Other Forces

The Kim family, end-war.

North Korea's "Respected and Beloved Leader", Kim il-Sung, photographed with his first wife, Kin Jong-Suk, and his son, Kim Jong-il, photographed while father and mother were still in service with the Soviet Red Army, 1944/'45. The lack of clarity as to date derives from North Korean myth-making, which leaves uncertainty of as much as a year as to the date birth of Kim Jong-il; he was certainly born while his father was in Soviet service but when, exactly, is uncertain. Having presided over the messiest piece of post-WW2 business - the Korean War - established a Stalinist state in North Korea, and adopted "non-alignment" as North Korean state policy (defined by one Western humorist as a willingness to accept cash from anybody), Kim il-Sung died in 1994, to be succeeded smoothly by the "Dear Leader", Kim Jong-il. The latter died today, having led his country into post-Stalinist chaos resulting in large part from the collapse of external support following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the "re-orientation" of policy in "Socialist" China. The story appears to be that Kim Jong-il died of a heart attack due to "overwork". My own theory is that "Team America - World Police" finally got him. Pity they were after Mullah Omar at the time ... Best regards, JR.