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Category: Diplomacy

September 16, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 51

First, TKL is privileged to print this exclusive photo of the Bush-Roh luncheon. The pomp and pageantry rolled out for America’s greatest ally since the Marquis de Lafayette does not end there. Roh and the poor ROK Ambassador, Lee Tae-Shik, adjourned to Blair House to meet with a real who’s-who of has-beens. Extra props to whoever invited Richard Armitage, who must be the least popular man in this city this week. Also present: Madeleine Albright, Don Oberdorfer, Donald Gregg, Thomas...

Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
September 14, 2006

Kim Dae Jung: Neocons Made Up N. Korean Nuke Crisis

[Updated for your pleasure, and here’s one back at the Marmot, who has much more.] It’s a ruthless totalitarian regime with a history of selling WMD’s to terrorist backers, and its state ideology revels in violence against America. And if the fact that they have a few nukes worries you, it’s obviously all in your head, says ex-South Korean Prez and Nobel prize winner Kim Dae Jung: “How North Korea will do with its missiles and nuclear weapons… Those will...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Diplomacy/WMD/WTF?
September 8, 2006

The Seven Billion Dollar Man

[Update: The actual figure turns out to be over $7 billion, if you include all aid since 1995 and add in Kim Dae Jung’s $500M bribes. It still excludes money from South Korean corporations, and of course, aid from the U.N. or other countries. South Korea now provides 46% of North Korea’s support. h/t The Nomad.] Let’s briefly review where we’ve been with North Korea over the last year — missile tests, nuclear scares, crude insults, food aid stolen from...

Categories Appeasement/Money Laundering
September 8, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 50: Alternative Realities and Real Alternatives

I suppose everyone is entitled a theory on why Kim Jong Il decided to launch a round of missiles on July 4th, thereby drawing the wrong kind of attention from the U.N. Security Council, Japan, China, and the U.S. Treasury Department. This blog has been lukewarm on the conventional “extortion” theory, and has recently hosted discussions of the Strategic Disengagement Theory, the “Barrel of a Gun” Theory, The Loyalty Test Theory, and most recently, the Robert Kaplan Theory. All of...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD
September 7, 2006

Lugar Fails to Get Bolton Voted Through His Committee

Despite a second impressive success on Darfur at the U.N. Security Council, and following an even more impressive victory on the North Korea sanctions resolution — a resolution I predicted he’d never get — John Bolton has again been denied a vote before the full Senate. There is no honest basis to dispute the excellence of Bolton’s performance at carrying out the President’s policies. That is why George Voinovich and Chuck Hagel are supporting him, despite earlier reservations. Standing beside...

Categories "United" Nations/Washington Views
September 5, 2006

Busted: S. Korean Monitoring of Food Aid Exposed as a Sham

[Updates: English version here, and a small correction below.] “At least since 2000 when we began providing assistance to the North, no one there has been starving to death.” ““ UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok, May 2, 2006 You may recall that just over a year ago, Marcus Noland and Stephen Haggard provoked controversy when they published a report called “Hunger and Human Rights.” In that report, the authors concluded that up to half of food aid deliveries to North Korea...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Resistance
September 5, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 8

Nigel Cowie, North Korea’s most “legitimate” banker, is selling out, and this time, that’s not just a moral judgment. Richardson links this piece, written by none other than Bradley K. Martin, indicating that he’s selling his Daedong Credit Bank to the British-based Koryo Group, but will stay on to help manage the bank. As for the issue of Daedong’s much-proclaimed legitimacy, Martin adds what strikes me as a highly salient fact: The minority owner of Daedong Credit is Korea Daesong...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Drugs & N Korea/Money Laundering/NK Economics/WMD
September 3, 2006

Breaking the Blockade

[Update: Andrei Lankov has a must-read piece on radio broadcasting in the Asia Times Online.] Where there is demand, there will be a supply, and the trickle of alternative information to North Korea, though small, shows signs of persistence and of having a receptive market. In addition to Radio Free NK and Open Radio for North Korea, there is now a Japan-based broadcaster, Shiokaze. The DailyNK interviews its director. Although their original focus is on sending messages to Japanese abductees,...

Categories Abductions/Activism/Appeasement/Censorship/Democracy/Japan & Korea/Reconstruction/Refugees/Resistance/Uncategorized
September 1, 2006

Can Anyone But the Darfurians Save Darfur?

Update: Welcome, Instapundit readers. One day, this belated Kofi Annan apology may become the U.N.’s de facto epitaph: Looking back now, we see the signs which then were not recognized. Now we know that what we did was not nearly enough — not enough to save Rwanda from itself, not enough to honour the ideals for which the United Nations exists. We will not deny that, in their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda. A...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
August 31, 2006

TKL Interview with Chuck Downs on the Alliance, Diplomacy, Nukes, and Why Kim Jong Il Tested Those Missiles

[Update 2: Thanks to the reader who pointed out that I had accidentally disabled the comments! That’s fixed now; please submit any questions or comments you have.] [Update: This post will “stick” at the top of the page for a couple of days; scroll down for new entries.] Chuck Downs is an author, independent consultant, and former Pentagon official who frequently appears on television news programs to discuss North Korea policy. He has held a number of important positions in...

Categories An Alliance?/China & Korea/Geopolitics/Japan & Korea/Kim Jong Il/Korean Politics/Kremlinology/NK Military/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views/WMD
August 26, 2006

Lefkowitz: N.Korean Refugees Welcome in America

Updates: This chatroom for English-speaking expats in Thailand has pictures of the refugees and pages of outraged, sympathic comments. One of them points to this BBC story. The Thai government’s reaction is to increase patrols on the Mekong to keep the refugees out. Look at this baby’s face. Then try to comprehend what will happen to her if she is sent back to North Korea. . . ====== (original post follows) ====== With somewhere around 175 North Korean refugees in...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
August 23, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 5

Stuart Levey’s visit to Asia last month is paying off. Yet another nation is cutting off Kim Jong Il’s finances. Vietnamese banks have already closed down North Korean accounts over the past few weeks, most likely forcing Pyongyang to move its money to its last remaining haven, Russia, said Peter Beck, head of the International Crisis Group’s Seoul office, on Tuesday. Beck said Nigel Cowie, general manager of North Korea’s Daedong Credit Bank in Pyongyang, e-mailed him last week and...

Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Drugs & N Korea/NK Economics
August 23, 2006

An Open Letter to Ambassador Lee Tae-Shik on the 169 Refugees Held in Thailand

[Update: Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon is promising to take “appropriate measures,” which is encouraging in a vague sort of way. Foreign diplomats also sound optimistic. I infer that this was an underground railroad operation, and get the distinct idea that it was betrayed from within, as I also suspect in the case of a previous operation in Laos. Note also that various reports count as many as 179 refugees, most of them women and kids. Separately, Yonhap reports a...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Refugees
August 21, 2006

Ministry of Perfect Timing

Seoul Condoles [?] N.Korea on Death of Spymaster— Chosun Ilbo, August 21, 2006 Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok on Monday expressed his condolences to his North Korean counterpart Kwon Ho-ung on the death of Rim Dong-ok, the vice chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland[….] The North Korea committee happens to have another job in planning anti-South Korean operations like dispatching spies, in cooperation with the 35th office of the Workers’ Party. Chameleon N.Korean Spy Nabbed in...

Categories Appeasement/The Fifth Column/WTF?
August 21, 2006

Kaesong Update

[Correction: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. A reader (thanks!) notes that Ms. Schwab is the U.S. Trade Representative. As it happens, the USTR has been independent from the State Department since 1962! My apologies to the State Department for the unintended defamation.] This may be the most unequivocal thing I’ve ever heard anyone in our State Department say, ever. And it pertains to including (North Korean) Kaesong products in a possible FTA with South...

Categories Appeasement/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views