Home  >  America

Category: America

November 4, 2006

North Korean Spy’s Wife Was the Secretary to a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel

No information on which Lieutenant Colonel, or which unit (link in Korean).  Her side of the story is that she just kept his appointments, that he wasn’t in a sensitive position, and she couldn’t have stolen any secrets had she wanted to.   Hey, the wives of North Korean spies can have day jobs, can’t they?  If the South Koreans do what I increasingly think they  will try  to do —  a whitewash  —  then we will have a case of...

Categories An Alliance?/The Fifth Column/U.S. Military
November 3, 2006

Wobble Watch: Condi Rice Talks Tough, the Pentagon Talks Scary Tough

The Administration is trying to sound tough with the North Koreans, but I’m inherently distrustful of tough talk that comes the week before an election: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday the United States wanted “concrete action” when six-party talks resume on North Korea’s nuclear program. Rice said the starting point for the talks, which North Korea has boycotted since last November in protest at U.S. financial restrictions, would be to seek implementation of an agreement signed with...

Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Washington Views/WMD
October 30, 2006

‘Contain and Transcend’

Eric Sayers of the Center for Security Policy has produced a very interesting paper called “Contain and Transcend:  A Strategy for Regime Change in North Korea.”  Eric doesn’t think we can or should  actually promote democracy or encourage dissent inside North Korea — I  think we can and should  — but he  gets the  essential formula right:  starve the regime, reach out to the people.  This one is a must-read think piece.  Eric also keeps a fine blog, The Neo-Reaganite.

Categories Appeasement/Geopolitics/Washington Views
October 29, 2006

Airborne Laser Leaves the Hangar

The system, mounted in a modified 747, is designed to track missiles in their boost phase.  Although it won’t be ready for test firing at a missile until 2008, it should be operational by the end of the decade.  And it looks cool. In a ceremony at the Boeing Co.’s Integrated Defense Systems facility in Wichita, the agency announced it was ready to flight test some of the low-power systems on the ABL aircraft, a modified Boeing 747-400F designed to...

Categories Technology/U.S. Military/WMD
October 28, 2006

Suspected N. Korean Spies, Shielded by Ruling Party Parliamentarian, Played a Leading Role in Anti-U.S. Protests (The Death of an Alliance, Part 58)

[Update: Welcome Gateway Pundit readers; this story is developing rapidly, and now, there’s new evidence that the North Koreans tried to help the ruling leftist Uri Party win the Seoul mayor’s race last May. Plus, more evidence of a North Korean hand in fanning anti-Americanism in the South.] A widening spy scandal surrounding several senior members of the leftist Democratic Labor Party and a U.S. citizen may have led to the resignation of the head of the National Intelligence Service...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
October 26, 2006

Where Is That Other Shoe?

[Update:   A State Department official who asked not to be identified said the sanctions authority, bearing the name of Senator John Glenn, who sponsored it in the Congress, is open-ended in the range of sanctions available. That official predicted that all financial and economic transactions with North Korea would be ended, except for humanitarian aid. ] We’ve all been waiting for othe other shoe to drop — for the U.S. to announce what sanctions it will impose — since North...

Categories Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views/WMD
October 23, 2006

So Much for a Nuclear-Free Korea

Update:   A well-informed reader says the Pentagon denies this story. This should get their attention in Beijing.  As ye sow: Seoul and Washington will add use of nuclear arms by U.S. forces in response to North Korean atomic weapons in a joint operation strategy codenamed OPLAN 5027, sources said Thursday. That would mean the return of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea 15 years after they were pulled out in 1991. At the 28th Military Committee Meeting (MCM)...

Categories An Alliance?/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD
October 19, 2006

Interview: L. Gordon Flake, Executive Director, Mansfield Foundation

Gordon Flake (bio)  is two things that make his opinions interesting and valuable to me.  First, he’s a fluent Korean speaker, and those of us who aren’t are always at some disadvantage to those who do when we are gathering the facts we process into our views.  Second — and Gordon may not agree with this characterization — his views  strike me as classically  liberal. His views are probably more independent and less jaundiced by partisan bias or  ambitions  than...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Famine & Food Aid/Google Earth/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Korean Society/Media Criticism/NK Economics/Proliferation/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
October 15, 2006

Curt Weldon Under FBI Investigation

He’s North Korea’s favorite Republican Congressman, whose guest, “Ambassador” Hang Song-Ryol, played the starring role in the “Bastardgate” incident in the halls of the U.S. Congress.  Weldon took Han’s side and engaged in a public swearing contest against my friend, Suzanne Scholte, and several eyewitnesses whose Korean language skills no doubt exceed Weldon’s.  At the time, I dug up evidence of the current allegations against Weldon, so they’re nothing new. Old news has a way of becoming big news in...

Categories Diplomacy/Washington Views
October 14, 2006

Another Ambassador of Our Country

Give him style points, at least.  A drunken Army private walking past the War Memorial near the Yongsan Garrison and Samgakji Station couldn’t pass up the opportunity he saw in a Seoul city bus.  Seems he had gotten all the way to Seoul Station — and almost all the way back to the War Memorial — when the Korean Police caught up with him. No word on whether he stopped for passengers. The first good decision he made was to...

Categories U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
October 12, 2006

MUST-READ: Key U.S. Policy-Maker Calls China Out for Double-Dealing

David Asher, who recently led the Illicit Activities Initiative, is probably the architect of our tough new financial strategy against North Korea’s counterfeiting, smuggling, and money laundering. He is also one of Washington’s clearest thinkers on North Korea. Asher didn’t know that North Korea would actually test a nuke when he delivered this address to the Heritage Foundation in September, and really, it deserved more media and blog attention than it got. Asher, to say the least, doesn’t think China...

Categories China/China & Korea/Money Laundering/Washington Views/WMD
October 11, 2006

MUST READ: Deterring the Arsenal of Terror

Writing in the Washington Post, David Ignatius squarely confronts what may be the greatest challenge to the security of the United States:  finding a way to deter a mass attack.  Ignatius concludes, correctly, that one must deter the sponsors and suppliers: Allison believes that the world must focus on what he calls “the principle of nuclear accountability.” The biggest danger posed by North Korea isn’t that it would launch a nuclear missile but that this desperately poor country would sell...

Categories Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Military/WMD
September 30, 2006

Fifth Column Watch: The USFK, Free Speech, and Subversion

Nothing really surprising here: North Korea on Tuesday criticized the U.S. military for giving American names to certain areas in South Korea, arguing that it is part of a ploy to “permanently Americanize South Korea.” Americanize South Korea? Perhaps you can be forgiven for suggesting that if you live in an oppressed, suffocated, isolated tyranny where reading up on current events can get you killed. Since we’re on the subject, where has the U.S. military given an American name to...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
September 29, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 53

The end of the Eighth U.S. Army  in Korea  comes as no surprise to me; the rumors are not new, and this is easy  to downplay as “restructuring.”  With less than one complete U.S. infantry division left in Korea, it’s hard to call it EUSA a true Army-level command, but the symbolic value of  its removal  would be very significant.  I suspect it will also mean that the USFK’s new commander will be a three-star.

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
September 27, 2006

My Testimony at the House International Relations Committee

[Update: For some strange reason, the document was coming up as a previous, incomplete draft. Sorry for any who saw that one; you should be able to see the final version now.] [Update 1/2007: , including my verbal testimony, written statement, and photographic exhibits, at pages 59-94 (pdf). Other witnesses that day were Amb. Chris Hill, Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless, and Korea experts Balbina Hwang and Gordon Flake.] Well, I can’t thank Rep. Henry Hyde’s staff enough for believing...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
September 26, 2006

DOA 52 Update

Ordinarily, allies shouldn’t have to issue ultimata to each other, but in this case, it got results when nothing else did.  In a few days, you can expect to see the Roh Administration use this to play the han card for political gain and depict themselves as helpless victims of Yankee bullying.   We’ve gained a range, and Roh will gain a moment’s sympathy, but the alliance’s long-term political support will suffer.

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military