Editor's note: This is the second of three commentaries on North Korea and its ties to the Middle East. Be sure to also read Part 1 and Part 3.
"Agent Kim Hyun Hee was carrying a Japanese passport when she boarded a Korean Airlines plane in Iraq in 1987. She disembarked in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, leaving behind a bomb planted in a radio. It exploded in flight, killing all 115 people aboard."
– Washington Post, Oct. 13, 2002, "North Korea's Secret Mission," by Doug Struck
Why would an agent from North Korea board a plane in Iraq, of all places, in order to deliver a bomb that would blow up an airplane? To this seemingly complex question comes a simple answer: Because she could. To those who still don't quite understand the connection, think logically. After doing so, there can be only one conclusion, and it is that North Korea and the Islamic nations are in cahoots to destroy the only country that stands in their way of making every knee bow to their mutual and iron-fisted rule.
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Back in 1993, the Library of Congress listed the Middle East as the major market for North Korean arms, including such radical groups as the PLO and countries like Libya. The Stalinist state has been known to be a sponsor of terrorism for at least two decades, but only officially listed in recent years. As early as 11 years ago, United States policy experts were reluctantly admitting that the secretive country had enough plutonium for one or two nuclear bombs, but outrageously enough, we justified our continued support of them by making them sign phony-baloney, "feel good" treaties.
We then had the unmitigated gall to feel shocked when they recently said, "Nyah, nyah, we had them all alo-ooong!" Their behavior is evil, and evil doesn't care about breaking treaties – in fact, such behavior is why they are evil. It is our behavior which is maddening, as we continue to allow them to get away with … well, murder. Remember the saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me?" We deserve a couple of dozen "Shame on me's!" for we continue to set ourselves up as the fool.
The evidence of North Korean duplicity and deliberate American ignorance is overwhelming. In 1996, William Perry expressed deep concern for the fact that North Korea's ballistic missiles have a 1,000 kilometer range. With these, they could reach Tokyo, and their buddy Libya can access all of the European countries.
Only two years later, the validation of this concern went whizzing over Japan with a return address, which read North Korea. In 2001, 50 Ro-Dong missiles were sent to Libya. And just this year, 24 No-Dongs went to Egypt. Such happenings were cause for such deep concern that just before Perry left office, he made the remarkable statement that he considered North Korea a bigger threat than even the Middle East. It would appear to me that this is because North Korea is a country, not the radical, disorganized insanity of a few Islamic groups. North Korea's evil is instead institutionalized – written in blood throughout their history. But that doesn't make the Middle East any less guilty of wretched brutality.
It is obvious that there is much quid pro quo going on here. Iraq has trained with and in turn been trained by North Korea. Iraq has helped North Korea in its continued disruptions of peace and murder of innocents, most not as obvious as the KAL bombing in 1987, but still as inherently malevolent. In August 2000, the news that Iraq and North Korea were together in the creation of new Scud missiles raised eyebrows but did nothing to quell the continuing, almost frantic desire to live in denial.
In researching the issue of whether Islam and the last bastion of Stalin's legacy actually have a spoken or written agreement that they will work in conjunction to destroy America and her allies, I have found plenty of implications by those in the know. The occasional outright admittance of a relationship can be found, but for the most part, no one wants to own up and say that the two are allied with one focused goal: to wipe America and Israel off the face of the earth and rule with blood and terror. But if you go and look at the sources themselves, and study them with the knowledge of their shared goal, it is written out in plain speech.
In the North Korean state-run newspaper, any reference to America, and its "puppet" South Korea, sounds as if Boris and Natasha are on the phone with Fearless Leader plotting "beeg" trouble for "Moose and Skverl" (no, I didn't spell squirrel wrong … say it like Natasha would say it!) Read anything written by Islamic papers and it is like reading Satan's take on the Bible. Both sides take rampant advantage of the American "sentimentality" toward the individual human life.
Communism cares nothing for life, and combine that with the Asian belief of instant reincarnation for the killed and fantastic eternal bliss for the martyr, the ease with which they kill and die is understandable, although inexcusable. In Islam, they feel it is their obligation in obedience to Allah to kill the infidel, and don't fear death themselves because of the outrageous promises eternity holds for them. Thusly, how do you deal with a country not afraid to kill or die? How do you stop them when you don't want to kill, but they do? When you don't want to die, but they do? When you keep your promises, but they don't?
They are treacherous, unleashed and unchecked evil, who live only to destroy us and, worst of all, it is becoming horrifyingly apparent that we know this, and seem to be hoping it will just go away. It is the gorilla in the room that everyone mutually agrees to ignore as if by so doing, we render the creature impotent.
If you ask me – and I know you're dying to! – this is America's evil: We know and do nothing with this knowledge. It is unconscionable that we continue diplomacy and outright capitulation in spite of such obvious efforts against us.
The evidence of young men attending flight school, warnings of militant Islamic training schools, North Korean ships and subs kidnapping people, firing upon other countries, selling weapons to terrorist states and their nuclear programs, and now North Korea's blatant "Yeah-we-did-it … whatcha-gonna-do-about-it" attitude are such barefaced indicators that we are fast losing our right to self-pity when as the obvious becomes reality.
Forget past bombings, attacks, hijackings, forget the fact that someday, when my grandchildren read about this time in history books, they will look at me incredulously and remark, "What were you thinking? How could you ignore such obvious signs?"
Forget the fact that had we heeded just one of these indicators in the past, thousands of people would still be alive. Forget it all. And while you're at it, forget the children in North Korea who are starving, whose parents have abandoned them in their own desperate hunt for food.. Forget the Japanese and South Korean citizens who have been forcibly removed from their countries for decades, and the decades of lies and denial by North Korea, and the families separated by the ongoing 50 year war. Forget the Twin Towers, the four evaporated airplanes, the nuclear capability in the hands of reciprocal madmen. Forget the fact that our belief in defense by MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) will never work with fanatics.
In fact, forget the Constitution, forget our moral obligation, forget the torture, the suffering, the misogyny, and Marlon Brando whispering, "the horror!" Forget it all, but remember this: When all is said and done, and we are writing the history of the time that is fast approaching, the words emerging on the computer screens of the future will show that Armageddon had its roots deeply embedded in North Korea, that we knew it all along, and that in spite of our claims of "Never Again!" after Hitler and Pol Pot, we did nothing.
Related columns:
Part 1: "North Korea – Our greatest threat is east of Middle East"