Here we go again. Our friends in Pyongyang are desperate for food. They’ve put out an S.O.S. to international NGOs, Euros, and even the U.S.

A few years ago, the U.S. was the largest food donor in North Korea, until they essentially kicked us out. This month, the World Food Program will release an assessment of the need in North Korea, which will pressure governments to respond.

So far, the Obama administration’s public remarks have stressed “monitoring.” But when it comes to Pyongyang, “transparency” doesn’t translate into Korean. No matter how “air-tight” any sort of “protocol” is, we know they’ll cheat. It’s in the regime’s DNA. Simply put, a starving North Korean doesn’t get the food. Instead it feeds loyalists and funds the regime.

Jumping into this debate is a North Korean defector, who told the Wall Street Journal this week, “We must not give food aid to North Korea.” Doing so “is the same as providing funding for North Korea’s nuclear program,” says this one-time apparatchik.

The U.S. has donated about $800 million in food aid to North Korea since 1996. Looking at it from this defector’s point of view, that’s $800 million the regime has pilfered or not had to spend on feeding its military and cronies. Believe me, they’re not asking for food to help the starving. It’s really hard arguing that our aid doesn’t support this brutal regime and its nuclear weapons drive.

At some point you have to ask yourself, when are we going to learn? We’ve helped feed North Korea for years and years, yet the North Koreans’ plight has worsened — to the point where they now risk gruesome torture trying to escape.

The easy answer is to say send the aid. But is it really the right answer? Unconventional foes demand unconventional responses, especially when the old playbook (including for nuclear diplomacy) has gotten us nowhere. What North Koreans really need is a new government.

I asked Secretary of State Clinton about this dilemma at yesterday’s Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. I pointed out how international NGOs have watched North Korea’s cheating and this defector’s clarion call. The secretary was saved by the gavel. But we really need a debate.

— Rep. Ed Royce is a Republican from California.