Kim Jong-Il liquidieren

CNN - If Gadhafi is a 'legitimate target', what about Kim Jong Il?

Tom Coyner, Seoul-based editor of the email service Korea Economic Reader, noted last week the emergence of a “widespread consensus shared by interested parties outside of North Korea: We have moved from a selection of only bad options to a resignation that there are no options to be realistically played.”

So why not just come out and say it?

Not only would perennially hungry North Korea benefit from the removal of the founder’s son and heir Kim Jong Il, the “Dear Leader.” But so would most of, if not all, the other countries with major interests in the region (perhaps even China). One could say the same about Kim Jong Il's own son and heir-designate, Kim Jong Un, who has shown no inclination to jettison the policies he’s likely to inherit.

Why not acknowledge, also, as Washington seems to have done in the case of Osama bin Laden, that there are reasons why removing them dead might be better than removing them alive?