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November 8, 2006

Rumsfeld Resigns

[Update: More on Robert Gates here, and some clues to how he thinks here and .] It was probably inevitable, and if it might have been the only way to preserve any kind of bipartisan consensus on Iraq. I agree with Robert’s analysis, as it concerns Korea policy. Rumsfeld has managed the downsizing of the alliance creditably, confronting, rather than denying, the effect of the political trends there. Much of what Rumsfeld did right in Korea is owed to the...

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Washington Views
November 6, 2006

A (Blue) House Divided Against Itself

Kim Jong Il can count dividing the U.S.-Korea alliance as one of his recent successes, but in the process, he’s also divided his friends in South Korea. The left finds itself split among accomodators, appeasers, and outright agents, and those factions are going into an election year at war with each other. One of the most divisive of the internecine struggles is Seoul’s to-join-or-not-to-join agony over the Proliferation Security Initiative. Today, Yonhap has a long story on the subject. President...

Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/WMD
November 6, 2006

New Human Rights Chair: ‘I Can No Longer Remain Silent’ on N. Korean Abuses

Bloggers are moths to the flame of irony, and South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission has  been  a reliable beacon for  K-bloggers in need of prime material.  For at least the last two years, we’ve  cringed and laughed our way through its pickayune inquiries into adolescent  hairstyles and dairies while 23 million other Korean citizens’ mass starvation, suffocating oppression, and mass enslavement went pretty much unmentioned.  The HRC is nominally independent of the elected goverment, but pretty clearly, politics was...

Categories Human Rights/Korean Law/Korean Politics
November 6, 2006

Hereinafter, Democratic Peoples’ Labor Party

What’s a little spy scandal to kill the spirit of Mangyondae? The Democratic Labor Party’s delegation, led by its chairman Moon Sung-hyun, arrived at Pyongyang on Tuesday.  That day, the South Koreans visited Mangyongdae, the birthplace of Kim Il Sung. However, the Democratic Labor Party made no mention of the stop when it briefed journalists the next day about the delegates’ activities. Illustrating why it’s hard to be North Korea’s friend, the North Koreans thanked their guests by  replaying the...

Categories Korean Law/Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
November 4, 2006

North Korean Spy’s Wife Was the Secretary to a U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel

No information on which Lieutenant Colonel, or which unit (link in Korean).  Her side of the story is that she just kept his appointments, that he wasn’t in a sensitive position, and she couldn’t have stolen any secrets had she wanted to.   Hey, the wives of North Korean spies can have day jobs, can’t they?  If the South Koreans do what I increasingly think they  will try  to do —  a whitewash  —  then we will have a case of...

Categories An Alliance?/The Fifth Column/U.S. Military
November 3, 2006

Wobble Watch: Condi Rice Talks Tough, the Pentagon Talks Scary Tough

The Administration is trying to sound tough with the North Koreans, but I’m inherently distrustful of tough talk that comes the week before an election: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday the United States wanted “concrete action” when six-party talks resume on North Korea’s nuclear program. Rice said the starting point for the talks, which North Korea has boycotted since last November in protest at U.S. financial restrictions, would be to seek implementation of an agreement signed with...

Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Washington Views/WMD
November 3, 2006

Someone Please Staple Kim Geun-Tae’s Lips Together

This is an act that damages our national pride and is not appropriate for the South Korea-U.S. alliance.” — Kim Geun Tae, head of S. Korea’s ruling party and North Korea’s favorite dancing piggy, on hearing that the United States actually intends to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718. When I worried aloud that the United States would ease sanctions on North Korea during the pendency of the next round of endless, pointless six-party extortion denuclearization talks, I based my...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Unintended Humor/WMD/WTF?
November 2, 2006

The Song Min-Soon Dossier (The Death of an Alliance, Part 59)

We all know that Song Min-Soon is going to be South Korea’s next Minister of Foreign Affairs and trade, but if you think that a man who talks this kind of trash  about his friends couldn’t possibly be a career diplomat, think again. [ ]Mr Song, 58, is a 30-year career diplomat who served as ambassador to Poland while Christopher Hill was US ambassador there. The two then became their respective countries’ chief negotiators in the six-party talks on North...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Korean Politics
November 2, 2006

Next UniFiction Minister Was Convicted in 2002 Bribery Scheme; Still Under Suspended Prison Sentence Later Pardoned by Roh

Update:   According to this, Roh pardoned  Lee last year —  which, of course, changes everything except the appeanance of cronyism, whitewashing, back-scratching, and corruption. Funny, I don’t recall anyone mentioning that Lee Jae-Joung is a con. Lee taught at the Sung Kong Hoe University in Seoul and served as the university president from 1994 to 2000 when he joined the then-ruling Millennium Democratic Party to become a member of the 16th National Assembly. He helped found the governing Uri...

Categories Appeasement/Korean Law/Korean Politics
November 1, 2006

Roh’s New Cabinet Appointments Eschew Experience for Ideology

The Blue House has announced the new appointments for the Foreign, Defense, and UniFiction ministries, plus the new head of the National Intelligence Service. With the exception of Defense — to be filled by the Army Chief of Staff — the appointees look like a bunch of political hacks. I’ll update as I find out more. This post is adapted and updated from previous posts, including the scorecard I presented the other day. UniFiction

Categories Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
October 31, 2006

DLP Head Returns Kim Jong Il’s Jacket; Dispute Between Ex-NIS Chief and Blue House Widens

I know I speak for everyone when I say just how thankful I am that the Democratic Labor Party’s head  defied the wishes of the National Intelligence Service and the Ministry of Justice (both overruled by the UniFiction Ministry) to go to Pyongyang while his party’s leadership is under investigation for spying for North Korea.   True to  the DLP’s  promise, the North Koreans have put the issue to rest.  They call it “false and a  scheme of the U.S. and...

Categories Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
October 30, 2006

As Roh Prepares to Name a New Cabinet, New Calls to Reboot Uri

After the local elections, I had blogged about the rift in the Uri Party about merging with other parties on the left.  In the wake of Uri’s beating in the last round of elections, it’s painfully obvious that the left is weak and fragmented and only stands a chance if it unites.  Note, for example, how Uri can’t win in South Jeolla province because other lef-wing parties win instead.  In that spirit, a former Justice Minister and Uri founder has...

Categories Diplomacy/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea
October 30, 2006

Ex-NIS Chief Hints of Political Pressure in Il Shim Hue Investigation

The Chosun Ilbo spoke with  Kim Seong-Kew, who  just resigned as Chief of the National Intelligence Service. Read this and see what you make of it: Asked who will succeed him, Kim told the Chosun Ilbo it was “very important” who becomes the next NIS chief. “Some of the candidates are unsuitable due to concerns that they tend to do what [politicians] want them to do. Considering the presidential election next year and the operations of the NIS, the right...

Categories Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
October 29, 2006

DLP Leaders to N. Korea: ‘Say It Aint So!’

[Previous posts on the Il Shim Hue Fifth Column scandal here.  So far, the NIS has accused the ring of controlling violent anti-American protests, trying to infiltrate civic groups, controlling  senior officials of the Democratic Labor Party, and trying to manipulate the Seoul mayoral election.] As bad timing goes, it’s one for the books.  The far-left minor opposition Democratic Labor Party’s leaders  had planned their visit to Pyongyang  some time  ago, before they realized that their party would be at...

Categories Appeasement/Korean Society/The Fifth Column
October 28, 2006

How North Korea Tried to Pick the Mayor of Seoul

[Previous posts on the Il Shim Hue  cell here, here, and here]   A new report, not yet available in English, claims that North Korea used the Fifth Columnists of the “Il Shim Hue” to help the ruling leftist Uri Party in local elections last May.  The report, based on leaks from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, claims that North Korea used Il Shim Hue (rough translation:  The One-Minded Hundred) to  direct the Democratic Labor Party throw its votes and...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/The Fifth Column/WMD
October 28, 2006

Suspected N. Korean Spies, Shielded by Ruling Party Parliamentarian, Played a Leading Role in Anti-U.S. Protests (The Death of an Alliance, Part 58)

[Update: Welcome Gateway Pundit readers; this story is developing rapidly, and now, there’s new evidence that the North Koreans tried to help the ruling leftist Uri Party win the Seoul mayor’s race last May. Plus, more evidence of a North Korean hand in fanning anti-Americanism in the South.] A widening spy scandal surrounding several senior members of the leftist Democratic Labor Party and a U.S. citizen may have led to the resignation of the head of the National Intelligence Service...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
October 27, 2006

S. Korean Spymaster Resigns; Fifth Column Scandal Widens

Here, as foreshadowed in Update 6 to this post.   Like Lee, NIS  Chief Kim Seung-Kyu  must be  resigning to celebrate the success of his tenure. Following Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, who expressed his wish to quit in mid-November to prepare for his new job as the U.N. secretary-general, Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung and Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok offered to resign earlier this week, holding themselves responsible for “confused” policies on the North Korean nuclear crisis and the Seoul-Washington military alliance....

Categories Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
October 26, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 57: Time to End the Screen Quota

I’m about to go all screedy  about this, but I  can be  brief, because  Robert Koehler has pretty much said everything I’d have said anyway.   I generally write  “DOA” posts after an action by  either  government documents some new low in bilateral relations.  The government isn’t responsible for the content of what Korea’s notoriously militant film industry makes, but it wasn’t responsible for the content of “Yoduk Story,” either.   So on one hand,  fictionalized movies about  No Gun Ri  or formaldehyde...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Society/NK Economics