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Monthly Archive: November, 2007

November 30, 2007

Henry Hyde, R.I.P.

I last saw Henry Hyde at the final hearing at which he presided as Chairman of the International Relations Committee. Months later, despite the passage of control to another party, a larger-than-life portrait of Hyde still hangs in hearing room of the re-named Foreign Affairs Committee. Nearly all that has been written about Henry Hyde after his passage yesterday has focused on his role in Whitewater or his steadfast opposition to abortion — in other words, things about which the...

Categories U.S. Politics/Washington Views
November 29, 2007

Inter-Korean NLL Talks Deadlocked

The Northern Limit Line (NLL) is  the disputed martime boundary between the Koreas, the western extension of the Korean DMZ (map here).  The sea border was one of the issues that the 1953 Armistice talks never resolved, so the South Koreans drew a line.  Since then, the North Koreans have realized that the waters near the NLL are rich crab fishing grounds, and that crab bring in badly needed foreign exchange.  Thus, the North Koreans have developed a habit of...

Categories Appeasement
November 29, 2007

Clandestine North Korean Journalism: A Step Toward True Openness?

I have never believed that Kim Jong Il would actually permit openness, reform, or transparency to breach the blockade he has painstakingly placed around his people.   Fresh reports of the ghastly public execution of a factory manager for the “crime” of  making international phone calls (and the deadly stampede that followed)  make that point vividly enough.  Despite billions of dollars in South Korean aid — aid that is ultimately paid for by the American taxpayers who finance South Korea’s defense...

Categories Deprogramming/Inside NK
November 29, 2007

What is Condi Thinking?

It took the Annapolis Summit — not North Korea — to galavanize conservative suspicions about Secretary Rice and our State Department.  That part of the world doesn’t interest me much because I wrote it off as hopeless after visiting it in 1990 (I mean the Middle East, not  Annapolis).  My few days in Israel and a  Hamas-controlled village in  East Jerusalem have persuaded me that there isn’t going to be peace there until the Palestinians make the fundamental decision that...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
November 29, 2007

Unsafe Chinese Products

[This page is no longer being maintained] This page is a group effort. If you spot a new report of a dangerous Chinese-made product, please drop a link in the comments below, and don’t forget to click here to “Digg” and spread the word. The CPSC has started getting deeply involved in this, and now, they’ve demanded and gotten an agreement from Chinese regulators to do a better job of policing themselves. Whether the Chinese are (a) willing and (b)...

Categories Uncategorized
November 28, 2007

How Times Have Changed!

I’ve very much enjoyed the first installment of reviews of World War Two-era Korean films at Gusts of Popular Feeling, and look forward to the next ones.  The first film reviewed was made in 1941, a pro-Japanese propaganda film called “The Volunteer,” surprising not only for its cinematic technique and  moments of artistry, but also for its mention of discriminatory treatment of Koreans by the Japanese. The Japanese character (the one who told Choon-ho about the opening of the military...

Categories History/Korean Society
November 28, 2007

The Unhappiest Place on Earth

A combination of last summer’s floods and political idiocy have again combined to worsen the lot of North Koreans: [I]n August, no food was distributed in the east Pyongyang area. In September, only a half of residents in the area received food rations. In the following month, all received their food. In November, not all received their rations as in September.  [Daily NK] When rations aren’t passed out, citizens have to rely on markets for their food supply.  But in...

Categories Famine & Food Aid
November 28, 2007

They Followed Us Home

Update:   This story says the report below is  “not credible.”    If we’d just  run away from  Iraq and Afghanistan  — and everywhere else — this war would end!   End, I say! Fort [Huachuca, Arizona] officials changed security measures after sources warned that possibly 60 Afghan and Iraqi terrorists were to be smuggled into the U.S. through underground tunnels with high-powered weapons to attack the Arizona Army base, according to multiple confidential law enforcement documents obtained by The...

Categories Uncategorized
November 28, 2007

Chris Hill (Possibly) Heading for P’yang

Hill has already left for Tokyo and Beijing; the stopover in Pyongyang is still unconfirmed.  In Japan, I suppose we can expect Hill to tell his hosts to forget about ever seeing their abducted citizens again, to hurry up and pay ransom, or perhaps both.  In China, after performing a full kowtow before  Jiang  Zemin, Hill will  not mention the impending repatriation, torture, and execution of the dissident  Yoo Sang Joon or any other North Korean refugee.  Ever so stealthily,...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
November 27, 2007

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

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. ...

Categories Proliferation
November 27, 2007

The Pressure Is Off on Human Rights in North Korea

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.   Two of the ways the regime is trying to reassert itself:  tightening its border controls and carrying out more public executions. It’s...

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights
November 27, 2007

Terrorism, Plain and Simple

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...

Categories Appeasement/Terrorism (NK)
November 27, 2007

Still Collapsing?

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.

Categories Inside NK/Kremlinology
November 26, 2007

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

[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.   More likely, we’ve just seen  the camel’s...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Proliferation
November 25, 2007

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

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).

Categories Humor/Satire