North Korea's Kim Il Jung MIA? Or Dead?

There's been speculation in the past about Kim Il Jung's health status, and the fact that he missed a major party function - North Korea's 60th anniversary military parade - fuels speculation that he's seriously ill.

There was no sign of Kim Jong Il at a closely watched parade Tuesday marking the 60th anniversary of North Korea's founding, as a U.S. intelligence report said he may have suffered a stroke.

A U.S. intelligence official said there is reason to believe Kim Jong Il, 66, is sick after he failed to show up at the national celebration. That official and another U.S. source spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

In a broadcast monitored in Seoul, Korean Central Television showed North Korea's No. 2 leader and other officials atop a viewing stand. Kim Jong Il was not shown.

"It does appear that Kim Jong-Il has suffered a health setback, potentially a stroke," an official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

She said there have been no signs of a change in governing power and that assessing whether Kim was still capable of governing would "call for a lot of speculation."

Other reports indicate he collapsed last month. The speculation continues to grow about his whereabouts and whether he's even alive.

Well, that's an "improvement" over the last rumor to surface - that he's actually been dead for some time and a body double has taken his place.

This has tremendous significance since the North Koreans are supposed to be dismantling their nuclear program, and recently reversed course claiming that the US had not moved to take the country off the State Department terror list, while the US notes that they would do so only after the North Koreans completed the dismantlement of the nuclear program.

Given the secretiveness of the North Koreans, there's no way to know with 100% certainty what's going on there.

When L'il Kim's father, Kim Il Sung, died of a heart attack, there was a massive outpouring of grief - much of it stage managed:



Expect something along these lines should the news of Jung's death be confirmed. These two murderous bastards operated with a cult of personality and treated their people with tremendous disdain and looked on while their countrymen suffered horribly from self-induced famines and ruin. The world will be a much better place when the North Korean regime is no more.