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Hollywoodaction
Joined: 02 Jul 2004
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 Posted: Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Paddycakes wrote: |
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| It would be very interesting to know what they said. What would be your guess? |
Let's pretend they were your typical white North American women types:
"Like, you know, we like went down to South Korea because like, this Kim guy who think he's like totally hot or something told us like we had to go, and I was like: What is up with THAT! He even calls himself "Dear Leader" Ya Right!
So, I was like ok, I can like do that; you point a gun in my face, so maybe I can go, but like I have to stop and pick up some birth control pills first. Besides, like we might have like a good time and stuff and maybe meet some cool guys you know. So, like, we arrived in Seoul, and I was like, OH MY GOD, this place is like so totally happening. I met this awesome guy, and then he went you know, and I was like no way. I'm like, you know, so... you know.. I work out.. ... so like all these guys were like hitting on me and my friends and stuff; they were like giving us their business cards. I like got this like one card from like this really cool guy, and like we really hit it off you know... Then this other girl in the group, who is like a TOTAL b*tch, I totally hate her guts, was like flirting with my man, and I was like I'm gonna F*cking kick your ass, like you know, and like like she got all upset at me, but like now we're best friends you know and like..." |
Actually, a lot of my female students talk like that...just that it's in Korean. |
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Hater Depot
Joined: 29 Mar 2005
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 4:31 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
Okay, I don't doubt for a second that KJI is more than capabale of this sort of thing. One thing though...
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Lee Myeong-ho, a former inmate of the Daeheung concentration camp in South Hamgyeong Province who recently escaped to China, said ��21 beautiful women�� were detained at the camp since the end of last year. ��Later I found out that they were the cheerleading team that had gone to South Korea,�� he said.
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My understanding is that most intelligence agencies treat the testimony of defectors with a certain amount of initial skepticism. In this case, I think the guy does have some possible self-interest in telling this particular story. Think about it. If he just says "I saw people locked up in a North Korean prison camp", that's just another run-of-the-mill NK horror story, which isn't gonna make much of a wave, even among the the South Korean right-wing. But if he says "I saw the famous cheerleaders who captured the hearts of South Koreans locked up in a North Korean prison camp", then BANG, he's an overnight celebrity in South Korea, and he's got instant friends in the Korean conservative camp. None of which probably hurts his chances to accomplish whatever it is he hopes to accomplish in the free world.
Anyway, yes, I don't doubt that KJI has political dissidents, clergymen, truck drivers, dishwahers, and little old ladies rotting away in his prisons. Just that the content and timing of this guy's story, along with the general rule-of-thumb about defectors credibility, would seem to prompt a modicum of skepticism. |
My understanding is that most journals or reports relying on the eyewitness accounts of defectors go to great lengths to test their accounts and verify that they are telling the truth. I haven't succeeded in finding any further info on this story in English or Korean media (my Korean isn't so good, so it might be possible), but it would be unlikely that this defector would not be subjected to a serious interview by professionals who would be interested in checking to make sure his facts added up.
| mindmetoo wrote: |
| If the news is only coming from defectors, keep in mind the US based most of its WMD Iraq information on lies defectors told the CIA. Defectors have a vested interest in making things as bad as possible. One, they're rewarded for telling the government what it wants to hear. Two, they hasten the day the government is forced out of power via invasion or economic sanctions. |
The intelligence fiasco that occurred in the United States during the Iraq War was much more complicated than the administration listening to a couple of defectors. As Hater Depot has pointed out, the defectors were not lying. The problem with Iraq was different, as the administration was directly rewarding officials who put anything forward to make a case for suspecting Iraq, even as they ignored the many cavaets such intelligence analysts make in their reports. CIA intelligence reports are not supposed to be 'policy prescriptive,' in other words, by themselves the CIA usually does not engineer its intelligence towards a desired policy. Indeed, there is a lot of evidence that the administration had to manhandle the CIA into getting what they wanted, but that they were able to intimidate analysts into saying, 'well, it's possible that there are WMD, because of x, y, and z, but we don't really have any hard leads,' just so the analysts could get their reports to be seen by top-level guys. And then people like Cheney would turn around and argue that x, y, and z showed that Iraq clearly had weapons, and would ignore the rest of the reports.
I think, however, this report, if it is indeed true and has been verified as it should have been, is a stunning blow to the Sunshine Policy. Because, in a sense, the Noh government has a vested interest in continuing a policy that they started out with. And, to be frank, I've always viewed the Sunshine Policy as a kind of compromise with the devil. As it is very true that a disintegration of the regime in the North would cause many problems for South Korea, problems serious enough that South Korea is in many ways justified by pursuing a policy that might keep a stable North Korean regime afloat. But I hardly think there's anything courageous or laudable about the Sunshine Policy. At best it is a necessary evil, brought about because the South cannot yet help the North and because we must recognize that in the end the it is the North committing the abuses, not the South. |
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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005
Location: Next to a River
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| Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 4:39 am Post subject: |
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| As it is very true that a disintegration of the regime in the North would cause many problems for South Korea, problems serious enough that South Korea is in many ways justified by pursuing a policy that might keep a stable North Korean regime afloat. |
This point was raised in 1997 and it was accepted then (it seems) that SK should work towards preventing a collapse of NK as it would impact upon SK. Theres a book that discussed it and its in the library here, if you want I will give you the title later. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2006 8:13 am Post subject: |
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My understanding is that most journals or reports relying on the eyewitness accounts of defectors go to great lengths to test their accounts and verify that they are telling the truth. I haven't succeeded in finding any further info on this story in English or Korean media (my Korean isn't so good, so it might be possible), but it would be unlikely that this defector would not be subjected to a serious interview by professionals who would be interested in checking to make sure his facts added up.
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Yeah, because we all remember the serious grilling that Chosun Ilbo gave Dr. Hwang, eh? 
Seriously though. How would they verify that "the facts added up"? Let's look at the time line...
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| Lee Myeong-ho, a former inmate of the Daeheung concentration camp in South Hamgyeong Province who recently escaped to China, said ��21 beautiful women�� were detained at the camp since the end of last year |
Assuming "the end of last year" to mean November or December, the only way they could verify his story is if someone else who was in the prison camp during the same 2-3 month period(and was preferably not a close associate of Mr. Lee) also escaped from North Korea and made separate reports of the incarcerated cheerleaders. And in the event of all that having come to pass, why wouldn't the Ilbo report the existence of a second defector confirming the allegations?
The more I think about this story, the more it seems like an attempt to press emotional buttons in the South, sort of the right-wing equivalent of the martyred schoolgirls("how can he do that to those beautiful young cheerleaders?") But hey, I wouldn't put it past KJI to send his own mother to the camps, and I'd be interested to hear from people who read Korean to see if the Korean-language press is providing any more details.
EDIT: I just re-read the article...
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Another defector explained the cheerleaders are picked among university students, propaganda squad members and music school students from good families. Before they were sent to South Korea, they had to sign a pledge bearing their 10 fingerprints that says if they are going to an enemy country -- Pyongyang��s epithet for the South -- they must fight as soldiers of leader Kim Jong-il and never talk about what they have seen or heard in South Korea once they return. They agree to accept punishment if they break the promise.
The defector said the Daeheung camp usually houses those convicted of economic crimes with a political dimension but has recently also become a camp for political dissidents. The camp, known as one of the worst in North Korea, is located in a mining area high in ragged mountains where there is hardly any vegetation.
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Of course, this defector is not quoted as saying that the cheerleaders were in the camps. Plus, we do not know what his connection with Mr. Lee is, or even if he himself was in the camps. |
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