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December 20, 2014

We are all North Koreans now

As far as I know, I didn’t liberate a single North Korean during my four-year tour with the Army in South Korea, although I’ve argued their distant and forgotten cause ever since I came home. The crimes of Kim Jong Un were still distant just five weeks ago, when Professor Lee and I, writing in The New York Times, sounded a lonely warning about Kim’s efforts to censor his critics in the South with terror and violence, writing that “[c]aving...

Categories Censorship/Human Rights/Sanctions/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Law
December 18, 2014

If N. Korea hacked Sony and threatened us, here’s how we should respond

The New York Times, quoting “[s]enior administration officials,” is reporting that “American officials have concluded that North Korea ordered the attacks on Sony Pictures’s computers.” Senior administration officials, who would not speak on the record about the intelligence findings, said the White House was debating whether to publicly accuse North Korea of what amounts to a cyberterrorism attack. Sony capitulated after the hackers threatened additional attacks, perhaps on theaters themselves, if the movie, “The Interview,” was released. [N.Y. Times] The...

Categories Books & Films/Censorship/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Law
December 2, 2014

In 2006, Ashton Carter called for blowing up a N. Korean missile on the launch pad

At the time, I wasn’t especially enthusiastic about the idea, and I’m still not enthusiastic about it today, but had I known then that George W. Bush and Barack Obama would let things get to where they’ve gotten today, I might have agreed with the idea of an aerial intercept. One thing we know about Ashton Carter is that he talks a good game.

Categories Missiles/U.S. Military/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
November 13, 2014

Must read: RFK Center calls for a “rights up front” policy toward N. Korea

The report, by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, along with the Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea,* calls on the U.S. to defer its pursuit of Agreed Framework III, and instead confront the very reason why Pyongyang shouldn’t have nuclear weapons, and why diplomacy with it will continue to fail: Only when North Korea begins to develop a record of improvement on human rights can it engage with the U.S. on other issues, including security, the...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. Politics
November 13, 2014

Rev. Kim Dong Shik’s family is appealing the dismissal of its lawsuit against N. Korea

… at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. You can read the appellants’ briefs at this link, and I previously posted the original pleadings here. The District Court dismissed the suit for lack of evidence of torture, despite the fact that at least one North Korean agent was convicted of the kidnapping in a South Korean court. For background information on Kim’s abduction from China and murder in North Korea, see this link. Victims of terrorism and torture are allowed to sue...

Categories Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Law
November 12, 2014

Claudia Rosett hopes the Obama Administration won’t screw up Iran …

policy with a bad deal the same way the Clinton and Bush Administrations screwed up North Korea policy with their own bad deals. Rosett isn’t the only one making the comparison: “Like North Korea in the 1990s, Iran will use a weak deal as cover to get nuclear weapons,” said Illinois Republican Sen. Mark Kirk, a prominent skeptic of the negotiations. [CNN] The historical record yields little cause for optimism, and the common thread that runs through much of that record is Wendy...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. Politics
November 7, 2014

How the mid-terms will affect foreign policy

I haven’t had time to finish this piece by Michael Barone at The American Interest, but what I’ve read so far is consistent with what I observed when I was on The Hill. I expect a big fight about Iran sanctions that will pit the President against a broad, bipartisan majority in Congress. At some point, I expect Kerry to be sacrificed for the President’s continued weakness on foreign policy (update: I mean as measured by the polls), just as Rumsfeld...

Categories U.S. Politics
November 5, 2014

Whatever you want to say about the election, say it here

I’m sad that my friend, Suzanne Scholte lost, but glad that she managed a credible performance despite having no history of running for, or holding, elective office, and despite lacking any money for TV or radio ads, or to raise a large and experienced campaign staff. She also did it despite redistricting that followed Connolly’s very close win in 2010, something I only heard about a few weeks ago, when a federal court held that the plan was unconstitutional. The...

Categories U.S. Politics
September 29, 2014

H.R. 1771: A response to Stephan Haggard

Stephan Haggard has published the second of two comments on H.R. 1771, the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, at KEIA’s blog, following Bruce Klingner’s first post on the subject. Haggard and I have a history of genial disagreement about North Korea policy, but I find much more in this thoughtful and well-considered post to expand on than to argue with. Haggard has obviously read and understood the legislation before opining about it. (Marcus Noland, Haggard’s co-author at Witness to Transformation,...

Categories Money Laundering/Sanctions/U.S. Law
September 19, 2014

So, you really, really don’t like North Korea, do you?

I’m just glad to have done my small part: North Korea has topped the list of countries that the American people feel most unfavorable toward, a biennial survey showed Monday, amid the communist nation’s prolonged detention of three U.S. citizens. North Korea received a favorability rating of 23 points out of 100 in the Chicago Council on Global Affairs survey conducted on 2,108 adults from May 6-29. The North was followed by Iran with a rating of 27 points, Iraq...

Categories America/An Alliance?
September 14, 2014

Travel in N. Korea “feels incredibly safe,” says tour company whose customer just got 6 years hard labor.

In a proceeding that took just 90 minutes — about as long as most arraignments I’ve done — North Korea’s “Supreme Court” has sentenced American tourist Matthew Todd Miller to six years of hard labor for “entering the country illegally and trying to commit espionage.” The AP omits the State Department’s easily accessible finding that North Korea’s “judiciary was not independent and did not provide fair trials,” but adds the amusing detail that Miller waived his right to a North Korean lawyer....

Categories AP Watch/Foreigners in N. Korea/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Law
September 13, 2014

On Think Tanks, Propaganda, the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act, and Korea

Washington is a marvelous city for someone like me. Where else could a foreigner, an outsider like myself, do the things I was able to do? – Tongsun Park, to the House Ethics Committee, April 1978 A detailed story in The New York Times, examining grants and gifts by foreign governments to U.S. think tanks — and how those gifts influence scholars (and through them), voters, policymakers, and Congress — has caused much controversy and discussion in Washington this week....

Categories U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/Washington Views
September 9, 2014

Former Obama Admin. official: Our N. Korea sanctions are weak and our policy is stuck

The Obama Administration’s North Korea team is stuck. Its thirst for fresh blood is so dire that it recently asked Keith Richards whether he still has the number of that secret clinic in Switzerland.* Don’t take my word for it. Last Friday, former Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as a friend and spy of mine was sitting in the audience (thank you). Campbell’s remarks are worth listening to in full, but the...

Categories Anju Links/Media Criticism/Sanctions/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views
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