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Monthly Archive: November, 2010

November 30, 2010

Treasury has blacklisted two more North Korean companies under Executive Order 13,551: The Department of the Treasury said in a statement that it “today designated Korea Daesong Bank and Korea Daesong General Trading Corporation pursuant to Executive Order 13551 for being owned or controlled by Office 39 of the Korean Workers’ Party.” “As a result of today’s action, any assets of the designated entities that are within U.S. jurisdiction are frozen and U.S. persons are prohibited from conducting financial or...

Categories Anju Links
November 30, 2010

Shen Dingli is a man who really knows the value of a fish.

Shen Dingli has become my favorite poster child for showing just what a bunch of maleficent assholes run China today, and in the aftermath of the Yeonpyeong shelling, he does not disappoint: Shen Dingli, a security expert at Fudan University in Shanghai, was more direct in laying the blame on Seoul. “South Korea provoked the Yeonpyeong conflict first,” he said. “The area where this incident happened is South Korean territory from a ‘South Korean perspective’. But it is a disputed...

Categories China/China & Korea/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 30, 2010

John McCain: “I think it’s time we talked about regime change in North Korea, and I do not mean military action, but I do believe that this is a very unstable regime.” _______________________________ Adm. Mike Mullen: “I am one who believes we shouldn’t be rewarding bad behavior here.” Until last week, I was hearing distinct signs that the State Department was losing patience with “strategic patience.” Now, all of the pressure — backed by a very conservative new House of...

Categories Anju Links/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 29, 2010

Rinjingang Video Shows the Misery of the Real North Korea

When you see all of those missiles paraded down the square in Pyongyang, do you ever ask yourself who paid for those missiles? Here are the people who paid for them. As you watch this, remember that Rimjingang‘s brave guerrilla cameramen risked their lives to show you the truth. These are the expendable people of North Korea, the ones who don’t have a place in the propaganda parades, the ones who don’t get to eat the food aid that the...

Categories Inside NK/Resistance
November 28, 2010

Is South Korea Finally Ready to Cut North Korea Off?

The New York Times, in a report bylined in Incheon, says that the Yeonpyeong attack has caused a significant shift in South Korean views about the North. After years of backing food aid and other help for the North despite a series of provocations that included two nuclear tests, many South Koreans now say they feel betrayed and angry. “I think we should respond strongly toward North Korea for once instead of being dragged by them,” said Cho Jong-gu, 44,...

Categories North-South/Sunshine/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 28, 2010

Funny how that works: China doesn’t want to restrain North Korea from attacking South Korea, but hates it when the U.S. Navy shows up on its front door. The Wall Street Journal passes along a sampling of Chinese reactions to the shelling of Yeonpyeong. Well-connected people I’ve spoken to seem convinced that there’s a segment within Chinese academia and government that really has had it with North Korea, but I doubt China will ever restrain North Korea without being subjected...

Categories Anju Links/WMD/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 27, 2010

“Some people imagine there is a building somewhere with a secret door they can open and find a group of scantily clad women enriching uranium.”

This delectable quote, attributed to Christopher “Kim Jong” Hill, is passed along by U.S. Representative and blogger Ed Royce. It seems that every North Korea wonk in Washington is laughing at Hill’s quote this week. Admittedly, I’ve certainly imagined everything Hill described, but not all at the same time. Alas, only my imaginings about the building, the door, and the uranium ever came completely true. As for the remainder, the prospects seem rather bleak. At Hill’s urging, North Korea was...

Categories WMD
November 27, 2010

North Korea: Sorry We Shelled Your “Human Shields”

You have to admit that it was pretty diabolical of Lee Myung Bak to have planted those human shields in their own villages and homes years before he was even inaugurated. In fact, the two civilians who were actually killed were construction workers on the ROK Marine post, but the given the North’s shelling of civilian neighborhoods, it’s lucky there weren’t a lot more “human shields” killed: The North really does have a special gift for adding insult to injury....

Categories Propaganda/Subversion/U.S. Military/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 26, 2010

Before We Start Bombing North Korea, Let’s Try Turning It into Afghanistan

I don’t know about you, but when North Korea decided to shell South Korean homes and kill South Korean civilians in South Korean territory, my balance of risks shifted. We’ve always known that if U.S. and South Korean forces attack North Korea, North Korea would respond by trying to kill as many American and South Korean civilians as possible. Estimates that this would result in hundreds of thousands of casualties are probably worst-case scenarios, but a toll of several thousand...

Categories China & Korea/NK Military/Regime Change/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 25, 2010

Hey, I wanted to hear more about those pressure points.

Watch my good friend Sung Yoon Lee, appearing on the PBS News Hour, speaking in edited paragraphs. I can hardly write an edited paragraph. In my native language. How does he do that? Oh, and some guy named Victor Cha was there, too. Cha and Lee seem to agree that North Korea’s recent brazenness is related to the succession, and inventing some cred for Kim Jong Eun, which also sounds plausible to me even if I don’t think Jong Eun...

Categories Kim Jong Un/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 25, 2010

Mike Chinoy Responds

You know, if I’d realized that Mike Chinoy, former CNN correspondent and author of “Meltdown,” was reading all those things I was writing about him, I might not have been so mean. Why was I not informed? Dear Joshua, I am a regular reader of OneFreeKorea, which I have always found interesting and thought-provoking, despite the darts you regularly send my way. I have not responded to your frequent criticisms, but under the current circumstances, and given your derogatory comments...

Categories WMD
November 24, 2010

Mayor of Incheon Blames North Korean Shelling on Little Eichmanns Coming Home to Roost

I’ve often said that in the eyes of many “progressive” South Koreans, it’s just not physically possible for North Korea to do wrong, and Incheon Mayor Song Young-Gil has done much to confirm our worst fears. A day after the North Koreans shelled Yeonpyeong Island — which, by the way, is undisputed South Korean territory — Song tweeted out that the attack was provoked by South Korean military exercises. Song also uploaded some pictures and said that North Korea shelled...

Categories Korean Politics/Useful Idiocy/WTF?/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 24, 2010

South Korea is now reporting two civilian deaths from North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island yesterday, raising the death toll to four. Given that the North fired 80 shells onto the island and destroyed 60 homes, it seems miraculous that more people didn’t die. Korean language reports (hat tip to my wife) are saying that kimchee may have saved lives. It’s kimchee-making season, which means that most of the civilians were down in the markets buying cabbage, garlic, and pepper...

Categories Anju Links
November 23, 2010

Thoughts on North Korea’s Shelling of Yeonpyeong-Do (Updated: Video, President Lee Calls for Retaliation)

Since I served in Korea years ago, I’ve feared that North Korea would try a limited artillery strike as a way to raise the stakes. It looks like my fears have been realized: South Korea says two marines have been killed and 16 others injured in a North Korean bombardment of a South Korean island near the countries’ disputed western sea border. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday that it returned fire and scrambled fighter jets in response....

Categories China & Korea/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 22, 2010

What? North Korea had a secret uranium enrichment program all along? Why was Mike Chinoy not informed?

Siegfried Hecker seems significantly more astonished than I am that North Korea has 2,000 centrifuges spinning out enriched uranium. [W]hatever the reason for the revelation, which a seasoned American nuclear scientist called “stunning,” it provides a new set of worries for the Obama administration, which is sending its special envoy on North Korea for talks with officials in South Korea, Japan and China this week. The scientist, Siegfried Hecker, said in a report posted Saturday that he was taken during...

Categories WMD
November 20, 2010

Is Kim Jong Eun Already the Most Hated Man in North Korea?

More reports from Open News claim that the deification of Kim Jong-Eun is causing a backlash of discontent among the North Korean people: The source explained that “The punishment for attacking the government within North Korea is execution, so instead there have been outbreaks of criticism through graffiti across train stations, apartment walls, market places, and public buildings”¦according to others the graffiti expresses very strong discontent with Kim Jeong-Eun’s appointment as successor. The last time there were multiple reports of...

Categories Kim Jong Un
November 19, 2010

U.N. Shocker! China Helps North Korea Cheat on Sanctions

A new report by a panel of U.N.-appointed experts confirms what we’ve really known all along — that China is acting in bad faith by helping North Korea violate three U.N. resolutions China’s U.N. Ambassador voted for. With many thanks to a few good friends of mine, you can read the whole thing yourself here … un-north-korea-proliferation-report-11052010.pdf … or you can simply read the fair and balanced analysis that follows, beginning with these quotes to give you some idea of...

Categories Uncategorized
November 17, 2010

Now that Bush is safely out of the way, the truth can finally be told: Siegfried Hecker says that North Korea is building its own light-water nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. ___________________________ North Korea bites the hand that feeds it: Rodong Shinmun, the daily publication of the Chosun Workers’ Party, asserted in an editorial on the 11th, “We should wake up to western countries’ aid diplomacy,” citing a quote attributed to Kim Jong Il, “There is no more stupid and dangerous...

Categories Anju Links