Lies, damn lies, and Weibo rumors of Kim Jong Un’s demise

Posted By Isaac Stone Fish Friday, February 10, 2012 - 5:11 PM Share

Your news, should you choose to believe it, came in from unnamed "dependable sources:"

"On the morning of February 10th at 2:45 pm, unknown persons broke into the residence of the highest leader North Korea Kim Jong En and shot him dead."

Suspicious traffic patterns had been seen outside of the North Korean embassy in Beijing, and this explanation, it appears, seems as good as any: Users of China's Sina Weibo, the local Twitter clone, forwarded the message more than 10,000 times. One user posted a picture of what Kim Jong Un would look like arrested. Another commented "in this weird country, that's not even strange."  

The chained Chinese media universe means that Weibo rumors are a lot more trusted than their Twitter counterparts. Chinese media coverage of sensitive subjects is often deliberately obfuscating, and Chinese viewers know it. A few days ago, Wang Lijun, one of China's best known gangbusters and the right-hand man of powerful politician Bo Xilai appeared to try to defect at the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu. While official Chinese media covered the defection, they mostly copied the official Xinhua report, which failed to mention the most important point: how it affects Bo's chances of promotion.  

Chinese official media reporting on North Korea is often further removed from reality than the way China reports on its own political process. (My favorite English-language example is a Xinhua article that compares nightlife in Pyongyang with New York and Tokyo.) Besides, North Korea itself is a black box: Even the best American articles often depend on rumors and hearsay to cobble together a portrait of the closed country. 

All these factors combine to give the Sina Weibo rumor -- started, it appears, by a random user with less than 200 followers -- enough traction in China to land on this side of the world wide web and into the pages of Forbes, MSNBC, and Huffington Post. 

It is possible that this Weibo user broke the story of a successful coup in North Korea, though it's extremely unlikely. My favorite explanation on the Twitter side of things comes from Shaun Walker, the Moscow correspondent for the Independent, who wrote "Possible that someone said he 'murdered an enormous family-sized bucket of fried chicken,' and something got lost in translation."

KNS/AFP/Getty Images

EXPLORE:EAST ASIA, NORTH KOREA
 

XX

2:07 PM ET

February 11, 2012

Don't beleive the hype: on Iran, Syria or Al Qaeda &"affiliates"

In 2009, many mainstream media outlets were reporting that Anwar Al-Awlaki, who was purportedly the inspiration for a whole host of dubious half-baked plots from the Underwear Bombing to Fort Hood Shootings, had been killed in a drone strike in Yemen.

Example:
"Deaths in Yemen raid on al-Qaeda - Muslim preacher suspected of links to US army base killing thought to be among dead."
Al Jazeera - 24 Dec 2009 (this summarizes a Reuters report)

Then, after the famous 2011 take-down of the Cleric (whose father is an adviser to the President of Yemen) by an Obama-sanctioned drone attack in Yemen (this time, it was apparently the "real" takedown), the following is leaked:

"EXCLUSIVE: Al Qaeda Leader Dined at the Pentagon Just Months After 9/11"
By Catherine Herridge
Fox News - October 20, 2010

"EXCLUSIVE: New Details Emerge of Radical Imam's Lunch at the Pentagon."
By Catherine Herridge, Pamela Browne, Cyd Upson & Gregory Johnson
Fox News - May 20, 2011

That's right, de-classified FBI probe documents show Al-Alwaki meeting with the DoD on Feb. 5, 2002.

Sounds a lot like the controversy surrounding Ayad Allawi's meeting with the CIA just before the infamous Habbush Letter was leaked to Con Coughlin at the UK Telegraph. WSJ Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Ron Suskind - and others - later traced the forged memo (which falsely implicated Saddam for links with the 911 hijackers as well as the bogus yellowcake uranium charges) to the CIA and ultimately to Dick Cheney via his Office of Special Plans. Allawi, long reported to have worked closely with the CIA, even under Saddam's regime, was the courier of the forgery to the British reporter.

Sounds a lot like the dubious status of "Al Qaeda's affiliate" Haqqani Network in Pakistan, which was all the rage in 2011. Turns out the State Department (read CIA) had met with key leaders of the group before accusing Pakistani's ISI of "harboring them" and providing a "safe haven.":

"United States met secretly with Pakistan and Haqqani network."
Eric Schmitt
New York Times - Oct. 5, 2011

"Official: U.S. met with Haqqani terror network"
Jill Dougherty
CNN - October 21, 2011

One harkens back to Emad Salem, an FBI-informant, who gave a chilling testimony that the FBI knew about the WTC 1993 bombing plot and tried to prevent those who were trying to stop it.

"Paper Says FBI Blocked Plan to Foil N.Y. Blast,"
Reuters, Los Angeles Times - October 28, 1993
----
There are countless examples of this double dealing and black propaganda coming from the DoD and the State Dept. that would take up countless pages to exemplify. Thus I am not surprised to hear that a lone blogger Weibo is being taken as an authoritative source on N. Korea's post Jong-Il machinations. The main point: remain skeptical, look for contradictions, look for conflicts of interest and who stands to gain from a coup d'etat or invasion. A few parting gifts:

"J.P. Morgan's hunt for Afghan gold -
A team of bankers starts to tap the country's vast mineral riches, with help from the Pentagon."
James Bandler
Al Jazeera - May 11, 2011

"Iraq's economic liberalisation:
Let's all go to the yard sale.
If it all works out, Iraq will be a capitalist's dream"
Economist Magazine - Sep. 25, 2003

"Western oil firms remain as US exits Iraq -
The end of the US military occupation does not mean Iraqis have full control of their oil."
Dahr Jamail
Al Jazeera - 07 Jan 2012

 

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8:57 PM ET

February 11, 2012

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