NORTH KOREA - A NASTY PUZZLE!

By Edwin Cooney

When I was a very young lad, I learned from most of my elders that there were two types of Koreans — good Koreans and bad Koreans. The good Koreans fought against the bad Koreans as our allies and friends. The bad Koreans were friends of the very, very bad Russians. It was all very scary because we “little ones” often had to participate at school in air raid drills during which we were warned of the possibility that we could be obliterated in a Russian — or even a North Korean — atomic air attack.  Then, in July of 1953, the war came to an end! Or, did it?

As it turned out, the document signed between the North Korean government, the Soviet government and the United States at Panmunjom turned out to be a truce rather than a peace as largely advertised by the Republicans ever since. 

We Americans are traditionally so hungry for “peace,” that we are easily lulled into a mindset that ignores the difference between peace and truce. Thus, nearly 64 years after U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. handed a note to the Secretary General informing him that his organization had brought about an armistice with the North Koreans, we are invariably shocked to realize that technically we and the United Nations are still at war with North Korea.

The implications of this nightmare reality are almost limitless and horrifying. North Korea, led by the Kim family since its 1948 founding, is the victim of gangsterism as much as Communism. There are those who’ll assert that Communism, an ideology, is more or less a cover for gangsterism. (Note that no other Soviet or Communist state has been ruled by a “family!”)

Due to the irritation factor, there is the tendency to want to react violently out of pure frustration. The fact remains that the North Koreans won’t be intimidated by either our reputation or by our sheer military might. Let’s try a few scenarios.

(1) North Korea attacks Seoul South Korea with nuclear weapons. The fact is that because of the short distance between the 38th parallel, the truce line, and Seoul, the South Korean capital, there would inevitably be a severe fallout factor that would cost the Kim family considerably in both money and prestige even at home where they’re not used to either political or social resistance.

(2) An attack on South Korea would, under the SEATO Treaty of 1954 (the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, Southeast Asia’s equivalent to NATO), require an attack on North Korea by the United States and fellow SEATO members. This would bring China into the conflict most likely but not assuredly on the side of the North Koreans for it has been observed that North Korea has missiles pointed not only at the South Koreans and Japan, but also at the Chinese.

(3) An attack by the United States on North Korea, aside from bringing about a possible Chinese nuclear or mere conventional air attack on the United States, could bring severe repercussions (probably economic more than military) from the international community. In an era of severe U.S. trade deficits, this might well put a strain on our domestic economy with serious implications on our prosperity at a time when our attack on Korea would bring upon us new obligations to the world community that would make the Marshall Plan look like a mere charity event.

Now it’s time to tell some brutal truths - hang on tight!

(1) The American people were lied to about a “peace” in Korea especially by Republicans during the 1960s and 1970s as they promoted their brand of diplomacy over that provided by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in Vietnam.

(2) North Korean leaders simply can’t afford a nuclear engagement against the South Koreans and the United States. They’d lose their lives and  their fortunes due to the fact that they are men of little honor.

(3) The North Korean leadership in Pyongyang are probably too vain and stupid to realize their likely fate.

(4) Should a conflict between North Korea occur and SEATO respond, Taiwan (or if you prefer “Free China”) could finally try and settle the score with “Red China.” This might well draw in the Russians as it’s not entirely certain that they have gotten over old Soviet habits!

(5) President Trump appears to believe, as President George W. Bush did, that the world will bathe us in glory should we destroy North Korea. After all, as he sees it, America will be “great” again. I can think of no time in world history when an aggressor earned the permanent gratitude of the world community.

(6) North Korea is not and will not be intimidated into a peace - no self-respecting government would be so intimidated.

Writing in the New York Times on the editorial page last Thursday, Joel S. Wit, a senior fellow who heads the North Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said that there is a way out of this potentially atomic quagmire. First, he writes, the United States must meet privately with the North Koreans at the United Nations, if not in Pyongyang, and assure them that it is not our intention to destroy North Korea. Next it should set up a strategy to allow the North Korean government to take the lead in ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons. This would establish a domain of respect which the North Korean government has never had.

Joel Wit doesn’t assert that this proposal will immediately be successful, but it promises more possibilities than threats of sanctions or military intervention.

North Korea is indeed a nasty puzzle, but one thing appears sure. If North Korea is permitted to commit suicide, too many others will also die. If President Trump sees American “greatness” in such a scenario, he ought to build a Trump Tower in Pyongyang and reside there as long as he can!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY