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June 5, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 41

I don’t know how much deader you can get than this: In a seismic shift in an alliance that has held since the Korean War, the military plans to scrap Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command by 2012, it emerged Sunday. Wartime operational control of Korean forces will also return to the country, probably by 2011, since it now rests with the commander of the U.S.-led CFC. According to a military source, plans to abolish the CFC are clearly stated in the...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 29, 2006

Korea Diary, 29 May 06

A Cold Wind in the North: North Korea has cancelled its visa waiver program for some Chinese visitors, and China has reciprocated. Like every other effort to explain what the North Koreans are up to, it’s speculative. The Joongang Ilbo’s writer speculates that it’s about North Korean fears of excessive Chinese economic influence, which makes sense, whether or not it’s the reason for this move. Another possible explanation — purely speculation and entirely my own — is that North Korea...

Categories China & Korea/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Korean Society/NK Economics/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 21, 2006

The Battle of the Hump, Part 4: The Fiaola Ricefield War

The lastest example of the Washington Post’s awful Korea coverage is certain to leave you less informed than before you read it. Anthony Faiola manages to distort the Battle of Camp Humphreys into a conflict between peaceful, bucolic peasants and Uncle Sam’s evil puppet. Faiola apparently found one of the few local residents in attendance — there are just 70 of them among thousands — a sympathetic-sounding 90 year-old woman. It makes a better story to tell it this way...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/Media Criticism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 19, 2006

Daily NK President Talks to TKL about the New Right and North Korea

Recently, Newsweek’s BJ Lee reported on the emergence of South Korea’s New Right. One of the persons prominently featured in the article was Han Ki-Hong, President of the Daily NK, an online newspaper focusing on conditions in North Korea (DO NOT MISS their latest report on North Korea’s growing border control problems). The Daily NK differs from the South Korean papers in that it primarily focuses on events in the North. More remarkably, its reporters are often North Koreans reporting...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/Human Rights/Korean Politics/North Korea/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 19, 2006

Bush’s Old “New” Approach

[Update 2, 5/18: On the other hand, the “Kim Jong Hill” plan looks great next to the Richard Lugar plan, which is nothing more than a shiny new formula for buying lies with bribes. Lugar is a very nice person to meet and has his heart in the right place, but diplomatically, this is not the thing to be proposing when our financial crackdown and our political offensive are both showing some promising signs of success. When dealing with gangsters,...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Human Rights/NK Economics/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
May 17, 2006

The UniFiction Church Choir

Progress at Last! The last seven years of the Sunshine policy have finally secured a legacy Roh can campaign on. Goodbye “sea of fire,” hello, “deluge of fire!” I’d like to see those neocon skeptics deny that “deluge” beats “sea” any day of the week! This from the lovable North Korean site “Within Our Race” (a rough translation). ================ Who Stopped My Peace Train? My money is on this not being the last obstacle that bars the path of Kim...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/China/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Europe/Human Rights/Humor/Satire/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Education/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Unintended Humor/WTF?
May 16, 2006

Korea Diary, 17 May 06

If you need an even better illustration of the idiocy of the Tokdo distraction, read this moving story about the families of two hostages, one Japanese and one South Korean, who married during their captivity in North Korea. Yokota expressed gratitude that his son-in-law was a South Korean. “I am so lucky to have a South Korean son-in-law, not a North Korean. I am so happy that I can hope that our families may meet one another again. He said...

Categories Abductions/Activism/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Europe/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Inside NK/Islam/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Politics/News Links/NK Economics/Proliferation/Refugees/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized/WMD
May 15, 2006

Growing U.S.-Japanese Fracas Over Yasukuni Visits

Yesterday, I added the following “Link of Interest:” Rep. Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has a message for President Junichiro Koizumi. Hyde, a veteran of the Pacific Theater of World War II and no fan of Japan’s revisionist view of history, suggests that Koizumi won’t be invited to address the House during his upcoming state visit if he intends to visit the Yasukuni Shrine this summer. . . . I swear there must be a clock...

Categories Diplomacy/History/Japan/Japan & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 14, 2006

Links of Interest

Richardson has already linked it, but I want to add is that this one could be very, very important to what happens in North Korea. The United States is considering economic sanctions on Chinese banks which have business transactions with North Korean companies allegedly implicated in the development or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a news report said Sunday. ================= Rep. Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has a message for President Junichiro Koizumi. Hyde,...

Categories Activism/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Censorship/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Democracy/Diplomacy/History/Human Rights/Korean History/Korean Law/Korean Politics/News Links/NK Economics/North Korea/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
May 14, 2006

Yankee Come Home

Corporal Henry D. Connell was just a boy of 17 when he died for the freedom and prosperity of a place he probably knew nothing about before his country sent him there. The world has forgotten the hill where he died in a Chinese attack on the night of November 2, 1950, along with the imprisoned country in which the hill can still be found. What was left of Henry Connell’s body remained there until 1994, when his bones, and...

Categories Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 13, 2006

Japanese Coast Guard Searches N. Korean Drug Ship

They also arrested two people believed to have been part of the smuggling operation. The men are accused of helping smuggle several hundred kilograms of amphetamines from North Korea to Japan, Jiji Press and public broadcaster NHK said. Tokyo police arrested Woo Si-Yun, an unemployed 59-year-old South Korean living in Japan, and alleged Japanese gangster Katsuhiko Miyata, 58, the news organizations said. Woo is believed to be the owner of a mobile phone recovered from a North Korean spy ship...

Categories Drugs & N Korea/Japan & Korea/U.S. Law
May 12, 2006

The Rising of the Goons

[Update 3, 5/14: Via the Chosun Ilbo: Some 4,000 members of the Pan-national Committee to Deter the Expansion of U.S. Bases held a massive protest at the site for the new U.S. Forces Korea headquarters in Pyeongtaek on Sunday. Feared large-scale violence, however, was averted as protestors refrained from using lethal tools like steel pipes or bamboo sticks while police stopped short of full-scale suppression. The coalition comprises members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the Korean Federation of...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 12, 2006

Ooh! Over Here!

“The regime change crew is in charge now and they are looking for any new ideas that can affect regime change.” — John Wolfstahl, CSIS The tone of regime change opponents and Bush foes is also interesting to observe these day. Two of them have published pieces nearly simultaneously, concluding that Bush has made the decision to get rid of Kim Jong Il. I agree. They they wonder if he’ll have time to do it. I agree with that, too....

Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
May 12, 2006

MUST READ: WSJ Interview with Newly Arrived North Korean Refugees

“Before we begin this interview, I want to thank God for bringing us to this land of dreams. We sincerely thank President George Bush and the American government for letting us enter as refugees.” She bows slightly, closes her notebook, and prepares to relive her ordeal. Just go read it. Now. A big hat tip to a reader for fowarding this one.

Categories China & Korea/Defectors/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 11, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 39: The Korean Malaise, Anti-Americanism & Anti-Anti-Americanism

The bee-man has officially entered his sixteenth minute, and Korea’s fiery gaze has shifted to the violent excesses of the extreme anti-American left — chiefly the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and Hanchongryeon. There is new statistical evidence that the violence of the red guards has triggered a backlash and alienated the silent majority. This occurs just 20 days before a round of local elections that will choose the next mayor of Seoul and the governor of Kyonggi Province, among...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 10, 2006

Should Hanchongryon Be Designated a Terrorist Organization?

“Let us eliminate anti-unification pro-war forces which intend to cast fire clouds of a nuclear war on the heads of Koreans. — Hanchongryon Statement before visiting Pyongyang If I’d had any idea that things were this bad on South Korean university campuses, I’d have been paying much closer attention: Seven Korea University students face disciplinary punishment after illegally detaining nine professors for 16 hours. The Yonsei University president is working elsewhere after being driven out of his office some 40...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/U.S. Military/Uncategorized