DJ Kim is out of the loop

Do the South Koreans know that DJ Kim is out of the loop?
March 17, 2000

1. The public deception
The working-level talk between North Korea and the United States has ended this week without any achievement, and both sides have failed to consolidate the high-level meeting that may lead to solve the deadlock in the 1994 Geneva Agreement.

The North insisted that the high-level talk would be meaningless unless the United States honors its commitment of the Agreed framework that removes the North from the economic sanctions.
The United States stick to their gun that the North takes the initiative to denounce the terrorist attack before any further relaxation of US embargo.
Even though DJ Kim had theatrically pirouetted in Berlin road show to curry favor with his American choreographer, nothing helped to induce the North on to the high-level negotiation.

DJ’s Berlin appearance had the character of a contrived and entirely stage-managed media show to warm up his image as a perceived major player in the North-South détente, and the South Korean news media was a willing co-conspirator to this charade clothing his nakedness with fanfare of TV camera and a flood of the editorial pages.
He cackled like a hen to announce the new and more tasteful eggs while the rooster was crowing with a northern bird.

As I have emphatically noted in my articles (the Sunshine policy and South Korean illusion, and Dancing on the pinhead), a majority of the South Koreans believe in the pipe dream that DJ Kim has the magic wand to achieve détente in North-South relationship without American intervention. The South Korean media are responsible for fanning people the bonfire of chutzpah even high on Korean standard by misinforming the public that the sunshine policy is working exclusively and independently
It would be the unbearable nightmare for DJ Kim if the South Koreans realize that his Sunshine policy is nothing but an auxiliary and supplementary measure to emulate the US foreign policy within the boundary of American interests and he has been squatting obediently under the conference table to scramble for the bread crumbs while the North and his Uncle eat sumptuously.

The foreign minister of the South Korea was called in to New York city where the two were engaged in the negotiation, waiting pensively in the hotel lobby like a butler to be summoned by his master, and left the city immediately after the talks broke down. During his stay, the foreign minister said that the North would not need to apologize their past terrorist activities like KAL blowup invoking the rage from the families of victims and on his return he flip-flopped to declare that the apology is an issue that has to be dealt with along the bilateral lines.
In addition, he has to talk about the SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) in order to cover his butler status that his trip to the US was meant for the revision of the agreement that the US has persistently refused to accommodate the South’s demand to overhaul the clauses which give American soldiers prerogatives of the past colonial master and he appeared to be totally oblivious about the fact that the US Defense Secretary was on his way to Seoul to SOFA talk.

As soon as DJ Kim has returned from the road show, he has kept drumming up his engagement policy declaring that there has been meaningful changes which may remove the Cold War on the peninsula and the North would definitely respond with his Berlin Declaration within ten days this time.
The rub is he forgets in toto that the North does not want to include him from any negotiations on substantial matters, because DJ KIM has no power to deal with the North’s demands such as the economic sanction, oil embargo, and the US pre-emptive nuclear strikes, and he was abjectly subjugated to the United States in almost every sphere, militarily, diplomatically, economically, culturally, and you-name-it. That is why the North bypasses him and goes directly to his boss to talk.
DJ may peddle like a Korean-American bodega owner in the Bronx with fertilizer, tourism, medical aid, food supply, and other fringe issues, but never be able to play any significant role in the North –South issues.

I am extremely curious about whether he has ever requested, petitioned, or begged to his boss to take part in the talk on an equal footing and what was his boss’s reaction if he did?
No serious discussion has ever occurred in the South Korean mass media regarding this matter as far as I know and it is bizarre that South Koreans jump right up against the Japanese colonialism while whimper on the sovereign matters for half a century.
You will have no sense of leash around your neck if you sit by the peg for half a century. It is only when you stray that you feel the restraining tug.

2. Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Program
No mainstream media in the United States have paid any significant attention about DJ’s dancing on the road show, since they are more concerned about the BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) program by Pentagon, labeled as “Son of Star Wars”, and eventually, this program would play a decisive role in the US foreign policy in general and the North Korea-US talks in particular.

The US military is now pushing hard to get approval to deploy BMD system as soon as technically feasible.
The BMD program is made up of two component, National Missile Defense (NMD) which is intended to protect the continental US from the missile attack from any rogue and terrorist, and Theatre Missile Defense (TMD) which would be limited to protecting troops in regional battlefields.
NMD program with its estimated price tag of $10 billion was twice tested and failed to intercept the in-coming missile from the Marshall Islands, and Japan, South Korea, Philippines and even Taiwan may be covered by TMD system in the future.

Deployment of the expensive and destabilizing missile defense program is the first step to reinvigoration of Star Wars. The Pentagon is also developing anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons that knock out the competitor’s satellites in space.
Americans sell the BMD system as defensive, but it is truly a Trojan horse, a way to get the public support for the deployment of offensive system in space.
The BMD program is vital in the American military industry that employs millions of people and there has been strong bipartisan support in the presidential election to appropriate the funds in the US administration and the Congress.

The North Korea with Iran and Iraq is cited by the US as the nations to develop inter-continental missiles capable of reaching North America, and Americans try to buy off the North’s brinkmanship with food, oil and fertilizer until they would be able to deploy NMD system in place and TMD program in the Pacific region to checkmate the alleged North’s nuclear threat.

On the other hand, as an old saying goes that once a whore, always a whore, the North would not give in to the US pressure that the North discards its nuclear and missile program first and then the US would relax the economic sanction later, because Americans already have reneged their promises in the Agreed framework in 1994.
In addition, Americans have never changed their military stance against the North that has been subject to the target of US nuclear preemptive strikes, while the North has suggested negotiation on change of US army status, instead of withdrawal of its troops stationed in the South Korea.

3. The Virtual Reality
It is irony that the South, with twice the population and ten times more economic strength of the North, has not been able to defend itself against the possible North invasion without the US forces stationed in the peninsula.
And also it is pathetic that the South, the twelfth biggest economy in the world is feared of the North, a pariah state that panhandles around the world with a hat in hand.
It is absolutely shameful that the DJ Kim, the epitome of braggadocio, has kept the campaign of deception that his Sunshine eggs would give birth to the peace dove, dismantling the atmosphere of hostilities in the region and prospering in the safe peninsula.

The virtual reality in the Korean peninsula is that the United States, an undisputed super power in the world, has the final say in the possible reunification of North and South, and chances are Americans would throw its heavy weight around the region like the bull in the china shop regardless of North Korea, Japan, and China, let alone South Korea, when they have furnished the defense system with BMD program.
The history clearly showed that the United States, at the very moment of its independence, has never desisted from the imperial and hegemonic policy of the expansionism under the guise of the Monroe doctrine, the ideology of Manifest Destiny, and other paper-thin masquerades of humanitarian concerns.

The sooner the South Koreans are able to wake up from the public deception and face up the virtual reality, the better they would be able to come up with the realistic solution that may bring forth the stable and peaceful environment in the region.