I wonder if that was behind Lee’s caution regarding closing Kaesong. The fear that they might get stuck in the North – perhaps on some trumped up charge that they were spies.

Balbina Hwang, for her part, called the Lee announcement “absolutely the correct response.”

And now we have a potential hostage situation in Kaesŏng, methinks.

Or so a little bird told me so.

wishfull thinking and such

I guess my main worry is that it leads to confusing acts of terror with acts of war and that can impair how we read/react to a given situation.

[Joshua responds: Paul, I agree that we should make the terror sponsor list about terrorism and nothing else, which is why I think it was such a mistake for Bush/Rice/Hill to politicize the list by de-listing North Korea as a terror-sponsor as an incentive for its futile nuclear diplomacy. But today, the State Department is pretending that its lawyers have principled objections to re-listing North Korea as a sponsor of terrorism, despite multiple examples of North Korea engaging in clear acts of sponsorship of terrorism since October 2008: the intercepted weapons shipments in Bangkok and the UAE, the assassination attempt on Hwang Jang Yop, and yes, the repeated use of its state broadcasting to threaten South Korea's civilian population, which also fits the statutory definition of international terrorism. I have not characterized the attack on the Cheonan as terrorism, though it is certainly something terrible. Instead, I refer to North Korea's latest threat against "the root cause" of South Korea's response to it, which I can only interpret as a threat against South Korea's civilian population and/or government.]

“If I was a citizen of South Korea, I would be sad right now. What? No more sand for North Korea? Is that the best we can do to avenge the Cheonan?”

South Korea imports sand from North Korea, not the other way round. At full pelt this can be a significant amount of trade for the North ($73 million in 2008). That’s twice as much as the wages at Gaeseong, although bear in mind that Gaeseong brings in other revenues.

Actually, it was one of the things that bothered the North Korean leadership the most. Indeed the troops at the DMZ are elite and loyal – only the Spartans (and absolutely no helots) get can be trusted to serve there. Many are probably the children of the Nomenklatura itself.

But the South Koreans did not just broadcast propaganda (like the feeble North Korean loudspeakers). They also provided entertainment. The comedy routines and k-pop (all of which I think are the worst abominations of South Korean culture) were actually entertaining for the young Spartans. The North Korean leadership was worried sick about how that k-pop was ruining the minds of their kids – as a Korean parent myself, I sympathize with them in more ways than they will ever realize!

Former North Korean refugees who were in the KPA have written about this. Some of them say that when President Roh decided to stop the propaganda broadcasts, if he realized how much the North Korean leadership hated the broadcasts on the DMZ, he could have gotten North Korea to move back some of their artillery aimed at Seoul in exchange!

If done correctly, the loudspeakers can indeed be a powerful weapon.

In other words, one of them is so upset that their name blew a gasket and landed in a different part of the alphabet.

(Must be the similarity between “Joshua” and “Jason” in Greek that has my wires crossed.)

Jeffery Hodges

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