Columnist – John Sammon
This little North Korean boy jeering at me with his fist at the Bridge of No Return at Panmunjom in 1972 is the reason North Korea continues to represent a threat to world peace.

The children were brought in on a bus from North Korea and toured the North Korean side of the truce village of Panmunjom. They were told propaganda and twisted facts to inflame their hatred of America. On their departure from the area back to North Korea, they not only made fists and shouted abuse, but pelted myself and two others at Checkpoint Three, called the Loneliest Outpost in the World, with little balls of refined sugar, given them to suck as candy.

I made a joke at the time that they sucked.

This could be a comic moment. I mean, it wasn’t exactly a page of glorious history in warfare to be pelted with candy by children. However, this is near the same spot where a mob of North Korean (grown up) soldiers attacked a party of Americans and chopped two officers to pieces, an ugly incident that has been labeled the “Panmunjom axe murder.”

What is important is that this boy is now about 45 years old and still believes the lies he was told and still hates America. He has no doubt taught that hatred to his own children. I’m not going to maintain America is blameless in the world or not guilty of wrongdoing. We’ve made our mistakes.

But this kid is brainwashed in a closed hermit society in which freedom is impossible, a regimented police state where the cult of the infallible leader (Kim Jong Il) is pervasive. Perhaps no other children anywhere in the world would react the way this boy is without plenty of indoctrination. Hatred is something that has to be nurtured and cultured like growing a plant in a pot.

If it takes root and grows, it will spread.

In our dealings with North Korea, we have to remember we’re dealing with an extremist state and a brutal dictatorship. It’s very difficult to reason with such people. To them, the world is whatever they say it is, and truth is however it can be bent.

To them, up is down, square is round, and black is white.

The Korean Peninsula is still the most dangerous place in the world, more dangerous than the Middle East because two huge armies face each other in an unresolved situation in which a spark or a miscalculation can set off a conflagration.

As you look into the face of this boy remember. They remain our committed enemy, and attempting to reason with them should take this into account.

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