Comments on: KIm Jong Il’s Funeral Ride Was in an American Made Car http://freekorea.us/2011/12/29/kim-jong-ils-funeral-ride-was-in-an-american-made-car/ Wed, 23 May 2012 16:56:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Aleksandr http://freekorea.us/2011/12/29/kim-jong-ils-funeral-ride-was-in-an-american-made-car/comment-page-1/#comment-408658 Aleksandr Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:37:48 +0000 http://www.freekorea.us/2011/12/29/kim-jong-ils-funeral-ride-was-in-an-american-made-car/#comment-408658 KORUS FTA is working miracles already! KORUS FTA is working miracles already!

]]> By: chris http://freekorea.us/2011/12/29/kim-jong-ils-funeral-ride-was-in-an-american-made-car/comment-page-1/#comment-408512 chris Fri, 30 Dec 2011 07:39:16 +0000 http://www.freekorea.us/2011/12/29/kim-jong-ils-funeral-ride-was-in-an-american-made-car/#comment-408512 What was more important to the shaky Kim Jong Eun regime: emphasizing the lineage from Kim Il Sung, or making sure (for no particular domestic reason) that nothing American was in use on funeral day? Can we find a North Korean civilian inside North Korea who can tell us that this was an American car? Quite probably not, and so; does it matter who made it? Professor Oh was right. By the by, that article in the NYT strikes me as classic (and not in a good way) off-the-cuff punditry. It became abundantly clear down the years that Kim Jong Il didn't "hate" the USA at all; indeed, he admired its power and reach and, at times, sought strategically to work with it. There is no space in international politics for hate, for hate is irrational and unproductive, and this is something I would imagine Kim was well aware of. Equally, "It was not clear how the cars were obtained by North Korea, which is subject to economic sanctions by the United States and other world powers, and analysts said that they might have been bought decades ago." It's just lazy. What was more important to the shaky Kim Jong Eun regime: emphasizing the lineage from Kim Il Sung, or making sure (for no particular domestic reason) that nothing American was in use on funeral day? Can we find a North Korean civilian inside North Korea who can tell us that this was an American car? Quite probably not, and so; does it matter who made it? Professor Oh was right.

By the by, that article in the NYT strikes me as classic (and not in a good way) off-the-cuff punditry. It became abundantly clear down the years that Kim Jong Il didn’t “hate” the USA at all; indeed, he admired its power and reach and, at times, sought strategically to work with it. There is no space in international politics for hate, for hate is irrational and unproductive, and this is something I would imagine Kim was well aware of.

Equally, “It was not clear how the cars were obtained by North Korea, which is subject to economic sanctions by the United States and other world powers, and analysts said that they might have been bought decades ago.” It’s just lazy.

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