Saturday, November 18, 2006

South Korea: Still Wobbly

The President seems to be getting what he wants from the general membership of the APEC conference: a unanimous statement condemning the DPRK for July's missile tests and last month's nuke test. Unfortunately, South Korea refuses to wholeheartedly endorse the Proliferation Security Initiative. South Korea has the most to lose in any military conflict with the DPRK so it is clearly in their interest to proceed cautiously with any policies that, if fully executed, could lead somebody to shoot somebody. But the article also says that the South does not want to "contribute to any instability that would send refugees flowing over their border." Color me perplexed. Wasn't it the East European underground refugee railroad to Austria that facilitated East Germany's collapse and set the Warsaw Pact dominoes falling? Just asking. I know not all tinpot Stalinist tyrannies are the same, but facilitating a refugee crisis in the DPRK may not be the worst thing in the world.

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