April 13, 2009

“United Nations,” “International Community,” and other oxymorons

“This provocation underscores the need for action–not just this afternoon at the U.N. Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons,” Mr. Obama said. “Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something. [Barack Obama, April 6, 2009] It will soon be official: the rules are not binding, violations will not be punished, and our words mean nothing. It seems incredible that any American statesman still needs one more object lesson in...

Categories "United" Nations/Diplomacy/Missiles
April 11, 2009

China’s Fingerprints Are All Over North Korea’s Missiles

Not long before the United Nations went limp in the face of North Korea’s missile launch, our own high priest of Smart Diplomacy called on our friends the ChiComs to do their part to restore the rule of law we know them to treasure as we do: “China could do a great deal more,” [Vice President Joe] Biden said, without elaborating. [AFP] On the contrary, according to this report, it appears that China has done quite enough: The rocket launched...

Categories China/China & Korea/Missiles/Proliferation
April 10, 2009

Don Kirk: We Can’t Trust North Korea

Long-time Korea and Asia correspondent Don Kirk, who broke the story that Kim Dae Jung used illegal payments to buy the summit that won him the Nobel Prize, comments on the self-evident pointlessness of negotiating with North Korea: North Korea’s latest missile test raises a critical question. Why should anyone consider giving aid to this regime that has already squandered hundreds of billions of dollars on firing off missiles and producing nuclear warheads? Here’s an impoverished country, the single biggest...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
April 10, 2009

Roh Moo Hyun Apologizes for Taking Money in Bribery Scandal

There is now a silver lining to the growing bribery scandal that threatens to tarnish OFK favorite Park Jin. It has also brought some richly deserved shame to leftist former president Roh Moo Hyun, a man who often seemed more like North Korea’s paymaster in Seoul than the leader of South Korea. How much shame, you ask? They’re putting a two-story-high screen around his house. Much of the money was allegedly paid to Roh’s family and relatives, including his wife...

Categories Korean Politics
April 10, 2009

Video: Kim Jong Il Greets the Rubber Stamps; Taepodong Launch

In the video, His Porcine Shriveled Majesty is noticeably gaunt as he shuffles stiffly onto the floor of the Supreme Peoples’ Assembly. He’s aged ten years in the last year. The video also appears to show North Korea’s most recent missile test, which is interesting, but not as interesting as the system of hillside pipes shown at 1:38. Google Earthers will recognize them instantly; contraptions like these are a common sight along North Korea’s east coast, but I’ve never figured...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Missiles
April 9, 2009

Understatement of the Year: “Mr. Kim Ran Unopposed”

Citizens of North Korea, change has not come! The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, had himself re-elected to another five-year term by Parliament on Thursday as questions persisted over his failing health and his regime’s confrontation with the outside world after its recent rocket launch. The Supreme People’s Assembly “upheld” Mr. Kim as chairman of the country’s most powerful agency, the National Defense Commission, said the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Mr. Kim ran unopposed. [N.Y. Times, Choe Sang Hun]...

Categories Kim Jong Il
April 9, 2009

Despite “Sports Diplomacy,” Assholes Still Firmly in Control in North Korea

Here’s another brick that can be pried out of the wall of Unifiction idiocy. Shallow thinkers across South Korea once told us that sports diplomacy would be another one of those gentle, warming rays that would eventually give us a kinder, gentler North Korea. Proponents of that theory were willing to overlook some early setbacks from the 2002 Universiade Games at Taegu, when North Korean “journalists” attacked peaceful human rights protestors, and when North Korean cheerleaders became hysterical at the...

Categories WTF?
April 8, 2009

It’s Official: North Korea Rules the World!

“If the Security Council, they take any kind of steps whatever, we’ll consider this is (an) encroachment on our sovereignty and the next option will be ours,” Deputy Ambassador Pak Tok Hun told reporters. “Necessary and strong steps will … follow that.” [Reuters, Louis Charbonneau] Thy will be done! Efforts to reach an agreement on sanctions at the Security Council look firmly deadlocked, with Russia and China insisting that North Korea did not violate the resolutions that their ambassadors obviously...

Categories "United" Nations
April 8, 2009

More Nork Missile Stuff

A DUMMY SATELLITE? That’s what some South Korean scientists speculate about the payload of last weekend’s missile. Not being a rocket scientist myself, I wasn’t personally overwhelmed by the scientists’ basis for that conclusion, but I’d think that if the whole thing went down in the Pacific, it should be possible for us to recover the thing and resolve the issue conclusively. I wonder what the psychological impact would be if photographs of the recovered payload make their way into...

Categories Anju Links/Missiles
April 8, 2009

PBS Wide Angle: “Field Trip to the DMZ”

Yesterday, I received the following e-mail from WNET-13 in New York about a documentary about North Korean refugees that will air this summer. The message I received describes it as well as I could: I’m writing from Wide Angle, the Emmy award-winning international current affairs documentary series on PBS. We recently launched a web-exclusive documentary shorts series called FOCAL POINT and I thought you might be interested in linking to the latest episode, “Field Trip to the DMZ. As North...

Categories Refugees
April 7, 2009

Tearful Kim Jong Il Apologizes to Starving Subjects for Blowing Their Kids’ Lunch Money on Missiles

I did not make this up, and I have the link to prove it: North Korea’s state-run media reported Tuesday that Kim Jong-Il shed tears of regret during the country’s controversial rocket launch because he could not use the launch funds to provide aid to his people, the AFP reported. [….] Kim “felt regret for not being able to spend more money on the people’s livelihoods and was choked with sobs,” AFP quoted ruling communist party paper Rodong Sinmun as...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il/Missiles
April 7, 2009

Eberstadt: Kim Jong Il Has Looked Better (Update: See for Yourself)

Never mind missiles or the U.N., says Nick Eberstadt. The real North Korea story is still Kim Jong Il’s health: In the most recent official footage, undated but released late last month, North Korea’s leader looks like one of the beneficiaries of an extended stay in the Yodok political prison camp. In an alleged outing to a swimming pool at Kim Il Sung University, his signature belly is gone. Indeed, to judge by the picture, this sepulchral figure can barely...

Categories Kim Jong Il
April 7, 2009

The OFK Plan Hits Mass Circulation

Recently, I wrote a post offering effusive praise for a piece by Chris Badeaux in The New Ledger, a publication I hadn’t yet heard of, but which features such first-class talent as Badeaux, Ben Domenech, and Pejman Yousefzadeh. After a series of friendly e-mails, I’ve published a ten-point plan for dealing with North Korea’s WMD threat there, and I’m told that it will be published in Real Clear World tomorrow. Hopefully, this will answer some of the false laments that...

Categories Missiles/NK Economics
April 7, 2009

Suddenly, Everyone Has an Opinion About North Korea

HILLARY CLINTON IS STRUGGLING at the U.N., as she pleads with China and Russia to agree on a resolution that John Bolton predicts will mean nothing in practice: The initial draft Security Council resolution responding to yesterday’s missile launch, written by Japan and the U.S., is weak. It essentially only reaffirms Resolutions 1695 and 1718, and minimally tightens existing enforcement mechanisms. Moreover, China and Russia made it plain before the launch they had no interest in stricter sanctions — even...

Categories Anju Links/Missiles
April 5, 2009

What President Obama Should (But Won’t) Do About North Korea’s Missile Test

[Update: The nations are not united. The U.N. Security Council fails to agree on the text of a very angry letter. You don’t say.] [Afterthought: So can we conclude that the Obama Administration views even “soft power” as excessive force?] Our Words Mean Nothing Even for North Korea, today’s missile test was an especially flagrant, telegraphed, and premeditated provocation. Whether the missile carried a satellite or not, to launch it was a clear violation of two U.N. resolutions. That the...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Missiles