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Kim Jong-Il: the Reign of Terror

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English 205
20 May 2013
Kim Jong-Il’s Reign There is little known about the true inside of North Korea, but what we do know is that yields a powerful dictatorship across its people. This dictatorship all began less than 100 years ago and has a very short history. A brief description of Korea’s history, from History.com, shows how the country split into two completely different countries: Japan annexed the Korean peninsula in 1910, and the country spent the next 35 years under Japanese military rule. With Japan’s defeat in World War II in 1945, American troops landed in the southern part of the peninsula, while Soviet troops secured the area north of latitude 38˚ N (or the 38th parallel). In this way, communism took firm hold in the …show more content…

The resulting fireball would have produced third degree burns 62 miles away and it even broke windows in Finland and Norway. (Starr) This display of nuclear power by the Russians, in 1960, proves the true power of what the North Koreans could have achieved by now. With Kim’s power and technology available to him, it would not be surprise that Korea has already accessed weapons of this power. Would anyone want this type of physical power to be in the hands of someone who is a tyrant/dictator? It is scary to think that 1-ton of TNT, which is a powerful explosive device, is only 1/1000 of a kiloton. The “Little Boy” (Starr) and “Fat Man” (Starr) were equal to 36 kiloton, while the “Tzar Bomba” (Starr) weighed in at 50,000 kilotons. Kim could poses nuclear weapons of this degree hidden in North Korea underground. If North Korea detonated nuclear weapons there is no doubt Seoul, South Korea and America would be the first targets. Pruitt’s research provides insight on Kim’s insistent pursuit of nuclear experiments: Though Kim Jong Il’s government initially pledged to abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), by the early 21st century reports had surfaced of underground nuclear facilities and ongoing research into the production of highly enriched uranium. North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 and openly resumed nuclear research at a facility in Yongbyon. In 2006, after multi-national nuclear talks stalled, North Korea announced it had carried out

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