7 January 2009: Thou Shall Put No Other Gods Before Me

FOR THE EIGHTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR, the Christian NGO Open Doors has ranked North Korea the world’s worst place to be a Christian.

You can’t understand North Korea until you grasp that it’s a theocracy — a cult with nuclear weapons and a seat in the General Assembly. Open Doors, by the way, has actively supported human rights in North Korea for years. They’ve long been one of the most dedicated groups working on this issue, often making their impact felt in Congress.

ROBERT PARK’S FAMILY ASKS FOR YOUR PRAYERS and good wishes.  I have reservations about what Robert Park did, but I have no reservations about Robert Park’s intentions or about encouraging prayers for his safe return.

GORDON CHANG, WRITING IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, thinks the North Korean regime won’t survive the crisis provoked by the Great Confiscation. He may be right if Kim Jong Il loses the support of the people with the guns, but if Chang thinks (as he seems to) that Kim Jong Il could be deposed in a popular uprising, he’s mistaken. It will take an organized, broad-based, opposition to topple him, and even that will only succeed if the opposition can manage to undermine the loyalty of the security forces.

THE OLD VIEW OF CHINA was that economic growth would melt away its hostility. The new view of China is that economic growth allowed it to retool from Maoism to fascism and made it arrogant, nationalist, and more hostile than ever. The old China was a danger to its people. The new China is also a danger to our people, and it’s our money that created this danger. Note the quotation of Shen Dingli, who held up Beijing’s green light immediately before North Korea’s nuclear test, notwithstanding China’s pretense that it’s helping us disarm Kim Jong Il.

AS IT TURNED OUT, IRAN’S FATE was not decided on New Year’s Day, but here’s some interesting video of Iranian protestors confronting Basij thugs.