Tuesday, August 09, 2005

When people suffer under the yoke of tyranny

It is our job to give those people freedom, right? Isn't that one of the reasons we invaded Afghanistan (Come Mr. Taliban, turn over Bin Laden) and Iraq? After all, Saddam Hussein slaughtered tens of thousands of his countrymen. I think that was part of the reason we got involved in Yugoslavia, as well... let those Kosovar Albanians have land that belonged to someone else. (Oh, we'll still call ourselved Yugoslavian, but we're going to have our own language, culture, money, and we won't pay taxes.)

Given our interest in humanitarian efforts to provide freedom, it seems only logical that when we look at a leader who has run his country uncontested for over 10 years, following in his father's footsteps, kills dissidents (read: anyone who says something that doesn't follow the party line), would rather grow opium for black market trade than food for his starving nation, and openly challenges the United States with overt blackmail (We'll quit developing the nuclear weapons we said we'd quit developing 10 years ago for food and oil if you give us more food and oil), we would meet him with idle chatter and sabre-rattling?

North Korea's Kim Chong-Il has seen over 2 million of his countrymen die due to starvation, though nobody in the country is trying to stop him. We claim as a nation to be interested in providing freedom to oppressed peoples, yet we do nothing. It's not like the time wasn't ripe - these people have been starving since at least 1996. Had Clinton taken any action in the 1990's, or GW done anything since 2000 (I know, Bin Laden got us and we had to free Iraq first), then perhaps there would be less death and hatred on the Korean peninsula.

I figure it'd been a while since I posted about North Korea, and y'all were about due.

2 comments:

Michelle said...

OMG, that guy is a real weasel! If you want to have a laugh at his expense, rent the dvd "Team America", it's the funniest thing i have ever seen!

English Professor said...

I know your real point was about Korea, but kudos for your comments about Kosovar Albanians.