My Guess- As Good As Anybody's

[poliphilo]

Kim Jong-un may be an idiot but I can't believe everyone around him is. My guess is he's being egged on in his suicidal belligerence by comrades who want to create an excuse to depose him.  As things are going he'll either get a bloody nose or be forced to back down and then those around him, deeply lamenting, will have to step in and get rid of him  "for the good of the nation". When you've created a personality cult as big as that surrounding the Kim family you have to go to extreme lengths to discredit and then demolish it.

Comments

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

We were discussing this over breakfast and have the feeling that there's a military coup in the offing.

Nothing else can really explain such lunacy.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Kim Jong-un would appear to be a totally useless little squirt. I imagine the old stagers from his father's regime would love to be rid of him.

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

I suspect his father, if he were alive, would probably give him a smacked bottom and send him to bed with no supper over this...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly. Dad was a monster but not a idiot.

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

Its all very odd.

From what I've read, SK claims NK does not seem to be preparing for conflict - my guess is that the NKoreans are fuming at Operation Foal Eagle, and trying to pressure the US/UN into giving them what they want. But, at present, they've now pissed off China, Russia, and even Cuba is stepping to the American side. Not a good situation for NK, not at all.

The way he keeps threatening America is a little like a chiuaua irritating an elephant. The larger animal puts up with it for a while, then gets so fed up it lifts its foot and steps on it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

They've got form. They throw a tantrum and hope that people will notice they're still there and give them what they want.
In the past it's worked. This time it probably won't

Which- I suspect- is what the Machiavellians in the regime are hoping will happen. They want Kim Jong-un to make an arse of himself so they can shove him aside.

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

Excellent choice of words, chief - it is a tantrum. This is rhetoric being spouted to scare everyone. Inclding David Cameron, who in a highly successful week of self-publicity (not) is now claiming they could strike us. Yes, of course.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Cameron is a great one for speaking out before he's really thought things through.

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

This week has been a car crash in slow motion...do you think that's why Osborne parked in a disabled parking bay?!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

God, but that was stupid!

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

He was also using the space to eat a Big Mac which is pretty rich considering all their constant pontification about healthy eating and diet!

Chauffeur driven too in a big, gas guzzling 4X4.

Don't do as I do, do as I say........................

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He says it was all his chauffeur's fault- typical!

Re: Burns

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

Saddam did. And looked what happened to him.

Re: Burns

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I'm giving them too much credit. Perhaps this is a serious miscalculation on their part and they really do think they can get what they want by throwing the rattle out of the cot. After all, it's worked for them in the past.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

We've been discussing this over breakfast too. We were in Seoul last year and it's awful to think that a war really would break out, so I hope your theory is correct.

We did decide that Kim Jong-un sounded awfully like an old friend of G's who can only be described as bonkers. (If you put his name into Google, the first offering on the drop down list is "XXX XXX crackpot") Thankfully our friend doesn't have an army and nuclear weapons at his disposal, but the signs of megalomania are very similar.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Our daughter-in-law is South Korean.

This is the problem with hereditary dynasties. Sooner or later they'll throw up someone who's totally incompetent- or even crazy- like Caligula.

[butterscotch711.livejournal.com]

People in South Korea mostly aren't worrying. I had to calm my mum down. Yesterday she was worried that Australians were about to be evacuated from South Korea, an idea she apparently got from the news. But the embassy just says 'Go on life as normal, but be aware there's a small chance things could change'.

I know the 'surprisingly effective nimble cutting-edge technology!!!!!' rhetoric the NK regime is using because it's also how things are talked up in South Korea. I think the subtext is kind of 'the people we're talking about are top of the pile, so we need to heap praise on what they're doing, come on all you, let's heap praise'. People here recognise it as BS.

I feel pretty sure that the regime knows the US and its allies could destroy it very quickly, and that it also knows if it starts killing large numbers of South Koreans, it will quickly lose the power it has over regular North Korean people.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The worry is that Kim will talk himself into a position where he has to do something violent and stupid of lose face completely- and that he'll choose the first option.