North Korea @ MindSay 
war
The test was a failure. Back in North Korea, the dictatorship claimed they put a satellite in orbit. What a pathetic lie. These days you can't hide that sort of thing. Word gets around, even in a prison state like North Korea.
Anyway, there is no reason to get worked up about this. The Chinese will pull the plug on crazy Kim eventually. The Chinese don't want N. Korea nuking their biggest customer, the USA. Bad for business. They let this clown play around just to antagonize America. That gives the Chinese some satisfaction, probably because they (China) lost the Korean War.
Defector reaches out to North Koreans by balloon
December 9, 2008
Reporting from Incheon, South Korea — On a drizzly December morning, Lee Min-bok kneels on the cold ground near the North Korean border and consults his laptop.
He's scanning satellite weather photos to pick just the right spot for his launch. Satisfied, he and a helper grunt as they load 20 large orange helium tanks into a ramshackle van and then head west.
The vehicle is so laden with gas containers, the chassis bounces with a sick thud atop its struts at each bump in the road. Lee and his partner, Kim Sung-soo, say little, apparently lost in their own thoughts. They have brought a baggie of peeled, browning apples to eat.
Less than a mile from the border, they back the van into the cemetery of a small chapel. One by one, they fill plastic balloons with the hissing helium, creating 36-foot-tall cylinders that snap in the wind and tug hard on the ropes, as if eager to be set free.
Lee, a compact man with thick black eyebrows and a baseball cap pulled low on his head, consults a compass for the precise launch direction, then double-checks his calculations on a map.
He attaches a plastic satchel packed with thousands of vinyl fliers. He sets the timer, and waits for the right wind gust.
The first balloon floats up silently, joining the plodding gray clouds on their easy drift toward North Korea. Lee takes pictures and says a few prayers aloud.
"No one can stop this," he says. "These balloons fly under the radar. No one sees them. They're perfect messengers."
Lee is equal parts meteorologist, tinkering inventor and political dissident, a man obsessed by a singular goal: to spirit messages to those left behind in his native North Korea -- 23 million countrymen living under the ironfisted rule of Kim Jong Il.
To reach the isolated society devoid of outside newspapers, radio and television, the 52-year-old defector uses a simple yet elegant method to fly under the radar of North Korean intelligence watchdogs: He sends millions of leaflets northward by way of his towering helium balloons.
In this high-tech age, the balloons have struck a nerve with Pyongyang and landed Lee and other launchers center-stage in the Korean peninsula's high-wire political standoff.
Last week, North Korea cited Seoul's inability to control the launches -- by defectors and a handful of civic groups -- as a major reason to again close its border, banning tourists and reducing trade.
Tensions between the two Koreas have risen in the last year, especially after the February election of conservative Lee Myung-bak as South Korean president. The administration of Lee, who is a hard-liner on Pyongyang, says it is helpless to stop the launches.
Analysts say the leaflets are written in simple language by former North Koreans who intimately know the North's culture and which political buttons to press.
The vinyl leaflets from Lee, founder of the North Korean Christian Defectors Assn., are often religious. But they also strike at a ruler referred to as his nation's paternal "Dear Leader."
"Dear North Koreans," one begins, taking aim at Kim. "So he's a General who eats rice gruel together with the people? But how could he get love handles and a double chin if he eats rice gruel? People are starving to death, but why does the country spend so much for Kim's [extravagances]?"
South Korean officials are seeking ways to ban the launches, which they say jeopardize the fragile truce between the Koreas.
Many academics agree.
"Shouldn't they stop sending fliers, to prevent inter-Korea relations from being destroyed?" asks Paik Hak-soon, director of the Center for North Korean studies at Sejong Institute in South Korea.
This week, several civic groups said they would hold off on the launches for now, but Lee focuses on the long view.
"People in North Korea are dying every day, with their eyes and ears covered by Kim's regime," he says. "Do we just sit here and watch them die? No matter what they say, we have to do this."
Lee's reverence for his Dear Leader began to unravel in the 1990s, during a horrific famine that killed tens of thousands of North Koreans.
Lee, then an agricultural scientist in Pyongyang, sent numerous letters to the regime, advocating that officials follow China and open the society to outside trade and commerce to stem the starvation.
His letters were ignored, he said. So he quietly planned to defect, divorcing his wife so she wouldn't be persecuted after he was gone. He also left behind a young son.
He first went to China, but was caught and sent back to North Korea and prison. Later, in 1995, he stole across the world's most heavily armed border into South Korea.
Lee spent years adjusting to life in a free society. He remarried and had another child.
Then, in 2004, the two Koreas agreed to halt decades of propaganda warfare, which had involved floating leaflets and blasting loudspeakers across the border.
The truce angered Lee. He decided to continue the launches on his own. He immediately began studying the science of wind.
His first efforts were failures. He bought small party balloons and attached a flier to each. They traveled a short distance before drifting back to earth.
He bought bigger balloons and affixed bundles of fliers. He developed a simple timer that opened the bundles on schedule.
He worked covertly to avoid police. One of his first big launches landed in the Han River in South Korea. Another settled on the lawn of the Blue House, the home of the South Korean president, according to press reports.
But he improved with time. Now Lee and others release tens of millions of leaflets each year into North Korea.
Lee says his messages are not aimed at Kim, but his subjects.
"There is no reasoning with Kim," he says. "He's a god in his own mind. He doesn't make mistakes. But these aren't bombs. This is a peaceful war against Kim Jong Il."
The messages are reaching common North Koreans.
Park Kwon-ha, a defector and former North Korean soldier, escaped in 2005. He says the leaflets were like gold from the sky: "It cannot be overemphasized how effective the fliers are. Because the more you learn from one flier, the more you want to know."
It's not surprising North Korean officials are infuriated by the leaflets.
"Pyongyang is apoplectic," says Marcus Noland, a North Korea scholar for the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
"These defectors are from within the system. They know exactly what to say and how to say it. And they hit a nerve. For Pyongyang, they stick the knife in and twist it."
Lee knows that he's viewed by many South Koreans as a fringe element who will never achieve his goal of toppling Kim. He prefers to see himself as a North Korean David, slinging leaflets at a mighty, but vulnerable, Goliath.
Lee gets visibly upset as he discusses Kim. He begins many sentences with, "You don't know what it's like in North Korea."
He acknowledges the personal cost of his mission. He thinks of the wife and boy he left behind and he becomes rueful, and then angry.
That's when he starts planning another balloon launch.
Preparing his balloons on the recent rainy morning, Lee pauses to consider an ominous sky the color of spilled ink. He likes what he sees.
"The wind is right," he says softly. "It's blowing toward Pyongyang."
Being so close to the border is an emotional experience for Lee and Kim, his helper and fellow defector. They're so near they can almost smell their homeland. But they focus on their task. Some balloons are attached in pairs, drifting off in the shape of a large V.
The last pair start low, clipping the top of a tree, spilling leaflets before rising into the airstream. Lee sighs. "When one fails," he says, "it feels as though I've lost a child."
Done at last, Lee and Kim watch the sky, spellbound and laughing like schoolboys as they munch on the brown apple slices. Like the balloons, their spirits have lifted.
Lee says the falling leaflets are a beautiful thing to behold. It's like a sprinkling cloud, he says -- a gentle snowfall of fliers falling into the hands of his fellow North Koreans.
Minutes later, Lee is still searching the horizon. Then he sees the last balloons, two tiny pricks in the vast distance.
"Aha!" he shouts. "There they are! They're over North Korea! Go! Go bring the word!"
Glionna is a Times staff writer.
john.glionna@latimes.com
I’ll probably vote Republican for president next year. No big deal. I’ve done it for the past three, and the so-called “top tier” Democratic candidates haven’t done a thing to convince me to do otherwise.
We’ve got Hillary Clinton, the former first lady who rode her husband’s coattails to a Senate seat. If eight years on the sidelines in the White House qualifies you for the U.S. Senate, that elevator operator who was there for 40 years should be King of the World.
Then there’s Barack Obama. Many of the very people who claimed George W. Bush wasn’t qualified to be president after only six years as governor of the second largest state in the nation think this guy is the second coming of George Washington after only three years as one of 100 senators.
And don’t forget John Edwards. He did so much for North Carolina, after all, he surely deserves a shot to screw up the whole country. He gets $400 haircuts and claims to relate to the poor. I had to roll up some pennies to pay for my last $12 haircut. That’s relating to the poor.
There is, however, one Democrat who has been shut out by the national media’s fascination with the aforementioned three stooges. The more I learn about him, the more I like him. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is the one Democrat I could support, and I’m beginning to think he, more than any other candidate of either party, has the right stuff to go all the way.
Richardson has 15 years of experience in Congress, something the Big Three, particularly Obama, cannot boast. Prior to his election to the House in 1980, he worked at the State Department, and then was a staff member for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
As a congressman, he met one-on-one with Saddam Hussein in 1995 to secure the release of two American civilian aerospace workers held prisoner in Iraq after accidentally crossing the border from Kuwait.
In addition to Iraq, Richardson has also negotiated the release of hostages, American servicemen, and political prisoners from North Korea and Cuba. Earlier this year, he traveled to Sudan and brokered a cease-fire between President Omar al-Bashir and various rebel factions in Darfur. While that effort was to prove unsuccessful—through no fault of Gov. Richardson’s—I can’t help but think that a man who has earned the respect of even rogue dictators can surely restore the world’s faith in America as an international leader.
In 1997, Richardson was able to capitalize on his foreign policy experience when President Clinton appointed him U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, where he served for a year before becoming Secretary of Energy.
As secretary, he implemented tough efficiency standards that saved consumers billions of dollars in energy costs. As governor, he has required energy companies to produce 10% of all energy from renewable resources, while reducing carbon emissions; and the state is moving toward 20% by providing incentives for solar, wind, and biofuels. He has promised to do the same as president.
Since being elected governor of one of the poorest states in the nation in 2002, Richardson has cut taxes, balanced the budget, and created 84,000 new jobs...all without the benefit of a $400 hairdo. His efforts have led right-of-center and libertarian groups to praise him for reforming New Mexico’s economy. The libertarian Cato Institute calls Richardson “one of the most fiscally responsible Democratic governors in the nation.”
Gov. Richardson has worked to provide affordable healthcare to all people in his state, and has cracked down on illegal immigration across the New Mexico border.
It is noteworthy that while Democratic frontrunner Hillary is as polarizing a figure as the current President Bush, Gov. Richardson commands respect on both sides of the aisle. He was reelected in 2006, with 40% of the Republican vote. He had a good track record of getting things done in a bipartisan fashion while in Congress, and he’s worked with both parties in the New Mexico legislature to improve their state. His is the kind of leadership we desperately need in Washington.
It’s been said that Hillary and Obama are riding high because people want to say they made history by electing the first woman or the first black president. Okay…if you’re so shallow that that’s the only reason you’ll vote for somebody, issues be damned, vote to elect the first president of Hispanic descent.
You not only will have made history, you’ll have voted for someone who knows what he’s doing, isn’t on an ego trip, and has the experience and leadership to restore pride at home and respect around the world.
© 2007 by J.D. Lewis
On June 25, 1950 the North Korean Army stormed across the DMZ on the 38th parallel and invaded South Korea, starting the Korean War. Lee Jin-tae and Jin-seok were brothers, leading a happy life in Seoul. Jin-tae was a hardworking shoe-shiner engaged to Kim Young-shin, who worked a noodle stand with Jin-tae and Jin-seok’s mother. Jin-seok was a college student, paying his tuition with the combined support of his family. The family’s life was interrupted by the start of the war, and as the North Koreans advanced closer and closer to Seoul, the entire city had no choice but to flee as refugees.
Somewhere in the confusion of fleeing, Jin-seok was drafted into the South Korean Army. When Jin-tae went to go retrieve Jin-seok, he was drafted as well. As the train with the draftees took off, the Lee brothers were able to exchange a few words of farewell with their mother and Young-shin.
The film cuts to the front lines, near the Nak-dong river. The Lee brothers were @$$igned to their squadron, and after everyone met each other, the enemy surprised them to a brutal artillery attack in which many people were killed in explosions, or wounded by shrapnel. This brutal awakening to the horrors of combat caused ...Read more
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
July 6, 2007 – U.S. officials are "deeply concerned" that North Korea is close to fielding a new short-range missile that could ultimately end up on the international arms market, an outgoing senior defense official said here today. Richard Lawless, who retired June 30 after almost five years as deputy assistant secretary for Asian and Pacific affairs, told Pentagon reporters the new missile would destabilize the Korean Peninsula and the region.
"As this system approaches operational status and is deployed in large numbers, you have for the first time in the North Korean inventory a solid-fuel, highly mobile, highly accurate system whose only purpose, given its range, is to strike the Republic of Korea," he said.
Army Gen. Burwell B. Bell, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, expressed similar concerns earlier this week at the National Press Club.
Bell called North Korea's nuclear weapons program "extremely provocative, threatening and dangerous." He pointed to North Korea's recent firing of three surface-to-surface missiles, its third test firing of short-range missiles since May 25, an indication that the program is moving forward fast.
"This is a very real threat which cannot be ignored," Bell said.
Lawless said the United States is "talking to the (North) Korean government very actively about this" issue. "We have a problem with this new system because it is much more accurate and much more survivable than the huge Scud (missile) force ... already targeted on the Republic of Korea," he said.
But an even bigger concern, Lawless said, is that North Korea could end up exporting the missiles around the world.
"The North Koreans don't build anything they're not willing to sell to somebody else for the right price," he said. "So if that system is proven and deployable, I would assume it would also go on sale on the international arms market. And wherever it goes, it will have that same capacity (and) that same capability: solid fuel, highly mobile, highly accurate to 120 to 140 kilometers."
Lawless said the missile tests demonstrate that North Korea has no intention of allowing the Six-Party Talks to curb its capabilities expansion. The talks, which include North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States, are aimed at a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
Through the talks, North Korea agreed in February to shut down some of its nuclear facilities in exchange for fuel aid and more normalized relations with the United States and Japan.
"All other five members of that six-party group (are) watching very carefully how the North Koreans execute and whether they execute in sequence and on schedule," Lawless said.
A lot is riding on how North Korea complies with its commitment, he said.
"Immediately in front of us, we have a situation where the North Koreans are responsible for shutting down and then allowing (the International Atomic Energy Agency) to verify the shutdown of some very specific facilities," he said. "If they do that on time as promised according to the sequence schedule, that will be an indicator ... to the United States government that we have somebody that we can deal with."
But past experience casts doubt on that outcome, he acknowledged. "If, on the other hand, games continue to be played -- if there is basically a bait-and-switch approach, which has characterized previous interactions with the North Koreans -- I think we will have to reconsider," he said.
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