Archive for November 2007

Jane’s: Chemical Explosion in Syria Killed Iranians, N. Korean Engineers

November 27, 2007 Proliferation One comment

When Israel bombed a mysterious site in Syria last September, the newspapers reported a dizzying number of theories about what was attacked and where.  Before summarizing those theories in this post, I warned you that they weren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, and here’s another piece of evidence to throw into the hopper.  Jane’s Defense Weekly, a highly respected publication to be sure, claims that last July, the Syrians were loading chemical warheads onto their North Korean-made SCUD-C missiles for a test.  Then, God cast a vengeful eye on the pad:

The British military magazine Jane’s Defence Weekly said the explosion killed dozens of Iranians in addition to Syrian victims and caused the leak of chemicals like nerve gas within the facilities. The source said the explosion also killed three North Korean engineers. The Sankei claimed the North has helped Syria develop missiles in various ways, including selling it Scud-C missiles since the 1980s, and loading chemical warheads was part of that cooperation. Â [Chosun Ilbo]

This was two months before Israel attacked a target in northern Syria that the New York Times later reported to be a nuclear reactor, under construction with North Korean help.  As recently as this month, the North Koreans had sent their scientific emissaries back to Syria to talk about how to reestablish their technical cooperation.

Since this isn’t nuclear-related, expect the State Department to have no curiosity about this whatsoever.  This is supposed to be a happy occasion!  Let’s not bicker and argue over who’s planning to gas who.

Day of Infamy

November 27, 2007 "United" Nations, Human Rights No comments

GI Korea points to a rather remarkable historical coincidence, first noted by OFK reader and friend Professor Lee Sung Yoon.  It would be pretty embarrasing to the South Korean government . . . if it had any shame at all. 

The Pressure Is Off on Human Rights in North Korea

November 27, 2007 Diplomacy, Human Rights No comments

North Korea no longer feels the constraint of international pressure — particularly American pressure – so it believes that it has a free hand to try to increase its internal control by any means necessary.  Witness last week’s decision by South Korea to abstain again from a U.N. resolution condemning the North, a reversal of a hard-won gain. Â Two of the ways the regime is trying to reassert itself:  tightening its border controls and carrying out more public executions.

It’s yet more evidence to debunk the idea that weak diplomacy will improve the lot of the North Korean people.

Peter Hitchens on Pyongyang

November 27, 2007 Inside NK No comments

Not sure if I’ve linked this before, but Peter Hitchens (brother of Christopher) has published a very acerbic description of his recent visit to Pyongyang.  He runs off the rails at the last sentence of his otherwise excellent piece, when he fails to describe just what kind of policy should be adopted, and how this would really work in practice.  Whatever it is, I’m almost certain it’s been tried.

Terrorism, Plain and Simple

November 27, 2007 Appeasement, Terrorism (NK) No comments

If you stick with me for a modest amount of law, I promise you that this post will end with a nice little adventure in participatory democracy.  But to get there, we must begin with how the United States Code defines “international terrorism,” at section 2331 of Title 18:

As used in this chapter - 

   (1) the term “international terrorism” means activities that - 

        (A) involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;

        (B) appear to be intended - 

             (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

             (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

             (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

        (C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum;

I placed that quotation at the top of this post to give you some context for a new report, via South Korea’s Joongang Ilbo, that our State Department will formally propose removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in early December, perhaps two weeks from now.  President Bush’s appeasement-minded North Korea negotiator, Christopher “Kim Jong” Hill, has already gone to Tom Lantos, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to lobby for the deal. 

Lantos’s Republican counterpart, Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, is likely to oppose the move, particularly if there’s a strong public reaction — more on that later – thus setting the stage for a bizarre partisan role-reversal (wake me up when Clinton isn’t still president). 

Why North Korea Deserves to Stay on the List

North Korea was originally listed after Kim Jong Il ordered North Korean agents to plant a bomb on a South Korean airliner, killing all 115 on board.  Other suspected terrorist incidents are listed in this GAO report.  These do not include North Korea’s frequent threats to transform either South Korea or Japan into a “sea of fire,” or its missile or nuclear tests which are patently designed to reinforce extortionate demands for political, diplomatic, or financial concessions. 

You’d think that any nation campaigning to be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism would be on its best behavior, but North Korea knows that its friends in the State Department want it off the list no matter how closely its behavior matches the definition of international terrorism. Â South Korea will hold a presidential election next month.  Conservative opposition candidate Lee Hoi-Chang, who supports putting conditions on South Korean aid to North Korea, recently entered the race.  North Korea desperately fears Lee Hoi Chang’s policies, so North Korea’s Korea Central News Agency is publishing a series of statements like these, issued via various pro-Pyongyang front groups abroad:

The General Association of Koreans in China Wednesday issued a statement titled “Let’s decisively eliminate Ri Hoe Chang, a heinous sycophantic traitor and anti-reunification element, in the name of nation.Â  [KCNA, via The Marmot's Hole, Andy Jackson]

The Solidarity for Implementing the South-North Joint Declaration reportedly issued a statement on November 20 calling for an all-out struggle against Ri Hoe Chang. . . .  The key to frustrating Ri Hoe Chang’s attempt to seize power is to form the all-people front of the struggle. . . .  [KCNA, via TMH]

The headline of this editorial simply calls on South Koreans to “eliminate” Lee.  You can read Andy’s full post here. 

It isn’t possible to honestly interpret those remarks as anything other than — at best — a threat to Lee, or — at worst — a call for his assassination.  North Korea nearly killed one South Korea head of state, and recently, North Korean-directed thugs may have taken part in the attack on the semi-retired “honorary chairman” of a conservative South Korean newspaper, and planned other attacks against conservative politicians and opinion leaders.  Indeed, a recently exposed North Korean cell operating in the South apparently had a hand in organizing multiple violent protests, including some that were directed against U.S. military installations.  Has North Korea renounced any of that behavior, given its recency?

Another issue that North Korea will apparently not have to resolve before being de-listed is its kidnapping of dozens of foreign nationals from numerous foreign countries to train its spies (if you count South Koreans, the figures run into the thousands). Â The failure to resolve that issue before de-listing North Korea could severely damage our relationship with Japan.  Instead, removal of North Korea from the list appears to have much less to do with terrorism than with nuclear diplomacy, or more specifically, headines creating the illusion of progress on that issue.

At a meeting in Beijing between the chief US and North Korean nuclear negotiators on October 31, Washington gave Pyongyang “concrete terms” for its removal, Yonhap news agency said. 

“The measures for North Korea to take include not only implementing 11 concrete measures aimed at disabling the nuclear facilities by year-end but also clarifying the UEP (uranium enrichment programme) based on more convincing evidence,” a government official told the agency in Boston.  [AFP]

What’s missing from these conditions? Â If you guessed, “anything having to do with terrorism,” you’re absolutely right. Â Granted, State will probably murmur a few other conditions that do relate to terrorism, but the fact that this question is under serious consideration already suggests that State is prepared to pitch them as softballs.

How You Can Help Keep North Korea on the List

The Federation of American Scientists provides some useful explanation about the process of being listed, or de-listed, as a state sponsor of terrorism in this paper.  Here’s a money quote:

Paragraph 6(j)(4) of the Export Administration Act prohibits removing a countryfrom the list unless the President first submits a report to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Senate Committees on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and Foreign Relations. When a government changes (i.e., a government is significantly different from that in power at the time of the last determination), the President’s report, submitted before the proposed rescission would take effect, must certify that (1) there has been a fundamental change in the leadership and policies of the government of the country concerned (an actual change of government as a result of an election, coup, or some other means); (2) the new government is not supporting acts of international terrorism; and (3) the new government has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future.  [FAS]

Here, I will posit that any abduction not fully resolved is a continuing offense as it affects the victim, and his or her family.

Now for the really interesting part.  The de-listing process requires publication in the Federal Register, followed by a 45-day public comment period.  That means you, I, or anyone else could file a petition to request that North Korea remain on the list, documenting specific examples of North Korea’s terrorist behavior.  Several examples come to mind, such as the kidnapping and reported death during interrogation of Rev. Kim Dong Shik, a U.S. lawful permanent resident.  Although the South Koreans caught one of the North Korean kidnappers, North Korea has never accounted for him.

Not only am I tempted to write a petition, I’m inviting you to help me write it.  I know plenty of smart people, including a number of congressional staffers, read this site regularly.  So how can you help?  By (1) reading the definition of “international terrorism” I’ve published above, (2) suggesting specific North Korean activities that meet this definition, and (3) — this part is very important — inserting hyperlinks to reliable sources to back up your assertions.  You may remain anonymous if you choose to do so, but I need to cite published sources, because this petition will need footnotes and a bibliography.

Now, I said yesterday that the State Department is absolutely determined to take North Korea off the list, no matter how many atrocities North Korea commits.  Do I think President Bush has made up his mind to do this?  If Condi Rice says so, yes — and she will say so.  But Congress has a say, too, and this may be a way to give Congress and opinion leaders some pause and some backbone to start asking some important and still-unanswered questions about, say, just what the hell the Israelis bombed in Syria last September, North Korea’s role in inspiring violent attacks against U.S. soldiers in South Korea, or whether it’s sheer coincidence that when Japan asks for its kidnapped citizens back, North Korea immediately demands “reparations” to resolve the issue. Â 

Does this behavior sound like that of a nation that has decided to change its ways?  At worst, we’ll have helped record the stupidity of this decision for history, thus making the decision easier to reverse the next time North Korea gets caught proliferating, infiltrating, or intimidating.

Or, you can write your own petition.  The more, the better. 

Update:  Related thoughts on how North Korea’s bellicose threats of war are used to intimidate South Korean voters, here.  It’s characteristic of the North Koreans to pull crap like this, but what’s more regrettable is that one of those echoing the North Korean threats is South Korean ex-president and Nobel laureate Kim Dae Jung.

Still Collapsing?

November 27, 2007 Inside NK, Kremlinology 3 comments

The Weekly Standard publishes a very non-specific, unsourced prediction that North Korea is on the verge of collapse.  Read it for yourself, but I don’t find it very persuasive.  While collapse is a distinct possibility for the reasons Andrei Lankov has recently repeated (see yesterday’s post), I don’t see signs that it’s more imminent today than it was a year ago.  If anything, the North Korean leadership has gained strength from its acceptance by the Bush Administration.

Impervious to Evidence: State’s Appeasement Express Arrives at the Koryo Hotel

November 26, 2007 Appeasement, Diplomacy, Proliferation 2 comments

[Update:  Richardson links to State's quasi-denial:  why, yes, we have stationed a State Department employee in Pyongyang, but he's strictly there to supervise the equipment for the technical process of disabling North Korea's nuclear programs.  That's peculiar.  If this employee's job is strictly scientific or technical, why not avoid giving people the wrong idea and send someone from the Department of Energy or Defense instead?  At best, this is a trial balloon. Â More likely, we've just seen the camel's nose enter the tent.]

So I have awakened this morning to learn that we officially have no standard whatsoever for the establishment of diplomatic relations, since we’ve now taken a great leap in that direction by establishing an “unofficial” interest section in the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang.  Let all take note:  you can proliferate, support terrorists, threaten your neighbors, and commit crimes against humanity with abandon.  You can send boats piled high with dope to neighboring countries and fill them with abductees for the return voyage.  You can lob missiles about willy-nilly and print our money.  You can do all of these things and still have friends in high places in the State Department.  Consider:  at this time next year, we could have full diplomatic relations with North Korea and none with Taiwan.  So just what consistent standard (other than the most unrealistic realpolitik imaginable) could weave those clashing facts together?  It may blind you to stare at them directly, so if you must view them, try to do so in the reflection of a shiny object, such as Chris Hill’s forehead.

Really, I think the North Koreans could lower Megumi Yokota into a vat of undisclosed highly enriched uranium before the very eyes of our diplomats and suffer no adverse consequences.  Ditto if they then loaded the vats onto a plane bound for Tehran. Â No matter the outrage or evidence, State is bound and determined to pad its resume by filling our store shelves with toxic Dora the Explorer plush toys made by enslaved toddlers in Camp 22 before Bush leaves office.  Maybe they’re thinking that “only Nixon can go to China.”  And it’s true that too many conservatives aren’t applying a very skeptical outlook to this deal, possibly because it’s being done on Bush’s watch, and because Bush has been careful to seem detached from the process, and to make his own public comments seem skeptical. 

But this reaction is either ignorant of the facts or intellectually dishonest.  If conservatives intend to raise issues like inspection, verification, and human rights under a Democratic administration — maybe with Kim Jong Bill as Secretary of State – they should at least establish some non-partisan consistency by making equally fair criticisms of Bush today.

Beyond Foggy Bottom, some skepticism survives, and even breaks into the stream of happy talk with Kim Jong Il’s minions.  The outlook of other serious thinkers on the Syrian connection is less sanguine than Condi Rice’s:

An off the record meeting Friday turned tense when U.S. officials pressed North Korea to explain its suspected nuclear ties with Syria when the North declares its atomic stockpile, sources who participated in the meeting said Sunday.  Kim Myong-gil, North Korea’s deputy chief of mission to the United Nations who participated in the meeting, did not give a particular response, but he and his aides seemed “clearly taken aback” at the level of pressure from the U.S. participants, the sources told Yonhap in separate phone calls.  “A lot of us at the meeting were very clear to the North Koreans that if their declaration doesn’t include what is going on in Syria, it’s really going to be a problem,” one source said, declining to be named.  [Joongang Ilbo]

From this, we can infer that (a) the North Koreans either haven’t submitted a declaration, or haven’t submitted a complete one, and (b) the North Koreans aren’t used to being asked hard questions like these from Chris Hill.

The meeting was sponsored by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, called a “track two” channel for private level talks between the two countries, which have yet to establish formal relations.  The U.S. side included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, along with Democratic and Republican congressional staffers and State Department officials, according to the contacted sources.

“Once the Syria topic was raised, Mr. Kissinger was quite adamant,” another source said. “He said there has to be clarity on Syria.Â  The same concerns shown by Volcker and other financial community leaders are also important, he said, because another set of talks will begin Monday to address Pyongyang’s alleged illicit activities, such as counterfeiting American currency.

Our diplomats have forgotten that their job is to preserve peace, not just to make deals.  Our next Republican president should learn that lesson well and begin his term of office by doing what Bush failed to do:  purge the senior ranks at State. 

Let’s hope Kissinger and Volcker will make some public comment on their meeting with their North Korean counterparts.  It might be a much-needed dash of cold water.

See also:

*  Special thanks to GI Korea for taking note of my post on imperiled North Korean dissident Yoo Sang-Joon, and thanks in advance to any others who are compassionate enough to do so.

*  Poll Watch: Lee Myung Bak’s still leads, and less than 15% of voters are still undecided.

Lee [M.B.] scored approval ratings of 38.3 percent, slightly down from 38.7 percent in the last Gallup poll. Independent late entrant Lee Hoi-chang landed second place with 19.3 percent, up from 18.4 percent, while Chung Dong-young of the United New Democratic Party came third with 14.4 percent, up from 13.1 percent. The Create Korea Party’s Moon Kook-hyun saw his approval ratings jump to 8.4 percent from 6.6 percent. The Democratic Labor Party’s Kwon Young-ghil scored 3 percent and the Democratic Party’s Rhee In-je 1 percent. [Chosun Ilbo]          

Yonhap prefers round numbers:  Lee M.B. 40%, Lee H.C. 20%, Comrade Chung 10%.  Also in political news:  “Roh Denies Taking Cash Gift from Samsung.”  Isn’t this about when the indictments of Korean ex-presidents are usually first prepared?

*  I haven’t been watching Korea’s latest half-assed effort to ban discrimination, but fortunately, Brendan Carr has been doing more than an adequate job of that.  My two cents is that discrimination is too popular in Korea to ban during an election campaign.  Maybe next year.

*  Kremlinology:  Kim Jong Il’s second son, Kim Jong Chol, has a job:  “vice chief of the ruling Korean Workers’ Party’s Organization and Guidance Department,” which the Chosun Ilbo describes as ”a hugely influential” post.  Jong Chol is the one who was educated in Switzerland, was recently spotted at a Clapton concert, and is disfavored by his dad for being “like a girl.”  More links here.

*  If Andrei Lankov is right, those posts will eventually lead to the firing squad, so let’s hope Jong Chol enjoys the pleasure squad DVD collection while it lasts.  In the latest sign of chaos in the North, soldiers are blamed for a wave of burglaries and rapes, in the northeastern city of Hoeryong.  All of which sort of puts the whole Tonduchon-GI-taxi crime wave in context.

*  China seems to think it can colonize North Korea.  Maybe it can, but it should be mindful of South Koreans’ tendency toward expropriation of property acquired during the tenure of puppet regimes.  South Korea doesn’t have to get into a buying competition with China.  All it has to do is to impose reasonable limits on foreign ownership or purchases for less than fair market value, and announce that purchases in violation of those limits will be null and void.  The major drawback to that position:  South Korea will actually need some serious backing from the United States to pull it off.

*  “Starting next year protesters in Seoul will have to pick up the garbage they make during their rallies, the city said on Sunday.”  [Chosun Ilbo]

*  Axis Sally Watch:  If you need more of that sort of thing, here’s a lot of indignant but mostly inert gas from Tom Curley of the AP over Bilal Hussein, who (among others) won a Pulitzer Prize by being led, hand-in-hand, to whatever some hideous image his terrorist friends wanted America to see.  Among the spectacles put on for Hussein’s adoring lens was this act of “resistance:”  pulling an Iraqi election worker out of his car and shooting him in the head in the middle of a busy street (two other election workers were also murdered at the scene).  Another winning picture shows the terrorists in heroic poses that look very staged . . . it makes little military sense to put a mortar and a machine gun in the same exposed location.  Then, in 2006, Hussein was among those caught in an insurgent safe house in Ramadi with a cache of bomb making materials and terrorist propaganda: 

“We believe Bilal Hussein was a terrorist media operative who infiltrated the AP,” he said. “MNF-I possesses convincing and irrefutable evidence that Bilal Hussein is a threat to security and stability as a link to insurgent activity.”

Morrell said an investigative hearing into the case by the court is scheduled to begin on or after November 28.  Hussein was detained April 12, 2006 after marines entered his house in Ramadi to establish a temporary observation post and found bomb-making materials, insurgent propaganda and a surveillance photograph of a US military installation.

Morrell said Hussein, who was part of an AP photo team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005, had previously aroused suspicion because he was often at the scene insurgent attacks as they occurred.  He said other evidence, which he would not describe, came to light after his detention “that makes it clear that Mr. Hussein is a terrorist media operative who infiltrated the AP.”  [AFP] 

Conservative bloggers raised suspicions, which went unacknowledged by the AP. Â In addition to the accusations of staging, there was the curious circumstance that Hussein may have failed to identify himself as a journalist for months while in detention, hoping perhaps to be released without the full significance of his detention being realized.  Only after one of the American guards saw his picture on a post at the Jawa Report was Hussein identified. Â 

Even as a lawyer, I have little sympathy for the procedural complaints Curley raises.  I don’t deny that Iraqi legal procedure may fall short of what a criminal defendant could expect in Marin County, but Iraq is a shaky new democracy under a withering assault by multiple varieties of terrorists, theocrats, and plain old thugs.  Hussein’s American lawyer can’t see the evidence that supports the proposed charges, but then again, neither could an American suspect under Rule 4 of our own Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure, which governs grand jury evidence.  More importantly, shouldn’t Hussein’s defense be led by an Iraqi lawyer?  Just how much use to Mr. Hussein could a carpet-bagging American lawyer be in Iraq?  Mr. Hussein will have a trial, and I’d presume and hope that his Iraqi lawyer will have the opportunity to see that evidence long enough before trial to prepare a defense.  Let’s certainly hope Hussein will get more due process than U.S. soldiers tried in South Korean courts – as documented at pages 82-86 of my congressional testimony – though that injustice has never drawn the outrage of the AP, despite the fact that South Korea has had 50 years since the end of hostilities to define “due process.” 

If the thirst for justice isn’t necessarily Curley’s main motive, let’s bear in mind that the AP has a pecuniary interest at stake, and a big one.  To Curley, any conviction of Hussein for working with the terrorists would amount to a finding that the AP was infiltrated and that its Pulitzer was a terrorist-sponsored fraud. Â Curley should find some consolation in the fact that fellow AP reporter and professional atrocity mongerer Charles Hanley never lost his Pulitzer after much of his reporting about No Gun Ri was questioned.  As of last June, Hanley was still filing bogus atrocity reports from Iraq. 

If you’re hungry for dog meat, why not dine with ‘The Pariah Family?’

November 25, 2007 Humor/Satire No comments

You’ve seen the unintended comedy of Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans decorating their wares with English, badly. 

You’ve seen the hilarity of British people tattooing such Chinese marks of distinction as, “Coca-Cola” or ”At the end of the day, this is an ugly boy,” on their bodies.

Now, see what happens when Hangul-challenged Chinese try to ride the Korean Wave.  And fail (one, two, three, four).

Casualties of Banalities: The Arrest and Coming Death of Yoo Sang-Joon

November 24, 2007 "United" Nations, Activism, China, China & Korea, Human Rights, Refugees, U.S. Politics 4 comments

One of the bravest men I have ever met is locked in a Chinese prison this weekend, facing the risk of being sent back to certain execution in his native North Korea.  His story stands for the human suffering that endures while diplomats craft a controversial agreement to disarm North Korea of its nuclear weapons and to grant its dictator, Kim Jong-il, the peace treaty and the recognition that his regime has sought for decades.  [The Sunday Times, Michael Sheridan]

yoo-sang-joon.jpgDeath will not come quickly for Yoo Sang-Joon, whose arrest by Chinese police several weeks ago has now been reported.  You’ve probably never heard of him, or of the wife and child he lost in the Great Famine, but it’s just possible that like me, you are haunted by the face of his last surviving child, Chul-Min, who was just ten when he died while trying to escape through the Mongolian Desert. 

His father found that devoting the remainder of his life to his faith, and to the survival of others, salved the agony of this loss as well as anything could.  That devotion has brought Yoo as far as London on behalf of his countrymen.  His name is known internationally in activist, NGO, and certain government circles.  But to the Fascist regime in Beijing, Yoo was just another stain to be cleansed away before next year’s Olympic spectacle.  By next summer, at this rate, they’ll have managed to turn the clock back to 1936.

Yoo hid people in chilly apartments, smuggled food to families living like troglodytes in pits concealed in snow-covered fields, bought clothes for the escapees and taught them how to get past checkpoints.  One year ago he took the risk of meeting me to explain how the underground network smuggled people from the frozen wastes of northeast China to the border where the slow-flowing Mekong River divides Laos from Thailand.

“Helping other people makes it easier to deal with my grief for my son,” he explained, as we huddled in a dank hotel room. “I try to get the orphans out first. You will understand why.

Cool, dispassionate and dignified, he trusted to elaborate security precautions ““ The Sunday Times agreed to call him Nam Hong-chul, informing readers that this was a pseudonym ““ and to luck.

His belief in an afterlife — that when his suffering finally ends, he will be united in death with his wife and children — may comfort Yoo.  He may even misplace some hope in the South Korean passport he holds.  Instead, Yoo is likely to face a prolonged and miserable death, for which he can thank two of the most treasured banalities of the foreign policy establishment:  bipartisanship and multilateralism.  Where those things thrive, it’s usually a sure bet that such divisive things as principles have been expunged from the discussion, and from the commerce that follows. 

The Chinese have used software and security technology bought from the West to watch the internet and trace mobile phones; it is all part of their preparations to stifle dissent in the run-up to the Olympic Games next year.

They have also built wire fences and installed surveillance cameras along the riverbanks. Both sides have deployed patrol boats to prowl the rivers before they freeze.  The North Korean boats, moored alongside the city of Sinuju, include a brand-new vessel equipped with radar and a high-speed launch that can be lowered from its stern. Â 

The Republicans and the Bush Administration made some noise about human rights for a few years and then sold out the North Korean people for a few good headlines.  The Democrats, still silent after a year in power, have adopted a “three monkeys” approach so as not to disturb the Sisyphean purchase of more lies from Kim Jong Il.  Witness “Kim Jong Bill” Richardson’s use of his photo-ops with the North Koreans to try to boost his third-tier presidential campaign (which is really a campaign to become Secretary of State).  I doubt he — or Bush’s mouthpiece, Chris Hill — will ever bother to mention the place where Mr. Yoo’s life may well end, along with tens of thousands of men, women, and children before him. 

Those caught are detained in special jails, then escorted under armed guard across one of the bridges linking China to North Korea.  Horrifying scenes have been witnessed even here. Chinese soldiers have told their relatives of watching, nauseated, as the North Koreans force thick wire through the hands of the prisoners or under their collarbones, yoking them like animals to the slaughter.

In one well documented crime, North Korean security agents beat a man to death in front of the Chinese as soon as he was handed over, recognising him as a dissident.

As they say, let’s not bicker and argue and who killed who.  It could also go without saying that the U.N. and its Korean General Secretary will again prove themselves completely useless — Kim Jong Il is anti-American and thus cloaked in immunity from sustained U.N. condemnation – so instead, I’ll just point out that your tax dollars are still funding nearly a quarter of the annual cost of sustaining this pernicious waste of money. 

Read the rest Yoo Sang-Joon’s story here.  Human Rights Without Frontiers is trying to start a letter-writing campaign on Yoo Sang-Joon’s behalf, but since his sham Chinese “trial” has already passed will take place this coming Monday, Beijing time, I’d strongly suggest that you send e-mails to the addresses I append below the “click for more” line.  Please also remember that on November 30th and December 1st, there will be protests worldwide against China’s brutal treatment of refugees like Yoo Sang-Joon, who we can still save, and little Chul-Min, who we cannot.

Could this work?  Yes, if enough of us write.  Buried within the Times piece is a report that Beijing has at least stopped sending pregnant refugee women back to North Korea, knowing full well what will happen to their babies.  That small change, no matter how inconsistently or temporarily applied, suggests that China is finally worried about world opinion.  One last request:  please hit the Digg, Reddit, and other links below.  Thank you.

[Photo:  Yoo Sang-Joon prays at the grave of his son.]

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Bush Administration’s Blackout Can’t Silence Syria-N. Korea Speculation

November 24, 2007 Diplomacy, Proliferation No comments

The latest theory, via Prof. Uzi Even, an Israeli scientist interviewed in Haaretz, is this:

“In my estimation this was something very nasty and vicious, and even more dangerous than a reactor,” says Even. “I have no information, only an assessment, but I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely a factory for assembling the bomb.”

In other words, Syria already had several kilograms of plutonium, and it was involved in building a bomb factory (the assembling of one bomb requires about four kilograms of fissionable material).  [Haaretz]

Pure speculation, then, and clearly marked as such. Â Read and decide for yourself, but I don’t see a great deal of support for Even’s theory so much as I see legitimate questions about the prevailing one — that the Israelis bombed a nuclear reactor that was under construction with North Korean help (which would be bad enough).  The prevailing theory is far from conclusively established because (1) the intel has been kept from nearly everyone, including Congress [see Update 1] and most of the intelligence community, (2) no neutral monitor appears to have even asked to inspect the site, and (3) it’s a theory that largely relies on the conclusions of David Albright.

The plutonium theory has problems of its own.  Wouldn’t an attack of that kind release all kinds of detectable radiation, such as that which followed the Chernobyl disaster?  The Syrian act of burying the wreckage could suggest several kinds of concealment, and the desire to seal the radiation in is only one of them. Â In any case, it would come too late to prevent the detection of the radioactive cloud.  The lack of smokestacks and cooling towers means very little unless someone has a chance to inspect the site.  The building’s external similarity to a reactor could be a deception, or it could simply mean that it was an unfinished reactor. Â Â 

All of this leaves us pretty much nowhere, except for the fact that this Administration is getting away with a great deal of inappropriate silence about a potentially grave threat to global security.  That secrecy extends to rumored under-the-table agreements between Chris Hill and the North Koreans, meaning Congress doesn’t even know the terms of the deal it will be asked to ratify with appropriations of our money.  Unless the Administration gives Congress the answers it owes, Congress should refuse to appropriate Dime One for Agreed Framework 2.0.

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