Open Sources, July 1, 2012

AS REGIME FORCES SHELL REBEL-HELD SUBURBS of their own capital, reports emerge that the CIA is funneling anti-tank weapons to some rebel groups, who are steadily expanding their reach throughout the country. The regime, heavily armed with weapons of mass destruction that could hit one of America’s closest allies in minutes, is backed by China, Russia, and Iran. The war follows years of steady proliferation and a corresponding frustration of diplomatic efforts to disarm it and settle its territorial disputes with its neighbors.

No, this isn’t North Korea in 2015 but Syria in 2012, and if these new reports are correct, I see little to criticize in President Obama’s current Syria policy, and wonder why more conservatives don’t express their support for it. All analogies are imperfect, of course, but with the right political and technological preparation, Obama’s Syria policy today could be a model for a more productive North Korea policy tomorrow. In the short term, the challenges of subverting and rebuilding North Korea are far greater, but in the long term, North Korea has advantages that Syria doesn’t — a better half to the South, a homogenous population, and a tradition of public order, for better or for worse.

In 50 years, Korea could be a fully integrated, prosperous democracy; for political and social reasons, the best we can expect from a post-Assad Syria is a broadly representative regime that refrains from sponsoring terrorists and attacking its neighbors. Achieving that outcome depends on us preventing extremists from hijacking an initially democratic uprising, and for us to have enough influence to keep weapons out of the extremists’ hands, we just about have to help supply friendlier elements.

Meanwhile, it’s satisfying to see the Syrian regime now battling the same Al Qaeda terrorists it previously supported, who are leaving Iraq for Syria. I’d say that it’s a shame both sides can’t lose, but in this case, both the Assad regime and Al Qaeda could lose. Inshallah, they both will.

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HOW DO YOU UNBLOCK A U.N. REPORT? LEAK IT!

The 74-page report, which was seen by Reuters last month, says North Korea “continues actively to defy the measures in the (U.N. sanctions) resolutions.” The so-called Panel of Experts submitted the report to the U.N. Security Council’s North Korea sanctions committee last month.

U.N. panel of experts’ sanctions reports are highly sensitive. China, which is named in the report as a transit hub for illicit North Korean arms-related breaches, has prevented the 15-nation Security Council from publishing past reports, U.N. envoys have told Reuters.

So as a consequence of blocking the report, China guaranteed that it would be newsworthy not only when it was issued, but also as various details were leaked. And by now, it does China no good and some harm to continue to block it. I don’t know if our diplomats were responsible for the leaks (nor do I want to) but I hope they were.

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IT NEVER FAILS TO AMAZE ME how selective the outrage of the Korean left is. They pedantically dissect Japan’s expressions of regret for atrocities that happened 60 years ago — to the detriment of their country’s security today, while completely ignoring North Korea’s atrocities that are happening right now, and which North Korea flatly denies — also to the detriment of their country’s security today.

Then again, maybe their position is more consistent than it initially seems.

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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS — REALLY! — reports on a former North Korean propaganda poet who defected to the South.

Jang’s poems now tell of public executions, hunger and desperate lives. He said that the piece he chose to submit to London’s Poetry Parnassus festival, “I Sell My Daughter for 100 Won,” is based on one of his worst memories in North Korea – recollections of a mother trying to sell her daughter in the market place.

“The life of a North Korean is not about living, but about how to sustain life,” he said through an interpreter. Jang, dressed in a loose white shirt and cream trousers, spoke quietly but accompanied most sentences with emphatic hand gestures.

Remember, it’s only propaganda if someone tells you what to write.

To restate the obvious, not all of the AP’s correspondents became tools when their corporate bosses signed their secret pacts with North Korea.

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SEPARATED AT BIRTH? Kim Jong Un and Margaret Cho.

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On December 11, 1969, a North Korean spy hijacked Korean Airlines flight YS-11 and redirected it to the North. When it landed in Hamheung, North Korea, the 46 passengers and four crew members were blindfolded, separated and investigated. Those who refused forced propaganda training were drugged or tortured.

The abductees’ families sought help from the international community, and two months later, North Korea returned 39 passengers to South Korea. But for reasons still unknown, North Korea never returned seven passengers and the four crew members.

Here’s a petition on behalf of their release (ht: Chico Harlan).

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BLOGGERS IN CHINA are starting to do what the official press won’t — hold corporations and politicians accountable:

Secretary General became popular last year, after he began examining officially published photos of high-ranking Communist Party officials and zeroing in on their expensive wristwatches. He then matched the watches to publicly available catalogues, to reveal how much officials were spending on luxury goods while supposedly living on a government salary.

The watch blog angered so many Communist officials that it was deleted, and Secretary General’s accounts were suspended. He began a new microblog, taking on an allegedly fraudulent nonprofit group claiming to represent global luxury-goods makers. Those exposés led to threats, and Secretary General began hiding out throughout China, eventually heading to Vietnam shortly after an interview in Beijing.

“Actually, I’m really scared,” the blogger, 33, said at a coffee shop . But will he give up microblogging? “You have two options – speak out or be silent,” he replied. “Freedom is quite important.” [WaPo]

Here in America, our official press is good at holding most corporations and some politicians accountable, but only blogs will hold corrupt non-Murdoch media accountable.