No More Pattycake between Two Koreas

No More Pattycake between two Koreas
December 1 2001

Triumphant and delirious with the military campaign in Afghanistan, GW Bush, in his press conference on Monday, took up the hawkish voice of death against the whole world that any nation could be a target for the US military action if it does not stop developing weapons of mass destruction, and he explicitly mentioned the names of targeted countries, Iraq and North Korea. (Of course, Israel is an exception, because it works for Uncle Sam a gendarme in the region.)
George stiffened a hegemonic demand against the North Korea, extrapolating that Uncle Sam defines the North a terrorist country if it does not stop producing the weapons of mass destruction that are to be used by the terrorists.

To the horror of DJ Kim and to the detriment of his Sunshine Policy, George again bashed on the head of Chairman Kim and threatened the military action if the North Korea would not surrender to the UN inspection on the suspected sites of nuclear facilities.
In fact, Bush’s warning has blown off a devastating whiff of wind on the flickering candle-light at the inter-Korean détente that DJ Kim miserably hangs on a limb and cries a jeremiad in the wilderness: I am not quitting to play footsie with Chairman Kim, I am not yet a lame-duck, and I still am a believer in Chairman Kim who will eventually come to see me before I kick the bucket.
Does DJ Kim still have a hidden marble in an egotistic shellgame of his legacy-building business?

Since the arrival of new Bush Administration in 2001, DJ Kim’s Sunshine Policy on North Korea has been teetering and wobbling in disarray in its all projects:
When GW Bush has entered the White House early this year, DJ Kim was raked over the coal by Bush who put off the entire talks with North Korea and said he did not trust Chairman Kim.
The Diamond Mt Tour is about to belly up for lack of tourists.
The so-called Silk road to Europe, the ambitious but far-fetched rail line linking North and South stops at the Southern side of DMZ border and the North never started to work on their side.
All investment projects to help out starving North Koreans by the South Conglomerates ceased to proceed.
The tearful reunion of separated families has ended with no more scheduled, and this week the North replied the South with a barrage of machinegun fires at the DMZ.

DJ Kim has been the one and only believer in his engagement policy on North Korea since his first (and possibly last) Washington meeting with his master, George W Bush, like a Dutch boy of the legend who sticks his finger in the dike, serenaded obsequiously, wooed ruefully, bribed rampantly, promised rapaciously, and begged profusely on his knee for Chairman Kim’s return visit to Seoul with no avail in order to rejuvenate the half-dead inter-Korean talk.
Instead, Chairman Kim JI pulled the rug under DJ’s credibility, demanding that the US withdraw its 37,000-strong troops from the South, and he upped the ante DJ delivers rice, fertilizer, and electricity on the barrel before he considers to come down to Seoul.

From the beginning, the Sunshine Policy has more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese, and one of the big hole is an outrageously spurious fallacy that Uncle Sam can keep its occupational forces in the peninsula even after the unification of the North and South, an epitome of dubious policy and a non sequitur that no one in right mind except morbidly ignorant Koreans bought from their President, a Machiavellian par excellence, who double-crossed his people telling that the North absolutely concurred with his policy.
DJ Kim has been a sleazy survivalist, arabesqued around his entire political career from a hothead commie-sympathizer shouting “Yankee go home” to get elected a President of comprador class through a treacherous horse-trading with his nemesis.

For four years since his ascension to power, the soi-disant people’s President has been constantly mired into an enchilada of corruption, scandals, media intervention, and regional favoritism, resulting in the loss of majority status in the Parliament and of popularity from his people. (His son, a deputy in the Parliament, also is accused of colluding with the Korean Mafia.)
Through his factotum-style management of the financial policy, the national finances are in shamble and deep in debt of 400 trillion won, only postponing than repaying its debt as if robbing Peter to pay Paul. (Over $5 billion of the public fund was stolen in the restructuring process due to the negligent management of DJ’s financial mandarins who dumped the national wealth cheaply in the international fire-sales to the Wall Street Robber Barons, such as the sale of The First Bank to the US hedgefund Company.)

Months ago, sensing that he badly needed to pull off his Sunshine Policy from doldrums, DJ Kim addressed in the graduation ceremony at the Air Force Academy that his rapprochement with the North is one of three historical attempts to unify the divided nation: the first was the endeavor by the Koryo Dynasty to retrieve the northern part of the lost country and the second was the 1950 Korean War that killed 2 million people.
People gaped in disbelief and dismay about his verbal diarrhea that their president has praised the North Korean invasion to the South as a holy attempt to unify the nation and his engagement policy on the North is such a worthwhile event in parallel with the North’s invasion that he deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize!

In contrast to DJ’s dissonance with his master George, Chairman Kim appears to be staking out firmly against the brute force from George’s broadened and stiffening demand that the North cooperates with the International Atomic Energy Agency in rigorous verification package to prevent the North from cheating on an undeclared plutonium stockpiles: North Korea under the Agreed Framework signed with the Clinton Administration is not legally obliged to accept the ”challenge inspection”, until the main components of the light-water reactors are delivered which he thinks George and his hunk warriors would never intend to do.
In addition, Chairman Kim recently has made known of his displeasure on DJ’s double-talk: the South Koreans increase its defense budget and refurbish its war machines like new fighter planes, Aegis-class ships and new long-range missile developments, while demanding that the North should withdraw and reduce the conventional forces from DMZ area in which the North takes it as a matter of national sovereignty.

Is it safe for the Koreans to assume that peace in the region is around the corner and national unification is much closer to attain since DJ Kim crossed over the 38th parallel, said hello to the Chairman Kim and paid him millions of dollars?
Apparently, not many South Koreans took DJ’s word of self-aggrandizement credible and his MDP party had lost all three seats in the by-election of the National Assembly.
Even Chairman Kim appeared to be sending the message that DJ has outlived his uselessness—Chairman instead turned his attention to China and Russia to get help rather than his Southern brother whose days are numbered with so many “Gate” scandals. (“The Sunshine Gate” scandal could be the last one for him when his tenure ends in 2003, the allegation that he bought Chairman Kim with a wad of US dollars for his legacy-building and Nobel Peace Prize.)
In retrospect, Chairman Kim was right and prudent not to respond with DJ’s egotistic demand of a return visit that surely would not attribute to peace in the region as far as King George is watching over with his armed-to-the-teeth troops of 37,000-strong, but to a photo-up tear-jerk party for his Southern brother who was eager to add another event to the list of his legacy-building endeavor.

For King George, it is about time to call both Kims on the carpet and tell them who is in charge and he does not tolerate DJ Kim to continue to play any more pattycake with the Chairman Kim,
George wants them to remind that he did not take down the Chairman Kim’s portrait from the wall of the rogues gallery in his State Department and he is preparing to open the military tribunals for the terrorists—if he ever is able to catch them—Osama bin-laden, Saddam Hussein, M Guadaffi, or Chairman Kim, at the US territories of Guam or the Marine Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
If DJ Kim ever and again serenades to call on Chairman’s visit to Seoul, the Chairman would surely ask him to consult with his psychiatrist before he ever makes a call again.

For couple of years, the South Koreans shed tons of tears with their lost families, gave out millions of dollars to help out starving brothers and sisters in the North, and lived with an illusion that peace is around the corner as their knock-off champion of agape, DJ Kim, claimed—it has been a feel-good period.
Today, South Koreans should wake up from the wet dream of peace under the DJ initiative, Sunshine Policy that the US Troops can stay in the peninsular, the North had concurred with it, and two Koreas live in peace and eventually unite with George on their back.
No more frivolous pattycake or mischievous footsie play.
Go back to the basic reality that King George holds all the cards for peace in the region as far as he maintains his troops there.