Tag: Kim Jong-un

"Our Leader Kim Jong Un is the one in the center." pic.twitter.com/Te0JRCJtxC

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) April 23, 2017

This is true. https://t.co/kl8Y2X4aHM

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) April 17, 2017

North Korea has jumped above Iran on America’s enemies list according to Secretary of Defense James Mattis:

Defense Secretary James Mattis, when he led the U.S. Central Command that oversees operations in the Middle East, repeatedly said that the three gravest threats to the United States were “Iran, Iran, Iran.”

But at a press conference in London on Friday, the retired Marine general suggested that North Korea, with its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, now holds the top spot.

Asked about his previous focus on Iran as the most serious threat, Mattis called Iran “the primary state sponsor of terrorism” but pivoted quickly to the secretive Stalinist regime in Pyongyang.

“In the larger scheme of things, obviously, in a global situation that’s dynamic, you’ve highlighted appropriately I think the North Korean threat,” Mattis said (the reporter had not mentioned North Korea).  [Yahoo News]

You can read more at the link.

Rodong Sinmun releases 9 photos online of Kim Jong Un guiding KPA tank crews competition https://t.co/QKG7tW3EOI pic.twitter.com/7uYRbqYhA5

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) April 1, 2017

This still photo broadcast by the North’s Korean Central TV on March 28, 2017, shows the country’s top leader Kim Jong-un affectionately greeting Hwang Sun-hui, an anti-Japanese revolutionary fighter, during his visit to the remodeled Korean Revolution Museum. Hwang, curator of the museum, was a comrade of Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current leader and the founder of North Korea. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

If this was just about anyone else people would be claiming Senator McCain is fat shaming.  I guess obese Asian dictators with bad haircuts are not eligible for special victim status:

“What, did they want me to call him a crazy skinny kid?” Sen. John McCain quipped via Twitter on Wednesday in response to a report by the Korean Central News Agencythat the dignity of North Korea’s supreme leadership was hurt by McCain’s recent description of Kim Jong Un as the “crazy fat kid that’s running North Korea.”  [Yahoo]

You can read more at the link, but I think Senator McCain is making a mistake by calling Kim Jong-un crazy.  What he has been doing is actually quite rationale from his perspective.

Nikki Haley is wrong: North Korea is not “irrational” https://t.co/Nykl7OBOZ0 pic.twitter.com/jrUZ2l4hCh

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) March 18, 2017

So many people think of Kim Jong-un as a crazy madman, however I consider him to be a rational, but ruthless leader.  The things he does may seem crazy, but they tend to always have the purpose of maintaining his regime’s survival.  Understanding that Kim Jong-un is a rational actor instead of a crazy madman is basically what this Joong Ang Ilbo op-ed is stating:

That the younger Kim is ruthless is unquestionable. But he is not necessarily crazy. If he had an uncontrollable violent temper, his father would not have groomed him to succeed him. His economic policy alone shows him to be practical to an extent. It may be naïve to blame an instable temperament for his acts of brutality and to assume that they underscore the vulnerability of the North Korean state. Such a simple interpretation could distort our North Korean policy.

Tyranny could be his choice. It is certainly his inheritance. Kim Jong-un may be naturally ruthless, or strategically so. It could be a means to maintain power. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin resorted to an infamous reign of terror. Under his command, 5 percent of the Soviet population was killed. He ordered the execution of 700,000 from 1937 to 1938. Such sheer brutality reveal him to be a hideous madman. But such terror was also necessary to build his authority and transform the Soviet Union into a global superpower. Studies of confidential documents by Stalin paint him as a reasonable dictator.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read much more at the link.

Kim does not want to be the next Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi, dictators that were eventually executed by their own people.  Kim’s inheritance is a mafia state which his father Kim Jong-il understood that only someone willing to be ruthless could run.  That is why his oldest son Kim Jong-nam was passed over because he was simply too nice to run a mafia state.  Kim Jong-un on the other hand was clearly the correct choice because he has shown he is willing to take whatever measures are necessary to ensure the regime’s survival.  So Kim Jong-un is not crazy, he just ruthless.

The man in the video who arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport does have a pretty good resemblance to Kim Jong-nam:

There is no sign of Kim Han-sol at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (KLIA2) following speculation that he was on his way here.

As at 11pm Monday, reporters were seen leaving KLIA2 after failing to confirm the arrival of Han-sol, the son of the Kim Jong-nam who was killed last Monday.

However, there was a slight commotion when a man, whom media suspected of being Han-sol stepped out of the domestic arrival gate.

The man, who was wearing a cap, earphones and a black face mask, walked away before the gathered media were able to ask him any questions.

Earlier in the day, a message circulated among the media that the 22-year-old son of murdered Kim Jong-nam would be touching down at KLIA2 at around 7.30pm. [The Star]

You can read more at the link.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) bows before the tomb of his father Kim Jong-il at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, which holds the embalmed bodies of Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim Il-sung, in Pyongyang on Feb. 16, 2017, to mark the 75th birthday of Kim Jong-il. (Yonhap)