Anju Links for 13 April 2007
* Matters of Life and Death. The Chosun Ilbo reports that Lao authorities have arrested six North Korean women. I’m not sure if it’s the same group I mentioned here. Meanwhile, 53 others are still in imminent danger of being sent back from Thailand. If you haven’t already done so, please contact the Thai Embassy (see previous link for e-mail address) and tell them not to send these refugees back to the gulag. Recent reports suggest that North Korea is imposing especially harsh punishments on repatriated refugees. It only takes a few minutes to send an e-mail. Consider the stakes. Thank you.
* Here’s a copy of LiNK’s press release from its day of fasting.
* The New York Times has much, much more on the Banco Delta story and the dirty money we gave back to Kim Jong Il. It’s too long and too depressing to graf, so just read it all on your own.
* At Least Al Gore Claimed Credit for Inventing Something Positive. I expect a candidate’s staffers to shill for him, but it does stretch even the limited credibility of a shill for Kim Jong Bill’s © “unofficial” campaign site to claim credit for a North Korea “breakthrough” (ht: a different Richardson) that not even Nancy Pelosi has the constitutional authority or personal prescence to have signed. Notably absent are pictures of the guv touring the U.S.S. Pueblo. See you on the 13th, guys. Note to Gov. Richardson’s staff: do you or your candidate have any idea what goes on in Camp 22? Has your candidate ever said the words, “Camp 22,” such as in one of the governor’s many conversations with the North Koreans? Is Gov. Richardson just having fun playing diplomat, does he have clientitis, or is he actually trying to give Kim Jong Il a free hand to perpetuate crimes against humanity that are on the same infamy scale as Mauthausen and Tuol Sleng? Speak up, Kim Jong Bill.
* Ampontan thinks China scholars have whored themselves out to the Communist Party. I don’t know enough to affirm that, but if it’s true, it’s a striking contrast to Korea scholars here. Yes, the Korea lobby has sway over plenty of them, and there are some (the Nelson Report crowd and the Korea Society in particular) who indeed sleep at Lee Tae Shik’s feet. Yet a sizeable faction — perhaps even a majority — of the Washington’s Korea scholars advocate a reduction in the U.S.-Korea military relationship, the preservation of which is Korea’s first priority here. Why has Korea alienated so many people who should be its friends? Aren’t the reasons obvious?
* “Let My People Go.” Don’t miss this GI Korea post that dovetails with this question. It links to a piece by Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings, who is at the core of the left-of-center foreign policy establishment that is probably South Korea’s last base of “insider” support here.
* The Trotskyites at the Korean Teachers’ Union are at it again with anti-American, anti-FTA agitprop in the classroom. I found exclusive video.
* Powerline calls John McCain’s latest speech on Iraq “Churchillian.” Yes, it may just be that good. If another candidate were to lay out the stakes this way, he could get my vote. But for now, John McCain is the only one who is, so I’m leaning more strongly toward him. It strikes me how exceedingly uncommon it is for politicians to tell us things they know we don’t want to hear. We’ve learned to ignore the things that do not comfort us, but the truth that can’t be denied is that surrender means more war, more genocide, more body bags, more terrorism, and a much worse economy.