WaPo Finally ‘Discovers’ Concentration Camps in North Korea
I submit that any man so morally retarded that he would utter the statement quoted below is not qualified to represent the values or interests of the United States abroad.
And South Korea isn’t alone in tuning out the horrors. The United States is more concerned with containing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. The State Department’s stunning lack of urgency was captured in a recent statement from its assistant secretary for Asia, Christopher R. Hill: “Each country, including our own, needs to improve its human rights record.” Japan is focused on Japanese citizens abducted forcibly to North Korea. China doesn’t want instability across its border. [Washington Post Editorial]
Is it any wonder why Hill and Lorin Maazel hit it off so well? The the mendacious Christopher Hill, we now know, is a man who will say anything at any given moment to advance his personal ambitions. To that end, Hill has excised the discussion of North Korea’s atrocities from his talks with the North Koreans, and his minions have tried to airbrush it out of State Department reports. How ironic that the Washington Post, whose correspondent Glenn Kessler has studiously avoided discussion of the human rights story and missed no chance to give Hill a tongue bath (see update), now picks him up and shakes him like a chew toy. One can only hope that this further dims Hill’s chances of joining the Obama Administration. Certainly his record of diplomatic accomplishment isn’t much of a qualification.
Mr. Hill’s larger point is that the United States should be practical in relations with the north and not simply denounce abuses so that America can feel good about itself. We support his efforts to negotiate with the regime. It’s worth noting, though, that last week the north yet again backtracked on a nuclear-related agreement it had made and Mr. Hill had vouched for. It will continue to honor such agreements, or not, based on a reading of its own interests, not on whether its negotiating partners do or don’t speak honestly. We think there’s an inverse relationship between a regime’s trustworthiness on any subject and its propensity to abuse its own people. We also believe that it should not be left to the lone escapee from North Korea’s gulag to speak out about its horror.
High school students in America debate why President Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t bomb the rail lines to Hitler’s camps. Their children may ask, a generation from now, why the West stared at far clearer satellite images of Kim Jong Il’s camps, and did nothing.
Maybe the Post is equally mindful that one day, its readers will wonder why it almost never covered this story, even though dozens of camp survivors and witnesses now live in Seoul, where the Post has a correspondent. Nearly all of their stories are more readily corroborated than Shin Dong Hyuk’s. More than any other major American newspaper, the Post has viewed the North Korea story through a soda straw that points only to Yongbyon. (By contrast, the L.A. Times and the British press in general have covered the story far better). One day, the Post may cite this token editorial as slender shield of absolution against the charge that for so many years, it ignored the bigger story of North Korea, thus depriving its coverage of the essential context to which it now awakens.
More of those “far clearer satellite images” here and here.
My gosh, it’s like having Jimmy Carter on permanent post in Korea! I can no longer tell a difference between JC and Hill. What a bunch of losers…
I totally agree that “one day, the Post may cite this token editorial as slender shield of absolution against the charge that for so many years, it ignored the bigger story of North Korea, thus depriving its coverage of the essential context to which it now awakens.”
And that
“more than any other major American newspaper, the Post has viewed the North Korea story through a soda straw that points only to Yongbyon. (By contrast, the L.A. Times and the British press in general have covered the story far better).”
Well said, James! For a major American newspaper that prides itself in championing human rights, they have never once reported the conclusion drawn by major human rights organizations who confirm that the DPRK represents the worst human rights crisis of the century – what a waste all these years and who knows how much damage they’ve indirectly caused – I certainly hope Obama hasn’t been influenced by the WaPo to the point of having Hill join his administration!
What would you say to: as a top priority, exposing and shutting down the death camps by intelligence means, promoting mass defections by those who want to leave, providing safe havens for them in third countries and promoting cultural exchanges that may lead to a more open DPRK, albeit inhabited only by military and party elites for awhile but eventually with the hope of facilitating a more democratized state.
Any more ideas we can recommend to the new administration? Keep on that American mainstream media -they could be the hindrance: to getting these ideas across (especially to the new admnistration), and to formulating a new policy toward the DPRK, one that actually works!
Most politicians find it easy to agree, as a general matter, that “something should be done” about North Korea’s atrocities against its people. A lot of self-described “realist” diplomats would probably agree with that when you’re within earshot. When you’re out of earshot, most of them quickly decide that the North Koreans would walk away from a bargaining table if we mentioned it, and then proceed to snip the whole subject out of the agenda.
I think the lesson that every administration ought to learn about dealing with North Korea isn’t so much the content of the agenda but the importance of pursuing it with structure. There have to be firm and clear goals, deadlines, and benchmarks, to be followed by firm and clear consequences if they’re not met. Really, all of our problems with North Korea boil down to one issue: transparency. Demand and get transparency and the regime’s misdeeds can’t withstand the world’s scrutiny.
Well said, as usual, Joshua – I totally agree.
Only in retrospect will people look back and ask “Why didn’t we do anything?”
I shudder the day when North Korea is finally opened.
It would be nice if – one day – these post-Cold War generations were made to give an accounting of this – but it won’t happen. As perhaps Jack was hinting, they’ll find a way, along with generations to come, to pat themselves on the back by saying “We didn’t they do anything?” as if they really were better than their times.
We had to be directly and intimately involved with the massive struggle of WWII to really register the shock of the Holocaust.
The Killing Fields of Cambodia were more of the norm, to me —– something that didn’t register much at the time but then were taken up in a type of self-congratulatory,pretend flagellation after the fact – as if to say, “Never again!!”
Post-Pyongyang, Hollywood might make a quality movie about it, likely damning consecutive (or a single) American administration in the process, and feel like it has done it’s part.
It’s too busy right now making Cannes-appreciated 4 1/2 movies celebrating Che Guevara to tell a story our media doesn’t want to report much about either…..
Do I sound bitter? Well, there seems to be a mountain of reason to be…..
And I don’t consider myself above this generation and moment at all.
I admire people like One Free Korea and others who stay focused on this mess day-after-day, year-after-year….
….because when you look at it all —– when you look at what goes on in North Korea, look at all the information we have and continue to get about it, — when you look at how important people and orgs – like the media – and Hollywood – and so on – couldn’t care less – and look at examples from the past – or at contemporary examples like with Tibet or Darfur —- it is so thoroughly depressing….
This will continue until the North finally collapses – and the United States will continue to do its part – a little or more here and there – to make sure collapse doesn’t come — until it becomes impossible to sustain the regime whatever outside nations try to do.
Then societies around the world probably won’t pause more than a second on the horrors – beyond an Academy Award speech for a movie that will do nothing to prevent it from happening again.
And it will to some extent happen again and again.
The only question is how many North Koreans are going to die or live a life of utter misery until collapse comes…..
Chris Hill may not stay on with the Obama administration. Poor Jong Il.
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/12/16/1719028.aspx