November 2008 – Page 2

November 18, 2008

Who Needs a Contingency Plan? Everyone Near North Korea

The most persuasive evidence I’ve yet seen that there is a real danger of instability in North Korea comes from the people who probably have the best intelligence about events in Pyongyang: The Chinese military has boosted troop numbers along the border with North Korea since September amid mounting concerns about the health of Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, according to US officials. Beijing has declined to discuss contingency plans with Washington, but the US officials said the Peoples’...

Reconstruction/Regime Change

November 17, 2008

Freedom Isn’t Free

USFK has announced that a battalion of Apache attack helicopters, comprising some 24 aircraft and half of USFK’s Apache strength, will leave Korea for Ft. Carson. The choppers are expected to redeploy to Afghanistan and Iraq later on. Washington had in the past tried to redeploy some of its Apache helicopters from Korea, but such moves were often met with strong opposition from the government in Seoul, which feared a possible reduction of U.S. strength here. “The situation we are...

An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea

November 16, 2008

Arbeit Macht Nichts: The End of Kaesong?

The second of the twin pillars of the Sunshine Experiment, the Kaesong Industrial Project, may have gone to join the Kumgang Tourist Project on the ash heap of history this week with North Korea’s closure of the border between North and South. With that closure, South Koreans inside the North Korean enclave have been served with their eviction notices. The North Korean directive may yet prove to be a bluff, but it will still mean the end of Kaesong as...

Appeasement/NK Economics

November 16, 2008

New Media Lead the Way in Covering North Korea

Interestingly, this tacit admission comes from the L.A. Times, no less. [Defector Zhu Sung-Ha, now a journalist] criticized South Korean intelligence for not getting inside the Pyongyang government. “The two Koreas have been at war for 60 years,” Zhu said, in reference to the state of war that has officially existed since the Korean War. “During that time they should have placed someone close to Kim. I am surprised their intelligence is so weak.” As a result, much of the...

Inside NK/Media Criticism

November 14, 2008

And the lions shall lie down with the lambs, and there shall be good eatin’ for the lions.

I am not one who believes that Barack Obama is a closet Muslim or Trotskyite just waiting to fling open the republic’s gates to let the barbarians in, nor have I seen credible evidence that a significant percentage of the population ever really did. On the other hand, the significant percentage of the population wearing those creepy cultish idol-worshipping shirts will find the feet of clay in due course. I do believe that within the next several years — the...

Geopolitics/U.S. Politics

November 10, 2008

More Light Blogging for a While Longer

Things have been busy at work, and weekends and holidays have become rare and valuable time to spend with my family, so I’m going to slow the tempo here for a while. How long? Depends on events, I suppose, but at time when everyone’s attention is on other events here at home seems like a good time for that. The kids are young. They won’t be young forever. We had a great weekend out seeing things together. One interesting story...

China

November 2, 2008

Yet again, Kim Jong Il caught proliferating right under Chris Hill’s nose.

Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother. India blocked a North Korean plane from delivering cargo to Iran in August, responding to a U.S. request based on fears about the spread of weapons of mass destruction. This, nine weeks before President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, ostensibly to reward it for some sort of good behavior. According to the Western and Asian officials, the North Korean plane, an Ilyushin-62 long-range jet owned by...

"United" Nations/Proliferation/WMD

Monthly Archive: November, 2008