Anju Links for 16 August 2008

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL wonders what it means that North Korea is still on the terror list, and adds this:

At the beginning of his Administration, Mr. Bush spoke eloquently about the suffering of the North Korean people and the brutality of the regime that oppresses them. He and his Administration have been quiet on the subject for two years, in pursuit of a nuclear deal that is still more promise than reality. We hope they keep speaking up.

BECAUSE IT WORKED SO WELL LAST TIME:

A proposal by Gary Samore of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations is of note as a potential breakthrough on the situation. His idea would be to separate verification for plutonium from the other areas, as was done with the declaration. [The Hanky]

More diplomatic onanism: we maintain “momentum” by incrementally excusing North Korea from the very thing we were seeking — and which it supposedly agreed to give us — in the first place, meaning we’re only negotiating against ourselves. Only slightly less repellent is the idea that those engaging in this form of onanism probably do it to pictures of Madeleine Albright.

HOW MANY DIVISIONS DOES THE IOC HAVE?

The International Olympic Committee urged China Thursday to allow foreign reporters at the Beijing Games to report freely after a British journalist trying to cover a protest was allegedly roughed up by police.

Meanwhile, activists complained that protest zones designated by Beijing organizers were set up as a way to catch dissidents — not let them speak out. At least one person who applied to hold a demonstration in one of protest parks was detained by police.

At its daily briefing, the IOC was peppered with questions about an incident the day before in which a British TV journalist said he was manhandled and dragged into a police van while trying to cover an unauthorized protest by activists pushing for independence for Tibet. Police have said they mistook him for a protester. [IHT]

The IOC strikes me as a hyper-irrelevant version of the U.N. — espousing lofty ideals in theory but shrinking away in collective cowardice whenever their application seems called for. Those Beijing “protest zones” are a case in point. Though widely reported as a “safe zone” in which protesters could make their point, they turn out to be protestor traps in practice. No one can protest without applying for a permit in advance, and the application process is an expressay to the laogai. And so, the protest parks remain protest-free. (I have a good friend who is covering the Olympics now, and if you’re reading, I hope you’re safe.)

FINALLY, SOMETHING MILDLY INTERESTING happened at the Olympics: North Korean pistol-shooter Kim Jong-Su has been stripped of two medals, a silver and a bronze, for taking beta-blockers. More here. Maybe in the greater interest of peace, we should adopt some special new set of rules for North Korea here, too. Why should athletic events be any different from diplomacy, criminal law, or the basic laws of humanity?

I LOVE NORTH KOREAN LOGIC: Reading yesterday’s KCNA, I found a standard-issue denunciation of foreign interference in North Korea’s internal affairs:

The imperialists are now becoming evermore undisguised in their sanctions and pressure upon the anti-imperialist, independent countries. They have pulled up those countries over “human rights issues” and “absence of democracy” for the mere reason that they refused to follow them. [KCNA]

Now, here are the headlines from the very next stories:

Police Suppression Flayed in S. Korea

Lee Myung Bak Group’s Fascist Suppression Assailed

Two stories further down, KNCA offers its greetings to Fidel Castro. This, consolidated into a single hyperlink, is the same faddish logical fallacy so often found in The Hankyoreh, or functionally, in most American newspapers or left-leaning blogs, which speak of one to the exclusion of the other. The latter, however, generally have the self-consciousness not to publish, say, their sanctimonious denunciations of Gitmo immediately adjacent to their defenses of the sanctity of North Korean death camps (or more often, their editorial maintenance of a news blackout on the latter).

Still, the Internet allows us to hold up some pretty embarrassing comparisons, or to reduce this to its full mathematical absurdity. In practice, defending North Korea requires you to either (a) abandon all presense of logical consistency, or (b) to abandon all criticism of anything that’s not demonstrably more horrible than what North Korea is doing in any given situation. I suspect that for most of North Korea’s defenders, (a) comes pretty effortlessly. I don’t pretend that I can explain illogic that profound, but I can conclusively eliminate a sincere interest in human rights as a plausible explanation.

JAPAN HAS EASED SANCTIONS AGAINST NORTH KOREA in exchange for North Korea’s promise of a “new investigation” into the abduction of Japanese citizens and allowing Japan to interview some North Koreans suspected of involvement. The relaxed sanctions pertain to charter flights and the movement of people between the two states, which pale in comparison to such things as trade, remittances, shipping, and finance.

YET ANOTHER EUROTRASH TOUR OF PYONGYANG:

Entrants paid up to $112,000 per car to enter the rally, which includes five-star accommodations and lavish parties at every stop. North Koreans’ average monthly salary is about $2. Rallygoers are driving some of the world’s most expensive supercars, from Lamborghinis to Ferraris. In North Korea, cars are only for the elite few; the more fortunate ride bikes but most people simply walk. [AP, Foster Klug]

You might defend this by suggesting that it’s yet another exposure of North Koreans to a more prosperous world … until you see the photos accompanying the article. If I were a North Korean seeing this, I suspect any envy I felt would be overcome by my revulsion, or even by the depressing realization that there must be no God after all.

YES, WHY MUST NEOCON WARMONGERS rattle their sabers at Iran’s peace-loving revolutionary guards? I’d like to see the confessions of those caught played on Iraqi television. I could also reconcile myself to the idea of most of them not surviving long enough for that.

I WANT ONE OF THOSE!

According to the developers, the accuracy of [the Advanced Tactical Laser] is little short of supernatural. They claim that the pinpoint precision can make it lethal or non-lethal at will. For example, they say it can either destroy a vehicle completely, or just damage the tires to immobilize it. The illustration shows a theoretical 26-second engagement in which the beam deftly destroys “32 tires, 11 Antennae, 3 Missile Launchers, 11 EO devices, 4 Mortars, 5 Machine Guns” — while avoiding harming a truckload of refugees and the soldiers guarding them. It reminds me of how the Lone Ranger could always shoot the gun out an opponent’s hand without injuring them; if that could really be done from an aircraft circling overhead, it would certainly be an impressive feat. [The Danger Room]

CHEAP, GUILTY LAUGH OF THE DAY: Look who’s contributing to the McCain campaign.