Another North Korean despot
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's son Kim Jong Un attends a massive military parade marking the 65th anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party in Pyongyang, North Korea. (Oct. 10, 2010) Credit: AP
The death of North Korea's Kim Jong Il has set off alarms across the region. His country, after all, has a history of lashing out violently whenever its rulers consider it advantageous, and there are nearly 30,000 U.S. troops in South Korea.
Yet it's hard to believe the world is truly worse off without the murderous lunatic who presided over the vast penitentiary that is North Korea. Since Kim inherited power from his father in 1994, 2 million North Koreans -- nearly 10 percent of his countrymen -- have starved to death in what is probably the most repressive regime in the world. Under Kim, North Korea has remained mired in poverty, while South Korea has flourished. Kim suppressed basic rights, shut out foreign ideas and inflicted a currency "reform" that expropriated his citizens' meager savings. Periodically he'd launch a small but lethal attack on South Korea.
It now appears that the reins of power will pass to Kim's son, Kim Jong Un, perpetuating a uniquely horrific hereditary autocracy whose foreign policy seems built around nuclear extortion.
If there is a silver lining to the vast apparatus of oppression in North Korea, it is that such a regime can't possibly last -- yet somehow it has done so for decades. One can only hope Kim's son -- or whoever is strong enough to supplant him -- has paid close attention to recent democracy movements in other tyrannical nations, and noticed the fate of despots there who couldn't let go.
