Open Sources, March 29, 2013

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR PROFILES Alejandro Cao de Benos, who was interviewed for OFK by our friend Enzo in 2010. For a starving country, North Korea certainly does a brisk trade in size 52 extra-fat uniforms. What’s most striking about Cao’s claims that North Korea has no hunger or human rights violations isn’t their blatant mendacity, really. It’s the fact that a KCNAP consumer could easily believe every word of it.

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ROUND UP THE USUAL SUSPECTS: According to Chinese customs data, China exported no oil to North Korea in February of 2013, February 2012, or February 2011. Make of that what you will, but I doubt it means serious or sustained pressure.

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ANOTHER FAKED PHOTO? Really, this one isn’t 100% convincing to me, but we have reason to question everything from North Korea.

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DAILY NK, YONHAP, on the anniversary of North Korea’s sinking of the Cheonan. Not that it matters as much, but I suspect they also hacked me in December.

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THE ONION: “Kim Jong-Un Comes Out In Support Of Gay Marriage: ‘I’m Not A Monster'”

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CRACKED: “4 Requirements of North Korean Propaganda Videos”

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CHUCK HAGEL URGES US, nonetheless, to take North Korea seriously. He’s right, but it’s not always easy. There’s a fine line between parody and trivialization.

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HOW DID I FIND MYSELF IN RARE AGREEMENT with Iran, Syria, and North Korea? Because I remember how well that whole arms embargo concept worked in Srebrenica, and because you can’t overthrow governments like those in Iran, Syria, and North Korea without arms, after all. North Korea, of course, is already subject to an arms embargo by multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, and we can see how well that’s worked.

If that’s not enough glaring irony for you, consider the very fact that these three states are not just members of the U.N. in good standing, they’re able to block U.N. action. Offhand, I can’t think of a better example of the U.N.’s impotence, or why that’s not a completely bad thing. The U.N. cannot and should not be the universal guarantor of our human rights — people are their own guarantors. Ideally, they do that peacefully through representative governments and civil societies that allow free expression and assembly. Lacking that, they must protect their rights with weapons. People don’t rise against good governments. Too often, they can’t rise against the bad ones.