Does the Alliance Have a Future?

It’s emotionally tempting and probably in America’s long-term political interests to pronounce the alliance over and draw up plans to withdraw everyone. For military and economic reasons, however, that’s probably unlikely, and I suspect that the current round of troop reductions (I’ll go out on a limb and predict another one this fall) is likely to remind everyone that a vastly reduced U.S. presence in Korea serves the interests of both countries as long as China continues its military buildup....

More Unverified Gossip from Mr. X

Norbert Vollertsen recently e-mailed from Rumor Control in Seoul and added a few splashes of 98 octane to the grill. Here are some unedited excerpts: – increasing talkings from North Korean intelligence officials about an surprise US preemptive attack… Yeah, as well as that come-from-behind win for Kucinich at the Democratic convention, swiftly followed by his surpise marriage to Angelina Jolie. Judgment: Not bloody likely. – There are some rumours among South Korean NIS-officilas here that even a surprise little...

Iraq and Al-Qaeda

Yesterday’s headlines about the 9/11 Commission hit the whole spectrum of awful journalism, but better reporting is starting to set the record straight. This AP report corrects the record about both President Bush’s pre-war claims and the Commission’s conclusions, and gives one the sense that the commissioners are backpedaling. Today, Kean and Hamilton are both saying that they don’t disagree with the administration’s view (there were contacts between Iraq and al-Qaeda) which makes sense, given that the Commission concluded that...

Ryongchon Rumor Central

All the news that’s unverified or fit for speculation is right here. Of course, in a land where people who report real news end up in unmarked graves, the circulation of rumors is news. So here’s the latest from NK Gulag: We have recently received information that Kim Jong Il was not on his private train which passed Dandung in China last April 22. According to an officer of the Guard Headquarter under the National Defense in connection with NKGulag,...

South Korean Diplomacy . . . Like Tofu Mandu, But With Less Substance

Today, China sent seven North Korean refugees back to the death camps below the Yalu–er, make that, to the loving arms of their families–in its latest violation of the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees. China, of course, holds a Wonka golden ticket to the U.N. Security Council, giving it the power to confer international legitimacy and define righteousness itself. What exhausts you the most about this story is the sheer lying fecklessness of the diplomats who are supposed to have...

The Alliance Is Over

It doesn’t get much more official than this. First, the Korean verion; then, the U.S. version. Alliances are based on common values and interests. It’s pretty obvious that the U.S. and South Korea can’t even agree on the facts. The Korea Herald must have worked pretty hard to find an American toady to support its “the U.S. needs Korea” delusion; I can’t find anyone of like mind in this entire town. The greatest gulf in U.S. and Korean realities seems...

Sadr Calls It Quits

Meanwhile, and still off the subject, the NYT has stuck its fork into Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of last week’s Tet Offensive. Now he’s still not on trial, and his followers are dispersing, but the general uprising that the NYT and others were ready to declare in April has gone out with a whimper. Fallujah still looks pretty dangerous, and Sistanti still has us by the ‘nads. It’s questionable whether either the U.S. public or the Iraq government will have the...

Ryongchon Rumor Central

All the news that’s unverified or fit for speculation is right here. Of course, in a land where people who report real news end up in unmarked graves, the circulation of rumors is news. So here’s the latest from NK Gulag: We have recently received information that Kim Jong Il was not on his private train which passed Dandung in China last April 22. According to an officer of the Guard Headquarter under the National Defense in connection with NKGulag,...

Iraq and 9/11

I realize that I have been letting this blog go off-subject of late, but I can’t resist digging into The Big Headline from the 9/11 Commission–there is no link between Saddam and 9/11. The smarmily worded first paragraph of the NYT story begins, “Bluntly contradicting the Bush administration, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported Wednesday there was ‘no credible evidence’ that Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaida target the United States.” All of this raises more questions than it answers...

South Korean Diplomacy . . . Like Tofu Mandu, But With Less Substance

Today, China sent seven North Korean refugees back to the death camps below the Yalu–er, make that, to the loving arms of their families–in its latest violation of the 1951 U.N. Convention on Refugees. China, of course, holds a Wonka golden ticket to the U.N. Security Council, giving it the power to confer international legitimacy and define righteousness itself. What exhausts you the most about this story is the sheer lying fecklessness of the diplomats who are supposed to have...

The Alliance Is Over

It doesn’t get much more official than this. First, the Korean verion; then, the U.S. version. Alliances are based on common values and interests. It’s pretty obvious that the U.S. and South Korea can’t even agree on the facts. The Korea Herald must have worked pretty hard to find an American toady to support its “the U.S. needs Korea” delusion; I can’t find anyone of like mind in this entire town. The greatest gulf in U.S. and Korean realities seems...

Sadr Calls It Quits

Meanwhile, and still off the subject, the NYT has stuck its fork into Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of last week’s Tet Offensive. Now he’s still not on trial, and his followers are dispersing, but the general uprising that the NYT and others were ready to declare in April has gone out with a whimper. Fallujah still looks pretty dangerous, and Sistanti still has us by the ‘nads. It’s questionable whether either the U.S. public or the Iraq government will have the...

Iraq and 9/11

I realize that I have been letting this blog go off-subject of late, but I can’t resist digging into The Big Headline from the 9/11 Commission–there is no link between Saddam and 9/11. The smarmily worded first paragraph of the NYT story begins, “Bluntly contradicting the Bush administration, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported Wednesday there was ‘no credible evidence’ that Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaida target the United States.” All of this raises more questions than it answers...

More Funny Muslims, Please

After 9/11, there were two kinds of Americans—media nebbishes who would agonize, “Why do they hate us?” and the rest of us, who would just shake our heads and ask, “What the f*ck is wrong with those people?” I’ve been a member of the latter group since oh, mid-August of 1990, when I visited the Middle East for the first and last time until someone deploys or abducts me. Sure I love world travel, but I’m no masochist. I’m not...

More Funny Muslims, Please

After 9/11, there were two kinds of Americans—media nebbishes who would agonize, “Why do they hate us?” and the rest of us, who would just shake our heads and ask, “What the f*ck is wrong with those people?” I’ve been a member of the latter group since oh, mid-August of 1990, when I visited the Middle East for the first and last time until someone deploys or abducts me. Sure I love world travel, but I’m no masochist. I’m not...

On Liberty and the Power of the State

I had an anonymous comment today criticizing my previous post. First, I owe the poster an apology for inadvertently deleting him. I’m not trying to silence you, I’m just a technical incompetent and a neophyte to blogging. Let me try to reconstruct your attack (I invite you to correct me if I misstate it). You took issue with my characterization that Korea was losing interest in democracy, and my suggestion that perhaps Koreans now see democracy as an “American obsession.”...

On Liberty and the Power of the State

I had an anonymous comment today criticizing my previous post. First, I owe the poster an apology for inadvertently deleting him. I’m not trying to silence you, I’m just a technical incompetent and a neophyte to blogging. Let me try to reconstruct your attack (I invite you to correct me if I misstate it). You took issue with my characterization that Korea was losing interest in democracy, and my suggestion that perhaps Koreans now see democracy as an “American obsession.”...

Freedom, Eclipsed

When the state loses the will to enforce the rule of law, the conditions are ripe for the eclipse of democracy. The younger generations are seduced by a quicker path to power, and the older generations lose faith that the system is worth defending. Just as Weimar Germany let Berlin descend into chaos and Gotterdammerung, it is happening in Seoul today. Are there any South Koreans (hint: the brave woman in this photo is a North Korean defector) who are...