Friday, April 13, 2012

anything can be given positive spin



As you know, North Korea's attempted "satellite" launch has failed. But we can be sure the North will spin this in a positive way.

Of course, there's always the chance that Kim knew the launch was going to fail. He may have found other ways to occupy his time...



Pyongyang has broadcast news of the failed launch to its own people. This move is, in itself, fascinating to ponder. Why not lie to the citizens? It's been done before, after all. My take: the government realizes that the citizens have their own ways of finding out what's up. As Kang Chol-hwan averred in The Aquariums of Pyongyang, North Korean citizens are neither as stupid nor as brainwashed as we in the free world might think: they know a lot about what's going on in the world. Were the NK government to propagate a lie, the people would likely catch it. These days, they'd get the information via clandestine cell phone messages, TV broadcasts, and whatever serves as a grapevine in such a repressive country.

Joshua has excellent insights on what we might do next.



_

1 comment:

Dave said...

Kevin, I am reminded of an episode of M*A*S*H where an old, dilapidated North Korean military plane was piloted by someone they refered to as "5 oclock Charlie". He would arrive daily at 5 pm, and would fly over camp and manually toss a bomb over the side of the plane in a vain attempt to destroy the ammo dump near the place. The N Korean missle program is strikingly similar in its failures.

But I will say this for Charlie; his hand tossed bomb at least went off, which is more than you can say for the N Korean nuclear program.

The spirit of 5 oclock Charlie lives on....