Open Sources, Feb. 25, 2013

CONGRATULATIONS, MADAME PRESIDENT.  It’s already looking like five hard years ahead.

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ISN’T THAT HOW EINSTEIN DEFINED INSANITY?  Robert Gallucci cannot possibly have said, on one hand, that “[t]he policy we have pursued over the last 20 years — engagement, containment, whatever — has failed to reduce the threat posed by North Korea to the security of the region,” and also, in the same speech, said, “It’s my conclusion that the best approach to the current situation is the same one adopted 20 years, namely diplomatic engagement ….”

No one could willfully advocate the continuation of a failed policy, right?  Well, yes, they could.  Yonhap’s story quotes Gallucci thusly from a post-speech press conference.

“It [diplomatic engagement] would be a good idea, and I would favor looking for an opportunity to engage the North Koreans in order to determine whether or not they are prepared to enter into a protracted discussion that would meet some of their security concerns and meet our concerns of their nuclear weapons program,” he said.

Sigh.  That’s our national security brain trust for you.  Advocating the same thing again and again, and expecting different results.  Interesting (but not surprising) to see how differently Yonhap and the Hanky emphasize those two contradictory statements.

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MUST READ:  In The Washington Post, Chico Harlan writes about the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights’s belated call for an investigation of abuses in North Korea, and how that call, and South Korea’s term on the U.N. Security Council, will be an early test for Park Geun Hye.

The Post has been doing a magnificent job covering North Korea ever since Glenn Kessler stopped doing it.

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SOMEONE TEST MY BLOOD SUGAR:  I just read something John Feffer wrote for The Hankyoreh.  And liked it.

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SOMEONE HAS CREATED an interactive video that attempts to simulate the experience of escaping from North Korea.  Really, I don’t think that kind of terror can ever be simulated, but it’s an interesting project.