In today’s OpinionJournal, a German doctor who worked in North Korea for two years has a great piece on the horrors experienced by the people of that country at the hands of their power-hungry dictator, Kim Jong Il. He writes:

What I witnessed could best be described as unbelievable deprivation. As I wrote last March, “In the hospitals one sees kids too small for their age, with hollow eyes and skin stretched tight across their faces. They wear blue-and-white striped pajamas, like the children in Hitler’s Auschwitz.”

Essentially, he is defending North Korea’s inclusion in the axis of evil. Towards the end of the article, he says:

President Bush has rightly identified North Korea as a prison state that uses terrorism against its own people. Moreover, his “axis of evil” has sent a strong message to the North Korean people that they are not forgotten–and they are listening. Every North Korean defector I spoke to over several weeks was delighted by President Bush’s words. For the first time in their lives they feel as if the outside world understands the hell they have endured. Moreover, they are full of hope that, like President Reagan’s “evil empire” speech,” President Bush’s “axis of evil” speech will eventually lead to the collapse of Kim Jong Il’s brutal regime.

I’m sold!

This article seems particularly timely given Will Wilkinson’s indignant comments yesterday on North Korea as merely preferring their bread butter side down.