North Korea's time may be near

Something big may be happening in North Korea: Another murderous totalitarian communist dictatorship may be heading rapidly for the “ash heap of history.”

The American Thinker deserves a “hat tip” for pointing out this article in The Sunday Times (London, UK):

In interviews for this article over many months, western policymakers, Chinese experts, North Korean exiles and human rights activists built up a picture of a tightly knit clan leadership in Pyongyang that is on the verge of collapse.

Some of those interviewed believe the “Dear Leader”, Kim Jong-il, has already lost his personal authority to a clique of generals and party cadres. Without any public announcement, governments from Tokyo to Washington are preparing for a change of regime.

American Democrats apparently weren’t the only people who were mightily disappointed by the re-election of President George W. Bush:

Bush’s re-election dealt a blow to Kim, 62, who had gambled on a win by John Kerry, the Democratic candidate. Kim used a strategy of divide and delay to drag out nuclear talks with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea through 2004.

Kim lost his bet and now faces four more years of Bush, who says that he “loathes” the North Korean leader and has vowed to strip him of atomic weapons.

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, opponents of the use of force to enforce the UN resolutions argued that President Bush should instead be doing something about the threat posed by North Korea.

It seems that the president’s strategy for handling that ill-fated regime may have been correct.

There is still no plan to use military force, but the communists are perpetrating a hoax within their own country in an effort to shore up their crumbling edifice:

Nonetheless, Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, wants to keep pressurising North Korea through negotiations. “The military option is not on the table for the United States,” said an American aid official who is up-to-date with her thinking.

To the children of the No 5 junior school in Rajin, that would come as a surprise. Their classrooms boast lurid posters of American marines murdering Koreans and greedy warmongers ganging up on a proud nation, as though Kennedy and Khruschev still held the world in thrall.

An especially gratifying aspect of the current situation in North Korea is the role of Christians in helping people to escape from the communist tyranny:

Word has spread like wildfire of the Christian underground that helps fugitives to reach South Korea. People who lived in silent fear now dare to speak about escape. The regime has almost given up trying to stop them going, although it can savagely punish those caught and sent back.

The Catholic Church played a key role in the liberation of the Poles, and it appears Christians are again coming to the aid of people who yearn to escape the “heaven on earth” promised by the atheistic communists.

There comes a time when totalitarian communists who took advantage of the inherent weaknesses of the socialist ideology to impose a tyranny will lose their bloody grip on power.

North Korea’s time may be near.