Monty Python and the Holy Centrifuges

With relations between North and South Korea still tense and limited, the North threatened Monday to abandon a military hot line with the South and close a jointly operated office where officials from both Koreas interact.

The North also said it would never again deal with President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea, calling him a “traitor,” although the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, said only last month that he was willing to participate in a summit meeting with Mr. Lee. The North Korean warnings came in a communiqué from the National Defense Commission that was released through the official Korean Central News Agency. [NYT]

Alternative translation: I don’t wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough waterer! Only now, it has dawned on me what a near-perfect parody this scene is of North Korea’s foreign policy. Tell me if I’m off-base here:

It’s all there: the self-imposed isolation, the hilariously stilted invective, the contemptuous mendacity toward the outsiders, even the attacks on the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island. It works just as well as a parody of U.S. foreign policy. From outside the castle walls come foreigners who at first offer a bargain, then obsequious requests for inspections, and finally empty threats.

Later on, we even get to see the Sunshine Policy weaponized against its creators:

I call that pretty damn prophetic for a movie that came out in 1975.

In related news, North Korea, which was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008, has threatened “retaliatory military actions” against “the Lee group of traitors,” apparently because some ROK soldiers put pictures of its holy family on its shooting range targets.

Clearly a grave breach of international protocol, that.