How to Kill Your Enemies
Say this for the young leader of North Korea: he knows how to make a statement. The newly installed portly twentysomething dictator has faced a political crisis since he waddled onto the Norko throne -- consolidating his power and liquidating his enemies.
And when to comes to liquidating, apparently Kim Jong-Un knows a thing or two. From the (London) Telegraph:
Kim Chol, vice minister of the army, was taken into custody earlier this year on the orders of Kim Jong-un, who assumed the leadership after the death of his father in December.
On the orders of Kim Jong-un to leave "no trace of him behind, down to his hair," according to South Korean media, Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and "obliterated."
That's right: he killed him with a mortar round. And the crime? Well, it was pretty serious:
[Kim Chol] was executed with a mortar round for reportedly drinking and carousing during the official mourning period after Kim Jong-il's death.
Good to know. No drinking and carousing during official mourning periods. But something tells me this isn't over:
"When Kim Jong-un became North Korean leader following the mourning period for his father in late December, high-ranking military officers started disappearing," a source told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. "From information compiled over the last month, we have concluded that dozens of military officers were purged."
It also appears that Mr Kim ordered his loyal officials to use the excuse of misbehaviour during the mourning period for his father to remove any potential opponents.
Other officials have been executed by firing squads, including Ryu Kyong, a senior intelligence expert.
Since being elevated to second-in-command of the nation by his father in September 2010, Kim has reportedly been behind the dismissal of at least 31 senior officials.
I know this is unkind, but part of me hopes that they all end up firing mortar rounds at each other. The people of North Korea would certainly agree, I'm sure.
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Apr '11
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
Our Glorious Leader, in contradistinction, sends the unfortunates to foreign countries and lets the locals fire the mortars.
Jul '11
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
I tried to post the "Boy, is he strict" scene from Blazing Saddles. Didn't work.
Edited on October 30, 2012 at 9:14amRe: How to Kill Your Enemies
You have to admit that misbehaving during a mourning period is a very clever excuse. No one could argue against it.
Dec '10
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
Geez. And for some insane reason NR thinks it's cool to regularly publish selections from the chubby monsters' Twitter feed.
Dec '11
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
Rob, I understand. ;)
Boy, when you have a membership drive you know how to let people know the consequences of not re-upping. To show my loyalty I would like to sell out the Blue Yeti. I would tell you what he said but I don't want to break the CoC. Of course he will deny it, that just shows I am telling the truth. :D
Nov '10
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
Is this fair and balanced reporting? When do we get to hear Kim Jong-Un's side of the story???
Edited on October 30, 2012 at 1:16pmSep '10
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
What is your notion of unkind? Having thoughts about mass murders murdering each other seems kind to me. Hoping they stay alive so they can continue murdering the innocent seems to me unkind.
Aug '10
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
Yes! Any faithful NR reader would've seen this sort of purge coming months ago. The young tyrant's most personal thoughts - out there for all to read.
Aug '10
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
Aodhan: Is this fair and balanced reporting? When do we get to hear Kim Jong-Un's side of the story??? · 21 minutes ago
Edited 21 minutes ago
I have a sneaking suspicion the next edition of NR will have the little dictator's side of the story - in the "Long View."
May '12
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
I guess he gets points for creativity.
Aug '10
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
When people have the same kind of rotten government decade in and decade out, I suspect they like it, or believe they deserve it. I would not assume North Koreans want a change.
I tried a similar theory out on a retired priest I met recently, one who said he'd just returned from a short visit to Cuba. I asked him if Cubans might be glad when Fidel dies, not because they can then be free but because then a true hardliner can pick up where the old guy left off or went soft. There was much to doubt about this fellow's story - and I wasn't swayed by the crisp Cuban 3-peso bill he gifted me with - but the fact that he did not dismiss this idea outright was interesting. He thought Cubans were in a sort of marriage with their dictatorship; it was, he said, a love/hate relationship.
May '10
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
How has the Kim family been able to maintain control for so long? It's really pretty remarkable. Can't the South airdrop iPads and KitKats or something and hurry along the inevitable overthrow?
I had a work colleague once who had lived in East Berlin and told the most amazing stories of the Wall coming down -- how being exposed to the lights and color and choices of the West made her physically ill from sensory overload.
When North Korea finally falls it will be 1000x times more extreme.
Jun '10
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
Kim with a mortar in the parade ground vs. Clemenza in the back seat with a garrote. I mean, who are we to judge? Can't we just celebrate the beauty of multiculturalism?
May '10
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
So how does this get reported in the Pyongyang Daily Running Dog?
EXPLOSIVE CHARGES AGAINST ARMY VICE MINISTER
More explosive charges to follow; Case closed
Sep '10
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
I have pondered this a little and I would be interested in the opinion of someone with experience with mortars...but here we go.
Given the very-high (especially with shorter ranges), parabolic trajectory of a mortar round, wind speed variations at altitude, and general slight variations in propellant for each round, it is hard for me to imagine that this bizarre method of execution would go like clockwork.
Something doesn't quite pass the smell test for me. Is this like Kim Jong Ils 9 holes in one on his first round of golf?
Nov '11
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
The thing about this story is that if you wrote it in a work of fiction, it would be laughably implausible. Like who would do that?
I can hear the ghost of Christopher Hitchens in my head talking about how totalitarians need to be over the top, to go so much further than they need to go, just to make the point.
Apr '11
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
While I can think of no regime that deserves a bloody and self inflicted end more than the Kim dynasty, their sudden collapse would be the biggest humanitarian and geopolitical mess in history.
Apr '12
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
On the Members' Feed this weekend, we had a fun post from Barfly about what we would like to have or be able to do, but know we would never have it. I could not come up with something until now:
I would like Kim JU's power to dispatch someone. Kapow!
Apr '11
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
True. I cannot foresee an easy transition for them. It's like ending slavery in America. I should think it caused a lot of economic and social turmoil at the time but absolutely had to be done.
Jun '12
Re: How to Kill Your Enemies
Valiuth...their sudden collapse would be the biggest humanitarian and geopolitical mess in history.
It already is.
Rob Long...The people of North Korea would certainly agree, I'm sure.
Since agreeing would mean a death sentence, or worse, I doubt you'd find many takers. The people of North Korea, like most people, value their lives. You and I cannot imagine what it means simply to survive there.
Edited on October 31, 2012 at 5:36pm