Open Sources, September 19, 2013
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QUICK! TO THE VANKMOBILE! I hate to break it to “Jonathan Smith,” but no, South Korea is not known as the “PRK,” which I assume is supposed to stand for the “Peoples’ Republic of Korea.” Smith has set up a web site intended to reassure readers that their travels in North Korea will be perfectly safe (Ken Bae and Park Wang-Ja were not available for comment). His choice of a Q&A format–along with a distinctly teutonic writing style–produces this adorable self-rebuke:
But I don’t want to be part of the propaganda!
First of all, that is not a question.
Now I shall explain the Jeopardy rules, which will be enforced strictly! Whoever Jonathan Smith really is, we can see why authoritarian systems of government exert a certain gravitational pull on his personality. Still, most people would probably require more sagacious and authoritative reassurance than Smith can marshal to suppress everything they know and accept his alternative reality instead:
[Y]ou already are part of the propaganda of your own country. All the news that you know about North Korea, has reached you through the mainstream media. If you think that you will get shot when you go to North Korea with a digital camera, it is because the mainstream media presented the news in such a way that you thinkit (sic) is dangerous to go to North Korea with a digital camera. That is called Western propaganda and you are already part of it.
You will collect your visas and your indictments at the Customs Desk now!
Now listen carefully, children. If you want to live a long and happy life, please just stay the fuck out of North Korea, OK?
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HOLLYWOOD SQUARES, THE NEXT GENERATION: Suddenly, North Korea is the venue of choice for every has-been and wanna-be celebrity to get easy publicity. If Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly were alive today, they’d be booking their trips, too. But back when they were alive, they didn’t join a similar flood of celebrity camera-hogs on their way to Johannesburg, for some unexplained reason.
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KAESONG TAKES THE FIRST SMALL STEPS toward reopening. Assuming that full operations do resume, there’s reason to hope it will be closed down again soon enough.
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BORDER WATCH: North Korea reacts to a surge of pre-Chuseok smuggling with a pre-Chuseok crackdown. In practice, that amounts to the latest opportunity for corrupt border police to shake people down and take more bribes.
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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE who helped The Daily NK meet its fundraising goals, and also, you’re welcome.
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SURE, I’M GLAD THAT SWITZERLAND finally decided to enforce U.N. sanctions against North Korea for once, and I do appreciate the intent behind a campaign to thank Switzerland for doing what it’s legally obligated to do, but what’s next, a petition to thank Anthony Weiner for not showing his d__k to any strangers or flipping off any reporters for a whole day?
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CHARM OFFENSIVE UPDATE: According to a Zimbabwean opposition news site, “President Robert Mugabe’s military henchmen have reportedly signed an arms trade agreement worth millions of dollars with North Korea, in return for allowing Pyongyang access to Zimbabwe’s controversial Kanyemba district, which has sparked a uranium mining race pitting Iran and other powers…”
Christopher Hill would have been unavailable for comment if anyone had asked him for one.
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MORE OF THIS, PLEASE: Open warfare has broken out between moderate and extremist Syrian rebels. That’s great news for us, because it might just give us someone to work with to work toward a better alternative.
It bothers me very much to see conservatives falling for the trap of opposing everything President Obama does, just because it’s him doing it. In fact, not all of the Syrian opposition is extremist, or dominated by extremists. Obama’s support for a moderate opposition may well be too little and too late, but it’s also our only chance to prevent Al Qaeda from taking over a major Middle Eastern country and a large supply of North Korean-supplied chemical weapons.
A few air strikes won’t achieve those goals, and might even set us back from them. That’s why I opposed them.
Update: Walter Russell Mead had similar thoughts.