U.S. Politics – Page 11

December 13, 2007

Congressional Research Service issues report on the implications of removing North Korea from the terror sponsor list

Yesterday, a reader and friend was kind enough to forward the entire report to me (thanks!), which I’ve uploaded onto this blog, and which you can access here: crs-north-korea-terrorism-list-removal.pdf Since then, this has generated some press attention in South Korea. The report’s authors are the highly regarded Larry Niksch and Raphael Perl. There’s too much valuable information in there for me to graf and do it justice; this one is a must-read. I’ll limit my comments to a few...

Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/Washington Views

December 12, 2007

Senate resolution would set conditions for de-listing North Korea as a terror sponsor

I knew this was coming but was asked not to write about it. But now, I see that Richardson has a link to a Yonhap story about it. Now that it’s out, I’ll speak out of school for a moment and say that I suggested a couple of the provisions that made it into the resolution, although I’d rather not say which ones. The sponsor is Sam Brownback, who having dropped his presidential bid, is back to doing what earned...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. Politics

December 11, 2007

Desperately in need of a stranger’s hand

At the end of last month, I linked to a post at Powerline, quoting Noah Pollak on the subject of Annapolis, which I said then could just as well apply to Condi Rice’s eleventh-hour test of Kim Jong Il’s character. Pollak said, If Condi’s pursuit of the peace process is due to a belief that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is possible and will unlock the forces of moderation and conviviality in the Middle East, then, well, she is simply a...

Diplomacy/U.S. Politics/Washington Views

December 4, 2007

KCNA Announces Hill’s Arrival

Pyongyang, December 3 (KCNA) — Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of State, and his party arrived here today. [link] That’s the entire story, not an excerpt. Why so terse? Maybe their friends in Seoul sent them this (ht: GI Korea): The U.S. government decided to impose three new conditions for removing North Korea from Washington`s list of state sponsors of terrorism, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Saturday. The new conditions are in addition to the current U.S...

Diplomacy/Proliferation/U.S. Politics

November 30, 2007

Henry Hyde, R.I.P.

I last saw Henry Hyde at the final hearing at which he presided as Chairman of the International Relations Committee. Months later, despite the passage of control to another party, a larger-than-life portrait of Hyde still hangs in hearing room of the re-named Foreign Affairs Committee. Nearly all that has been written about Henry Hyde after his passage yesterday has focused on his role in Whitewater or his steadfast opposition to abortion — in other words, things about which the...

U.S. Politics/Washington Views

November 24, 2007

Casualties of Banalities: The Arrest and Coming Death of Yoo Sang-Joon

One of the bravest men I have ever met is locked in a Chinese prison this weekend, facing the risk of being sent back to certain execution in his native North Korea. His story stands for the human suffering that endures while diplomats craft a controversial agreement to disarm North Korea of its nuclear weapons and to grant its dictator, Kim Jong-il, the peace treaty and the recognition that his regime has sought for decades. [The Sunday Times, Michael Sheridan]...

"United" Nations/Activism/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees/U.S. Politics

November 21, 2007

No Legacy for You

The Washington Post declares: The war in Iraq seems to have taken a turn for the better and the opposition at home has failed in all efforts to impose its own strategy. North Korea is dismantling its nuclear program. . . . Yet none of this has particularly impressed the public at large, which remains skeptical that anything meaningful has changed and still gives Bush record-low approval ratings. No, not if the Washington Post does not choose to make it...

Diplomacy/U.S. Politics

November 18, 2007

It Takes Many Wards to Make an Asylum

Maybe this will help support my efforts to talk one of you off the Ron Paul ledge. The favorite candidate of “truthers” and other conspiracy theorists the mainsteam won’t embrace is also the favorite of white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Andrew Walden lays it all out in meticulous detail. Call it guilt by association if you will, but weeks after the questions were raised, Paul isn’t refusing their money or blocking those donate links from white supremacist sites. I’ll save you...

U.S. Politics

August 30, 2007

State Dept. Won’t Remove N. Korea from Terror List … Yet

The chief U.S. envoy at North Korean nuclear talks said Wednesday the United States will make sure close ally Japan is satisfied before lifting North Korea from a U.S. list of countries accused of sponsoring terrorists. Christopher Hill acknowledged the North has raised the terror-list removal repeatedly as a crucial part of a February nuclear disarmament accord. But, he said, the United States is “not going to cup our eyes and pretend a country is not a state sponsor of...

Abductions/Diplomacy/Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics

July 28, 2007

Not Ready

I have resigned myself to a Lee Myung Bak presidency in Korea, something I can do without much difficulty because (a) there will be much amusement, hilarity, scandal, and great blog material, and (b) because I’m not South Korean [Update: or North Korean]. Superficially, Lee is the furthest “right” of the major candidates, and while South Korea’s idea of “right” may not be my thing, it’s the linear opposite of South Korea’s idea of “left,” which I unreservedly despise. Concepts...

Korean Politics/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics

July 14, 2007

If Jack Pritchard Doesn’t Believe Jack Pritchard, Why Should We?

Jack Pritchard probably comes to his role as South Korea’s main policy mouthpiece honestly, through a shared belief that the next ten years of unrequited aid really will change North Korea into a peaceful, bucolic, union-free garment district. Pritchard is President of the Korea Economic Institute, which works Washington’s Korea-watching and policy-making crowds through its regular sponsorship of social and academic dinner events. I’ve been to a few myself, and though I seldom agree with what I hear there, the...

Media Criticism/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/Washington Views/WMD

July 5, 2007

The FTA and ‘Fortress Korea’

It can be disturbing to find so much to agree with in the writings of someone who doesn’t share your outlook on the bigger picture. I generally favor the lowering of trade barriers and oppose the protection of domestic industries from the competition of a fair and open market. Note the key caveat in that last sentence, for defining “fair and open” is where the devil is. I suspect Alan Tomlinson defines it more narrowly than I do, and that...

NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

June 20, 2007

North Korean Money and the Fed

Kevin Hassett, Director of Economic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, asks, “Why did the Fed help North Korea launder money?” I’m no economist, so I’m interested in how the transaction could affect the Federal Reserve system. Hassett thinks this transaction simultaneously inseminated the Fed with dirty money and politics, and he doesn’t think we’re going to like what we see at the end of the gestation. You ought to read the whole piece, but here’s a graf: It...

Money Laundering/NK Economics/U.S. Politics

June 18, 2007

Lee Myung-Bak Proposes ‘Kaesong Archipelago’

Would you trust this man? If you were one of those hoping that the next South Korean election would be the end of our long international nightmare, you were mistaken: Former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak, the front-running opposition presidential aspirant in December’s election, proposed Monday creating a “Manhattan-like” island near the border with North Korea and building an inter-Korean industrial park there to ease military tension. Dubbed “Na-deul,” which means a narrow waterway in Korean, the manmade island would be...

Human Rights/NK Economics/Proliferation/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/WMD

June 12, 2007

Win the Battle, Lose the War: How South Korea’s Brilliant Negotiation Skills May Have Killed the FTA

[Update: The USTR will reportedly call for renegotiation of the entire deal, in part to make the draft FTA compliant with U.S. labor standards. More at the bottom of this post.] Absolutely stomach-turning. After all of the Bush Administration’s brave rhetoric about “forced labor” and “material support” for “atrocities,” it ended up signing a free-trade agreement that could very well have allowed slave-made, axis-of-evil Kaesong imports into the United States. Then, because there was no denying the staggering hypocrisy...

Anju Links/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/NK Economics/U.S. Politics

June 12, 2007

Republicans Rebel on N. Korea Policy, Demand GAO Money Laundering Inquiry

You may recall that in this post and in this piece for Front Page Magazine, I suggested that our own State Deparment’s attempts to return $25 million to the North Korean regime — much or most of it proceeds of crime — could violate U.S. money laundering laws, as well as two U.N. resolutions the United States successfully lobbied for less than a year ago. As it turns out, great minds think alike. Now, with Russia about to step up...

Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/U.S. Politics

May 14, 2007

FTA Update

The N.Y. Times reports: Peru and Panama are considered most likely to win early Congressional approval. Colombia is more problematic, because Democrats are demanding that, besides the new measures, more protections be added to prevent violence against activists trying to organize workers. The South Korea accord, if put in place, would lead to the largest amount of increased trade. But it is opposed in its current version by Democrats who want greater access to that country’s markets for American beef,...

NK Economics/U.S. Politics

May 7, 2007

So Much for ‘Hawk Engagement:’ Victor Cha Steps Down

The proponent of the “hawk-engagement” theory of North Korea policy looks to be the first casualty of the unraveling of Agreed Framework 2.0. The AP tries to shoehorn this into its standard anti-Iraq War meme, but it’s a strained fit for on Cha, an architect of a soft-line diplomatic approach that is clearly failing: Cha leaves amid concerns over North Korea’s failure to comply with deadlines to eliminate its nuclear weapons programs. [AP] Reporter Matthew Lee’s story is what you’d...

An Alliance?/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics

Category: U.S. Politics