Sanctions stupidity

Further evidence of just how counter-productive US efforts to isolate countries like Cuba and North Korea are:

Jin Sun Rak, director of Free North Korea Radio, calls his old country almost every night. His wife and 14-year-old daughter live in North Korea. He decided to defect - telling nobody but his brother - in 2008, after traveling to China and seeing the relative wealth. The first time he went, hoping to sell 80 grams of unrefined gold, he bribed a border guard and carried a dagger, tucked near the lower part of a leg. His first night in China was "beyond imagination." He said he went to a restaurant, had some drinks and ended up at a karaoke bar where he knew none of the songs. Days later, he returned to North Korea with some money and a new frame of reference. 

"Whenever they say something," Jin said of the government, "they're lying. They're as worthless as barking dogs." As for a greater cynicism about the government, Jin said: "I think it's something unstoppable now. People's minds have been changed. Young people know the value of money. They don't want to be party members anymore. They've been exposed to the private markets." 

Once exposed to the charms of capitalism, it's hard to go back.  It should be deeply embarrassing to our government that nominally communist China is doing more to promote dissent in North Korea through exposure to its markets and way of life than the US. A policy of isolation only plays into Pyongyang's hands, it's time to change course.