The Times of London reports that "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-Il is on kidney dialysis and has not recovered fully from his 2008 stroke. The Washington Post reports on rising resistance within North Korea to the regime's tyranny....
Unrest is widespread, and the US is no longer blamed by the populace:
There is mounting evidence that Kim Jong Il is losing the propaganda war inside North Korea, with more than half the population now listening to foreign news, grass-roots cynicism undercutting state myths and discontent rising even among elites.
A survey of refugees has found that "everyday forms of resistance" in the North are taking root as large swaths of the population believe that pervasive corruption, rising inequity and chronic food shortages are the fault of the government in Pyongyang -- and not of the United States, South Korea or other foreign forces. The report will be released this week by the East-West Center, a research group established by Congress.
The report comes amid unconfirmed accounts from inside North Korea of a rising number of starvation deaths caused by a bad harvest and bungled currency reform that disrupted food markets, caused runaway inflation and triggered widespread citizen unrest.
The regime is increasingly unable to shut out foreign sources of news:
The most striking finding of the survey was the reach of those markets across all strata of North Korean society, with nearly 70 percent of respondents saying that half or more of their income came from private business dealings.
In addition, more than half of refugees who have fled North Korea since 2006 said they listened or watched foreign news reports regularly. North Korea outlaws radios and TVs that can be tuned to foreign stations, but consumer electronics have flooded into the country from China.
"Not only is foreign media becoming more widely available, inhibitions on its consumption are declining as well," the report said, referring to broadcasts from South Korea, China and the United States. "The availability of alternative sources of information undermines the heroic image of a workers' paradise and threatens to unleash the information cascade that can be so destabilizing to authoritarian rule."
A Wall Street Journal article sees possible regime collapse and a nuclear lash-out during its death throes.
Bottom Line. Regime change is the only sensible policy towards North Korea. Sustaining the regime only sustains its nuclear program and gives it time to grow. The risk of nuclear catastrophe is, however, unavoidable.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, 9/11, National Security, Terrorism, Nuclear Proliferation, Arms Control, WMD, Foreign Policy, Conservative Politics
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