The Marmot's Hole, a blog covering North and South Korea, adds another hypothesis to explain what might be going on in North Korea: psy—ops at the hand of the United States. According to this scenario, the very tightness of control over information in North korea, combined with the unreliability of state organs of information, makes the Norks especially vulnerable to psy—ops via foreign media reports. In other words, even officials may tend to believe reports from the BBC, Chosun Ilbo, et al, more than they would believe their own domestic sources. Thus, the planting of reports about Kim Jong—il's portait disappearing could be part of a plan to destabilize the regime.

Well, it's all speculation, so who is to say? There are those pictures of public places suddely missing portriats of Lil' Kim. But we live in the age of Photo Shop, so they could be faked.

I can't rule out psy—ops. If that is the case, I am glad we are on the ball. It is long overdue for this barbaric dictatorship to end.

Thomas Lifson   11 30 04