A street near Nowon Station
So I was reading the New York Post the other day and I have to admit, the article I was reading was pretty harsh on Koreans... although when I thought about it, he was worth considering. Mostly he's bent out of shape about how Koreans are running headlong into unification with their northern countrymen and how they are hoping to give the U.S. a few black eyes on their way out the door. To be honest, he's partly right... just that he was pretty damn nasty about it. You see, he feels the south is underestimating the risk of future invasion. It got me to thinking. The main spur for reunification has come from South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's Nobel Prize-winning Sunshine policy. The current government has spent the last year using reunification as their main platform and it has inspired South Koreans toward the dream of someday reuniting with the North. Honestly, the North has done very little to encourage this. It's all been a rather unilateral dream for South Koreans.
The railway was supposed to be a metaphoric as well as physical connection between the two countries. It was announced just before I came to Korea two years ago and so far, the North has done-- nothing. Last month they staged a fireworks demonstration to cheer it on, after everyone seemed to have forgotten about it. That was mostly an election gimmick to garner T.V. time. Still, nothing has been done north of the 38th. Even hostilities have not ceased as one could see in June with the gunboat incident. Strangely, the North apologized (of sorts) but new evidence has surfaced that showed it was a premeditated act. There is now a massive inquiry underway into the South Korean intelligence network after the firing of Maj. General Han Chol Yong, commander of the 5679 Unit maintaining surveillance over North Korean communications. You see, General Han had filed a couple of hard reports that said that the North Koreans were planning to stage an incident. Since this reality went in the face of government policy, he got sacked for daring to file such a rebellious report and potentially causing the president to lose face in his reconciliation strategy.
So with all this going on, I was sitting around pondering whether the North might just attack someday. I mean, they're already on the U.S. hit list-- and there's no escaping that no matter how cooperative you become. Take Iraq for example. They've gone ahead and agreed to UN weapons inspectors even though the U.S. president has openly stated he wants Hussein assassinated and Iraq knows full well that UN teams are stacked with CIA agents (who now have the go ahead to cap him on sight). At the very least, the inspection teams will file reports on ALL of his arsenal and the location of his defences... which will work their way over to the Pentagon in time for the US to steam roller through and attack anyway. He has no way out. North Korea knows that they're next on George Bush's list come rain or shine and Kim Jong Il is equally a marked man and people do funny things when they have a gun to their head with no chance for escape.
I already said that the North has done NOTHING to show that they are supporting peaceful reunification. They've let a few old folks past the checkpoints to visit relatives lost after the Korean War, but even those meetings have been fraught with unexplained cancellations and phantom red tape to cover over past promises. Now I read that over 30% of the land mines have already been removed from the DMZ in preparation for the supposed railway. I have an idea. Let's see the North build the railway first... and THEN clear the mines. I have this horrible thought that it won't be steam engines crossing those rice paddies once they're cleared.
***NEWSFLASH***
In other Korean news... a 24-year-old man in Kwangju was playing computer games at a PC Bang for an unbelievable 86 hours straight... and then he DIED. Teachers warn your students.
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