(RightWing.org) – In 1945, the United States and the then-Soviet Union divided the responsibility of removing the recently defeated Japanese military from the Korean Peninsula at the 38th parallel. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North/DPRK), found itself turned into a ruthless totalitarian state with Kim Jong-Un now reigning as the Supreme Leader. He is the third generation in his family line to rule.
Notably, the Korean Conflict (1950-1953) has never come to an official end via a treaty, but has been under a 70-year cease-fire. This is why Kim’s most recent of many, many rants over the years cannot simply be dismissed out of hand.
“If You Drop Paper…”
In December 2020, the Republic of Korea’s (South/ROK) Parliament declared the decades-long practice of defectors from the North and other groups of sending items across the border illegal. Those items include:
- Leaflets
- Food
- Radios
- USB drives containing news and entertainment from the South
There was pushback against the idea before it was even officially passed with concerns over its constitutionality, including from United States Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) who was co-chair of the House Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission at the time. He was concerned about what he saw as “inane legislation criminalizing humanitarian outreach” and if it was passed he called “upon our State Department to critically reevaluate the ROK’s commitment to democratic values.”
Now that South Korea’s Constitutional Court has declared the law unconstitutional in a 7-2 vote, the activist groups are free to begin sending balloons north of the 38th parallel again. On November 8, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) — the official state media outlet for the Kim regime — published its response to the probable resumption of the leaflet drops.
The KCNA article refers to the decision to allow defectors — those they deem “human scum” that have the unmitigated gall to talk about freedom and human rights — “was nothing but a deceptive trick and a psychological campaign against the DPRK.” It goes on to say that they would see the dropping of bits of paper across their countryside as an obvious prelude to an invasion which could result in a situation similar to Ukraine/Russia or Israel/Iranian proxies which would be entirely the fault of “the U.S. and the puppet group of traitors,” resulting in a “shower of shells.”
Of particular concern is the fact that the unstable dictator continues to fire off ballistic missiles that could not only threaten South Korea and Japan but even the United States itself. Added to that is the fact that the DPRK is estimated to have enough fissile material (highly enriched uranium or plutonium) to make dozens of nuclear warheads. Because of the near impossibility of getting accurate numbers, experts have had to rely on other methods of intelligence gathering to put their studies together. Over the past several years, those reports have put the number of warheads in Kim’s arsenal at a low end of 40 to a potential of over 100.
Copyright 2023, RightWing.org
