Alan Zendell, July 9, 2017

A good friend posted a comment on Facebook in response to my July 7 article, Korea. He said: “Economic sanctions are likely to result in increased starvation, while Kim funnels off the wealth to feed his military ambitions. Add an humanitarian issue to all the others.”

I think it’s important to respond here where everyone can see it. I admit that when I wrote about strangling North Korea’s economy, I wasn’t thinking about how that would affect the population. But the more I think about the situation, the more it reminds me of terrorists using innocent civilians as human shields. The entire civilian population of North Korea are effectively hostages.

We can’t save everyone, and we certainly can’t do anything to relieve the suffering that the North Korean regime has visited on its own people. I hate the idea that we might be responsible for worsening their plight, but if Kim keeps on his present course, will they be any better off? If North Korea is allowed to continue to invest everything it has in a nuclear armed military, how will that feed its people?

If Kim forces a military confrontation the consequences for the people of both North and South Korea will be disastrous. If we can head that off by making conditions in the north so bad that the people finally rebel against the leaders that put them in that position, I think we will have done the best we could.