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July 2, 2010

Washington’s “Conventional Wisdom” About North Korea Is an Oxymoron

Professor Sung Yoon Lee, writing in the Asia Times, says: [T]he North Korean regime is in the midst of the most serious internal political challenge in nearly 20 years. Facing severe economic stresses, increasing infiltration of information into North Korea, ever more North Koreans attempting to defect to the South, and the challenge of handing over power to an unproven son only in his twenties, the allegedly ailing North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, must wrestle with profound questions of regime...

Categories Diplomacy/Washington Views
June 23, 2010

On McChrystal and Petraeus

I can’t pass on the chance to say a few things about the firing of General McChrystal. I don’t think President Obama could have not fired him, leaving him in charge of our war effort in state where he clearly lacks the confidence of the President, his cabinet, the people, and quite probably his own soldiers. I knew few soldiers who had strong partisan views, but fewer who held much respect for conduct like this. More than a few must...

Categories U.S. Military
June 17, 2010

Friends With Benefits: Another Silly, Tired “Engagement” Debate

My general impression of the new North Korea blog 38 North is that it’s mostly the same old crap from the same old people who’ve been proposing the same demonstrably failed approaches to North Korea for the last 20 years. They’ve finally published one thing of interest to me, however, a response to John Feffer by Roberta Cohen of the liberal Brookings Institute. If anyone can show me that anyone to the right of Cohen has ever been published on...

Categories Useful Idiocy/Washington Views
June 4, 2010

Rep. Ros-Lehtinen Pays Respects to Cheonan Victims

From Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s staff: U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had flowers placed on her behalf at South Korea ‘s Daejeon National Cemetery in honor and memory of those lost on the Republic of Korea naval ship Cheonan. Statement by Ros-Lehtinen: “As we conclude Memorial Day observances in the U.S. and South Korea and honor the sacrifices of our military personnel, I would like to take the opportunity to, once again, express...

Categories "United" Nations/Cheonan Incident/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
May 31, 2010

Robert Einhorn to Lead North Korea Sanctions Implementation Effort

The Joongang Ilbo is reporting that Clinton Administration alumnus and counter-proliferation expert Robert Einhorn is going to be put in charge of “streamlining the process by which it implements” international sanctions against North Korea, sanctions that are likely to be enhanced after an international investigation found that North Korea torpedoed and sank the South Korean warship Cheonan. “The U.S. administration was seeking more efficient management of implementation of sanctions, which had been divided between the State and the Treasury departments,”...

Categories Cheonan Incident/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Sanctions/U.S. Law/Washington Views
May 13, 2010

Cheonan conclusions will mean tougher N. Korea policies … for a while, anyway

It certainly looks like every government official outside Beijing who has seen the evidence now believes that North Korea sank the Cheonan and killed 46 members of its crew. Among those who have drawn their conclusions are the South Korean government, the Obama Administration, and the Republicans in Congress. The multinational investigation is now sufficiently advanced that the official Yonhap News Agency says that the findings could be released as early as next week. One interesting leak references a stray...

Categories Cheonan Incident/North-South/Sanctions/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
May 7, 2010

Lender Beware: North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank Sued in U.S. Federal Court

The Korea Times reports that since its establishment in 1959, North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank has been the regime’s “main foreign exchange bank,” with “branch offices in France, Australia, Kuwait, Hong Kong and Beijing.” The Times also informs us that the bank now finds itself the defendant in a multi-million dollar lawsuit in a U.S. federal district court: A state-run North Korean bank is facing trial in the United States for failing to pay a $5 million loan that it...

Categories NK Economics/U.S. Law
May 4, 2010

Oh, for F**k’s Sake: Not Another Do-Gooder Congressman Out to Rid the USFK of Juicy Girls

Normally, I actually like Chris Smith, but it’s just plain dumb to go after U.S. service members who, while thousands of miles from home, pursue (a) human nature, and (b) a form of commerce that’s more-or-less openly available to 23 million South Korean men around them: A bill to create a director of global anti-human trafficking policies in the Department of Defense was introduced Thursday in an effort to better monitor the way the military deals with South Korean “juicy...

Categories Korean Society/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
April 26, 2010

Statement from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on North Korea Freedom Week

Dear People of both South and North Korea, Members of the North Korea Freedom Coalition, Ms. Scholte of the Defense Forum Foundation, Members of the NGO Human Rights Community, Pastors, North Korean Defectors, Abductee Families, Members of the Korean-American Community and Friends of Korea: It is particularly fitting and proper that this year’s annual North Korea Freedom Week will be held for the first time on the Korean peninsula. This week of events also comes at a particularly critical time...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
April 15, 2010

Obama Outflanks GOP on North Korea Policy

Here is President Obama, talking about North Korea, nukes, and sanctions yesterday: “I think it’s fair to say that North Korea has chosen a path of severe isolation that has been extraordinarily damaging to its people,” Obama told a news conference at the end of a summit on nuclear security. He said that as pressure builds, Pyongyang will want to break out of its isolation and “we’ll see a return to the six-party talks and … we will see a...

Categories U.S. Politics/Washington Views
April 13, 2010

Manna from the Think Tanks

Over the last several days, the think tanks have rained down more interesting reports than I’ve had time to pick through, so I’ll just link them for your reading. – Criminal Sovereignty: Understanding North Korea’s Illicit International Activities, by Dr. Paul Rexton Kan, Dr. Bruce E. Bechtol Jr., Mr. Robert M. Collins. – China, Iran, and North Korea: A Triangular Strategic Alliance, by Christina Y. Lin – Audio of Hwang Jang Yop at the Center for Strategic and International Studies...

Categories Washington Views
April 8, 2010

Tremble, Commies!

Forwarded by a friend: WASHINGTON, D.C. ““ Today, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) issued the following statement in response to the conviction of American Aijalon Gomes by a North Korean court. Senator Kerry called on the DPRK to release Mr. Gomes immediately on a humanitarian basis: “This is a mother’s worst nightmare and a horrific situation. This young man belongs in Massachusetts with his family, and I join with them in expressing my hope that North Korea...

Categories Aijalon Gomes/U.S. Politics
April 1, 2010

How Republican Stall Tactics Could Capsize Guam!

I really wish I could say this was an April Fool’s hoax or a Mensa audition gone horribly awry. Actually, it’s a hearing in the House Armed Services Committee: Which seems like a good time to mention that Senator Carl Levin is filled with angst over all the wise on-the-spot guidance our general officers are missing out on because of a Republican parliamentary stall tactic somehow related to health care collectivization reform: “Lives are at stake here. American lives and...

Categories U.S. Politics/WTF?
March 20, 2010

Rumor: U.S., China Planning for “Upheaval” in N. Korea

The United States Thursday denied reports that it will soon have closed-door discussions with South Korea and China on plans for upheaval in North Korea. “I have not been told we are going to have this type of meeting at this particular point,” a senior State Department official said, asking not to be named. “If we are working on that in sort of an early stage, that could be possible.” [Yonhap] Normally, I’d be tempted to believe this because they...

Categories China/Reconstruction/Regime Change/U.S. Military
March 8, 2010

North Korea Re-Re-Declares War, Threatens “Merciless Physical Force,” Demands Peace Treaty

So Operations Key Resolve and Foal Eagle have started again. I boldly predict that this year, as has been the case for each year for the many decades we’ve had troops stationed in South Korea, the exercise will not end with an American invasion of North Korea. Just as predictably, North Korea is threatening the United States and/or South Korea. The challenge for North Korean propagandists is always how to make each year’s threat stand out from such previous-year classics...

Categories Diplomacy/ROK Military/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Military/Useful Idiocy
February 21, 2010

Were the Taliban Casing Yongsan?

By what unhappy accident did the muses of Seoul’s urban planning put a large mosque with a significant population of Pakistani fundamentalists in its congregation smack-dab on top of Hooker Hill? Walking through Itaewon shortly after 9/11 and shortly before my DEROS date, watching chitrali hats and shalwar kamiz coexist uneasily with spandex mini-dresses, Dimple scotch, and crowded nightclubs frequented by U.S. military personnel, I confess to having thought: it’s just a matter of when. A Pakistani man who claims...

Categories Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
February 2, 2010

DNI Releases Annual Threat Assessment

And it’s more bad news for the usual suspects — David Albright, Selig Harrison, and Mike Chinoy: After denying a highly enriched uranium program since 2003, North Korea announced in April 2009 that it was developing uranium enrichment capability to produce fuel for a planned light water reactor (such reactors use low enriched uranium); in September it claimed its enrichment research had “entered into the completion phase”. The exact intent of these announcements is unclear, and they do not speak...

Categories NK Military/Proliferation/Washington Views