Archive for April 2009

Telling Half the Story at Yongbyon

April 23, 2009 Media Criticism, WMD 3 comments

The Washington Post reassures us that North Korea’s threat to restart plutonium processing is mostly empty because of the current condition of its 5-MW reaction. Not only do I agree that the reactor is probably a wreck, I believe that was also true before the North Koreans sold us their scrap heap for such a high price. Funny, I don’t remember Siegfried Hecker telling us that in 2007 when the State Department was telling us what a breakthrough this deal was.

The major premise of Post’s story relies mostly on Hecker, who strongly supports any deal the North Koreans give us, and on a few like-minded others. It also focuses exclusively on one reactor in North Korea’s plutonium reprocessing program. The Post would have written a more balanced and informative story if it had started with its own archives and questioned Hecker — and some contrarian experts like Caroline Leddy or Henry Sokolski — about the 50-MW reactor nearby. I could be convinced that the 50-MW reactor isn’t really the danger the Post suggested it was in 2005, but I have yet to see any serious recent reporting on that big pink elephant in this room.

Trouble at the DMZ

April 22, 2009 Uncategorized 2 comments

Those North-South Korea talks lasted just 22 minutes, all of them tense, and hopes that they would end with make-up sex were not realized.  It looks like there’s trouble at the DMZ:

North Korea accused South Korea of a “serious provocation” by moving a marker on their heavily guarded border, raising tensions after rare talks between the two ended without agreement.”This serious military provocation is a wanton violation of the Armistice Agreement and a deliberate and premeditated action to escalate tension in the areas along the MDL,” the North’s official news agency said, referring to the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) which marks the border.

South Korea’s military denied moving the post. “We call on North Korea to stop unnecessarily raising tension by making groundless claims,” said a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  [AFP]

The South also asked the North Koreans to release the South Korean Kaesong manager it’s been holding for several weeks now, on charges of inducing a North Korean woman to defect.  It’s now threatening to go narc to the U.N. (no! please!)  And the most delicious irony of all?  North Korea is suddenly in an activist mood about the low wages of the slave laborers at Kaesong!

“North Korea said it will reconsider all privileges it has given to the South at Kaesong,” the South Korean government said in a news release. The North demanded talks on “readjusting wages to a realistic level.Â  [N.Y. Times]

The North Korean government deducts either most or all of the cash from the “wages” South Korean companies pay to Kaesong workers, who receive either a small cash pittance and rations, or perhaps some rations and nothing else.  The answer has never been entirely clear, except that the lion’s share of the “wages” goes directly to Kim Jong Il and his minions.

Even the Hankyoreh sees that Kaesong’s future is in doubt, but it’s anyone’s guess what the real reason for that is.  North Korea always seems to find excuses to blame everyone else for its own behavior, but it always has reasons of its own for doing what it already wanted to do anyway.

Chris Hill Slips Through; New Bills in Congress Would Roll Back His Unilateral Concessions

April 22, 2009 Appeasement, Diplomacy, U.S. Politics 6 comments

[Update:  I have the House bill, too.  Scroll down for the link.]

The AP is reporting that Christopher Hill is now confirmed as Ambassador to Iraq.  Having managed to inflict a slight flesh wound on Hill, we can at least claim to have alerted potential critics to some of the less desirable aspects of his character, which (I fear) will reveal themselves again in due course when he opens secret talks with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though I predict that eventually, some of those who voted for cloture on this debate will eventually have reason to call for Hill’s head.

I shudder at the damage Hill could do in Iraq, but as far as North Korea policy is concerned, at least he’s out of that picture.  On the other hand, Hill’s “legacy” — and of course, it’s Bush’s legacy, too — is a long series of concessions that we were assured would be strictly conditioned on North Korea meeting its disarmament obligations.  Here is what Bush said when he announced the relaxation of sanctions and North Korea’s removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism last June:

The six-party process has shed light on a number of issues of serious concern to the United States and the international community.  To end its isolation, North Korea must address these concerns.  It must dismantle all of its nuclear facilities, give up its separated plutonium, resolve outstanding questions on its highly enriched uranium and proliferation activities, and end these activities in a way that we can fully verify.

North Korea must also meet other obligations it has undertaken in the six-party talks.  The United States will never forget the abduction of Japanese citizens by the North Koreans.  We will continue to closely cooperate and coordinate with Japan and press North Korea to swiftly resolve the abduction issue.

This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea.  If North Korea continues to make the right choices, it can repair its relationship with the international community ….  If North Korea makes the wrong choices, the United States and our partners in the six-party talks will respond accordingly.  If they do not fully disclose and end their plutonium, their enrichment, and their proliferation efforts and activities, there will be further consequences.  [....]

[O]ur policy, and the statement today, makes it clear we will hold them to account for their promises.  And when they fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be eased.  If they don’t fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be placed on them.

Here is what Barack Obama said:

This is a step forward, and there will be many more steps to take in the days ahead. Critical questions remain unanswered. We still have not verified the accuracy of the North Korean declaration. We must confirm the full extent of North Korea’s past plutonium production. We must also confirm its uranium enrichment activities, and get answers to disturbing questions about its proliferation activities with other countries, including Syria. [....]

Sanctions are a critical part of our leverage to pressure North Korea to act. They should only be lifted based on North Korean performance. If the North Koreans do not meet their obligations, we should move quickly to re-impose sanctions that have been waived, and consider new restrictions going forward.  [Barack Obama]

My suspicion then and now was that this was just disingenuous talk meant to soften opposition to misguided unilateral concessions, but it’s even more important to hold politicians to their insincere words than to their sincere ones.  And if the relaxation of sanctions was to be conditioned on North Korea keeping its promises, President Obama should now reimpose those sanctions as a consequence of North Korea breaking them, for holding two American journalists as hostages, for threatening to nuke its neighbors, and for flagrantly violating U.N. resolutions that banned its WMD programs.  Several bills are now percolating in Congress that would do just that:

- H.Res. 309, a non-binding resolution, calls on North Korea to stop threatening neighboring countries, meet its disarmament obligations, and comply with U.N. resolutions.  In other words, it’s an empty gesture, but it has some bipartisan support.

- H.R. 485 would codify sanctions against North Korea, mainly relating to arms sales and technology transfers.

- H.R. 1980 and S. 837, both introduced yesterday, are still too new for the GPO text to be published yet.  The House bill would “continue restrictions against and prohibit diplomatic recognition of the Government of North Korea,” and the Senate bill would “require that North Korea be listed as a state sponsor of terrorism [and] ensure that human rights is a prominent issue in negotiations between the United States and North Korea.”  These bills have teeth, and it’s probably no coincidence that neither has Democratic co-sponsorship.  Although I have not seen the House bill, my understanding is that both bills have similar provisions.  I do have a copy of the Senate bill, which you can read at the link below.

I now have both the House and Senate bills (my thanks to the friends who forwarded them).  Their provisions are indeed similar, and you can read them both below.  One of my own suggestions was to include language demanding the release of Euna Lee and Laura Ling, and I’m glad to see that language in both the House and Senate bills. 

senate-nk-sanctions-bill.pdf                      house-nk-sanctions-bill.pdf

You can read Curtis Melvin’s take here.

My take — I strongly doubt that the Democrats, who now enjoy one-party rule over our entire government, will ever let any bill that would reimpose sanctions get voted on.  Remember that the next time Democrats campaign on how tough and smart their brand of diplomacy is.  The reality of a Democratic-controlled government is unilateral concessions, provocations without consequences, and the promotion of people like Chris Hill — in short, a rudderless, masochistic, and ineffective foreign policy.  When it comes to the most dangerous rogue nations, all but a few Democrats (and too many Republicans) can’t think beyond appeasement, and no amount of hollow campaign rhetoric can erase that basic truth.  If the Democrats really have a smarter, tougher foreign policy to offer, then let President Obama act match his campaign rhetoric with action and support these bills.

Stand With Sam Brownback

April 21, 2009 Terrorism/Iraq, U.S. Politics 4 comments

According to my latest information, which is just short of a day old now, the nomination of Chris Hill was to go to the Senate floor yesterday, where it was expected to get more than enough votes to close debate.  Under Senate rules, Senator Brownback now has his chance to go to the floor and speak, to see if he can change a few more minds.  I’ve passed him as much ammunition as time has allowed.  Now, the rest is up to the Senate.  The odds heavily favor Hill’s confirmation today, but Brownback is prepared to go down fighting.
I often hear conservatives say that their party has run aground because it doesn’t know what it stands for.  Christopher Hill typifies the rudderless, unprincipled, and failed Republocrat foreign policy that mislabels itself as “realism.”  Brownback was the man who tried to stand in its way then, when Bush was in office, and he’s doing the same now that Obama is in office.  Plenty in the press see fit to ridicule Brownback for being principled, because they happen to disagree with the principles themselves.  History will continue to reveal that Brownback is right, and the rest of them are wrong.

I’m going to contact both of my liberal Democratic senators today, knowing full well that it’s unlikely to matter and that Hill — America’s most conspicuously unsuccessful diplomat — will probably be confirmed anyway.  If this quixotic cause matters to you, I hope you’ll do the same.  Here’s what I will be writing:

Dear Senator Mikulski, Please vote against the confirmation of Christopher Hill as Ambassador to Iraq until you have an opportunity to study Hill’s extensive record of disregard for the law, for dishonesty with Congress, and for professional incompetence in his dealings with North Korea that have made North Korea a greater danger to the United States.  Some of Ambassador Hill’s efforts to mislead Congress about his diplomatic efforts to deal with North Korea are detailed at this article:

http://newledger.com/2009/04/christopher-hill-deep-kimchee-for-iraq/

Among Ambassador Hill’s deceptions furthered his efforts to avoid raising the issue of North Korea’s horrific concentration camps with that country’s government, which you can learn more about here:

http://freekorea.us/camps/22

I am also gravely concerned that Hill’s nomination results from his personal friendship with Richard Holbrooke, rather than his record or qualifications.  Ambasador Hill has no middle eastern experience and speaks no Arabic.  His prior qualifications do not suggest that he is prepared for the political, military, or cultural challenges he will soon confront.  Many other, better qualified candidates could do this job better than Christopher Hill.  I urge you to study Ambassador Hill’s record of failure carefully before voting on his confirmation.

I agree that we need an Ambassador in Baghdad as soon as possible, but let’s choose the best qualified person for such an important job.

Banzai for Nuclear Japan!

April 21, 2009 Asia, Geopolitics, Japan, Proliferation 10 comments

Japan should consider possessing nuclear weapons as a deterrent to a neighboring threat, former Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa suggested Sunday.

In a speech in Obihiro, Hokkaido, in reference to North Korea’s rocket launch earlier this month that many believe was a ballistic missile test, the hawkish lawmaker said: “It is common sense worldwide that in pure military terms, nuclear counters nuclear.”

In Sunday’s speech, Nakagawa said he believes North Korea has many Rodong medium-range missiles that could reach almost any part of Japan and also has small nuclear warheads.

“North Korea has taken a step toward a system whereby it can shoot without prior notice,” he said. “We have to discuss countermeasures.”

He added that public discussions must be promoted on what has long been considered a national taboo: whether Japan should possess nuclear weapons.  [Kyodo News via Japan Today; (ht)]

I loved what came next:

Nakagawa stepped down as finance minister in February over what appeared to be drunken behavior at an international news conference in Rome.

Those of you who dread this idea should take some comfort from the word “former,” and I’m not sure that the clownish drunken man is a likely spokesman for an orchestrated trial balloon from the Japanese government.  Even the title of the article ridicules Nakagawa.  I’m guessing that Nakagawa probably speaks for himself and plenty of unstated opinion that will mostly remain unstated for the time being.  But with America increasingly perceived as an unreliable protector in Japan recently, I can understand why some in Japan are starting to think about going nuclear, and I have very good reason to suspect that South Korea has similar ideas.

Count me as cautiously enthusiastic about a nuclear Japan.  Let’s list the pros and cons:

Pros:

1.  Another Asian ally begins to shoulder more of the burden of its own defense.  Let’s hope this results in a more equal alliance in which American taxpayers aren’t subsidizing the defense of the entire region.

2.  Finally, North Korea’s shenanigans impose a strategic cost on China.

3.  Japanese possession of nukes would hollow out explicit North Korean threats, or implicit Chinese threats, of a nuclear strike against Japan.

4.  A less sanctimonious spin at the Hiroshima Peace Museum.  Of course, it would be too much to expect that the museum would place the A-bombings into the context of the Rape of Nanking or Pearl Harbor.

5.  We’re two tests away from a full and final resolution of the status of Tokdo.

Cons:

1.  One more state with nuclear weapons; but in the grander scheme of things, the existence of a functionally uncontained North Korean arsenal gives relatively little cause for anyone to worry about Japan having one.

2.  An arms race has broken out, but I’d argue that China and North Korea started the arms race a decade ago, even as South Korea was disarming.  The fact that Japan is rearming restores some of the military balance.  Yes, that’s going to be a lot of expenditure on weapons, but a relatively greater percentage of that spending will be by nations other than us.  Indeed, Japan may invest more in missile defense and delivery systems that it will end up purchasing from the United States.

3.  The sneaking suspicion that they haven’t quite gotten the whole Pearl Harbor thing out of their systems.

If the goal of appeasing North Korea was to limit nuclear proliferation, that certainly hasn’t been the effect.

20 April 2009

April 20, 2009 Anju Links No comments

THE STATE DEPARTMENT given the North Koreans a stern talking-to.  Because, you know, they’re still reeling from that U.N. presidential statement.

OH, GOODY:  North Korea wants to talk to South Korea about God-only-knows what.

IT NEVER FAILS TO AMAZE ME how North Koreans, including defectors, often continue to revere Kim Il Sung, even after the break with the system.  Don’t underestimate the ability of reverence and skepticism to coexist.

NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES you hear that the Pentagon and the ROK have agreed on USFK restructuring, disregard it.  Every agreement just marks the start of the next negotiation.

MINERVA ACQUITTED.

The “Realism” Fad, Truth in Labeling, The Obama Doctrine, and Godot

April 20, 2009 Geopolitics 5 comments

Jeff Jacoby asks how many Democrats still believe in the moral superiority of democracy.  Nowadays, I wonder.  I frequently hear it said, especially by adherents of the fad mislabeled as “realism,” that nations have the “right” to choose their own way.  The problem with this argument is that invariably, “nations” really means a tiny clique of thugs and oligarchs with the keys to the helicopter gunships, who exercise that “right” by proxy and do the choosing for everyone else.  I’ve also wondered how happy the voluble chatterers who espouse this theory would be without their rights to speak freely.  This is just one level of hypocrisy away from the pederast mullahs who want to save the purity of their societies from the destructive urges of other people to hold hands.

The new crop of realists being stamped out of grad schools today reminds me of nothing so much as the shiny new neoconservatives of 2003 — enthusiastic ideologues who have been compressed by their philosophy’s basic truths, but who will in due course be unleashed with the excess that faddish views inevitably produce.  In the case of the neoconservatives, with whom I admittedly share many points of agreement, the excess was to go beyond the moral and pecuniary superiority of propogating personal freedom to support for “using U.S. power, including military force, to bring democracy and human rights to other countries.”  Neoconservatism has become such an ill-defined epithet that it’s fair to suspect that a straw man is being attacked here.  But to the extent that this is an accurate characterization of neoconservatism, it’s a not view I’m often inclined to join.  Indeed, I’ve wanted to remove most of our troops from South Korea and Europe for years, and I’ve been less solicitous of using force against North Korea than either William Perry or Newt Gingrich.  It would be far better to sell the Koreans and the Europeans all the arms they choose to buy, in much the way that Israel does and Taiwan doesn’t.  I believe that foreign deployments risk entanglements in foreign wars not of our choosing, and I believe we can continue to exercise as much influence as we need to through the supply of superior weapons, intelligence, air and naval superiority, command/control, and logistics.

My hopelessly out-of-vogue view derives from the old Nixon/Reagan Doctrines of helping people to either defend or win their own freedom with their own arms and blood, but with arms we provide if diplomatic means fail.  I recognize the basic impatience of Americans with foreign wars, and that freedom fighting is best left to the people who must live or die on the land they fight for.  At the same time, I recognize that some societies (Lebanon) are relatively better prepared for democracy than others (Palestine), and that the pursuit of democracy should be a gradual, Hegelian thing calibrated to a society’s maturity, education, and capacity for self-government.  I believe in the importance of diplomacy, but I recognize the pointlessness of diplomacy with nations that don’t share our values or basic interests, unless that diplomacy is backed by the alternative of political, economic, or military consequences.
I still remember when most “realists” and neoconservatives agreed on something:  like the vast majority of Americans, I supported the decision to invade Iraq based on what I thought we knew in 2003.  At the time, I was wearing a uniform myself.  I don’t regret my views, and history is gradually revealing how much better off the world might just become because of the invasion.  I also have a fairly vivid picture of what the Middle East would be like today with Saddam in power and the U.N. utterly powerless to contain him.  True, we suffered needlessly because of the misbegotten tactics of 2004 and 2005, but if you’ve studied insurgencies through history, our casualties and the time it took for us to achieve a decisive shift in popular attitudes in Iraq will — from the safe distance of time — mark Iraq as one of history’s more successful counterinsurgencies.

Ironically, I let the ex-interventionist, born-again “realist” Kenneth Pollock talk me out of the idea of helping the Iraqis to overthrow Saddam on their own, but unlike Pollock and most of the intellectuals in this town, I opposed the panicky flight for Iraq’s exits after we’d already made the decision to invade and things got hard.  Wars cannot be retracted ex-post-facto based on shifting intelligence without inviting an even greater disaster.  Unlike most war-weary intellectuals, I’ve actually served in the military and know what defeat would have done to our morale and to our standing as a nation.  Thank God George Bush made the single best decision of his otherwise dismal presidency and ignored the herd then.  Today, we and the Iraqis have a decent shot at avoiding a catastrophic defeat and catalyzing Iraq’s evolution into a habitable place.  Certainly Iraq is not approaching Jeffersonian democracy, nor was it ever realistic to expect as much.  If it can be as free as South Korea was in the 1960′s, it may eventually evolve into something as free as South Korea is today.  Just as certainly, the “realist” views that we could negotiate our way to a peaceful Iraq with Iran and Syria from a position of prostration, or that we could leave a victorious al Qaeda in possession of vast swaths of Iraq, were madness.  That view would have brought Iraq to a place somewhere between 1990′s Afghanistan and 1970′s Cambodia.  It could have been the world’s greatest humanitarian disaster since 1945.

The “realist” view of North Korea is equally unrealistic.  After all we’ve experienced in the last two decades, one self-described “realist” at Real Clear World even said this:

[T]he best way of gaining the support of the North Korean regime to stop nuclear proliferation is…by diplomacy and offering the North Koreans incentives.  [Real Clear World Blog]

Here is someone who has never heard of the al-Shifa reactor, which North Korea was building at a furious pace at the height of Agreed Framework II, as American fuel oil warmed Kim Jong Il’s clot-sodden veins.  Quite the contrary — Kim Jong Il used diplomacy to hoodwink us into relaxing the enforcement of UNSCR 1695 and 1718, thus licensing even more proliferation and letting him cross more “red lines.” The “realist” way accomplished absolutely nothing of value toward disarming North Korea, but did much to undermine international counterproliferation and the authority of the U.N. in general.  In the end, to have a “realist” view requires belief in a whole series of wishful delusions:  that Kim Jong Il can be persuaded to give up his nuclear weapons, that he proliferates because of rational incentives rather than malice, that he seeks to open his society to the world to improve the lives of his subjects, and that China means us no harm and really wants North Korea to play nicely with everyone.  It is not possible to defend any of those views against a rational interpretation of recent history.

But is Obama’s foreign policy “realist”?  Frankly, I have no idea.  What I see is a vaporous muddle without any coherent world view.  Ex-post-facto opposition to the war in Iraq seems to be the whole extent of its unanimity — all together now:  “We’re tiiiiired.”  Take the incoherence of Obama’s North Korea policy.  Just after North Korea’s missile test, Special Envoy Bosworth was telling us that we’d be back to bilateral talks with them shortly, as though nothing more was amiss than the usual kidnapping, genocide, and threats to turn Tokyo into a sea of fire.  Today, we’re hearing that bilateral talks aren’t going to happen just yet (but just give them time).  This smacks of the sort of gridlock that the Bush Administration, notwithstanding its portrayals for ideological rigidity, never quite overcame.  This is how presidencies fail to deal with crises, and the urgency of creating coherent policies (ie., “ready from Day One”) is why we give presidents-elect nearly three months of transition time from election to inauguration.

When did I realize we were in trouble?  When I heard that Obama had brought three hundred foreign policy advisors aboard his campaign, an image that smacks less of “brain trust” than “circus tent.”  Now whittle that understrength battalion down to the collection of svengalis who’ve emerged as influential figures since the transition:  liberal interventionists (Samantha Power), Jew-baiting kooks (Chas Freeman), panda-huggers (Dennis Blair), left-wing Machiavellians (Hillary Clinton, Christopher Hill) and traditional liberal doves (Susan Rice). Â Mix them all that together and you have scrapple, with just as much mystery about the beast of origin.  Imagine what fun it would be — to say nothing of the pay per view revenues — to arm them with sharp pencils and letter openers, lock them in a gymnasium, and tell them that no one leaves until we have a written statement on our new Tibet policy.

The question remains:  what is the Obama doctrine?  To say that it is not the Bush Doctrine isn’t enough anymore.

Joining the Great North Korea Debate

April 19, 2009 Appeasement, Diplomacy, Missiles, Six-Party Talks No comments

I’m gratified to see that my latest New Ledger article has picked up so much linkage and circulation, including at Instapundit, Real Clear World, the Memeorandum, Pajamas Media, Rantburg, Google News, and even the Puffington Host.  I doubt that I’ve done much harm to Chris Hill’s chances of being confirmed, but it’s gratifying to see my ideas debated by people not necessarily predisposed to agree (which must be nearly everyone, given that I’ve been highly critical of Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama).  Indeed, I argue that all three presidents’ policies have all been functionally indistinguishable thus far, and even Barack Obama talked a good game until he acquired 300 foreign policy analysts.  Over at the RCW blog, there’s a good discussion going on between myself and the host about my New Ledger article.  If you drop by, please make us proud of the calm clarity of your logic.

Robert Koehler has the rare privilege of hosting a discussion between two of the people whose views about North Korea I respect the most – Andrei Lankov and B.R. Myers.  Frankly, I usually avoid TMH comment threads, but I hope this one continues (Baduk notwithstanding) because it’s such a rare privilege to see an exchange of views between two people as well informed about North Korea as these two men.

17 April 2009

April 17, 2009 Anju Links No comments

U.S., JAPAN MOVE TO ENFORCE SANCTIONS:

Japan and the US have submitted to the UN the names of North Korean companies they believe to be associated with the country’s weapons programme.  The list of companies has been sent to the UN’s Security Council’s sanctions committee for consideration.

The move to enforce sanctions against North Korea follows the country’s long-range rocket launch on 5 April.  Diplomats say China, which has a lot of trade with North Korea, will want to study the list before agreeing to it.

The Council is starting the process of tightening the existing sanctions against North Korea. [BBC]

In that light, I wonder how smart it was of the North Koreans to announce this.

THE LAST U.S. EXPERTS involved in “disabling” the Yongbyon reactor have left North Korea.

BUT LET NONE CALL IT TERRORISM:  When you offer to release people you’re illegally holding captive in exchange for money, it’s called “ransom.”  North Korea has made similar offers to Japan for the release of its abductees, though it characterized the payments as “reparations.”

WHO IS JANG SONG THAEK?  The L.A. Times has an interesting profile of the man who may be North Korea’s Number Two.

ROH MOO HYUN SCANDAL UPDATES:  The Chosun Ilbo has two new reports on large payments received by his son and cousin, allegedly in exchange for “favors.”  It’s not clear from the article that those favors were (mis)uses of Roh’s presidential authority.

SOUTH KOREA’S population of North Korean defectors is now growing at the rate of five a day, but South Korea still isn’t a friendly place for them.

North Korea’s Terror De-Listing: Six Months Later

April 17, 2009 Uncategorized One comment

It has now been just over months since President Bush, true to his June announcement, removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.  To calm skeptics of the move who noted that North Korea had neither renounced terrorism nor performed meaningfully on its Agreed Framework II obligations, Bush said this:

The six-party process has shed light on a number of issues of serious concern to the United States and the international community.  To end its isolation, North Korea must address these concerns.  It must dismantle all of its nuclear facilities, give up its separated plutonium, resolve outstanding questions on its highly enriched uranium and proliferation activities, and end these activities in a way that we can fully verify.

North Korea must also meet other obligations it has undertaken in the six-party talks.  The United States will never forget the abduction of Japanese citizens by the North Koreans.  We will continue to closely cooperate and coordinate with Japan and press North Korea to swiftly resolve the abduction issue.

This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea.  If North Korea continues to make the right choices, it can repair its relationship with the international community ….  If North Korea makes the wrong choices, the United States and our partners in the six-party talks will respond accordingly.  If they do not fully disclose and end their plutonium, their enrichment, and their proliferation efforts and activities, there will be further consequences….
[O]ur policy, and the statement today, makes it clear we will hold them to account for their promises.  And when they fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be eased.  If they don’t fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be placed on them.

Then-presidential candidate Barack Obama said this:

This is a step forward, and there will be many more steps to take in the days ahead. Critical questions remain unanswered. We still have not verified the accuracy of the North Korean declaration. We must confirm the full extent of North Korea’s past plutonium production. We must also confirm its uranium enrichment activities, and get answers to disturbing questions about its proliferation activities with other countries, including Syria….

Sanctions are a critical part of our leverage to pressure North Korea to act. They should only be lifted based on North Korean performance. If the North Koreans do not meet their obligations, we should move quickly to re-impose sanctions that have been waived, and consider new restrictions going forward.  [Barack Obama]

Let’s now take stock of where we stand:  North Korea has just violated two U.N. resolutions with malice aforethought, has continued its proliferation business, has reneged on every one of its Agreed Framework I and Agreed Framework II commitments, and is now holding one more South Korean and two more Americans for “offenses” that would not justify imprisonment in any other country.  But by now, you’re probably saying to yourself that North Korea’s listing isn’t about those things anyway; it’s about terrorism:

[T]he term “international terrorism” means activities that 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 [that] 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….  [Title 18, United States Code, Section 2331]

This seems like as good a place as any to quote some of what the new, terror-free North Korea has said through its state media in the last six months:

Under the situation prevailing in the Peninsula no one knows what military conflicts will be touched off by the reckless war exercises of the U.S. and the puppet clique for a war of aggression against the DPRK. It is, therefore, compelled to declare that security cannot be guaranteed for south Korean civil airplanes flying through the territorial air of our side and its vicinity, its territorial air and its vicinity above the East Sea of Korea, in particular, while the military exercises are under way. Â [KCNA, Mar. 5, 2009]

1. If Japan recklessly “intercepts” the DPRK’s satellite for peaceful purposes, the KPA will mercilessly deal deadly blows not only at the already deployed intercepting means but at major targets.  2. The U.S. should immediately withdraw its already deployed armed forces if it does not wish to be hurt by the above-said strike as DPRK clarified its stand on its projected satellite launch for peaceful purposes.  [KCNA, Apr. 2, 2009]

North Korea issued yet another warning of military action against South Korea on Sunday. The official Rodong Shinmun newspaper in a commentary said war is a possible scenario if Seoul continues to ignore all the recent threats it has been making. [Chosun Ilbo, Feb. 2, 2009]

The commentary cites facts to prove that the policy of confrontation with the DPRK pursued by the group is the root cause of the acts blocking national reconciliation and unity and the reunification of the country and the very source of military conflicts and war between the north and the south.  In Korea in the state of armistice confrontation means escalated tension and it may lead to an uncontrollable and unavoidable military conflict and a war. [KCNA, Feb. 1, 2009]

The pro-American warmongers of south Korea hell-bent on igniting another war had better stop their rash acts, bearing in mind that Korean-style preemptive attack based on striking means unimaginably more powerful than nuclear weapons will prove to be the most decisive and merciless strike based on justice as it will not merely turn everything into a sea of fire but reduce everything treacherous and anti-reunification to debris and build an independent reunified country on it.  [KCNA, Dec. 23, 2008]

“We clarify our stand that should the South Korean puppet authorities continue scattering leaflets and conducting a smear campaign with sheer fabrications, our army will take a resolute practical action as we have already warned ….  The puppet authorities had better bear in mind that the advanced pre-emptive strike of our own style will reduce everything opposed to the nation and reunification to debris, not just setting them on fire,” the spokesman said. [Reuters, Jack Kim]

Forget North Korea’s sponsorship of terrorism.  If you want to be clear about it, North Korea’s abductions, proliferation, and threats to everyone within its growing reach make it a terrorist entity itself.  In some parallel universe that’s more principled than this one, North Korea would be designated under Executive Order 13224.

« Older Entries   Recent Entries »