08 July 2006

Li'l Kim

They let Grammy-winner Li'l Kim out of jail the other day. She is the biggest selling female rapper in history, and a feisty young woman. She dodged a purely metaphorical bullet, unlike some of her male contemporaries, when she was locked up last year for lying about a 2001 altercation between her entourage and some others outside a New York City radio station.

The unpleasantness involved firearms, and was a bit messy.

Her real name is Kimbery Jones, and she told the judge she was a "God-fearing good person" who regretted dissembling to a federal grand jury.

She was picked up from the jail in a Rolls Royce. The latest revelation, which arrived after press time yesterday from some bureaucrat with access and a runny mouth, was that the depressed trajectory was intended to send the TPD-2 to the broad ocean area off Hawaii, which makes so much sense that I want to applaud their audacity.

I was musing this morning about the future of plucky little lunatics. Li'l Kim got through this scrape with a few hundred days in jail. I imagine that is pretty horrible, but it certainly adds to her street credibility. I could not resist thinking of the other Li'l Kim, the Dear Great Leader Junior in his palace in Pyongyang.

The Korean Li'l Kim has been working on his street creds for years, and he has never had a moments inconvenience for lying or dissemibling. In fact, he has been rewarded at every turn. And look what he has been up to this week alone!

He has been Look stealing PRC trains, causing his only real ally to lose face enormously. It would seem reckless on its face, cutting off his only regional pal. But he upped the ante with the missile firings. He not only fired them in the general direction of Japan, for which there might be some sentimental attraction, but he appeared to aim one at  a nation that has virtually unlimited resources, when it chooses to do so.

In so doing, Li'l Kim irritated the Japanese to the extent that it will steel their determination to deploy a shield against short and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. Worse, for a nation that might have six nuclear weapons in its complete inventory, it might have re-invigorated a missile defense program in America that had lost budgetary importance to the ground war in the Middle East.

Mr. Putin, avid enthusiast of triangulation against American regional hegemonism, is feeling nervous at Li'l Kim's appetite, and even his most ardent apologists South of the DMZ are shaking their heads at his antics. It appears to be Li'l Kim against the world, unless there is a friendly voice somewhere in Iran.

I wonder if this is the end-game for the leadership of the North. We have often said that the end was near, and as one who suffered with Ayatollah Khomeini's imminent death for a couple decades, and prepared to believe that Li'l Kim might squeak through this one as well. It is hard to imagine Northeast Asia without his unique brand of shenanigans.

But the stars are aligning in a way that may portend change. There may be a limit to what the traffic will bear. The crime of Grand Theft Locomotive from China might be the last straw.

From the PRC perspective, perhaps a weakened ROK, saddled with the economic and environmental disaster of the North, would be a counter against a resurgent Japan. The elimination of the threat might take the wind out of the sails of the potential rivals in northeast Asia.

Perhaps. We have seen the North march to the brink before, bombing other capitals, attempting assassination, kidnapping film stars. There is nothing too unconventional for them to try, but I think the bag of tricks is shopworn now.

The failure of the Taepodong-2 missile must rankle Li'l Kim. It was such a perfect statement of capability. If he had managed to splash it in the ocean somewhere near the tranquil island of Hawaii it might have made a statement against the military maneuvers there.

The Americans have been busy with their Navy, and mostly out of sight of the television. First was the adventure of three aircraft carriers operating off Guam on (if you believe Li'l Kim) the anniversary of the war on the Peninsula. That must have started the blood pumping. Exercise RIMPAC, conducted with dozens of ships from half a dozen regional navies is in progress now south of Oahu. It appears to have assumed the ominous aspect to the North as the old annual joint landing of ROK and American Marines in the Team Spirit exercises near Pusan.

Li'l Kim's melt down could be spectacular, since he had never actually had to say that he “Was a God-fearing good person.” When you are the some of a divinity, that is hard to pull off. And thus I have the sense that Li'l Kim will go gently into that good night.

But you never know. I do not think they are as crazy as we think sometimes. But still the North Korean leadership lives in Neverland as much as Michael Jackson used to do.

Miscalculation is always a possibility. Li'l Kim has gotten away with so much for so long. I remember the first time I saw the Chopped Tree and the Bridge of No Return at the DMZ, and marveled that they had hacked two American officers to pieces and suffered no consequences to speak of.

It could all be unraveling now, and it could either implode or explode. I do not know which it will be. Soft landing or splatter. Whichever, I think it would be useful to see if any of those interceptor rockets actually work.

Either way it turns out, I am starting to think it is sooner rather than later. When I lived in Korea, we always said “When,” it was going to get ugly, not “If.”

I look forward to an interesting August. I think Li'l Kim does, too.

The way the Chinese say “interesting times,” is interesting in itself. They prefer boring. Interesting can be a curse.

Copyright 2006 Vic Socotra

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