By Donald Kirk
There never was a Christmas like this one. COVID-19 has frightened countries around the world into cutting down or cutting out gatherings, and in the U.S. Donald Trump ― Mr. Bluff and Bluster himself ― is concocting fiendish schemes to overturn the results of the presidential election before the U.S. Congress meets on Jan. 6 to certify the victory of Joseph Biden. At least we can say we haven't descended to open conflict, to guerrilla warfare, to breakaway states in open battle, all of them united against the United States, one nation hitherto indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
But guess what? There's a way to wage war that hurts no one and makes the other side really angry. That's to fire balloons loaded with leaflets and other stuff, like candy and dollar bills and electronic devices for tuning into illicit broadcasts. That's what a band of North Korean defectors has been doing intermittently for years from the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone. Now they face up to three years in prison if they try it again. Much of the world, including American congressmen, sparing time from denouncing the election as a fraud, are calling the law an infringement on free speech and human rights.
Actually, I cannot help but appreciate the messages these defectors want to convey to the North Koreans. For sure these leaflets have a lot to say that any North Korean who happens to read them has a right to know. How else will they realize their leader is a hereditary monarch who prefers firing missiles and testing nukes over feeding his own people?
But wait. There's a problem here, and it isn't just that people living near the launch sites for the balloons may be worried about the North Koreans retaliating with an artillery barrage. The real problem is, what if everyone starts firing balloons into countries they don't like? What if the North Koreans, instead of frothing at the mouth and blowing up a beautiful new North-South liaison office on their side of the line, got smart and launched balloon attacks back across the DMZ? For sure not too many people south of the line would be saying, "We respect your free speech and your right to deluge us with propaganda."
It gets better. Suppose activists around the world picked up on waging their own balloon wars. Having been to London quite a few times, I can say for sure the English don't like the French or Germans that much. What's to stop the Brits from launching balloons over the English Channel to France, denouncing the French for thinking they're so culturally superior and reminding them, "You surrendered to Hitler in World War II and we and the Americans and a few others had to come to your rescue." Longer-range balloons could drift all the way to Germany bearing reminders of the iniquities of the Nazi era, the evil of the Holocaust in which 10 million people, including 6 million Jews, were systematically murdered.
Better yet, how about drones flying high over borders and frontiers, dropping leaflets near and far, maybe getting shot down but with no loss of life, no physical harm done? Will historians someday credit South Korean leafleteers as pioneers of a global movement in which activists, clubs and special interests decide that dropping leaflets from balloons or drones over the next guy's territory is the perfect way to infuriate him without firing a bloody shot?
On sober second thought, you can see why South Korea, yearning to draw Kim Jong-un back into cordial dialogue, does not want anyone in the name of free speech, peace and freedom annoying the hell out of him and his sister Yo-jong by taunting them with leaflet barrages. It's fun to imagine those two picking up those leaflets around their palaces and seeing the bad things they say about them, but you can only take the joke so far.
As for Trump, considering the humiliation he's facing, first as a loser at the polls and then in the legal cases he's pursuing, might he be dreaming of his own leaflet campaign? It shouldn't be hard to launch balloons from the roof of the Trump Hotel, down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, and watch them fluttering onto the White House lawn. Biden might get all riled up, and the New York Times and Washington Post would revel in indignant editorials, but free speech is free speech, right? Let the winds blow where they may.
Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, writes from both Seoul and Washington.
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But guess what? There's a way to wage war that hurts no one and makes the other side really angry. That's to fire balloons loaded with leaflets and other stuff, like candy and dollar bills and electronic devices for tuning into illicit broadcasts. That's what a band of North Korean defectors has been doing intermittently for years from the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone. Now they face up to three years in prison if they try it again. Much of the world, including American congressmen, sparing time from denouncing the election as a fraud, are calling the law an infringement on free speech and human rights.
Actually, I cannot help but appreciate the messages these defectors want to convey to the North Koreans. For sure these leaflets have a lot to say that any North Korean who happens to read them has a right to know. How else will they realize their leader is a hereditary monarch who prefers firing missiles and testing nukes over feeding his own people?
But wait. There's a problem here, and it isn't just that people living near the launch sites for the balloons may be worried about the North Koreans retaliating with an artillery barrage. The real problem is, what if everyone starts firing balloons into countries they don't like? What if the North Koreans, instead of frothing at the mouth and blowing up a beautiful new North-South liaison office on their side of the line, got smart and launched balloon attacks back across the DMZ? For sure not too many people south of the line would be saying, "We respect your free speech and your right to deluge us with propaganda."
It gets better. Suppose activists around the world picked up on waging their own balloon wars. Having been to London quite a few times, I can say for sure the English don't like the French or Germans that much. What's to stop the Brits from launching balloons over the English Channel to France, denouncing the French for thinking they're so culturally superior and reminding them, "You surrendered to Hitler in World War II and we and the Americans and a few others had to come to your rescue." Longer-range balloons could drift all the way to Germany bearing reminders of the iniquities of the Nazi era, the evil of the Holocaust in which 10 million people, including 6 million Jews, were systematically murdered.
Better yet, how about drones flying high over borders and frontiers, dropping leaflets near and far, maybe getting shot down but with no loss of life, no physical harm done? Will historians someday credit South Korean leafleteers as pioneers of a global movement in which activists, clubs and special interests decide that dropping leaflets from balloons or drones over the next guy's territory is the perfect way to infuriate him without firing a bloody shot?
On sober second thought, you can see why South Korea, yearning to draw Kim Jong-un back into cordial dialogue, does not want anyone in the name of free speech, peace and freedom annoying the hell out of him and his sister Yo-jong by taunting them with leaflet barrages. It's fun to imagine those two picking up those leaflets around their palaces and seeing the bad things they say about them, but you can only take the joke so far.
As for Trump, considering the humiliation he's facing, first as a loser at the polls and then in the legal cases he's pursuing, might he be dreaming of his own leaflet campaign? It shouldn't be hard to launch balloons from the roof of the Trump Hotel, down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, and watch them fluttering onto the White House lawn. Biden might get all riled up, and the New York Times and Washington Post would revel in indignant editorials, but free speech is free speech, right? Let the winds blow where they may.
Donald Kirk, www.donaldkirk.com, writes from both Seoul and Washington.
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