By This is interesting but I don’t think creating an armed force of North Korean partisans is the best use of the North Korean refugee community:
But there’s at least one group of men that military recruiters are staying away from — North Korean defectors. South Korean law forbids refugees from enlisting, but some defectors say they want to be sent to the frontlines to fight against their former comrades.
A recent rally in Seoul, North Korean defectors held a mock execution of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il. A man in a grey jumpsuit, wearing a paper Kim Jong-Il mask, was bound loosely in rope.
Several men in camouflage fatigues wielded plastic rifles. They took aim and fired.
The mock execution was put on by the North Korea Peoples Liberation Front, a group of former North Korean soldiers who defected to the south.
One member, Lee Cheol-soo, a 10-year veteran of the North’s army, said he’d like to trade in his toy gun for a real one. Lee said that after 60 years of dictatorship, the only way North Korea can become free is to execute Kim Jong-Il.
Another member, 40-year old Park Dae-gook, was once in charge of political education within the North’s military ranks. He said North Korean soldiers have a strong psychological advantage over their South Korean counterparts.
“North Koreans have a real fighting spirit,” Park said, adding that they all think that the US and South Korea are their enemies and that the North can beat them in any war. Park said that he doesn’t think that type of spirit exists here in South Korea. [Jason Strother - PRI the World]
I think a better use of the North Korean refugee community would be to send them to be schooled in public service sector jobs like teachers and government administrators. In return for the schooling and training the North Korean defectors would have to agree to return to help re-build a post-collapse North Korea. I think it would be in South Korea’s interest to put as much as a North Korean face on any possible reconstruction of North Korea as possible.
Who better than fellow North Koreans to rebuild North Korea?
2:34 am on February 14th, 2011 1
This is a difficult issue. Can we trust them? Really? Al Qaeda moles arrived in the US as early as 1992 in preparation for 9/11/2001…
The Soviets planed moles that stayed hidden for 20 years or more. There is no way to know.
But we need to welcome them. And we need to use them wisely.
Glad the decision isn't mine…
4:31 am on February 14th, 2011 2
No arms for them, unfortunately. Yes make them teachers/administrators to help rebuild NK, if NK collapses.
6:02 am on February 14th, 2011 3
Creating and supporting a nork insurgency would be at best another El Salvador and at worst another Bay of Pigs. We're just going to have to keep going with the containment/deterrent strategy for another generation or two, until the norks themselves have had enough of their regime.
7:25 am on February 14th, 2011 4
Just make the ROK as solid financially and militarily as possible and the Norks will rise up like the Tunisians did…
9:16 am on February 14th, 2011 5
The Bay of Pigs worked out really well.
12:48 pm on February 14th, 2011 6
Schooling defectors in public service sector jobs would be a good use of the reunification tax.
2:27 pm on February 14th, 2011 7
Train the NK refugees as teachers & other public service types of jobs. Since they lived in NK it would be easier for them to get through the brainwashing that the people in NK have suffered through. Having a half baked trained military force would be of no help & would probably get in the way of the ROK Army & US Forces if the balloon ever goes up plus the doubts as to the true loyalty of all the members of the force. If some were NK moles they could cause lots of problems, cause casualties, & create havoc.
2:40 pm on February 14th, 2011 8
“He said North Korean soldiers have a strong psychological advantage over their South Korean counterparts.
“North Koreans have a real fighting spirit,” ”
Mmm, using fanatical soldiers as little more than cannon-fodder can only get you so far. Case in point: The Chinese suffered far heavier casulties during the Korean War than the Chinese Communist Party would ever like anyone to know (they would drag away their dead to bury them in mass graves so nobody, including their own, would know the exact number of casualties they suffered. A clear indication of their intent can be seen in the fact they never asked for the remains of their soldiers to be returned).
2:43 pm on February 14th, 2011 9
Oh, and only a third of the Chinese soldiers were fanatical…those were the ones who job it was to exectue the other two thirds if they showed any signs of bugging out.
4:45 pm on February 14th, 2011 10
Teadrinker 8, we, on the other hand, care deeply about the remains of our fallen soldiers. I've always wondered if foreigners think we carry it too far.
4:59 pm on February 14th, 2011 11
Violence is never the answer.
We should win their hearts with art and music.
5:14 pm on February 14th, 2011 12
It's well known that professional soldiers outlast and out perform patriotic soldiers (who usually start out real strong but quickly wilt).
5:38 pm on February 14th, 2011 13
In WW2 Japanese soldiers/sailors surely had awesome fighting spirit but it was no match against US, especially when Japanese govt couldn't back their own forces with a real logistics train.
7:11 pm on February 14th, 2011 14
If you drop enough bombs on someone such as the Iraqi Republican Guard their fighting spirit will eventually crumble.
8:24 pm on February 14th, 2011 15
Because arming the Mujahideen worked out so well for us?
4:21 am on February 15th, 2011 16
#11, the Taliban in Afghanistan killed musicians and artists (not to mention destroying those huge Buddhist sculptures)…
Killing the Taliban freed up people who wanted to listen to music or watch TV…
It seems the Iranian Government troops only kill reporters, bloggers, protesters, people with a different religion, women who go to the grocery by themselves, etc…
Not sure the folks in Iran are ready for our "help"…
#15, we don't talk about President Carter's Central Asian "policy" any more…
4:22 am on February 15th, 2011 17
#14 look up "Warsaw Ghetto"…
9:09 pm on February 15th, 2011 18
Number 16,
I would not be surprised if a huge percentage of the People's Volunteer Army were such people , people Mao saw as a threat(two thirds were not members of the CCP or associated with it). Whenever the CCP's propaganda machine comes up with a label it stresses (democratic, volunteer, etc), it does so to hide the truth.
3:11 am on February 16th, 2011 19
They look like mannequins to me
6:03 am on February 16th, 2011 20
"Is It Time To Arm A North Korean Partisan Force?"
Well…
After some thought, I think the answer is…
No… or…
NO FUNKING WAY!
First, things are rolling along pretty well the way they are.
Sure, famine and death camps and more famine are pretty terrible things… academically speaking.
But, apart from a distant sinking or shelling every now and then, everything is pretty cool down here. Let's not mess that up by promoting instability up there.
Second, let's say the devious plan partially works. Let's say the armed partisan force kills enough officials to bring lawlessness and disorder to a large portion of the country. I wonder how that will work out for everybody. It sounds much like being out of the frying pan and into the fire. Maybe it is better to exist under ordered shytbags than the disordered ones that will certainly replace them.
Third, let's say the devious plan works all the way… pictures of the Kims are burned, statues toppled, leadership bludgeoned with ricecake bats and dumped into trenches and covered with lime and then pizzed on. Then what? At some point there are going to be a bunch of hungry and angry former partisans looking toward the bright lights of the South… and any one of them will have more guns than me and all my neighbors put together.
Sooooo… there doesn't seem to be any way for an armed North Korean partisan force to fit into my soft-landing-peaceful-reunification-under-South-Korean-rule fantasy.
I vote nay.
9:41 am on February 16th, 2011 21
It seems to me, there is no way to make the eventuality of a reunification peaceful (in the true sense). My guess would be choosing the route of least mayhem is the best the south can hope for, and they may have no choice in the matter.
As it has been stated before. To some degree, S. Korea loses when the reunification occurs. How much and to what extent remains to be seen.
In a way, I sort of like the idea of covertly ridding the dirtbags in power. This would be a way of speeding up the process, cutting to the chase and facing the problem NOW. How much longer can the S. Koreans and the world keep defering the problem? It's going to be a mess anyway you slice it and there is no gaurantee that mass upheaval by N. Korean citizens will not happen in any scenario.