The most powerful threat to North Korea is not South Korea.
It’s not America or Texas either.
Some time ago, Google found concentration camps inside the most secretive country in the world. Estimates of near 200,000 North Koreans were found living in gulag concentration camps, forced to work under punishment of rape, torture and often death according to Shin Dong-hyuk, a former prisoner of the camps.
Go and Google “Camp 14.”
Korea is divided by differing opinions regarding governance.
The ancient land remains split into the north and the south.
One side is steeped in slavery and a different way of thinking, the other side would like to free those victims and spread a democracy with a central federal government.
Sound familiar?
The similarities between us and them end there.
The major difference between the impending Korean fight and the American Civil War are the weapons that will be used.
What would the South and the Midwest regions of America look like today if General Lee was in command of tanks and tomahawk missiles and if Grant was shouting about having nuclear and biological weaponry?
Would Ole Miss exist?
What if the Union or the Confederacy dropped a nuke?
North Korean war propaganda released in the last week depicted a map with possible targets for a North Korean strike.
On the map of possible places to attack was Austin, Texas. Kim Jong Un is in charge for five minutes and wants a piece of Texas?
He too, is probably fed up with the hipster invasion of SXSW.
Along with targeting Texas, Kim Jong Un has also released photos posing with weapons that look like props out of James Bond.
He wants a piece of South Korea.
He wants to complete the goal of the original terrifying North Korean leader, Kim Il-sung.
That goal is uniting the Korean people under one communist government.
The 38 parallel (the line between the North and the South of Korea) is literally the front line of the fight between communism and democracy.
At some level the current conflict is about government policy.
But, at a very basic humanitarian level, this is about the right to life, something we Americans consider unalienable.
Bombing Pyongyang into a parking lot is not an option.
For one thing, we can’t just dive into war and for another, that would be pointless — commuters still wouldn’t be allowed to park there.
But we can inform ourselves.
Seriously, Google ‘Camp 14.’
Nick Andrews is a journalism junior from Green River, WY. Follow him on Twitter @nickandrews1.
