Monthly Archive: March, 2004

Today comes the sad news that Kang Byong-sop, one of the courageous defectors who told the world about North Korea’s gas chambers, was seen on Pyongyang TV, reading a forced recantation of his charges. Undoubtedly, his days are numbered; one can only hope that his family will somehow manage to survive. China sent him back, of course, in clear violation of international law and the most fundamental principles of morality . . . both of which are clearly meaningless to...

Today comes the sad news that Kang Byong-sop, one of the courageous defectors who told the world about North Korea’s gas chambers, was seen on Pyongyang TV, reading a forced recantation of his charges. Undoubtedly, his days are numbered; one can only hope that his family will somehow manage to survive. China sent him back, of course, in clear violation of international law and the most fundamental principles of morality . . . both of which are clearly meaningless to...

Suzanne Scholte, the President of the North Korean Freedom Coalition, sent me a draft of a bill introduced into the House yesterday as a counterpart to the Senate’s North Korean Freedom Act. You can see the bill and a summary of it here. I’m still studying the text, but it looks like an important step forward. Even better, it’s a slap to the appeasers (that means you, Neville Nohsamos, human candelabras, and yeah-buts* over in Seoul) as they try to...

Question–how could anyone have expected the U.N. to establish and enforce principles when its members don’t share any? Rabbi Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center has an outstanding op-ed about North Korea in the (Singapore) Straits Times, clearly the best English language newspaper in Asia. The Rabbi gives the U.N. both barrels, richly deserved and fully loaded with 00 heavy steel shot. How is it, he asks, that Kofi Annan speaks of preventing genocide–even of its need to admit its own...

Suzanne Scholte, the President of the North Korean Freedom Coalition, sent me a draft of a bill introduced into the House yesterday as a counterpart to the Senate’s North Korean Freedom Act. You can see the bill and a summary of it here. I’m still studying the text, but it looks like an important step forward. Even better, it’s a slap to the appeasers (that means you, Neville Nohsamos, human candelabras, and yeah-buts* over in Seoul) as they try to...

Question–how could anyone have expected the U.N. to establish and enforce principles when its members don’t share any? Rabbi Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center has an outstanding op-ed about North Korea in the (Singapore) Straits Times, clearly the best English language newspaper in Asia. The Rabbi gives the U.N. both barrels, richly deserved and fully loaded with 00 heavy steel shot. How is it, he asks, that Kofi Annan speaks of preventing genocide–even of its need to admit its own...

Rebecca MacKinnon at NKZone notes that the appeasers in Seoul are mobilizing against the North Korean Freedom Act. Reading this kind of nationalist pablum–and it really boils down to “Americans are incapable of real compassion for North Koreans, but let’s not give more than lip service to the concept, either”–makes the sarin seep from my pores. I lashed: ************** Yu and Jeong [the appeasers] maliciously question our concern for the North Korean people because the concept of compassion transcending race...

Rebecca MacKinnon at NKZone notes that the appeasers in Seoul are mobilizing against the North Korean Freedom Act. Reading this kind of nationalist pablum–and it really boils down to “Americans are incapable of real compassion for North Koreans, but let’s not give more than lip service to the concept, either”–makes the sarin seep from my pores. I lashed: ************** Yu and Jeong [the appeasers] maliciously question our concern for the North Korean people because the concept of compassion transcending race...

The charge the Chinese prosecutors used neatly encapsulates their cynical contempt for freedom. They called him a “human trafficker” for trying to help North Korean refugees escape from China–where life cowers under the daily threat of deportation back to the death camps in North Korea–to haven in South Korea. The brilliant Claudia Rosett told the story best here, in the Wall Street Journal, where she writes a bi-weekly column. Seok is also a professional photographer and stringer for the New...

Just a day after Muslim terrorists called France an “ally of Satan” (which by definition means they apparently no longer see the United States as Satan), Taiwan’s president Chen Shui-Bian has called France “evil-hearted” for joining China in its recent naval threaxercises that coincidentally come just before Taiwan’s election. Doesn’t Taiwan understand? It’s nothing personal for the French . . . it’s just business. After all, they’re quite willing to make the same moral compromises when they’re selling arms to...

The charge the Chinese prosecutors used neatly encapsulates their cynical contempt for freedom. They called him a “human trafficker” for trying to help North Korean refugees escape from China–where life cowers under the daily threat of deportation back to the death camps in North Korea–to haven in South Korea. The brilliant Claudia Rosett told the story best here, in the Wall Street Journal, where she writes a bi-weekly column. Seok is also a professional photographer and stringer for the New...

Just a day after Muslim terrorists called France an “ally of Satan” (which by definition means they apparently no longer see the United States as Satan), Taiwan’s president Chen Shui-Bian has called France “evil-hearted” for joining China in its recent naval threaxercises that coincidentally come just before Taiwan’s election. Doesn’t Taiwan understand? It’s nothing personal for the French . . . it’s just business. After all, they’re quite willing to make the same moral compromises when they’re selling arms to...

At least we know they’re not referring to us this time. In fact, the terrorists have said something that’s actually debatable for once. Yet France, having chosen Faustian appeasement, still finds itself in the crosshairs of the haters. Should I repent this intoxicating schadenfreude I’m feeling? Not when France is helping China to intimidate Taiwan on the eve of Taiwan’s elections. Could it be any clearer that Europe seeks a middle ground between freedom and some ill-defined other? All of...

The third (and so far, the best) of William Triplett’s pieces in NRO can be found here:

Spanish Socialists Agree on Terms of Surrender Newly elected Socialist Leader Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced today that his party’s new cabinet had agreed on the terms of an unconditional surrender to al-Qaeda and would recognize Osama bin Laden as Spain’s first Islamic emir since 1492. The Spanish Foreign Ministry said that an emissary was en route to Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province to deliver the surrender document, which declares Spain to be a part of the Islamic Ummah as of...

At least we know they’re not referring to us this time. In fact, the terrorists have said something that’s actually debatable for once. Yet France, having chosen Faustian appeasement, still finds itself in the crosshairs of the haters. Should I repent this intoxicating schadenfreude I’m feeling? Not when France is helping China to intimidate Taiwan on the eve of Taiwan’s elections. Could it be any clearer that Europe seeks a middle ground between freedom and some ill-defined other? All of...

At least we know they’re not referring to us this time. In fact, the terrorists have said something that’s actually debatable for once. Yet France, having chosen Faustian appeasement, still finds itself in the crosshairs of the haters. Should I repent this intoxicating schadenfreude I’m feeling? Not when France is helping China to intimidate Taiwan on the eve of Taiwan’s elections. Could it be any clearer that Europe seeks a middle ground between freedom and some ill-defined other? All of...

The third (and so far, the best) of William Triplett’s pieces in NRO can be found here: