North Koreans are following the old Soviet script

Hell is Growing More Crowded While we hope that Christopher Hitchens was pleasantly surprised after his passing last week, there is little doubt among believers as to where North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-Il will be spending eternity after his passing. The Associated Press describes Kim as having, "a taste for cigars, cognac and gourmet cuisine". They left out his fondness for starving millions of his citizens, forced labor camps, and brutal public executions. As Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch puts it: “North Korea under Kim Jong-Il has been a human rights hell on earth,” said Roth. “Kim Jong-Il ruled through fear generated by systematic and pervasive human rights abuses including arbitrary executions, torture, forced labor and strict limits on freedom of speech and association.” Though perhaps not always the most reliable source of information, Wikipedia has an exhaustive article about human rights abuses in North Korea. Here's an academic paper that presents the case for criminal prosecution for Kim, though such prosecution would have paled in comparison to his eternal sentence. The obvious question is regarding the next steps for this isolated and backwards worker's paradise (which just happens to have nuclear missiles). As the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Auslin puts it in National Review: For now, however, the North Koreans are following the old Soviet script for succession. Kim Jong-un has been named head of the official state funeral committee, thereby confirming his ascendancy for the moment. His work will begin after the funeral on December 28, when he will have to start consolidating his power; alternatively, we may begin to see hints that he is merely a figurehead, such as increased prominence of other leaders. Only if the regime itself is in danger of fissioning or being attacked by the oppressed people of North Korea will the situation on the peninsula change to any appreciable degree. What Asian and Western governments need to prepare for is some kind of military demonstration, such as a new nuclear test, a ballistic-missile test, or even a limited attack on South Korean territory or property, all of which have been the stock in trade of the Kim regime. As a means to prove that the new leadership is fully in control, as a warning to South Korea and the United States not to take advantage of the death of Kim Jong-il to push for regime change, or because of factional in-fighting among the North Korean leadership to jockey for position, an act of aggression is very likely after Kim Jong-Il’s funeral. The Obama administration, along with its South Korean ally, needs to make clear now that any such destabilizing actions will be met with a response. Sadly, there is little chance that Kim Jong-il’s death means the dawn of a new spring in North Korea. Its terrorized and brutalized populace will have to endure more horrors at the hands of the third Kim to rule since the end of World War II, and Asia and the rest of the world will continue to wait nervously for another threat to their safety and security. Now may not be the time to try and weaken the new government, but neither is it time to relax our guard. Our wait-and-see attitude is justified only if we are prepared to strike back against unprovoked aggression and retain the moral compass to condemn the regime for the barbarity that it is. For the time being, we must resign ourselves to perusing Kim Jong-Il's autobiography, which is so full of socialist tripe you'd be forgiven for thinking that it was ghostwritten by Ted Kennedy.