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May 9, 2008

Leaked to OFK: Internal House Memo on N. Korea’s Support for Terrorism

Update: Link fixed, sorry. A reader and friend has provided me with an unclassified memo (thank you) summarizing a more detailed report by Larry Niksch of the Congressional Research Service (CRS).  The memo is addressed from Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to fellow House Republicans.  The memo reveals details that do not appear in this December 2007 CRS Report.  Although the links  to the Japanese Red Army are old news, there  is some alarming information...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
May 8, 2008

Growing Congressional Opposition to De-Listing North Korea as a Terror Sponsor

Well, other than the omission of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, uranium enrichment, proliferation to other terror-sponsoring regimes, and an oddly low figure for fissile material, North Korea’s disclosure is a full disclosure. Other than the nearly complete 50-megawatt reactor and an unfinished 200-megawatt reactor, it (sort of) caps North Korea’s ability to produce one kind of fissile material.  Other than the unknown quantity of completed nuclear weapons left in Kim Jong Il’s hands, it’s a breakthrough for disarmament.  And other...

Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
May 1, 2008

House Republican Leaders Denounce Bush Administration for Withholding Syria Intelligence

Between the Stephens nomination and this, I’d say the Bush Administration has a congressional relations problem on its hands when it comes to Korea policy: The Bush administration’s failure to fully brief Congress on North Korea and Syria has done more than jeopardize the relationship between our two branches of government. It has denied the administration the benefit of congressional support that could have ensured an agreement with North Korea that avoided needless risks, instead of one that may be...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
May 1, 2008

President Bush Issues Statement on North Korea Freedom Week

Laura and I send greetings to all those observing North Korea Freedom Week. I am deeply concerned about the grave human rights conditions in North Korea, especially the denial of universal freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly, and association, and restrictions on freedom of movement and workers’ rights. I have met in the Oval Office with some of the brave individuals who have escaped from that country. I am deeply concerned by the stories of divided families, harsh conditions, and...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. Politics
April 27, 2008

Chris Hill Resignation Watch: National Review on Agreed Framework 2.0

Our long national  slumber is  ending with a very cranky awakening, and  editorialists are starting  to  transform  Chris Hill into a political liability for the Bush Administration:  We still have no idea whether North Korea engaged in or is engaging in surreptitious uranium enrichment to complement the plutonium processed at Yongbyon. And we have not even asked Kim to dismantle his existing nuclear arsenal. Exactly what is it about this picture that has convinced Christopher Hill, the State Department’s top...

Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
April 26, 2008

Chris Hill Resignation Watch: Lord and Gelb in the Washington Post

Winston Lord and Lawrence Gelb are two senior members of Washington’s foreign policy establishment,  a constituency that has  been pushing, conditionally, for  Agreed Framework 2.0 ever since the death of Agreed Framework 1.0.  The establishment has supported, in principle, the idea of  making a deal  and sacrificing adjectives to get one, but  they’ve always kept  one eye on the exits in case the North Koreans just wouldn’t play along.  Maybe the flaw for which they can be most faulted is...

Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
April 25, 2008

Sen. Sam Brownback Puts Hold on Kathleen Stephens Nomination

Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.  — The Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:8 (37a) Let me be first nice Jewish boy to say it:   “G-d bless Sam Brownback.”  One of the Senate’s oldest traditions  is the nomination  “hold.”  For judicial appointments,  holds are the exclusive prerogrative of home-state senators.  For ambassadors, senate custom allows  any senator  to place a...

Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
April 24, 2008

Chris Hill Resignation Watch: Nuke Disclosure Starts a Category 3 Sh*tstorm

[Update: Watch the CIA’s video on the al-Kibar reactor: I’d love to know how they got those photographs of the reactor’s interior, and I can only guess that some trusted person who is now in a much safer place took them.] How stupid and how evil does Kim Jong Il have to be to get the attention of Congress in an election year?  This stupid and this evil: The United States on Thursday released an intelligence document with photographs of...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
April 23, 2008

More Senate Republicans Rebel Against Bush’s North Korea Policy

Fourteen Republican  senators have signed  a letter to President Bush opposing his agreement to let the North Koreans off the hook on full disclosure, disarmament, money laundering, terror sponsorship, concentration camps, abductions — you  name it —  before we lift sanctions.  An excerpt: We are … concerned  about the present course of action on North Korea’s nuclear program being pursued by representatives of your Administration.  It cannot be said that North Korea has complied with its commitments.  From all appearances,...

Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
April 22, 2008

House Foreign Affairs Committee Leaders Co-Sponsor Bi-Partisan N.K. Human Rights Bill

[Updated and bumped  4/22:   The GPO has published the full text; it’s here:  hr-5834.pdf It mainly reauthorizes the existing Act, tightens State’s reporting requirements, and adds more power and prestige to the post of Special Envoy.  It also demands quick action from State on increasing radio broadcasting and “facilitating the submission of applications” for asylum at our consular facilities in Asia.]   I don’t have a link to the bill or this press release yet, but it’s from a...

Categories Human Rights/Refugees/U.S. Politics
April 17, 2008

John Bolton Condemns Bush’s “North Korea Capitulation”

I think “Singapore Surrender” has a more alliterative ring, but I take no issue with Bolton’s argument: Last week in Singapore, U.S. chief negotiator Christopher Hill and his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye Gwan reached a deal that rests on trust and not verification. According to numerous press reports and Mr. Hill’s April 10 congressional briefing, the U.S. will be expected to accept on faith, literally, North Korean assertions that it has not engaged in significant uranium enrichment, and that...

Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
April 15, 2008

The Six Two One Party Talks, or Masturbatory Diplomacy

[Update: The White House accepts this stinker. Remember what Chris Hill said last year? “We cannot have a situation where (North Korea) pretends to abandon their nuclear program and we pretend to believe them.” That sure sounds like that Hill wants us to do.] So have you heard that Kim Jong Il will celebrate his removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism … by firing off more missiles? U.S. military authorities have been closely watching the North Korean...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
April 10, 2008

Representatives Ask Rice About ‘Consular Emergencies’ During Beijing Olympics

Last month, three members of Congress — Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of  Florida, Ray Lahood of Illinois, and Darlene Hooley of Oregon —  anticipating just how ugly things could will get if  when U.S. citizens protest during this year’s Olympics in Beijing, wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to ask what instructions  she had given to our  diplomats in China  about “consular emergencies” during the games.  The members also broached the sensitive subject of whether State should issue a travel advisory...

Categories China/U.S. Politics
April 3, 2008

What Should the Senate Ask Kathleen Stephens?

A reader tells me that the nomination hearing for Kathleen Stephens, State’s pick to be our next Ambassador to Seoul, will take place on April 16th, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So if you sat on that panel, what would you ask? Naturally, I presume that every single answer to that kind of question will be thoughtful and intelligent, and the most intelligent and thoughtful questions have some unquantifiable chance to be seen by the people who will write...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
April 1, 2008

Oh, You Meant Those Nuclear Scientists in Syria ….

You have to wonder what Chris Hill thought this inspired move would accomplish, other than to put  intelligence sources and methods at risk:  The U.S. in recent bilateral talks reportedly gave Pyongyang a list of North Korean officials involved in the supply of nuclear technology to Syria, a suspicion the North denies. A high-level diplomatic source on Monday said that the U.S. obtained the list of officials including nuclear engineers, who were involved in the supply of nuclear technology to...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
March 12, 2008

Rep. Howard Berman of California Will Lead the House Foreign Affairs Committee

He will have to fill a giant’s shoes, and a shrill and partisan tone isn’t a promising start for that: “I deeply appreciate the confidence that my colleagues have shown in me today. While I can never replicate the unique historical perspective and natural eloquence that Chairman Tom Lantos brought to this position, I’ll work very hard as chairman to repair the damage done to America’s standing in the world over the past seven years by this Administration. My highest...

Categories U.S. Politics
February 12, 2008

The Candidates on North Korea, Part 3

I haven’t had time to dig up the various statements of Mike Huckabee and Hillary Clinton, but here are some perfectly fine efforts by Jack at DPRK Forum and Don Kirk in the Asia Times. I don’t agree with Kirk’s inference that McCain would support of keeping a large ground force in South Korea; I tend to think he’d be the most likely (except for Paul) to give the whole arrangement a fresh look. I also found this page at...

Categories U.S. Politics