in protecting our own interests. But lack of any real export means North Korea is broke and somewhat impotent. Without significant resources, you can’t sponsor much terrorism. Hussein was much scarier than Kim Jong-Il just because he had the resources to do something significant. Unless a warship comes quite close to its borders, North Korea is more-or-less contained by his own poverty.