[QUOTE=Shodan]
Well, OK, how do you determine? Kim lets millions of his people die by starvation. He kidnaps actresses. He provokes and offends his major patron. He builds nuclear weapons and threatens to use them. He murders people by the tens of thousands.
But he isn’t crazy; he’s just acting.
[/quote]
I agree that Kim is a terrible leader and a tyrant, and I’m not excusing anything he does, but one thing is coming through in all this: The peasantry takes it in the ass, and KJI lives. This is the work of a tyrant, not necessarily of a madman. Whatever Kim does, however callously he treats his populace, he’s looking out for number one. If he flips out and decides on suicide and that he’ll take everyone else down, then he’s a madman.
You can deal with a tyrant. As distasteful as it may be, the US has dealt with plenty of countries whose commitment to democracy is shakey at best. I’m not proud of it much myself, but it’s a question of choosing the lesser of two evils. Do we isolate KJI and cut off aid, thereby bringing war on the peninsula one step closer to reality while not really doing anything to solve the problem, or do we play the game of brinksmanship right alongside KJI averting war (at least for the time being) and perhaps gaining the advantage?
Now all that is assuming that he’s a tyrant and not a madman. If he’s a madman all those bets are off. You can’t deal with a madman.
Those days are slowly drawing to a close in North Korea, and KJI probably knows it. With a disaffected military, starving citizens who are beginning to lose their fear of speaking out, and the loss of his former political allies, Kim is beginning to be forced into a corner.
Because Kim Jong Il knows what happened to Hitler. If he’s got an ounce of sanity, he knows that if he goes all out, he’s a dead man. Is he going to just roll over and capitulate? Well, no, I don’t see that happening, because KJI also knows what happened to Erich Honecker after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Still, that’s a chip on the table we could probably play somehow assuming KJI is sane!
That’s why the question of whether or not KJI is mentally stable is so important. One way or another, the Korean peninsula is going to reunify. Whether it reunifies through diplomacy or a bloodbath depends to a large extent on whether KJI is someone who can be reasoned with. I hope he is. I sincerely hope he is, because the alternative is going to involve a terrible loss of life.
