Poets of the Central Committee of the Korean Writers Union created dozens of poems calling upon the people to turn out in the general advance for this year.Undoubtedly North Korea produced such an artistic flowering by redirecting the resources formerly devoted to Uraniun enrichment. As John Bolton explains in the WSJ:
The poem "May the sea of single-minded unity meander" fully represents the faith and will of servicepersons and the people to single-mindedly uphold the ideology and leadership of Kim Jong Il and resolutely defend Korean-style socialism despite any ordeals and hardships.
Among them are such poems as "Storm of general advance arises," "Call of the country" and "Let's advance faster for higher goal on swift horse of Songun," which vehemently call upon the people to accelerate the all-out drive for building an economic power in the same spirit and vigor as was displayed when they built socialism on the ruins.
There are also "We will further glorify our mother Republic," "Before the motherland" and other poems fully reflecting the firm determination of the army and people to proudly greet the grand festival in September with signal labor achievements this year.
[...] In the aftermath of the Feb. 13 agreement, North Korea had to develop a cover story for its uranium-enrichment activities, as well a way to conceal its stock of plutonium and actual nuclear weapons. And yet -- despite the seemingly active and continuing collaboration by the U.S. State Department in coming up with a convincing line of patter -- Pyongyang still insists it never engaged in uranium enrichment, producing as evidence melted-down tubes. Melting the tubes was curious in and of itself, suggesting that in their original form they appeared much more like centrifuge equipment than artillery barrels. The regime made a fatal mistake, however, because the metal showed unmistakable traces of highly-enriched uranium (HEU).They had made a great leap forward with the might of Songun!
Perhaps even the State Department's East Asia Bureau was shocked at this evidence of North Korean duplicity. In any event, the "dual use" dodge was now out of play, and Pyongyang had to be persuaded to come up with a more convincing cover story. Even this they have now refused to do.The singleminded unity of the servicepersons is smashing all Imperialist plots! (h/t: Lucianne.com)
The timing is important, because elements within the U.S. intelligence community were questioning the community's 2002 assessment that North Korea had launched a production-scope procurement effort for enrichment equipment. This effort, similar in origin and intent to the recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program, may well have been sidetracked by the findings of HEU, which at least in part reinforced the 2002 conclusions.
Moreover, whatever the North Korean declaration says about its nuclear activities -- assuming just for sport that we actually get a declaration -- it was always only a first step in a long process of verification, and not even the most important one. If North Korea and the State Department, working together, can come up with something they think will pass the public smile test once it is released, we still need to verify the accuracy and completeness of the declaration. Here is where State has failed most obviously: There has yet to be, 11 months after the Feb. 13 agreement, even a hint of what specific mechanisms will verify a declaration. Unless and until this vacuum is filled, we are going nowhere fast in denuclearizing North Korea. [...]
Crossposted on Soccer Dad
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