Tuesday, July 26, 2005

North Koreans Starve While Kim Fiddles

North Korea has resumed talks with the US, South Korea, Japan, Russia, and China. I'm strongly in favor of this, but until Kim is gone and some other form of government takes his place, problems will continue to abound.

As talks resume, we find out that North Koreans are still starving due to government mismanagement and total isolation from the rest of the world. According to Google Earth its 120 miles from Pyongyang to Seoul. In the last 50 years, Seoul (and South Korea) has become one of the most connected places in the world with a strong, stable, mature economy. Pyongyang and the North has become a starving, ignorant, and belligerent backwater. Could there be a longer 120 miles in the world today? If there was ever a better case study of the effects of totalitarian fascism vs. democratic capitalism, I've not seen it.