Tomgram

A black hole on earth

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There may be no better way to begin to grasp the North Korean situation than to take a look at a single image. The globalsecurity.org website posts satellite images of, say, American bases in Qatar or Iranian nuclear facilities. The other day it posted the single most staggering image I’ve seen in a long time — a night shot from space of North and South Korea. I’ve posted below the explanatory caption offered by Global Security, but you simply must go take a look for yourself. At night, seen from the heavens, it turns out, South Korea is ablaze, an electrical wonderland, a single blast of light. North Korea is dark. A black hole on earth. An electrical blank.

Nothing else so conveys the desperate state of the North Korean regime and economy. You can, for instance, read a recent report in the British paper The Independent that begins, “The United Nations food agency warned yesterday that supplies for some seven million people, a third of North Korea’s population, will run out early next month without further aid.” (“Seven million Koreans facing starvation,” To read The Independent story click here) Or check out Steven Weisman’s piece on p. 11 of today’s New York Times, “U.S. in No Rush Over North Korea’s Food Aid,” which indicates that the Bush administration is quietly using food, as well as suspended shipments of oil, as a weapon to pressure North Korea. (As with the decade-old sanctions against Iraq, such a denial of everyday necessities to a people — after all we all know that Kim Jong-Il doesn’t lack gourmet level edibles — will someday undoubtedly be seen as a crime.)
To read more Weisman click here

But the satellite image tells it all.

North Korea is Dark

South Korea is bright, North Korea is dark. This amazing image was made by the orbiting Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellite over regions of the world at night. The DMSP is a Department of Defense (DoD) program run by the Air Force Space and Missle Systems Center (SMC). The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites carry the Operational Linescan System (OLS) in low-altitude polar orbits. These satellites record nighttime data. The Operational Linescan System has a unique low-light imaging capability developed for the detection of clouds using moonlight. In addition to moonlit clouds, the OLS also detects lights from human settlements,fires, gas flares, heavily lit fishing boats, lightning and the aurora. It is possible to distinguish four primary types of lights present at the earth’s surface: human settlements, fires, gas flares, and fishing boats.”

To see the image click here

With this image in mind, try to imagine the effect, if successful, of the Bush administration’s long-term plan to push North Korea beyond the edge of collapse and you’ll quickly see why it’s opposed in most of Asia, but especially in South Korea. Were the North to collapse, the Chinese might inherit hundreds of thousands or millions of destitute refugees, but South Korea would inherit that black hole itself, which could well pull the South Korean economy into hell. And, of course, if anything went wrong and the one thing the North Koreans have going for them — a powerful army — were unleashed, well the results could be incalculable. I thought the following piece by Jim Lobe from Asia Times caught the mood of the moment, and the growing desperation of our own leaders to find some way out of the web of words and threats they’ve woven before the possibility of war in Iraq is somehow irreparably damaged. Tom

South Korea is bright, North Korea is dark. This amazing image was made by the orbiting Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellite over regions of the world at night. The DMSP is a Department of Defense (DoD) program run by the Air Force Space and Missle Systems Center (SMC). The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program satellites carry the Operational Linescan System (OLS) in low-altitude polar orbits. These satellites record nighttime data. The Operational Linescan System has a unique low-light imaging capability developed for the detection of clouds using moonlight. In addition to moonlit clouds, the OLS also detects lights from human settlements,fires, gas flares, heavily lit fishing boats, lightning and the aurora. It is possible to distinguish four primary types of lights present at the earth’s surface: human settlements, fires, gas flares, and fishing boats.”

To see the image click here

With this image in mind, try to imagine the effect, if successful, of the Bush administration’s long-term plan to push North Korea beyond the edge of collapse and you’ll quickly see why it’s opposed in most of Asia, but especially in South Korea. Were the North to collapse, the Chinese might inherit hundreds of thousands or millions of destitute refugees, but South Korea would inherit that black hole itself, which could well pull the South Korean economy into hell. And, of course, if anything went wrong and the one thing the North Koreans have going for them — a powerful army — were unleashed, well the results could be incalculable. I thought the following piece by Jim Lobe from Asia Times caught the mood of the moment, and the growing desperation of our own leaders to find some way out of the web of words and threats they’ve woven before the possibility of war in Iraq is somehow irreparably damaged. Tom

Kim Jong-il out-Saddams Saddam
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times

WASHINGTON – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein must be green with envy.

Not only has North Korean President Kim Jong-il eclipsed him in the US mass media, but his fellow evil-doer in the infamous “axis of evil” is also defying the world’s dominant power on a daily basis, and getting away with it.

After all, dozens of United Nations weapons inspectors are crawling all over Iraq without the slightest hindrance, scouring the country for evidence of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Despite such cooperation, US President George W Bush threatens war to “liberate” Baghdad virtually every day.

How does this square with his kid-gloves treatment of Pyongyang, which Washington believes already has chemical, biological and as many as two nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them as far away as Japan and even Hawaii?

To read more Lobe click here