Commie Conspiracy Theories Aren’t Just for John Birchers Anymore

Today’s Washington Times supplies some circumstantial (if subsequent) evidence to back up the claims reported in the Yangban’s excellent post above. Support your jaw on a stable, padded object and read on. Hard evidence of North Korea’s subversion of the South is emerging into the light of day:

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, or NIS, recently reported to the National Assembly that North Korea sent as many as 670 secret dispatches to the South over the last four years. Analysts believe that since the number only includes dispatches that were discovered the actual total is probably far higher.

During my Army days, I sometimes walked across Yongsan or other U.S. installations, wondering how many of the civilian employees, KGS security guards, KATUSAs, and U of Maryland students–even spouses–were working for the North Koreans. I know this will seem self-contradictory, but I fully expect to be stunned when the actual number is revealed. Our counterintelligence people have privately admitted to me that they know the North Koreans have “sleeper agents” on our installations. The more important question is what functions have been assigned to them.

In 2004 a representative of the National Assembly Intelligence Committee speaking on condition of anonymity said, “There were around 80,000 messages that we assume to be North Korean orders to spies and pro-North underground groups.” [OFK: Let me take a wild guess about who the source was.]

During the last four years the NIS has arrested 13 North Korean spies, Dong-A Ilbo news agency reported. South Korea’s controversial National Security Law imposes long sentences or the death penalty for loosely defined “anti-state” activities or
espionage.

. . . .
Founded in 1961 as the Korea Central Intelligence Agency, the agency was renamed the National Intelligence Service in 1999. The agency was notorious during the Cold War for its ruthless actions against enemies on behalf of South Korea’s anti-communist authoritarian leaders.

In light of recent bugging scandals of political leaders South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun’s administration is proposing to reform the NIS.

That certainly puts a few things into context for me. Yet at the end of the day, I really don’t believe that Roh Moo-Hyun and Chung Dong-Young possess the collective presence of mind to realize what’s being done to their country, or who is doing it. The two of them seem too weak-minded (and in Chung’s case, too stupid; and in Roh’s, too mentally unstable) for them to be likely North Korean “assets.” What seems more plausible, at least for purposes of my unsupported speculation, is that that North has a few influential but publicly anonymous “assets” in close proximity to both. HT: China-e-lobby.

In a sense, one shouldn’t express too much shock that these two political systems try to compete in each others’ territory. I’m a strong proponent of democratic nations actively infiltrating and subverting the North Korean state in just the same way, and with a similar aim–the destruction of the existing state, peacefully if possible. This analysis, of course, is value-neutral. It is North Korea’s ends, not its means, that are depraved. The real shocker? The fact that so many South Koreans, including plenty of highly intelligent people with access to all of this information, are seduced by the world’s most oppressive and least efficient system of government.

If there’s one thing that this report proves, it’s that subverting your neighbor’s political system and planting a clandestine political network on its turf need not be a be a barrier to improving diplomatic relations. After all, Roh and Chung certainly aren’t taking any offense to it.

How does this work in practice? You may recall that recently, anti-American, pro-North Korean songwriter Park Seong-Hwan came up with this beaut of a blood libel:

Between verses two and three, Park adds his own narration. “Seize Seoul. There are girls and ladies there. For three days, Seoul will be yours — UN Commander Douglas MacArthur, September 1950.” Park says historical records confirm that this is an authentic quote by the maverick commander.

Later, we learned just what those historical records really were, via The Marmot (original Korean source):

Well, this [alleged quotation] sparked OhMyNews’ Son Byeong-gwan’s curiousity, namely as to where the quote came from. So he called up the singer, who told him he got the quote from a June 25 op-ed by Jang Chang-hun, a researcher with a center attached to a particular left-wing civic group. Son then calls up Jang, who says he found the quote via an Internet search when he was writing a 2002 report, and while he couldn’t remember the source exactly, he believed it to be Sungkonghoe University professor Han Hong-gu. Hong, however, denies ever saying such a thing, even though he was quick to note that in his view, MacArthur isn’t the kind of person you should build a statue to . . . . He also noted that he didn’t know if Big Mac ever directly ordered atrocities, although his subordinates might have. So Son asked Park Se-gil, the writer of “Rewriting Modern Korean History,” where the MacArthur quote might have come from. Park answered that one could guess he might have said something like that because there were materials related to it, but he didn’t know the exact source. . . .

Later on Friday afternoon, however, Son got his answer. Jang Chang-hun wrote OhMyNews to tell them that he had found the source of the quote — a North Korean history book that had been translated by pro-North Korean scholars in Japan in 1972 and retranslated into Korean in South Korea in 1991. Jang noted, however, that the book did not attibute sources, either . . . .

As you can see, a lie travels and gains acceptance quickly when it has a receptive audience. I could swear I heard “fake but accurate” in there. More on North Korean subversion here.