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Category: WMD

July 21, 2006

‘Truly Evil’

Not starving millions of your own people to build missiles for attacking cities in other nations, but the idea that one of those nations might try to protect its citizens from them. There’s only one way I can make that statement remotely comprehensible — by recalling that Roh won’t protect his own citizens. Just as a reminder, we have 30,000 troops in Roh’s country, with a resulting defense cost savings of $60 billion a year. I wonder how much of...

Categories Appeasement/Japan/Japan & Korea/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 21, 2006

Axis, Schmaxis, Part 3

There is a theory in this city that a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim terrorist group would not dream of establishing an operational relationship with a secular Sunni Muslim terror-supporting tyrant or a fundamentalist Shiite Muslim terror-supporting tyrant. Believers in that theory are going to have real trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that the latter fundamentalist Shiite Muslim terror-supporting tryant’s minions joined a group of pork-eating, soju-swilling aetheist idolator infidels for a night of fireworks on the Fourth of July....

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Terrorism (NK)/Uncategorized/WMD
July 19, 2006

Text of U.N. Security Council Resolution, Statements by Ambassadors

Being a practiced skeptic of South Korean UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok, I had to fact-check his narrow interpretation of U.N.S.C. 1695, that it “does not prescribe economic sanctions” and “should not adversely affect the on-going inter-Korean reconciliation projects, such as the Kaesong Industrial Park and tours to the North’s Mt. Kumgang.” Here, in relevant part, is what 1695 says: Requires all Member States, in accordance with their national legal authorities and legislation and consistent with international law, to exercise vigilance...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/NK Economics/WMD
July 18, 2006

A Wedge Between China and North Korea?

Update 7/21: Senator John Voinovich, who cried when he previously announced that he couldn’t support John Bolton’s confirmation, now says he would. More. North Korea’s decision to test those missiles is looking more like a miscalculation today than it did two weeks ago. South Korea has halted the delivery of aid (for now), Japan is preparing for a new round of sanctions, the United States may do the same, and the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that John...

Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Kremlinology/NK Economics/WMD
July 17, 2006

The Death of an Aliance, Part 43: Kim Won-Ung, Nutcase

The problem with identifying the most unhinged politician in South Korea’s ruling Uri party is a lot like trying to identify France’s most offensive armpit: at a certain point, extremity renders empirical comparison pointless. Still, I’m not sure anyone in the Uri party has built a more solid record than ex-GNP’er Kim Won-Ung, the only South Korean parliamentarian to have earned two of his very own “DOA” posts. His latest oral discharge is a ferocious denial that North Korea’s short-range...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD/WTF?
July 17, 2006

Japan Considers New Sanctions on N. Korea

These would be severe: Tokyo may ban cash remittances and freeze assets held by North Korea in Japan, according to local media. A ban on bilateral trade is also under consideration. Japan is in a foul mood over North Korea’s threats, and it appears dissatisfied with the limited sanctions imposed by the U.N. Japan has recently coordinated its actions closely with the United States, which causes one to wonder what additional measures the U.S. will impose, and whether it will...

Categories Japan/Japan & Korea/NK Economics/WMD
July 12, 2006

For the Bush Administration, the Moment of Truth

We learn today that China intends to veto a resolution that would impose binding sanctions on North Korea’s missile trade. Got that? No binding sanctions on a starving nation’s trade in … missile components. China and Russia introduced a resolution Wednesday deploring North Korea’s missile tests but dropping language from a rival proposal that could have led to military action against Pyongyang. Excuse me? Who said anything about “military action?” Unless they mean intercepting their nukes, missiles, and dope on...

Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/China/China & Korea/Russia/Russia & Korea/WMD
July 12, 2006

An Offer They Can’t Refuse

A few days ago, I offered a possible explanation for why North Korea launched seven missiles, despite the likely result that it would ultimately bring down an adverse response from the U.S., Japan, and other nations. According to my “Barrel of a Gun” Theory ©, North Korea launched those missiles to save face, to disguise an impending supplication as extortion for its domestic audience. And sure enough, North Korea is now demanding “protection” aid: North Korea’s Senior Cabinet Counselor Kwon...

Categories Appeasement/North Korea/Unintended Humor/WMD/WTF?
July 11, 2006

Don Kirk on North Korea’s Divide-and-Rule Coup; Plus, Why the T-Dong 2 Failed

Read it yourself, but I’ll tempt you with his strong close: These differences alone reveal the gulf between South Korea and the US. The North Korean missile shots have landed on target, widening the rift, deepening the discord, resurrecting the specter of the ancient Japanese foe. There may be ways to postpone a widening crisis, but no foreseeable way out.

Categories An Alliance?/Technology/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 10, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 42

China’s newest satellite won’t back sanctions against North Korea, after the North lobbed seven missiles into the Sea of Japan. The United States is actively supporting a Japanese-drafted sanctions resolution at the U.N. China is opposing it. The lines have been drawn, sides have been chosen. Seoul really didn’t even need to take part in this “camp diplomacy,” but it has. It’s yet another reason to ask: why do we provide the defense for a nation that’s neutral at best,...

Categories An Alliance?/China & Korea/U.S. & Korea/WMD
July 7, 2006

I May Have Figured This Out…

Why North Korea willfully pissed off the whole world by launching a rocket, that is. It’s a wrinkle on the “domestic consumption” theory: The regime is in desperate shape and is about to make some kind of face-losing concession, such as asking for food aid or agreeing to give up some weapon or activity. Kim Jong Il needed a garish display of belligerence to save face — to tell his people that any aid is really an extortion payment, or...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Kremlinology/WMD
July 7, 2006

On ‘Strategic Disengagement’

I don’t really know, of course, but what a discussion Richardson has started with one of this blog’s best-written and researched posts (pursued by James, with characteristic excellence, here). The topic: why North Korea would do something so counterproductive to its extortionate, mendacious, highly successful diplomacy as this ballistic tantrum. Richardson believes the main motive to be an intent to isolate itself from the world. He calls this Strategic Disengagement. I disagree with Richardson’s ultimate conclusion, that Kim Jong Il...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology/WMD
July 7, 2006

Life Imitates ‘Team America,’ Part 2

Yesterday, I noted how the reality of the United Nations had upstaged the intentional farce of “Team America: World Police,” a movie that proved too prescient for its shelf life. Today, President Bush counsels patience as Russia and China do their “Hans Brix” impression and Republicans in Congress express their frustration. “We do know there’s a lot of concentration camps. We do know the people are starving,” [Bush] said. “But what we don’t know is his intentions. And so I...

Categories "United" Nations/Diplomacy/WMD
July 6, 2006

T-Dong Aimed at Hawaii?

No link yet, but it’s all over American radio and TV media now. This is the repored conclusion of U.S. military experts, who concluded it based on the missile’s short trajectory. This apparently comes from the Sankei Shimbun, so exercise healthy skepticism. The real good news here: there is much, much more media interest in the general depravity of the regime in North Korea. We’ll end up with better policy if all of this publicity drives it out of the...

Categories WMD