For those who would like to get beyond Brad DeLong's hysterical ravings about North Korea, please explore the website of Nautilus International (http://www.nautilus.org/).
Nautilus is an NGO based in Berkeley that publishes a daily (free) update on security issues involving Northeast Asia. It includes summaries of news from AFP and other wire services as well as reports from important regional newspapers and publications, including Russia and China.
Nautilus recently sponsored a very interesting program in North Korea, funded by the UNDP, where it built a wind generated electrical grid in a rural area south of Pyongyang - the first such aid project by a private US group. According to Peter Hayes, its Australian director, his group developed very good working relations with the local NK officials and gained access to many households to discuss electricity use. The project is now up and running.
Projects like this, not DeLong's dehumanization and demonization of North Korea, are the key to bringing down barriers between N&S Korea and NK and the US. As Kim Dae Jung has been saying for years, dialogue and interaction with NK can alleviate tensions and build trust that will lead to a peaceful resolution of the conflict on the peninsula. Australia and Italy seem to agree; they recently opened diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.
Recent books on Korea by Chalmers Johnson, Bruce Cumings and Don Oberdorfer underscore the value of engagement with NK - which by the way has fully honored its 1994 agreement to scale down its nuclear power program, while the US (prodded by rightwing Republicans and elements of the CIA) has failed to come through with its commitment to scale down the US economic embargo in return.
DeLong, I'm sure, will respond to this with his usual bluster (he says I'm a 'Stalinist,' apparently for suggesting that US troops should leave Korea and arguing that SK has the capability to defend itself against an economically crippled NK).
So when he does, reach back to 1966 and sing to yourself Phil Ochs' famous line from his blistering polemic against Cold War liberalism: 'When it comes to times like Korea/There's no one more red, white and blue/So love me, love me, love me/I'm a liberal.'
Tim Shorrock