Olympic Politics
Jimmy Kimmel occasionally runs a segment where he shows a series of clips of news readers using almost identical language to relate a story. The herd effect is funny, but it’s also eerie. Human beings are herd animals; this is but one of the many manifestations of that reality. A narrative starts, sometimes in an unlikely fashion, and it is picked up uncritically. A lot of stuff passes for fact that has never been properly examined. And woe betide anyone yelling stop!
The narrative of the Winter Olympics in Korea is that DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) walked away with “Diplomatic Gold”. Young Kim sent his little sister south. She charmed the world and engaged the South Korean elite. The peace process was resurrected. That buffoon Pence was upstaged. She took the initiative to cancel a planned meeting with him because he had the audacity to disrupt the spirit of harmony by talking about violations of human rights in her country. There was even adulatory comment about her hair and make-up . . . I’m not making this up.
NYT added nuance to the narrative with an editorial about the failure of an ABM test. It suggested that we stop devoting resources to the development of missile defense and start talking to young Kim instead.
My purpose in writing this blog is to stir thought. I hope to avoid conflating religious grade belief with politics. I hope to avoid tribal screed. Politics, within our constitutional limits, should be about finding some common ground and enacting legislation and regulations that make things better. It should be empirical. If the policy doesn’t work, change it. My goal in writing is to make policy suggestions for consideration.
In this case, I will make an exception. I am outraged. DPRK is the most brutal regime on earth today. It ranks right up there with the most brutal regimes in the checkered history of our species. I believe that history will render a harsh and justified condemnation of our tolerance of this barbarity.
There are at least 250,000 abused human beings in DPRK’s concentration camps. If you are found wanting in your level of adulation for the dynasty, you are thrown in a concentration camp . . . forever. Your entire family is thrown into the camp . . . forever. When there was last a crop failure, Kim’s father spurned international efforts to provide food aid. Three million people, maybe more, starved to death. Young Kim has executed over 100 members of his own inner circle, a number of them personally. He shot his uncle with an anti-aircraft gun. He had his half brother assassinated. His little sister is not one of the cute cheerleaders sent south or an athlete; she is a senior member of the regime. She was the cutting edge of a propaganda campaign, which succeeded beyond Kim’s wildest expectations. Western media has been conned in a spectacular fashion.
What should the narrative have been? DPRK has 30,000+ artillery pieces in mountain bunkers pointed at Seoul. It has thermonuclear weapons. It has an ICBM. It is in process of miniaturizing a warhead to fit onto the ICBM and a nosecone capable of reentry. Within a short period of time, all of the US will be in range of nuclear annihilation.
Those who know better (read NYT) would like us to negotiate with Kim. Negotiation is not about good intentions; it is transactional. Who has the hostage and how much is the ransom? What have we got to offer that he might accept? Relief from sanctions and unfettered entry into the world’s trading system? He doesn’t want that. If his populace got a peek outside the Hermit Kingdom, the regime would be gone in a heartbeat. A guarantee that we would leave the regime in peace to oppress its people? He would never accept our guarantee. His family had violated every agreement it ever signed, usually before the ink was dry. His view of agreements with future obligations would not allow him to believe we would be faithful to our promise.
I categorize deals along a spectrum from handshake to drug deal. With a handshake deal, the parties trust each other. Each agrees to take specified action; both sides believe the other to be reliable; the deal is sealed with a handshake. Paperwork may be drawn, but it is filed away afterward, never to be seen again. In a drug deal, one side brings drugs and a currency expert; the other side brings cash and a chemist. Both sides are armed. If the drugs are pure and the cash is real, an exchange is made. Both sides withdraw with weapons off safety. One business equivalent is an escrow. I agree to pay, but escrow the funds. When I am satisfied that I got what was agreed, funds are released from escrow. Neither side trusts the other. The only deal we can make with DPRK is a drug deal. He doesn’t trust us and we should not trust him. Harsh sanctions might bring him to the table; reliable ABM technology vastly devalues one of his hostages.
What could the narrative have been? Satellite photos of the concentration camps and artillery emplacements would have been a good start. Numerous interviews with those who have managed to escape from that hellhole would have been the right follow-up. An expose of Little Sister’s position in the regime would have been useful. Coverage of Pence’s speech was non existent. That was journalistic malpractice, in my view. The suffering multitudes under the yoke of the Kim regime deserved a lot better than our media gave them. We should be ashamed of ourselves.