Before any concrete opinions are made about why a North Korea exists, and why its politics are as they are, they should first look at who its parents are and how it was born.
At the end of World War II in 1945, the Korean Peninsula was divided into two zones along the 38th parallel, with the northern half of the peninsula occupied by the Soviet Union and the southern half by the United States. Initial hopes for a unified, independent Korea evaporated as the politics of the Cold War resulted in the establishment of two separate states with diametrically opposed political, economic, and social systems.
We, the United States of America, facilitated the creation of what is now the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) and to this day strive to keep it in existence and as distanced and isolated from any favorable observation as possible.
The laws of North Korea are harsh, and their leader uses radical and sometimes violent measures to enforce them.
With the exception of a small Chinese community and a few ethnic Japanese, North Korea's 24,852,000 people are ethnically homogeneous. Demographic experts in the 20th century estimated that the population would grow to 25.5 million by 2000 and 28 million by 2010, but this increase never occurred due to the North Korean famine. It began in 1995, lasted for three years and resulted in the deaths of between 300,000 and 800,000 North Koreans annually. The deaths were most likely caused by malnutrition-related illnesses like pneumonia and tuberculosis rather than starvation.
Negativity can buy many cheap miles of political pull in the case of a country such as North Korea which sits atop a God forsaken piece of land consisting mostly of rock and mountains but sits directly astride the path China would take between its own southern border, South Korea and then, only a stones throw away to the coast of Japan.
If you drive a Toyota, Nissan or watch a Panasonic TV, all manufactured in Japan and marketed in the US, you'll understand our interest in keeping Japan financially solvent and free of Chinese domination.
Tear down a sign in North Korea and go to jail....touch a rock formation in Carlsbad Caverns and chance arrest.....one is of international interest and the other simply a irritant.
In my educated opinion they should advertise North Korea as a lucrative tourist attraction and offer free one way plane tickets to some of our more radical and violent haters.
And, once they are imprisoned in North Korea require Kim Jung Un pay a hefty amount, say a $100,000,000.00 each for the US to take them back.
AT Pro/GPP/Fiskars Diggers/BH Outback/CT Hand held
