The United States Marine Corps once served as my personal travel agent. I can tell you that none of the trips they booked for me were very relaxing. Mostly, the memories I made during those trips still torment me on a daily basis.

One memory that I live in quite regularly is that of an Iraqi firefighter I met on my first deployment. I was on an evening foot patrol through one of the outlying neighborhoods south of Baghdad. The scenery of Iraq was heavily littered with destruction. Crushed buildings, scorched pieces of earth and machinery were all commonplace. Upon first glance, he was a tall man in good health. A tall man, on crutches, and a second visual scan revealed that this man had recently been relieved of his right foot.

Many civilians had sustained physical injuries during the invasion, so this man on crutches was doing well to have a fresh bandage and still be gainfully employed. Most of the injured civilians I encountered had been injured during the invasion. Through a translator, however, I came to understand that this man had lost his foot weeks before the invasion. This man had a family, and, fearing the worst, he had sent his family to safety, out of Iraq. His plan had been to join his family, but members of the Ba’ath Party did not allow this man to leave the country. Rather, they detained this man and cut off his right foot to physically prohibit him from fleeing the country. These were the consequences for disloyalty to Saddam Hussein.

Early last week, the United Nations released a report detailing several human rights violations that have occurred in North Korean prison camps. These violations are easily some of the worst recorded in recent history. Starvation, rape, execution, forced abortion—the list of human rights abuses is extensive. I searched further and found sketches that depict the various torture techniques documented in the UN’s report. The descriptions and sketches are horrifying in every aspect. More terrifying to me, however, is the idea that these acts have most likely been perpetrated for decades.

Un’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung, took the position of supreme leader of North Korea in 1972. Il-sung was succeeded as supreme leader by his son, Kim Jong-il, in 1994. I believe that the prison camps in North Korea have been operating as described in the UN’s report for many years. The severity of the abuses against prisoners is not a brand-new issue. Yet I wonder, why now? Why is this now something that the UN and the United States government are opposed to? I wonder if maybe there is a quota for dead prisoners or counts of human rights abuses that has been met recently. Maybe that’s why the UN recommended in its report that the leaders of North Korea be held accountable to the International Criminal Court.

I believe that if entities such as our government and the UN want to play humanitarian, they may want to reevaluate what they consider a timely response to human rights abuses. I wonder why, in addition to this horribly delayed response, the UN and our government have been determined to implicate China as willing contributors to North Korea’s abusive past.

What has happened thus far reminds me of a very similar situation in Iraq. We, the public, were told that Iraq posed a threat to stability worldwide due to their possession of WMDs. Last I checked, we have yet to find those weapons. Then, we were all told that Saddam Hussein was a dictator who tortured his people on a daily basis. Oddly enough, Saddam Hussein took power in Iraq in 1979. He didn’t become a murderer overnight. The world was well aware of Hussein’s history of human rights abuses.

Why, as a nation, then, did we decide to act in 2003? The same reason that we are just now demanding justice for the atrocities that have taken place in North Korea. The UN is not concerned about human rights abuses unless there is a check to be cashed. The implication of China is a clear sign that with the UN’s help, the U.S. government is looking to cure our current economic crisis. War has always proven to be a wonderful band-aid for a tanked economy. There has been speculation that North Korea possesses nuclear weapons. We have been told that Kim Jong Un and his Nazi-like prison camps are inhumane. Hopefully, we won’t be fooled again. Hopefully.

mmacdonald@mavs.coloradomesa.edu