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Category: Terrorism (NK)

May 29, 2009

Lisa Ling to Go Public, Demand the Release of Her Sister

This just in from the Facebook page for Laura Ling and Euna Lee, the two U.S. journalists whom North Korea seized along its border with China back in March, shortly before its long-range missile test: Subject: Going public Hi everyone, it’s Lisa Ling. Firstly, our families are deeply grateful for your support and efforts to try to secure the release of Laura and Euna. To say that this has been stressful would be to grossly understate how hard this has...

Categories Abductions/Terrorism (NK)
May 17, 2009

Victor Cha: Let’s Reward Terrorism!

If Victor Cha has ever persuaded me of anything, it’s  of the  paradox that some of the most  highly educated and  academically intelligent people  never learn.  Cha,  one of the  architects  of  the Bush Administration’s magnificently  unsuccessful opening to Kim Jong Il’s North Korea, draws on that disqualification to advise us who should bring Laura Ling and Euna Lee home, and how. Having participated in a mission to bring home the remains of American servicemen killed in the Korean War,...

Categories Abductions/Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)
May 14, 2009

North Korea Sets a Trial Date for Laura Ling and Euna Lee; NK Won’t Talk to Us

Why now?  All I can do is guess, but it’s probably a combination of diplomatic convenience and the likelihood that they finally gave their interrogators what they wanted. In announcing the trial date, the North’s state-run news agency, KCNA, gave no further details, such as what charges they faced. But Pyongyang had earlier said that it found evidence of illegal entry and unspecified hostile acts. Under North Korea’s criminal code, a person convicted of hostile acts against the state can...

Categories Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)
March 30, 2009

One Man’s “Bargaining Chip” Is Another Man’s Hostage

Update: Uh oh: Two American journalists detained at North Korea’s border with China two weeks ago will be indicted and tried, “their suspected hostile acts” already confirmed, Pyongyang’s state-run news agency said Tuesday. The Korean Central News Agency report did not say when a trial might take place, but said preparations to indict the Americans were under way as the investigation continues. “The illegal entry of U.S. reporters into the DPRK and their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by...

Categories Media Criticism/Refugees/Terrorism (NK)
March 9, 2009

N. Korea: ‘Satellite’ Shootdown Will Mean War

We will retaliate (over) any act of intercepting our satellite for peaceful purposes with prompt counterstrikes by the most powerful military means,” the official Korean Central News Agency quoted a spokesman of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army as saying. If countries such as the United States, Japan or South Korea try to intercept the launch, the North Korean military will carry out “a just retaliatory strike operation not only against all the interceptor means involved but against...

Categories Terrorism (NK)/WMD
March 5, 2009

North Korea threatens to shoot down South Korean civilian airliners ‘near’ its airspace

Updated below. North Korea is threatening South Korean civilian planes flying near its airspace amid heightened tensions on the divided peninsula. The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland issued the threat Thursday, claiming upcoming joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises are preparations to invade the communist nation. The statement said the North could not “guarantee the safety of South Korean civilian planes passing near our airspace.” [AP, via IHT] Not just in their airspace, mind you, but near it...

Categories Terrorism (NK)
February 9, 2009

Extortion, Pure and Simple

Why do the North Koreans threaten other nations? The Washington Post’s Blaine Harden gets some surprisingly direct answers from them: Last year, the new South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, ended his predecessors’ “sunshine policy” toward the isolated North. For nearly a decade, that policy had soothed nerves on the Korean Peninsula by giving the truculent but poor government of Kim Jong Il large amounts of food, fertilizer and trade concessions, all without conditions and without asking questions about nuclear weapons,...

Categories NK Military/Terrorism (NK)
February 2, 2009

Hostile Policy Update: State Terrorism Meets Priceline Diplomacy

As used in this chapter – (1) the term “international terrorism” means activities that “¦ (B) appear to be intended – (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they...

Categories Appeasement/Terrorism (NK)
January 17, 2009

Hostile Policy: N. Korea Threatens ‘Confrontration’ Along Sea Boundary

It looks like Joe Biden was right about at least one thing: Military tension escalated sharply along the inter-Korean border on Saturday as North Korea vowed to take an “all-out confrontational posture” against South Korea, just hours after it said it would hold onto its nuclear arms. South Korea put its military on heightened alert, warning that armed clashes might take place in disputed waters in the Yellow Sea …. “Now that traitor (South Korean President) Lee Myung-bak and his...

Categories NK Military/ROK Military/Terrorism (NK)
October 30, 2008

N. Korea Marks Terror De-Listing By Threatening to Turn Seoul into ‘Debris.’

Never mind North Korea’s sponsorship of terrorism.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  any government that delivers messages like these should be listed as a specially designated terrorist group: “We clarify our stand that should the South Korean puppet authorities continue scattering leaflets and conducting a smear campaign with sheer fabrications, our army will take a resolute practical action as we have already warned,” the official KCNA news agency quoted the military spokesman as  saying. At a...

Categories Censorship/Democracy/Terrorism (NK)
August 3, 2008

State Dep’t: De-Listing N. Korea as a Terror Sponsor Depends on Verification

I take some comfort in the fact that while I can’t believe a damned thing they say, neither can the North Koreans: Nuclear-armed North Korea cannot be removed from a list of state sponsors of terrorism unless it agrees to a comprehensive protocol verifying its atomic program, US officials say. There appeared to be a perception that Pyongyang would be automatically de-listed on August 11 after President George W. Bush announced on June 26 that he had notified Congress of...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
June 3, 2008

N. Korea Threatens South Over Leaflets

North Korea warned Friday South Korea should immediately stop spreading anti-North propaganda leaflets in the communist state to prevent worsening inter-Korean ties from leading to “a catastrophic phase.”  The warning by the North’s delegation to the inter-Korean military working-level talks came in a message sent to the South Korean military. “If they do not want the present inter-Korean relations to lead to a catastrophic phase, they should take immediate steps to stop all forms of reckless scattering of leaflets at...

Categories Terrorism (NK)
May 29, 2008

Barack Obama’s First Broken Promise

I’ve finally obtained a  scan of the original letter in which Senator Barack  Obama and 19 other members of the Illinois congressional delegation promised not to support  de-listing North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism  absent a full  accounting  for the fate of  Reverend Kim Dong Shik.  Rev. Kim,  a U.S. lawful permanent resident, was  kidnapped by North Korean agents in China in 2000, while trying to help North Korean refugees fleeing starvation and oppression in their homeland.   The...

Categories Appeasement/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
May 26, 2008

Of Hollow Men: Obama Flip-Flops on Removing N. Korea from Terror-Sponsor List

In March of 2005, I blogged about this letter from the Illinois congressional delegation to the North Korean government, in which all members of the delegation warned Kim Jong Il that they would firmly oppose removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism unless North Korea accounts for the fate of the Reverend Kim Dong Shik, a lawful permanent resident of the United States who had resided in Illinois. In 2002, Rev. Kim was in northeast China...

Categories Japan/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
May 15, 2008

Today, In Some Parallel Universe

Addressing the Israeli Knesset today, President Bush apparently said some inflammatory things: “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this...

Categories Appeasement/Iran/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
May 14, 2008

N. Korea Human Rights Bill May Have Passed in House

[Update: I can’t confirm the final outcome, but I’m led to believe that the vote on these bills was put off at the last minute.] Someone supplied me (thanks) with this press release from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s office, dated yesterday: (WASHINGTON) ““ The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve two North Korea-related bills today coauthored by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), including an initiative to improve procedures for resettling refugees and funding programs to promote human rights. Separate...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
May 9, 2008

Leaked to OFK: Internal House Memo on N. Korea’s Support for Terrorism

Update: Link fixed, sorry. A reader and friend has provided me with an unclassified memo (thank you) summarizing a more detailed report by Larry Niksch of the Congressional Research Service (CRS).  The memo is addressed from Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to fellow House Republicans.  The memo reveals details that do not appear in this December 2007 CRS Report.  Although the links  to the Japanese Red Army are old news, there  is some alarming information...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
April 30, 2008

State Dep’t Releases Annual Terrorism Report

And North Korea clings to it by a hair: The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) was not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987. The DPRK continued to harbor four Japanese Red Army members who participated in a jet hijacking in 1970. The Japanese government continued to seek a full accounting of the fate of the 12 Japanese nationals believed to have been abducted by DPRK state entities; five...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)