Diplomacy – Page 30

February 8, 2008

Christopher Hitchens on the Rice-Lefkowitz Flap

Since Hitchens may have had something to do with goading Lefkowitz into making his original comments, I’ve been wondering how he would react to what resulted. I like to imagine that my little essay stung Lefkowitz a bit. At any event, he got up on his hind legs at the American Enterprise Institute in the third week of January and made an explicit criticism of the Bush administration that he serves. The State Department’s insistence on “diplomacy,” he argued, had...

Appeasement/Human Rights/U.S. Politics

February 7, 2008

U-Tubed, Part 4

Commenter ChosunHapa was kind enough to drop some links to Chris Hill’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday (transcript / video). Hill says that the “disablement” of (some of) North Korea’s nuclear facilities is proceeding well, contrary to what other reports tell us. He also assures us of his grave concern about Japanese abductees and human rights … which we’ll pursue on a separate track of course, after Kim Jong Il has what he wants from us....

Diplomacy/Media Criticism/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks

February 5, 2008

Senators Urge Bush Not to De-List N. Korea as Terror Sponsor

Six senators, all Republicans, have signed a letter to President Bush asking him not to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism yet. The senators are Sam Brownback of Kansas, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, John Kyl of Arizona (the minority whip), Charles Grassley of Iowa, … and Larry Craig. You can see a pdf of the letter — full text, signatures, and all, here: senate-letter.pdf Many thanks to the person who sent me...

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

February 4, 2008

N. Korea Demands Japan Drop Abductions Issue

Does this sound like a nation that has renounced terrorism? North Korea-Japan relations will never improve if Japan continues to link their improvement with a bilateral dispute over North Korea’s past abductions of Japanese nationals, North Korea’s state-run media said Thursday. In a lengthy commentary, the Korean Central News Agency said that North Korea has not forgiven Japan for forcing many Korean women into sexual slavery and taking many Korean men to Japan during World War II, and that it...

Abductions/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Japan & Korea/Terrorism (NK)

February 3, 2008

Advantage, Lefkowitz?

The latest Bush Administration official to return from Pyongyang empty-handed is Sung Kim, who spent three days in Pyongyang and got no nuclear declaration for his trouble. It’s a well known fact of diplomacy that even when no translation is necessary, it can take 72 hours to comprehend the utterance of the word “no. The latest Bush Administration alumnus to denounce its failing last-ditch appeasement of North Korea is former speechwriter Michael Gerson, who writes in the Washington Post about...

Diplomacy/Human Rights/U.S. Politics

January 31, 2008

N. Korea: We Won’t Budge

As State Department official Sung Kim heads for Pyongyang to try to save Chris Hill’s failing deal, North Korea is trying to be unambiguous about just how much it’s willing to give. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a Chinese Communist Party official Wednesday that there is no change in Pyongyang’s stance of implementing a six-party agreement on the North’s denuclearization, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported. Kim made the remarks when he met with Wang Jiarui, head of...

China & Korea/Six-Party Talks

January 28, 2008

SOTU Speech Fails to Mention North Korea

I heard “Korea,” and I think I probably heard “North” somewhere, but I did not hear “North Korea.” It’s nice that President Bush stands against genocide in Sudan. Seriously. It would be better than “nice” if Bush would do something meaningful to stop it. It’s too bad, of course, that he chose to end his term as an abettor of a genocidal regime in North Korea. North Korea was even left out of his catch-all list of repressive nations abroad. ...

Appeasement/U.S. Politics

January 26, 2008

Fox: White House May Accept Incomplete N. Korean Declaration

“Foreign diplomatic sources” have told Fox News that Chris Hill has floated the idea of accepting a declaration that omits information about North Korea’s proliferation — to Syria, for instance — or its suspected uranium enrichment programs. With North Korea almost a month overdue on its obligation to provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs and materiel, the Bush administration — under increasing pressure from American conservatives to take a harder line with Pyongyang, or abandon the...

Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks

January 24, 2008

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Senate Subcommittee Finds Massive Irregularities in UN’s North Korea Development Aid

[Scroll down for updates.] The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has just released its report on the UN Development Program’s North Korea scandal. Previous postings here concern the U.S. Ambassador’s original complaint, Ban Ki Moon’s unrealized promises of a full investigation, and the suspicious termination of a whistleblower. First, the main findings: 1. UNDP operated in North Korea with inappropriate staffing, questionable use of foreign currency instead of local currency, and insufficient administrative and fiscal controls. 2. By preventing...

"United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/U.S. Politics

January 23, 2008

Just What We Needed: Our Very Own Ministry of Unification.

From a White House press briefing today: Q Is the administration about to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism? MS. PERINO: No. Right now where we are is waiting on the North Koreans to provide a complete and accurate declaration of their nuclear activities. So we’re continuing to wait for that. We still have people on the ground helping with the disablement of the Yongbyon nuclear facility. So at this...

Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/Washington Views

January 23, 2008

Classless Condi

[Update: Miss that warm, moist pungence rising around your ankles? Here’s your fix for that: “I’m going to have a great deal more to say about elevating the issue of human rights in North Korea, which is clearly a priority for the president and Congress,” he said. [N.Y. Times, Helene Cooper] Exactly how stupid do these people think we are? Condi Rice has scarcely uttered a word about this in four years, has prevented anyone else but the marginalized...

Diplomacy/Human Rights/Washington Views

January 22, 2008

Plan B: How to Disarm Kim Jong Il Without Bombing Him

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. — Albert Einstein Plan A, gentle diplomacy, has again failed to disarm Kim Jong Il. Whenever this happens (every time it’s tried) advocates of doing the same thing over and over again fall back on The False Choice, whether expressly or by implication: it’s their way or war. They know better, of course, which technically makes this a lie. And usually, this lie stands uncorrected: “People lambaste...

Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks

January 19, 2008

Good Riddance, Ministry of Silly Talks

After weeks of conflicting reports, Lee Myung Bak’s transition team had made it official: the UniFiction Ministry goes to the ash-heap, along with the Ministries of Truth Information and Communication, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Science and Technology, and the Anti-Sex League Gender Equality and Family. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade will become a much larger and more powerful Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Unification. As a whole, the government will shrink by more than 5%, about 7,000 employees....

Appeasement/Korean Politics

January 19, 2008

Good Riddance, Nick Burns

Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s number three diplomat and the man whom a reliable source told me was the one who blocked implementation of the North Korean Human Rights Act, will step down for “personal reasons.” Alas, the reasons are not known to include painful bleeding hemorrhoids, and so I must go on doubting God’s existence. Burns’s legacy will include such notable accomplishments as Iran’s nuclear bomb. His replacement is the eponymous William Burns (no relation) who has enjoyed such...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Washington Views

January 13, 2008

State Dep’t Denies Groundhog Sighting

The only thing worse than shifting deadlines is no deadlines: The United States on Friday again denied setting a new target date for North Korea to give a full accounting of its nuclear programs that would replace a missed year-end deadline. ”We are continuing to work towards the end of getting a declaration in, but there has been no new deadline set by the United States, by the North Koreans or by any other party in the six-party talks,” State...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks

January 12, 2008

South Korea to push U.N. for return of its POW’s

President-Elect Lee Myung Bak’s transition team is speaking more about its plans to finally bring home about 560 prisoners of war it believes North Korea is still holding, in violation of the 1953 Armistice agreement. South Korea may seek help from the international community in pressing North Korea to return South Korean prisoners of war, the Defense Ministry said Saturday. North Korea has so far balked at South Korean requests to return POWs, saying it has never held any South...

"United" Nations/Abductions/Korean War

January 11, 2008

Did Chris Hill lie about North Korea’s declaration?

In the last episode of our drama, Chris thought he had convinced Kim to out himself in time for the New Year’s ball, only to have Kim say that he’d said enough when Chris visited his place last November. At moments like this one, when this blog begins to sound like the screenplay for a gay soap opera, I understand why The Lost Nomad went fishing. Several days ago, I believe I caught U.S. nucyular negotiator Christopher Hill in a...

Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views

January 10, 2008

Groundhog Day in Pyongyang

Now that we’ve asked North Korea to tell us about its nuclear programs, and now that North Korea has answered by telling us to perform prostate exams on ourselves, I suppose it’s best if we at least pretend to do otherwise. Not that the pretense is a convincing one. When Chris Hill tells us to react “with patience and perseverance,”Â understand that translating this into the North Korean dialect yields something that also means, “How about never? Is never good...

Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks

Category: Diplomacy