Category: Miscellaneous

Today, the signs from South Korea shifted from ominous to jumpy: South Korean marines fired rifles at a civilian jetliner as it was descending to land after mistaking it for a North Korean military aircraft, the airline said Saturday. The Asiana Airlines flight carrying 119 people from the Chinese city of Chengdu was undamaged in the incident around dawn Friday, the airline said. No one on board was hurt or aware of the shooting, and the South Korean Marine Corps...

More from Bradley Martin — a few months old, but worth reading: Appeasement doesn’t work with North Korea. In the short-term it may yield diplomatic agreements, but in the longterm it only makes the country’s political and military leaders increasingly arrogant, determined to be even more provocative so that they can extort still-larger concessions from their adversaries abroad and portray themselves at home as giant-killers. The above statement, in rough outline, would now draw agreement from the majority of serious...

One of us: It has become almost impossible to imagine a positive outcome to the long-festering problems that center on North Korea as long as the Kim dynasty reigns, enforcing the disastrously failed policies of the late “Great Leader,” President Kim Il Sung. [….] So why not just come out and say it? Not only would perennially hungry North Korea benefit from the removal of the founder’s son and heir Kim Jong Il, the “Dear Leader. But so would most...

Here’s more information about China’s growing impatience and frustration with North Korea: They seem to be expressing their frustration with high-profile photo ops and by pouring more cash into the 288-square-mile Rason zone, which is completely surrounded by a fence that may or may not be electrified (but then, pretty much all of North Korea may or may not be electrified). Unlike South Korea, expect China to hold onto whatever real estate it buys from North Korea’s failing regime. KCNA...

Did you really have to say that? According to a transcript released by the US defense department on Sunday, Gates, speaking at the annual Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore Saturday. said that Washington has no interest in carrying out regime change against Pyeongyang. Rather, the defense secretary stated that the US is interestsed (sic) in helping that regime become a normal state abiding by the norms of the international community. This is disappointing because I actually admire Gates very much; I’d...

That would be Jimmy Carter, who having recently snubbed by Kim Jong Il and Lee Myung Bak, gets no respect from Hillary Clinton. _____________________________________ So, the North Koreans are unhappy with Fox News for reporting that North Korea is growing more dope than ever, and we get to witness a case study of how North Korea strong-arms foreign journalists (I use the term loosely). Personally, I’m a little hesitant to endorse the conclusion that North Korea is increasing the production...

While we don’t know any of the details, and so  my resigned sigh might turn out to have been unfair,  I cannot say  it  surprised  me this morning to learn  that there are still American citizens capable of getting themselves arrested in and around North Korea despite this, this and this, not to mention this, and it will surprise  me even less  should I  find that the North Koreans use it  as a way to try and undercut the ongoing...

I would have enjoyed writing about how Jimmy Carter is highly unlikely to help anyone by going to North Korea, how he will be used by the Kim Jong-il regime for its own propaganda purposes, about how, since he has little to no chance of extracting a message of remorse from the North for the killing of innocent civilians on Yeonpyeong Island, he is only likely to burnish his own reputation as a man of peace but without any tangible...

Update:   Information in English on the exhibition, “Where Love Does Not Exist.” _________________________________ Not sure if Joshua’s trademarked the term “Anju Links,” but seeing as this is his site, maybe he’ll let me indulge in using that wonderful term here.  I’ve been very busy, but wanted to pass on a couple things. Those of you in Seoul who missed the recent exhibition in Insa-dong on NK political prison camps can catch the redux through March 14th in Samcheong-dong.  The...

Melanie Kirkpatrick, writing with Jack David in the Wall Street Journal, quotes senior North Korean defector Kim Duk-hong on Kim Jong Il’s nuclear policy: In the early 1990s, Mr. Kim told us, Kim Il Sung posed a question at a meeting of the military committee of the Workers Party. Kim Il Sung’s question, and Kim Jong Il’s reply, were disclosed in a memorandum that was distributed to every member of the Central Committee, including Kim Duk-hong. Colleagues who were present...

I suppose I get why some South Korean politicians are asking the United States to moves nukes back into South Korea, but is such a decision really worth all of the diplomatic and cosmetic complications it would bring? Don’t we already have the ability to fire nuclear-tipped cruise missiles from ships and submarines off North Korea’s coasts, or from Guam based aircraft anyway? In that light, how much deterrence to we really gain by putting nukes in South Korea? The...

Hmmm: South Korea’s military has been dropping leaflets into North Korea about democracy protests in Egypt and also sent food, medicines and radios for residents as part of a psychological campaign, a legislator said on Friday. The campaign was aimed at encouraging North Koreans to think about change, conservative South Korean parliament member Song Young-sun said. The food and medicines were delivered in light-weight baskets tied to balloons with timers programmed to release the items above the target areas in...