Today's Globe editorial today entitled "Clueless on Korea" available here http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2005/06/11/clueless_on_korea/ should give all us of pause to be thankful that none of these people are in charge of anything more important than a small space in a newspaper. How on earth do they arrive at the conclusion that Bush has splintered the fence of relations between South Korea and the United States? Have they forgotten that it was the North Koreans who broke the Clinton sponsored appeasement that allegedly ended the North's pursuit of weapons grade material? Have they forgotten that a leader of a major South Korean conglomerate was convicted for his involvement in the "sunshine policy" in bribing the North?
After Clinton bribed "Dear Leader" with tons of fuel and food aid and light water reactors the North still advanced its weapons program. Now even though we have the least to gain in the region from another attempt at a Chamberlain like "peace in our time" deal, the Globe suggests that Bush should lead the way in providing an American aid package. Apparently the Globe prefers an arrangement analagous to that which Larry Summers provided. Insult some overly sensitive people and then bribe them with a nice package. The Globe fails to mention that 4 of the top ten wealthiest economies in the world are the prinicipal beneficiaries of stability in the region. If a bribe package is going to be put together let the Chinese, Japanese, South Koreans and Taiwanese pay for it.
The North is teetering on collapse and any suggestion of an effort by the United States to prop this muderer up is utter and complete foolishness. The Bush doctrine of treating the North Koreans as part of an "axis of evil" is entirely correct. The editorial may be correct in suggesting that the United States does not have a military option in dealing with them but that option has even less availability to the North. The ultimate solution to the problem is to let the the North implode on its own and subsequently be unified with the South. A unified, democratic Korea that harbors historic fear of Japanese and Chinese domination will be an ally worth dealing with.
It amazes me how much space for indignation the Globe can devote to "Dear Leader" being insulted or the Koran being defaced or a few prisoners being mistreated at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. In the interest of even a shallow attempt at fairness how about some coverage of the number of North Koreans murdered by famine http://www.kimsoft.com/1997/nk-fam98.htm or the secret police or perhaps attempts to identify 300,000 murdered Iraquis http://massgraves.info/. How about a story on Muslim involvement in slavery, or even a story pointing out what the real meaning of Gulag is instead of Amnesty International's poor use of the word?
Asking the Globe to bring some semblance of balance to issues of importance to their readers does not make the Globe a facist or nationalist organ nor does it corrupt any particular idealistic or cynical world view that the editorial board might possess. It does however make good business sense. There is only so much of this left wing nonsense that a subscriber can absorb before they have to consider their money wasted on this paper.
