An editor’s blog on 38 North says the media may be missing less bellicose signals about North Korean intentions amid the torrent of war-like words being exchanged between Pyongyang and Washington.
“There may be more to the story than meets the eye, certainly the eye that only skims the surface,” said an editorial on the respected website dedicated to analysis on North Korea.
“What, for example, did DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho mean when, in his speech at the UN General Assembly on September 23, he mentioned the formation of a North Korean ‘investigation committee’ charged with toting up a bill of damages caused by sanctions. Why raise this? Does one speak of collecting damages from sanctions if one is planning to launch a suicidal war?,” the editorial asked.
“What does it mean that in the North Korean propaganda campaign designed to express unusually broad domestic support for Kim Jong-un’s September 21 statement that responded directly and personally to President Trump’s UNGA speech, there are numerous references to turning anger at the US into increased efforts at meeting economic goals?,” the editors of the website, hosted by the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, added.
The editorial further noted that radio and TV programming in Pyongyang is normal and reporting mundane events such as a tennis match or the popularity of North Korean acrobats at a Moscow circus, despite leader Kim Jong-un’s end-of-the-world verbal slugfest with President Donald Trump.
“None of the above are as sexy as a North Korean assertion of a right to down an American bomber over international waters, but all of them together would seem to require a closer look to determine if, in combination and over time, they give us a more balanced picture of Pyongyang’s perceptions and plans,” the editorial said.
Above: "There may be more to the story than meets the eye, certainly the eye that only skims the surface”
Followed by pondering questions:
"(What did DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho mean when he mentioned forming a committee to add up a bill of damages caused by sanctions?)"
("The editorial further noted that radio and TV programming in Pyongyang is normal and reporting mundane events such as a tennis match")
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So, does that mean it isn’t the end of the world? Or is it? What do those who see below the surface say? They don’t say. They ask supposedly deep and meaningful questions.
But, I’ll tell you what it means. Governments are large enterprises with many projects and managers. Some managers promote tennis news. Others form commissions to make propaganda points against the US. No one is acting on the possibility that nuclear war will end their projects, and so they do not decide to fold up shop ahead of time.
Kim Jung Un is the top manager. He is threatening nuclear war. He is testing nuclear bombs and the missiles to deliver them. He killed his brother with an assasination team, blew up a disfavored general using an artillery shell, kidnapped numerous S.Korean civilians, sunk or captured vessels of other countries in international waters (including US vessels), and shelled SK territory with loss of life for the residents there. Among other things.
It is idiocy to write that KJU doesn’t mean what he says, because NK newspapers continue to publish tennis news.
If those editorial writers have deep knowledge that I don’t have, I will happily listen when they stop asking philosophical questions. Instead they must tell us what those things mean, staking their public reputations on being correct. They pretend to "look below the surface", so they should tell us directly.