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April 1, 2007

A Souvenir from Kim Jong Il

My comparison yesterday between North Korean ideology, Nazism, and Stalinism led me to conclude that in terms of intrusive state control and deification of its political leaders, North Korea was the outlier. Speaking of deification, I nearly forgot this: (Click for full size) The protector of our race’s destiny, unification [gu-song, possibly N. Korean vernacular] North and South shall bask together in the glow of General Kim Jong Il’s embrace We should follow our great general Kim Jong Il eternally!...

Categories North Korea/The Fifth Column/U.S. Military
March 31, 2007

An FTA Pre-Post Mortem

At this hour, it looks like free trade talks with South Korea are about to fail, despite their extension for another 48 hours.   It may be  a bit  early for  the Chosun Ilbo  to have  published this post-mortem, but any free-trade agreement we reach now will be unworthy of the name and hardly worth doing from an American perspective.  Yes, I still  believe an US-Korean FTA is a good idea, but it’s pretty hard to  write a good one when...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics
March 25, 2007

Anju Links for 3/25: N. Korea Threatens to Do Us a Favor, Money We Can’t Follow, the FTA Circus, and S. Korea’s Slavery-Loving Unions

*   No.Please.Stop.   North Korea is threatening to pull  out of the  dreadful (for us) February 13th Agreed Framework 2.0 over  the RSOI / Foal Eagle exercises. “This may entail such serious consequences as escalating the tension between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US and scuttling the six-party talks for the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, arranged with so much effort.”  [Channel News Asia] A KCNA statement wouldn’t be complete without a reference to...

Categories An Alliance?/Human Trafficking/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
March 21, 2007

‘Peace in Our Time!’ Updates

[Updated below] As I write, diplomats from five nations have decided to stick around at a resort somewhere near Beijing for a couple more days, probably for many exciting hours of CNN International, while North Korea decides whether it’s interested in talking about uranium. Contrary to reports I’d read yesterday, no one is flying home just yet, but no one expects anything to get done this week, either. The holdup — which U.S. negotiator Chris Hill and the New York...

Categories Six-Party Talks/Washington Views/WMD
March 16, 2007

Congressional Conservatives Threaten Rebellion on N. Korea Policy

A reader and friend forwarded me a press release by three conservative Republican members of Congress (thanks), including the Ranking Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.  The press release accompanies a letter that urges “caution” on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in attempting to normalize diplomatic and trade relations with the North too quickly.  The clear subtext is that conservatives think that Rice may not be demanding enough of North Korea in meeting the necessary prerequisites on disarmament, terrorism,...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
March 15, 2007

Al-Qaeda Planned USFK Attacks

From the confession of the Ron Jeremy look-alike known as  Khalid Sheikh Mohammad: 23. I was responsible for planning and surveying to hit American targets in South Korea, such as American military bases and a few night clubs frequented by American soldiers. The thought occurred to me almost every post-9/11 day I was assigned to Korea.  The “Hooker Hill” district  of Itaewon mixes very uneasily with the nearby Korea Islam Mosque, a congregation that includes a  high percentage of conversative...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Military
March 5, 2007

Maybe He Should Have Called It a ‘Slam Dunk’

[Update: John Bolton weighs in at the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Bolton reads Joseph DiTrani’s remarks similarly to how I read them, although those of an “Anonymous Senior Official” are much more nefarious. Do not miss. Bolton continues to do great public service as a private citizen by focusing on the essential issues of inspection and verification, and then nails why all pieces of this framework join at that point, with pneumatic strength and precision: [I]t is precisely this...

Categories Washington Views/WMD
March 4, 2007

How a U.S. Consul Helped Send Six North Korean Refugees to Kim Jong Il’s Gulag

[Update: The Shenyang Six were freed from a Chinese jail in August 2007.] The Secretary of State shall undertake to facilitate the submission of applications [] by citizens of North Korea seeking protection as refugees …. (Title 22, United States Code, Section 7843) Back in January, I told you the story of the Shenyang Six, a group of six North Korean refugees who sought refuge from persecution and starvation in their homeland, and how the Chinese authorities, following their long-standing...

Categories China/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Refugees/Washington Views
March 1, 2007

Why You Have to Read this Blog: Yonhap Gets Lefkowitz’s Testimony Wrong

Standing amid a crowd of journalists today, a thought entered my mind at such velocity that it shattered  a tumor of remorse forming around the idea that any of them has a thousand times my audience.  True, I thought.  But unlike them,  every word I write will be published.  Oh, the power!   It fills and swells my cranium!   And no sooner do I see the stories they’ve filed, the frustrated resignation hits me all over again.  Because they’re...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Media Criticism/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 28, 2007

Chris Hill Testifies at the International Relations Foreign Affairs Committee

Headlines now, details later: Hill was firm that North Korea had purchased items that had no other use but highly enriched uranium. He said that a failure to resolve the HEU issue would be a deal-breaker. Committee members of both parties also seemed to believe that North Korea must come clean on HEU. Hill left open the possibility that North Korea will still be denying the existence of its HEU program 60 days from now without breaking the deal. He...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views
February 27, 2007

Joe DiTrani on the Not-Quite-Agreed Framework and N. Korea’s Uranium Program

[Update: Welcome Think Progress readers.  If you believe that our suspicions about highly-enriched uranium all  rest on slender  aluminum tubes, see also, and see also also.] Ambassador Joseph DiTrani, formerly a member of Chris Hill’s negotiating team and now the North Korea Mission Manager at the Directorate of National Intelligence, piped up in the Senate today when Sen. Jack Reed asked a fairly obvious question — what has changed since HEU was a deal-breaker in 2002?   His answer, though not earth-shaking,...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views/WMD
February 27, 2007

Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier, S. Korean Soldier in Afghanistan

Still not  many confirmed details yet, but it was a suicide bomber at Bagram, and he was trying to get Dick Cheney: There were conflicting reports on the death toll. Provincial Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said 20 people were killed, but NATO said initial reports indicated only three were killed, including a U.S. soldier, a South Korean coalition soldier and a U.S. government contractor whose nationality wasn’t immediately known. NATO said 27 people were also wounded…. Associated Press reporters at...

Categories ROK Military/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Military
February 26, 2007

The Death of an Alliance, Part 65: Beyond Dependency, Toward Reunification

[Update:   In the course of a whiney tirade about how America “betrayed” South Korea, Kim Dae Joong also calls for a national conversation about South Korea becoming more self-sufficient in its own defense.  I’d suggest to Mr. Kim that it’s a wee bit early to declare South Korea fully abandoned by America while we still have 29,000 of our people there.  Kim also  admits that the (elected) South Korean government got the deal it wanted, and in light of...

Categories An Alliance?/Reconstruction/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
February 23, 2007

U.S., ROK Ministers Agree on OPCON Date

[Update:   But we’re demanding benchmarks!   Gates apparently  shares my fears and has demanded ROK assurances that the date won’t slide yet again.  He’s also demanding “tangible moves,” such as “establishing a military command that would take charge of troop control, and an earlier start to drawing up new military strategies once Combined Forces Command is dismantled.”  Those sure do  sound a lot like “benchmarks,” although that term was understandably avoided.   I think the value of a promise made...

Categories An Alliance?/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
February 19, 2007

It’s Time for Jay Lefkowitz to Resign

I recently wrote a piece for publication on North Korea’s finances, the rumors of the then-prospective deal with North Korea,  and how to increase the pressure so that we could get a truly verifiable dismantlement of their nuclear program and a real and fundamental movement toward transparency.   If no favorable agreement could be achieved,  our financial strategy  showed real promise in  collapsing  the regime’s palace economy, and maybe even the regime  itself, something for which my aspiration is no secret. ...

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Refugees/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views