North Korea – Our greatest threat is east of Middle East

Editor's note: This is the first of three commentaries on North Korea and its ties to the Middle East. Be sure to also read Part 2 and Part 3.

"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages are not sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."
– from "Common Sense," by Thomas Paine

What would old Mr. Paine have to say today, I wonder, if instead of facing King George, he was dealing with North Korea? As all wise men know, to foretell the future, look at two things: the weak nature of man and the track record of those with whom you deal.

So it was in Paine's writing of "Common Sense." His dealings with the wretchedness that was monarchial oppression turned him into one of our most treasured and vigorous revolutionary forefathers. But if Paine had been occupied instead in the political issues of present-day America, involved in such things as Desert Storm and the noisy awakening of the Starving Giant and Looming Lies of North Korea, would his words of wisdom be any different? I doubt it … some things just don't change.

But for those who doubt, let's look at a few things. The desire for freedom is innate within every one of us. When America was at its genesis, barely breathing but burning with a passion for freedom, Great Britain was the most powerful country on earth. The king was undeniably "above" the common man, unimpeachable, his word law, his rule all-encompassing, his thirst for power unquenchable. He could not be reasoned with, he lied and fought at every turn, and tried to squelch our freedom fire with the greatest army that walked the land. He assumed that a king could never be defeated by peasants. His underestimation of the remarkable optimism and self-sacrifice that has come to define the United States of America was fatal. He lost; we won.

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Jump forward a couple of centuries, and what has really changed? We have Kim Jong Il, son of the brutal Stalinist Kim Il Sung. Both men have a mystical make-believe background that puts them on the same level as deity, and when his father, the "Great Leader," died in 1994, Kim Jong Il – known as "Dear One" to the beaten, brain-washed and broken people of North Korea – inherited a decimated land and a desperate populace.

But in true communist fashion, Kim cared nothing for the people, keeping himself fat and indulging every pleasure while the average Korean actually shrank statistically in size. Like King George, Kim cannot be reasoned with, he lies and fights the very people who feed him at every turn, and has tried to squelch the freedom of his own people and the rest of the world with the greatest threat to touch the land: nuclear weapons. He knows he cannot be defeated by mere peasants (especially when he lives in a land with an unarmed constituency). Unlike King George, however, he doesn't underestimate the United States of America – he simply despises us.

And now we have a more terrifying prospect. King George allied himself with people (through quid pro quo and the old lure of filthy lucre … remember the Hessians?) who turned their wrath on the mutual enemy that is America. For more than two decades, there has been an unholy alliance back and forth between many of the Middle Eastern countries – including Iran and Iraq – and North Korea.

Just last year, when India and Pakistan were on the verge of war, there was a flurry of visits from high-ranking Pakistani leaders to North Korea, touted loudly and praised ad nauseam in the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea's one and only newspaper. This year, there was the sale of 24 missiles to Egypt, whose purpose the State Department could only deduce was to use against Israel, fast friend and ally of America, but enemy to the Arab Nations and North Korea.

Then there was the naval battle this past June between North and South Korea in which people died, and the North's recent admission to kidnapping Japanese citizens (after 30 years of vehement denials – denials which still go on and ring just as hollow when they are confronted on the issue of kidnapped South Koreans). While North Korea paid lip service last year to condemning the terrorist attack on America, it was painfully short-lived. They have continued a close kinship with many of the countries that are the sworn enemies of America, and their state-run newspaper can't go a day without condemning America and threatening to bring it down if it does not "behave."

North Korea does not have the advantage that King George had in having the greatest army to walk the earth, but it has something far more deadly: nothing to lose. Its people are starving, it has suffered almost as many mass defections in the past decade than in the 30 previous years combined, it continuously breaks every treaty, promise and pact it makes in exchange for aid, it is woefully backward and technologically retarded. And to add insult to injury, just beyond the 38th parallel, its brother under a free republic is thriving like no other.

So by way of reasoning, it makes sense that they would seek out others to help them defeat the enemy who has proven to the world what a miserable failure they are. Isn't this the same reason that Iraq and Afghanistan and al-Qaida are determined to wipe the United States off the earth – because they are jealous of our success and livid over the vast evidence of their own failure? With the fall of the Soviet Union and the Western leanings of China, there is none other than the Islamic nations for this totalitarian regime to turn to now. And the ominous rumblings that have been weaving their way from the Korean Peninsula to America for the past dozen years indicate just that.

Why did we ignore these signs, these continuous indicators that there was something very wrong – not only over there, but also with our volatile enemies in the Middle East? Why do we continue to hand over billions in not only food and aid, but even the ability to build their very own nuclear reactor when they do nothing but lie, maliciously engage Republic of Korea and American Forces, torture and brutalize their own people, kidnap and abuse peoples of other nations, and create weapons of mass destruction which they share with countries even more evil and deceived and unstable than they are?

Daniel Pipes wrote an article for the Oct. 9 issue of the New York Post entitled "Korean Delusions" about continued American capitulation in which he stated it perfectly:

"What is it about democracies that at critical moments they delude themselves into thinking that they can contain their totalitarian enemies through a policy of niceness? … Key factors would seem to be: