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July 25, 2006

Race for Chairmanship of House Int’l Relations Committee Heats Up

Whoever replaces retiring Rep. Henry Hyde as Chairman will have big shoes to fill, particularly when it comes to Hyde’s blunt moral clarity on North Korea and those who would appease its regime, as well as on Japan’s need to come to terms with its own past. Five candidates are said to be seeking the Chairmanship, presuming that the Republicans hold the House in November. I will express strong opinions on just those of whom I know through the (admittedly...

Categories Washington Views
July 23, 2006

MUST READ: NYT on NK Counterfeiting

The New York Times has a very extensive article on North Korea’s counterfeiting operations: By 1984, as North Korea’s planned economy began to fall apart, Kim Jong Il, who by that time was effectively running much of the government, issued another directive, according to the North Korean specialist, who told me he has obtained a copy of the document. It explained that “producing and using counterfeit U.S. dollars” was a means, in part, for “overcoming economic crisis. The economic crisis...

Categories Counterfeiting/NK Economics/Washington Views
July 22, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 45: An October Surprise?

[This is an updated post, originally published Saturday morning (22 July 06). An interview with the USFK Commanding general has partially confirmed what it asserts, so I’m supplementing the old post rather than starting a new one.] Jodi at The Asia Pages appears to be the recipient of some inside information that a dramatic reduction of the U.S.-Korean military welfare state alliance will be announced this fall, which coincides high-level security consultations scheduled for October. According to Jodi’s source, the...

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

An Image I’ll Never Shake

… the head of a murdered child, laid out in a field in a North Korean village, with residents brought down to see if anyone knew whose child this had been. Like twelve other wandering, homeless children before him, he had been lured into one of the last remaining restaurants in the starving district. Once the owner lured the children in, she would bathe them, and then strangle them. And butcher them. And then, she would sell their flesh to...

Categories Activism/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Washington Views
July 17, 2006

The Death of an Aliance, Part 43: Kim Won-Ung, Nutcase

The problem with identifying the most unhinged politician in South Korea’s ruling Uri party is a lot like trying to identify France’s most offensive armpit: at a certain point, extremity renders empirical comparison pointless. Still, I’m not sure anyone in the Uri party has built a more solid record than ex-GNP’er Kim Won-Ung, the only South Korean parliamentarian to have earned two of his very own “DOA” posts. His latest oral discharge is a ferocious denial that North Korea’s short-range...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD/WTF?
July 15, 2006

Too Little, Too Late

There may be no better way to defeat a radical movement than to let it win an election. The radical is an inherently emotional creation, one ill suited to the objective analysis of facts that effective government requires. If democratic institutions can survive their tenure of office, they generally discredit themselves in short order. I can’t imagine a better illustration of this principle than watching a South Korean government with a 14% approval rating meekly promoting a military alliance and...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/NK Economics/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
July 14, 2006

Guilty

Tongsun Park has been convicted in his Oil for Food trial, for acting as an unregistered agent for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. History will note this as just one more time the U.N. abetted a dictator’s self-aggrandizement at the expense of his suffering subjects. A hat tip to Claudia Rosett herself for sending. And in a delicious coincidence, South Korea picked today to formally nominate Ban Ki Moon to be the next U.N. General Secretary. This story says not one peep...

Categories "United" Nations/U.S. Law
July 12, 2006

Sticker Shock: A Post-USFK South Korea Must Do Less for More

A few days ago, the Marmot linked this RAND report on South Korea’s Defense Reform Plan (DRP). The report starts with some alarming disclaimers: it could not access much of the ROK MND’s classified information on strength levels or weapons systems, and the author has no experience (!) analyzing defense budget requests. Nonetheless, the author was able to pull together enough knowable facts to convince me that the DRP will come unglued. How fast? Without a national emergency, I give...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/NK Economics/Technology/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
July 11, 2006

Tongsun Park Trial Update

Today, Claudia Rosett reports from the courtroom that Park was picking up the tab for Maurice Strong’s private New York office. And that matters, why? Strong, for example, served in a public capacity in 1996 as a top adviser to former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then from 1997-2005 as a special adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. With the rank of under-secretary-general, Strong orchestrated Annan’s 1997 reorganization of the U.N. Secretariat, stayed on as a top adviser, and from 2003-2005 became...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/U.S. Law
July 6, 2006

Statement from Rep. Henry Hyde

This just in. Many thanks to the reader who forwarded this. Today, North Korea acknowledged that it fired seven missiles, including an intercontinental missile, the Taepodong 2, as a “routine military exercise.” The long range missile, which is designed to have the capability to reach the United States, failed within a minute of its launch and therefore represents no immediate threat to the United States. However, the successful short range missile firings constitute a direct threat to our troops in...

Categories "United" Nations/Washington Views/WMD
July 4, 2006

Now What?

North Korea’s missile test opens up new options for the United States. Here is a list of them. [Scroll down for updates.] It too easy to say, as many will in the coming days, that there is little that the United States and other nations can do to North Korea diplomatically or economically now that it has done the unthinkably stupid and launched its (taepo)dong and (count ’em!) five smaller missiles [Update: make that six]. Let me express my respectful...

Categories Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Geopolitics/NK Economics/U.S. Law/WMD
June 28, 2006

Tongsun Park’s Trial Begins

Park formerly served as a “Special Advisor” to Maurice Strong, a wealthy, uber-connected Canadian leftist who in turn was Kofi Annan’s Special Envoy to North Korea. Strong and Park have now both been implicated in the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal. During his tenure, Strong was notable for a deathly silence on human rights. He resigned after the OFF allegations emerged. Today, Park is charged with being an unregistered Iraqi agent, in violation of the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act. Writing in the...

Categories "United" Nations/U.S. Law
June 28, 2006

It’s About Damn Time

… Korea started paying the cost of its own defense. Which is why the most dovish South Korean president ever is forced to seek a very large increase in defense spending: South Korea’s defense ministry said yesterday that it has requested a 9.9 percent increase in the defense budget for 2007. …. In a proposal submitted to the Ministry of Planning and Budget, the military seeks to secure 24.75 trillion won ($25 billion) for the coming year, up from a...

Categories An Alliance?/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
June 28, 2006

Balbina Hwang Nominated to Key Post at State

Balbina Y. Hwang was nominated as a special assistant to Christopher Hill, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. …. On issues pertaining to North Korea, the analyst made clear that a hardline stance would continue to be be taken. She said diplomacy would stand at the forefront of dealings with the North, but the North Korean nuclear issue could only be resolved through pressure on Pyongyang. She said Washington’s open criticism of the North’s human rights...

Categories Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views