That’s funny, I thought North Korea liked the idea of unification.

The traitor talked about “unification tax,” sheer nonsense, at a time when the situation prevailing in Korea is so tense that a war may break out any moment. This is no more than sophism let loose by an idiot who knows nothing about reunification, insensitive to what is happening in the world and ignorant of the inter-Korean relations, a profiteer who knows nothing but money and a political imbecile.

How can you not like unification? It’s like puppies, Christmas, and peace.

Kim Jong Il Death Watch: Open News thinks the embalming process has already started, metaphorically speaking. Meanwhile, Jong Eun’s grooming continues.

I’m surprised this took so long: “On July 6th, a high level source in North Korea stated that the country’s overseas agents are propagating that the US. had been behind the explosion of the South Korean ship ‘Cheonan’.” One advantage of making the Cheonan Incident America’s fault would be that instead of pretty much forgetting about those 46 lost sailors, South Koreans would remember — even fetishize — them for decades.

The United States and its allies should also impose sanctions that target Chinese companies and financial institutions that facilitate or fund Pyongyang’s illegal activities. Moreover, any Chinese entity circumventing sanctions on North Korea should find it exceedingly difficult to do business elsewhere. Thanks to its not-so-paranoid fear of domestic instability, the Chinese leadership is very sensitive to the economic consequences of its actions. [Michael Mazza, The American]

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To stop his acts of killing, we have to make him hurt. For example, after the sinking of the Cheonan, Seoul could have closed down the Kaesong industrial zone, which is just north of the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas. There, about 120 South Korean businesses employ around 44,000 North Korean workers. That, by itself, would deprive Kim of a substantial source of funding because Pyongyang skims a large portion of the wages.

Similarly, we can cut off North Korea’s access to the international financial system. The Bush administration did just that in September 2005 when it declared Banco Delta Asia, a bank Kim used in Macau, to be a “primary money laundering concern. As such, no financial institution would do business with it. And as a result, North Korea, for two years, had to use its diplomats to ferry cash in bulging suitcases around the world. And, lo and behold, Kim Jong Il did not start a war even though the U.S. Treasury Department crippled his government. [Gordon Chang]

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American diplomats have met with Aijalon Gomes and asked North Korea to release him for health reasons. I can conceive of no reason but ransom for North Korea to imprison Gomes for seven months, and I’m struck by the absurdity of a world in which a malingering airline bomber walks free while a peaceful human rights petitioner is imprisoned unjustly … with hardly a peep from the Human Rights Industry.

North Korea shows off its new toys: A new tank, apparently an upgraded T-62, and a surveillance UAV. Not seen: an inexpensive, reliable, mass-produced tractor to replace all those oxen still used to plow the fields.

Don Kirk writes about the legacy of Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine after the Cheonan Incident.

The Pentagon reports on China’s military buildup.