This is an old post from February of 2005 but I thought I’d stick it to the wall for a day or so in light of recent events. We could use a bit of humor.
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North Korea announced yesterday that they really do have nuclear weapons. No one is surprised by the revelation, but doesn’t it seem that they’ve sort of moved into a new neighborhood? Specifically, our neighborhood. I think we should send them a welcome basket and a nice card.
“Dear North Korea,
Welcome to the nuclear neighborhood. We’ve been expecting you for a long time, since the house next door had a “sold” sign on it and the moving trucks arrived with Kim Jong Il’s stuff. It’s really not a bad neighborhood because everyone who lives here is careful to “respect” everyone else. Oh, we argue a lot but no one invades anyone else’s yard. The consequences are just too horrible to think about.And yet, we encourage you to think about them. You might start by reading John Hersey’s Hiroshima for a good description of a nuclear war. It’s a factual description, from the only actual nuclear war ever fought. Please remember, it was fought by us, against another country that made us very, very angry.
Please keep in mind that if one of your nukes ever goes off on our soil or where it harms people we’re protecting, we’ll know. It won’t matter if you deliver it by missile, shipping container, or Federal Express marked “diesel engine,” we’ll know it came from you. And while you have – what, four or five nukes? A dozen? – we have enough to turn your whole country into the glassy mirror for a really big telescope and not even miss them. We don’t want to do that but it would be healthy for you to remember that we can.
(Eventually you’ll come to realize those super weapons are as much an albatross around your neck as a protective barrier. They certainly are to the rest of us in the neighborhood.)
We pretend to be very upset by your nukes, but the truth is we’re actually a little relieved. Your having nukes means we won’t be invading you, and contrary to what you’ve been told, Americans don’t really want to go around invading other countries. We don’t like all the coffins with our children in them, or the shell-shocked veterans waking up screaming or drifting off into drugs and suicide.
You see, we know that sooner or later, Kim Jong Il – can we call you “Kim?” Or do you prefer “Il?” – you’ll die. Eventually people in your country will get tired of living in a tyrannized toilet and start wanting a Western lifestyle. Without firing a shot, we know that North Korea will someday become a capitalist democracy. McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and the internet will do it. (You don’t think you can hold off the internet forever, do you?)
Of course, there’s no necessity for your people to wait until you die of natural causes. If one of your imperial guards wanted to do the whole world a favor, he could just suddenly put a bullet through your misshapen head. We’d be fine with that. But here’s something we’d like even better:
Why don’t you start democratizing your country? You don’t have to have real elections right away – we suspect you don’t even know how. But start with literacy. Make sure everyone in your country can read. Your own language, yes, but English too. Because the next step may surprise you.
Why not trade with us? Lighten up on your people a bit, and make something useful in your factories. If you can make guns, you can make other stuff too, and you could sell that stuff. Why, next thing you know, you might be selling stuff to us. You’ve got pretty good missiles… how about launching communication satellites? The quality of life in that cold dark hole you call a country might improve. You could even take credit for it!
History doesn’t have any examples of a paranoid tyrant returning to sanity and guiding his people to a better life. Why don’t you try to be the first? Despite all our nasty talk, we promise we’ll be rooting for you if you try.
If you play your cards right, you could win an actual, fair election. Against opposing candidates, even! There’s a first time for everything.”
Sincerely, the people of the United States of America
CC: Iran
Hell, it could be worth a try.
DoF
That really made my morning…
I would add it may be a good idea to remind him not to tinkle in the community pools
DOF,
I agree with John. That’s a great piece you wrote. The only problem is that it strikes me, from everything that I’ve read about him, that Kim Jong Il is way too far gone to ever consider being reasonable. When you’ve spent your entire life being groomed to be a autocratic tyrant it must be hard to turn away from that. However, perhaps if the western democratic nations started offering some trade concessions (or perhaps just a few nice box sets of DVDs and a sweet entertainment system) in return for reform, North Korea might start to democratize. I don’t think that Kim Jong-Il would ever take the first step someone would have to give him a reason to.
I actually think that announcing that he has nukes might be him actually reaching out. He’s pretty much yelling, “Pay attention to me!” Perhaps we should perhaps pay a little more attention to him, and perhaps get him to be more reasonable. There’s been about 50 years of mistrust between North Korea and the rest of the world. Perhaps we need to change that. Moreover, for once it seems like the US and China can agree on something, namely that someone needs to do something about Kim Jong-Il. That suggests to me that something should be done.
NK has a long history of yelling “Pay attention to me!”—especially to distract from internal problems. It’s something of a non-event, though, since pretty much everyone believed NK had nukes prior to this (though, of course, there will remain some sliver of doubt until they actually test one of the things).
I agree that something needs to be done, but given the general nuttiness of the NK regime, the what to do is a big question mark. We certainly don’t want NK to be rewarded for its internal and external behavior (both for justice’ sake and so as to not incent other possible nuclear powers), but it’s tough to do nothing and even tougher to consider how to punish them without making Kim go nuttier.
That’s just it… its hard to fight someone who is well… insane.
Wars are fought by making reasonable guesses on what your enemy may or may not do in a given situation. Kim is bonkers, making it nearly impossible to tell what he will do…
He could nuke Japan if we sneeze wrong … or do nothing… no way to determine it
Good one DOF, looks like N.Korea has joined the big boy grown up club, time for theme to act like it. How we handle this will be sign post for Iran when they join the nuke club and they will.
We of the occident seem to think that our logic is compatable with that of the orient. we live for today and try to forgive what was done to us in the past. The orient has long memories and I figure that the N. Koreans have not forgot what was done to them during the decades of Japanese occupation. They might just want to get even..
Very well written as always DOF. It made me smile and think.
I fear that it may not matter if someone is able to figure out what Kim Jong Il thinks or feels or not. Like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change. That is what I find most dismal and distressing about Kim Jong Il and his regime.
The addition of the nuclear capability just makes him truly horrifying. Now his deranged reach is global. It can find me, no matter where I go. I wonder how many times, already, he has “decided” to reach out and touch someone with a nuclear calling card, but got sidetracked?
How often has he declared in a flurry on his way out the door, “Wait, Never mind (smacking hand against forehead)I am meeting Kim Lee for golf this morning!” or
“Stop! Can’t do that now, it’s movie time!” (scurrying out the door to his personal cinematic theater.) or
“Hold! I need to go to the firing range this afternoon. The cook put too much pepper in last night’s soup. Maybe we’ll nuke them tomorrow.”