OPINION
Keep telling the horrific truth about North Korea
By Benny Avni
August 15, 2017 | 9:24pm
AFP/Getty Images
Equating President Trump’s tough North Korea talk with Kim Jong-un’s bluster, as the president’s critics have done over the past week, is dumb — not least because it’s clear Trump’s tack is working. The White House’s hard-edged messaging knocked Pyongyang’s dynastic tyrant out of his comfort zone.
Trump vowed “fire and fury” if Kim continued his threats. UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, meanwhile, convinced the Security Council to unite behind a ban on the bulk of North Korean exports. After pressure from Washington, China vowed to enforce those sanctions.
Recognizing his weak hand, Kim announced Monday he’d defer a plan to rain missiles on Guam.
Will this turn of events stop late-night comedians from equating two overweight characters with funny haircuts and chubby fingers? Will politicians stop denouncing the president for talking like a Nork punk? Will comparing the two leaders as two sides of the same coin end?
After all, one lesson from all this is the value in telling the truth about North Korea. And that doesn’t just mean spelling out the consequences of Kim’s threats, as Trump has done. It also means pointing out the manifold ways Kim oppresses his own people.
Last week, after Business Insider ran a story about North Korea’s supposed lax attitude toward marijuana, the Libertarian Party tweeted that Trump’s America can learn about “freedom” from Kim’s hermit kingdom.
The Libertarians later deleted the tweet and apologized. But even if you support legalizing pot, what would a North Korean do with the munchies?
When someone refers to similarities between Trump and Kim at your dinner table, remember that North Koreans who are not Kim or his henchmen rarely get a proper dinner.
Australian former judge Michael Kirby, on behalf of the United Nations, wrote the most comprehensive report to date on Kim’s atrocities. In 372 pages he relayed horror tales of famine, gulags and World War II-like death camps.
While we were reading George Orwell’s “1984” as a cautionary tale, the Kims used it as a blueprint.
It should be unnecessary to say, but maybe not: North Korea and America are nothing alike. Trump isn’t Kim — and he surely isn’t worse than Kim, as Minnesota congressman and progressive hero Keith Ellison suggested. (He later retracted that.)
Kim executes anyone he deems to stray from an oft-changing party line. Top aides, heavily medaled generals, family members — they all fear execution, and with good reason. For max effect, an anti-aircraft missile will at times replace the firing squad as the method of Kim’s madness.
Our president may be wrong about a lot, but he was lucky enough to be born in a free country premised on a Constitution envied by every liberty lover on earth. Kim was born to lead the world’s most oppressive regime since Pol Pot’s, and he’s more efficient, and cruel, than his dynastic predecessors.
Oh, and if you want Trump’s presidency to end, go ahead and say so. Demonstrate in front of Trump Tower. Sue. Call your congressman to undermine his agenda or advocate impeachment. Vote him out of office in 2020. Or wait till 2024.
Ending the Kim dynasty is much harder.
Even with a huge, and expensive, American attempt to embolden and mobilize internal opposition, Kim would likely crush it. Toppling the regime from the outside would be unpopular in America. It could become such a bloody quagmire that even our Asian allies may turn against us, and instead support the relative safety, stability and servitude of Chinese global leadership.
So now, even after Trump’s tough talk and backroom diplomacy forced Kim to back down, we shouldn’t relax. His hold on power depends on keeping a god-like image. Absolute rule means the ruler’s never wrong.
Sooner or later new threats will arise, and there’s no guarantee China will maintain the pressure that forced Kim to think twice about blasting Guam.
The ultimate answer is a democratic Korean reunification and ending the world’s most criminally oppressive regime, which is a threat to Asia and the globe.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was perhaps tactically wise to say we seek no regime change in North Korea, but decent human beings should pray for the Kim regime’s demise.
Declare it or not, that should be America’s strategic goal.
Twitter @bennyavni
READ MORE: http://nypost.com/2017/08/15/keep-telling-the-horrific-truth-about-north-korea/
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