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Category: Cheonan Incident

May 29, 2010

But the real question is how many South Koreans will actually believe this ….

Another day, another chutzpah record broken in Pyongyang: “The South Korean puppet regime’s faked sinking of the Cheonan has created a very serious situation on the Korean peninsula, pushing it towards the brink of war,” Maj. Gen. Pak Rim Su, director of the commission’s policy department, said at the press conference, according to broadcaster APTN. A number of people attended, including some foreigners who may have been Pyongyang-based diplomats, footage showed. A uniformed foreign military officer could be seen watching...

Categories Cheonan Incident/WTF?
May 28, 2010

Where’s the Outrage?

South Koreans’ unifiction mania may have cooled for the moment, but B.R. Myers tells us that public anger toward North Korea doesn’t approach that directed against America after the 2002 accident, and that plenty have made the decision to disbelieve the evidence that North Korea sank the Cheonan: It would be unfair to characterize these skeptics as pro-Pyongyang, but there is more sympathy for North Korea here than foreigners commonly realize. As a university student in West Berlin in the...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Cheonan Incident/Korean Society/North-South
May 28, 2010

28 May 2010

Axis, Schmaxis: “The seven-member panel monitoring sanctions against North Korea said in a report obtained by The Associated Press late Thursday that its research indicates that Pyongyang is involved in banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran, Syria and Myanmar.“ ______________________ Japan is moving to tighten restrictions on cash remittances to North Korea, and may authorize its coast guard to inspect North Korean ships in international waters. That would be a bold move, because North Korean vessels have previously refused...

Categories Anju Links/Cheonan Incident
May 27, 2010

State Department Fights N. Korea Terror Re-Listing With Half-Truths

[T]he Obama team is clearly signaling that it does not intend to do what many lawmakers want: put North Korea back on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. The calculation is that the listing, which administration officials see as having been overly politicized during the George W. Bush years, is more trouble than it’s worth. [WaPo, The Cable] Not worth the trouble? Are you joshing me? This, from the same crowd that went all the way to...

Categories Cheonan Incident/Terrorism (NK)
May 26, 2010

On Second Thought, Don’t Keep Your Day Job, Either.

As a public service to OFK readers, I’d like to remind you that on Day Two of the Cheonan crisis, Noam Chomsky’s favorite Korea analyst and military expert, John Feffer, was quoted thusly: “I doubt that North Korea was involved in the incident,” said John Feffer, co-director of the Foreign Policy in Focus program at the Institute for Policy Studies. “It didn’t seem to involve any artillery fire from the North. Feffer disagreed with the assumption that North Korea attacked...

Categories Cheonan Incident/Fiskings/Useful Idiocy
May 24, 2010

President Lee Announces Weak Response to Cheonan Sinking

We have always tolerated North Korea’s brutality, time and again. We did so because we have always had a genuine longing for peace on the Korean peninsula…. But now things are different. North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts,” he said. “I will continue to take stern measures to hold the North accountable. — President Lee Myung Bak After this, President Lee explained that his government will adopt the following measures as a response to North...

Categories "United" Nations/Cheonan Incident/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea
May 18, 2010

“Decisive” Evidence Implicates North Korea in Cheonan Sinking

As news reports suggest that an international investigation will soon announce that North Korea torpedoed the Cheonan, South Korean military sources are leaking information that, if true, seems reasonably conclusive: “In a search using fishing trawlers, we recently discovered pieces of debris that are believed to have come from the propeller of the torpedo that attacked the Cheonan,” a high-ranking government source said Monday. “Analysis of the debris shows it may have originated from China or a former Eastern-bloc country...

Categories Cheonan Incident/China & Korea/Korean Politics/Useful Idiocy
May 14, 2010

Selig Harrison: Lee Myung Bak “Invited” Cheonan Attack

I don’t know whether North Korea torpedoed the Cheonan, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it did. Lee Myung Bak has invited retaliation by repudiating the commitment to coexistence and eventual confederation enshrined in the two summit declarations negotiated with Kim Dae Jang and Roh Moo Hyun. [Selig Harrison in the Hanky] Did this widely-quoted North Korea “expert” just excuse an unprovoked sneak attack that killed 46 South Korean sailors? This is not meant as an excuse for the North...

Categories Cheonan Incident/Useful Idiocy
May 13, 2010

Cheonan conclusions will mean tougher N. Korea policies … for a while, anyway

It certainly looks like every government official outside Beijing who has seen the evidence now believes that North Korea sank the Cheonan and killed 46 members of its crew. Among those who have drawn their conclusions are the South Korean government, the Obama Administration, and the Republicans in Congress. The multinational investigation is now sufficiently advanced that the official Yonhap News Agency says that the findings could be released as early as next week. One interesting leak references a stray...

Categories Cheonan Incident/North-South/Sanctions/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
May 11, 2010

Cheonan Incident Updates

Andrei Lankov talks about China’s motives for supporting Kim Jong Il and predicts that in due course, it will be business as usual all over again: At all probability, this time we will see another repetition of the old game. Chinese will insist that North Korea should come back to the six-party talks (Beijing’s pet project), and also should restrain itself. Kim Jong-il will claim his sovereign rights to run his state as he pleases while inquiring how much aid...

Categories Cheonan Incident
May 2, 2010

So Christine Ahn Was Right After All: Kaesong Really Has Brought the Koreas Together!

Here is our latest edition of the Kaesong Death Watch: Last week, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak met with two former presidents, Chun Doo-hwan and Kim Young-sam, who reportedly suggested shutting down Kaesong in response to North Korea’s suspected role in the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean warship. [….] In a statement released in early April through the official Korean Central News Agency, the North said it would “entirely re-evaluate” its involvement in the Kaesong Industrial...

Categories Appeasement/Cheonan Incident/Useful Idiocy
April 30, 2010

Hankyoreh “Experts:” North Korea Sank the Cheonan, But It’s Still South Korea’s Fault

I expect the Hanky and its fellow travelers to be committed 24/7 tools of North Korea, but for God’s sake, people, your country is in mourning. Is this really the time? People’s Solitary for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) General Secretary Kim Min-young offered his diagnosis of the situation, saying, “If the government had faithfully executed the existing agreement between North Korea and South Korea for the peaceful use of the waters near the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea, things...

Categories Cheonan Incident/Fiskings/Korean Politics/Media Criticism/The Fifth Column
April 19, 2010

As North Korea Emerges as a Prime Suspect, Discussion Turns to How South Korea Should Respond

As my sense grows that the Cheonan Incident could be one of the most consequential events on the Korean Peninsula since the provocations of 1968, it has become the event that eats most of my human bandwidth, and I apologize if I’ve been delinquent in blogging other stories. Here are some updates for today: The Investigation The man heading South Korea’s investigation into the cause of the blast that sank the Cheonan answers one of my first questions about the...

Categories Cheonan Incident