Send in secret agents, and wage a campaign of sabotage against cows.

They're accusing South Korea of sending in secret agents to wage a campaign of cow sabotage.

Yes, cow sabotage.

Government officials in Pyongyang say that 15 cows have died since June, and eight more are almost dead. They say they found inedible garbage -- strips of vinyl and clumps of hemp rope -- in the stomachs of the dead cows.

And how did the deadly trash get there? According to the paranoid bosses in Pyongang, it was fed to the cattle by Southern saboteurs from Seoul's spy agency, the Agency for National Security Planning.

The dead cows were among 500 head of cattle given to the North in June by the founder of South Korea's huge Hyundai manufacturing conglomerate, Chung Ju Yung. North Korea, which has been at war with South Korea for four decades, is suffering from massive famine and needs all the food it can get.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said Monday the bovicides prove that Seoul will "stooped (sic) to any plots to ... create distrust between the South Korean businessmen and us. ... We cannot guess how many may fall to the vicious plot."

If what the North Koreans say is true, it's one of the weirdest commando operations in the history of modern war.

If it's not, it could be proof that communism actually causes insanity.

South Korea, of course, has denied the charges.

The South's Yonhap news agency quoted a spokesman from the Unification Ministry -- the ministry in charge of trying to bring the enemy countries back together again -- as saying: "The government proposes a joint investigation with the North to determine if their claim is true, with cattle breeders, veterinarians and government officials from both sides participating."

The spokesman said the North's accusations were "suspect" and "slanderous," and he said the cattle were given in a humanitarian spirit.

it could be proof that communism actually causes insanity.

According to a KCNA report monitored in Seoul, leaflets celebrating the recent election of Kim Jong Il to the nation's highest post were distributed Tuesday near Mt. Solak in South Korea.

The report said the leaflets bore the message, "SPECIAL REPORT: Leader Kim Jong Il, a peerless patriot, was reelected chairman of the National Defense Commission, the highest post of the DPRK (North Korea), blessed by all the people."

Kim's job as chairman of the defense commission makes him top dog in his hermit state. He can't go any higher up the ladder because the North's Supreme People's Assembly amended the country's constitution to make Kim's father, deceased former leader Kim Il Sung, president for all eternity.