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August 29, 2014

The WaPo has noticed how Korean-Americans’ political power

… in northern Virginia has grown dramatically in recent years, and accuses politicians of “pandering” to them. To that, I’d ask you to name any well-organized constituency that can’t make a politician pander now and then, and I’ll show you a constituency that isn’t organized at all. We have the worst political system there is, except for all of the others, and in our political system, constituencies matter very much. The WaPo dwells on what it doesn’t like about the...

Categories History/Japan & Korea/U.S. Politics
August 24, 2014

Rand Paul: You people got me all wrong about this non-interventionism stuff.

Paul’s shift may be even less credible than Clinton’s, and just as mercenary. Unfortunately for Paul, isolationism, emotional authenticity, and financial puritanism are his brand image. Without those things, he’s just Mike Huckabee with better hair. It is Paul’s misfortune that we’re re-awakening to the dreary truth that the low characters of our world won’t let us ignore them away. I’m still waiting for someone — anyone — to advocate sustainable, plausible strategy for defeating ISIS. The only such strategy I can see is...

Categories Geopolitics/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics
August 21, 2014

Those who’ve been assigned to Yongsan, or who sometimes went to Itaewon, …

will appreciate this well-researched history of the neighborhood’s sleazy past and present gentrification, although sleaze has been a difficult thing to extinguish from the places where it has put down its roots. During my last visit to Seoul, the brothel district near the former Yongsan Station, now a massive E-Mart, was still plying its trade, just a bit more sedately, and just around the corner from a police precinct. Judging from the link, Hooker Hill still features hookers, despite the new development two...

Categories Korean Society/U.S. Military
August 12, 2014

Senate intel bill would require report on N. Korean gulags

Yonhap points me to S.2741, the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015, introduced by Committee Chair Diane Feinstein the day before Congress went into summer recess, and a few days after the House passed H.R. 1771, the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act. Section 316 of S.2741 would require the CIA to report to the House and Senate intelligence oversight committees on North Korea’s political prison camps: SEC. 316. REPORT ON POLITICAL PRISON CAMPS IN NORTH KOREA. (a) In General.–The...

Categories U.S. Law
July 30, 2014

Congress marks 20th anniversary of Agreed Framework I, asks how that’s working out

The House Asia-Pacific Subcommittee commemorated the 20th anniversary of Agreed Framework I by calling Ambassadors Glyn Davies and Bob King over for a hearing this afternoon, and it was a tough day for Team Foggy Bottom. If you want to see how congressional oversight should work – if you want to see a well-informed, well-prepared legislator completely, verifiably, and irreversibly dismantle 20 years of bad policy – then watch Subcommittee Chairman Steve Chabot’s opening statement. Chabot made great use of...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
July 29, 2014

Yonhap interviews Ed Royce, on H.R. 1771

The day after the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act passed the House, Royce gave an interview to Yonhap: “We have tried every approach to engage North Korea and the only time that we’ve ever really had their attention was when we’ve used some leverage on the regime itself,” Royce said in the interview in his office shortly after the bill’s passage on Monday, referring to the BDA sanctions. [….] Royce said that chances of the bill passing through the Senate...

Categories Sanctions/U.S. Law
July 28, 2014

H.R. 1771 passes House of Representatives on a voice vote

Chairman Royce (R, Cal.) and Congressman Gerry Connolly (D, Va.) both spoke strongly in favor. No member was opposed, and no member asked for a vote. The “ayes” had it just after 3 p.m. If there’s any aspect of this that’s bittersweet, it’s that a lot of people who worked hard for this outcome could not be there to see it because the vote was scheduled on such short notice. Here is the version that passed the House today. Now,...

Categories Sanctions/U.S. Law/U.S. Politics
July 25, 2014

H.R. 1771 scheduled for a House floor vote on Monday

It’s on the calendar. And while I doubt there will be serious opposition in the House, we’ll need Kim Jong Un’s help to pass the Senate this year. But if not this year, next. Eventually, he’ll do something stupid, and when he does, we’ll be ready. By itself, passage in the House would be a major symbolic victory. No one will ever be able to say there’s no alternative to standing by and watching a nation be slaughtered, strangled, and...

Categories Sanctions/U.S. Law/U.S. Politics
July 16, 2014

Suzanne Scholte takes her case to Northern Virginia’s Korean-Americans

Last Saturday, Suzanne Scholte and I appeared at a panel sponsored by the Korean-American Association of the Washington Metropolitan Area and the Korean Freedom Alliance. Scholte, who is now running to represent Virginia’s 11th District in Congress, addressed the group and made an impassioned case for why Korean-Americans should lead their fellow Americans and the world in opposing North Korea’s crimes against humanity. WKTV, northern Virginia’s Korean-language TV channel, was also there. Video of Suzanne starts at about 4 minutes...

Categories U.S. Politics
May 19, 2014

Suzanne Scholte for Congress (bumped)

My friend, Suzanne Scholte, the leader of the North Korean Freedom Coalition, has won the Republican nomination to run for a seat in the U.S. Congress, representing Virginia’s 11th District, in the suburbs of Washington, DC. I’ve known Suzanne since October 2003, the same month I left active duty with the Army and started the antecedent to this blog at a long-forgotten place called Geocities. Suzanne Scholte, a well-known U.S. activist on the North Korean human rights problem, has become...

Categories U.S. Politics
May 2, 2014

Americans hate foreign policy, and also, the lack of one

One lovely April morning, the world awakened to find that its greatest power has fallen under the control of a cabal of perky Starbucks baristas. As it turns out, I am not alone in ridiculing the weaponization of tweets and hashtags as a substitute for tough and substantive national security policymaking as the world’s predators seize the day. Conspiratorial minds will suppose that this is all somehow coordinated, and maybe some of it is, but I assure you that I’ve been...

Categories Geopolitics/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
March 26, 2014

Breaking: Royce will make an announcement at Subcommittee hearing today, on H.R. 1771

Once again, I apologize for the short notice. If you’re unable to attend in person, the event will be webcast live at this link. The witnesses will include Greg Scarlatoiu of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, Bruce Klingner of the Heritage Foundation, and Grace Jo, a very compelling and articulate young North Korean refugee who speaks fairly good English, and who recently founded the group NK in the U.S.A. The topic will be how to respond to...

Categories U.S. Law/U.S. Politics
March 6, 2014

Open Sources, March 6, 2014

~  1  ~ THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO CAME to this event on Capitol Hill yesterday and helped make it a huge success. We filled the room well beyond its capacity. There was an energy in the room that went beyond the question of numbers. It was who was there — young, old, in-between, conservatives, liberals, and a variety of ethnicities, including a very sizable Korean-American contingent. I don’t have words to express my admiration for the leadership of Suzanne...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Politics
February 28, 2014

Please attend next Wednesday: House Foreign Affairs Committee to host event on U.N. Commission report

On March 5th at 3 p.m., the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold an event with a panel discussion featuring leaders of prominent human rights NGOs, including Greg Scarlatoiu, Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and Human Rights Watch. The Federation of Korean Associations in the U.S.A. will also participate — they’ve emerged as strong and highly effective advocates for the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act this year. Also present will be Suzanne Scholte, head...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. Politics
February 25, 2014

Royce goes to Seoul, calls for cutting off Kim Jong Un’s cash

So Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was in Seoul last week, and sat down for an interview with Yonhap to talk North Korea: “It seems that the strategy that slows down North Korea the most is not allowing them access to the hard currency which they use in order to create their offensive nuclear weapons capabilities,” said Royce in an interview with Yonhap News Agency in Seoul.  Royce is now in Seoul along with a delegation...

Categories Sanctions/Sunshine/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics