EDITORIALS

‘No modern country …’

That sounds like North Korea, all right

THIS SOUNDS more and more like a Tom Clancy novel. And that would be a good thing, if it were just a Tom Clancy novel, and you could dive into it on a Friday night, spend the weekend with Jack Ryan & Co., and be done by Sunday.

But this is real life. And real danger. And-as is the case whenever a place named North Korea is involved-worrisome.

It seems a ship flying the North Korean flag tried to pass through the Panama Canal earlier this month. And it was detained. For a reason, it turns out.

The vessel was on its way home from Cuba. As the authorities searched it, they began uncovering weapons. Under several metric tons of bags of sugar.Then the ship’s captain fell ill with an apparent heart attack. When that didn’t kill him, he tried to kill himself. Which may be the easy way out for a North Korean ship captain who has had his boat boarded and his illicit cargo discovered.

Panama’s security minister said the crew aboard the ship resisted the search, became violent, and had to be detained. Whereupon the announcers on North Korea’s state-run media lost their minds, as usual. Even during calmer times, the North Korean press has a problem with English adverbs and adjectives, not to mention verbs and nouns. Its revved-up language can jar the innards. But when the regime’s Department of Agitprop gets excited, it pulls out all the stops.

According to Pyongyang’s flacks: “The Panamanian investigation authorities rashly attacked and detained the captain and crewmen of the ship on the plea of ‘drug investigation.’ This cargo is nothing but aging weapons which are to send back to Cuba after overhauling them according to a legitimate contract.”

Havana was also soon heard from. Its official spokesmen said the weapons aboard the ship were indeed obsolete. Nothing to see here. And this time they may even have a point. If what’s been in the papers is true, which is always a big if, the weapons are indeed old or even older. The kinds of arms being reported date back to the Early Cold War period. For example, the Panamanians discovered parts for an SA-2 air defense system that the Soviets were exporting back when there were still Soviets around to export them. The most famous thing the SA-2 ever did? Shoot down an American U-2 pilot named Francis Gary Powers in 1960.

That’s old equipment.

According to James O’Halloran, editor of Jane’s Land Based Air Defence: “Today there is no reason for any Western pilot to be hit by an SA-2. If you get caught by one of them you’ve done something bloody stupid, or you’ve got very bad luck. No modern country wants to be seen with these.”

No modern country. That’s the catch.

Who has ever accused North Korea of being a modern country? This is the same regime whose masters can’t feed their own captive people without blackmailing the rest of the world. This is the same place where the lights black out every night because it has so little electric power. A place where the government doesn’t let regular folks use the internet lest they learn how bad they have it. To be caught with VHS videotapes even of soap operas from South Korea is to be imprisoned, maybe along with your whole family.

Besides, if the cargo aboard that ship was really nothing to be concerned about-just a little exchange between old friends, like a private sale at a gun show-and the Castros and Kims are only spit-shining some old relics For Display Purposes Only, then why were the parts hidden under tons of sugar? Just out of habit? (Secrecy tends to be a habit in tyrannical regimes.)

If there’s nothing to hide, why hide it? Why did the captain attempt suicide if everything was on the up-and up? If he and the crew felt as though this were a legit operation, why not let the Panamanians conduct their search without a fight? And how many other arms shipments old or new have gotten through undetected? And what did the ship deliver to Cuba on its way to pick up this stuff? The whole business grows curiouser and curiouser.

Maybe there’s a reason the rest of the world should be worried when North Korea and Cuba start sending weaponry back and forth. To quote one long-time student of North Korean affairs named Gordon Chang when he appeared on CNN:

Cuba is “a country which is just 90 miles away from American shores. Now, if they can smuggle missile radar into Cuba, you know, God knows what else they can put there. We do not need a replay of the Cuban missile crisis, this time with the North Koreans’ fingers on the triggers instead of the Soviets’.”

It’s all more than enough reason to track shipping between these two chummy regimes, and board a boat now and then to see what’s going on. It’s not always good news.

WHAT ARE America and our allies to make of all this? What we always should: Be prepared. Please, no more surprises. As on June 25, 1950, when all hell broke loose on the Korean peninsula as Kim Il-Sung’s legions overran South Korea and forced the allies into one small redoubt (the Pusan Perimeter) before a counter-offensive could be launched.

Eternal vigilance is not only the price of liberty but of security, or what little there is of it in an always uncertain world. National security is also the reason for all that data mining going on in Washington. For if there is one prudent policy in the face of constant danger, it remains: En garde!

Editorial, Pages 79 on 07/28/2013

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