Search Results for “Obama not ready”

August 9, 2009

Whoa. That’s just cold.

I’d have to say that this is the nastiest thing I’ve read yet about Laura Ling and Euna Lee. And that said, it contains much interesting information that may or may not be at all true. This, for example: Kim Jong Il has ruled it with absolute authority since 1994. He was born in the Forties, but his exact birthday is asecret. He wears platform shoes and a teased hairdo and is reputed to have had a string of lovers,...

Ling/Lee Incident/U.S. Politics

August 7, 2009

In What Sense Is John Choe Morally Distinguishable from a Neo-Nazi?

John Choe, personifying the appellation “useful idiot” as pictured here, won’t shift U.S. foreign policy if he’s elected to represent a district in Queens in the New York City Council. Technically, Choe is correct when he evades questions about his sympathies with North Korea’s regime and demurs, “I’m not running for secretary of state–I’m running to represent the 20th district in the City Council,”Â Choe said. That is true in the same sense that David Duke ran for governor of...

Activism/Human Rights/The Fifth Column/U.S. Politics

July 29, 2009

Being Irrational and Ill-Informed Still No Barrier to Getting a Global Audience

No one in the Obama Administration sounds terribly interested in North Korea’s offer of a bilateral dialogue about what concessions America is prepared to grant North Korea this year, but at the Christian Science Monitor, Professor Zhiqun Zhu of Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (you remember it from the matchbook covers, right?) calls North Korea’s statement “a rare opportunity” and writes one of the most scary-stupid things I’ve read all year: Frankly, it is unrealistic for the US to ask...

Fiskings

July 27, 2009

Yachting the River Styx and the Lies of Christine Ahn

Several of you e-mailed me about the story of the luxury yachts that North Korea had attempted to purchase from the Italian manufacturer Azimuth-Benetti. I started a post and didn’t finish it, partially because that post became something long-winded, disjointed, and unpublishable. Meanwhile, a few more details have trickled in about the boats and the purchase. Contrary to doubts expressed in earlier reports, Italian authorities have concluded that the boats were indeed for His Withering Majesty, although you have to...

"United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/Sanctions

July 24, 2009

Why My Diplomacy Is Smarter Than Your Diplomacy

You remember what diplomacy was like in the days before it was smart, right? When diplomats let slip undiplomatic truths about Kim Jong Il being a “tyrannical dictator” who subjected his people to a “hellish nightmare?” When Presidents “loathed” their adversaries instead of sitting down and sharing a bong with them? Thank goodness change has come! It says a lot about the North Koreans that they can’t just rise above this and hold the high ground. So does this mean...

Appeasement/Diplomacy

July 22, 2009

John Kerry Tries, Fails to Stop Amendment Calling for N. Korea to be Re-Listed as Terror Sponsor (Update: Dems Defeat Amendment, 54-43)

Progress on ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is always tenuous and remains incomplete. But the regime’s nuclear declaration is the latest reminder that, despite President Bush’s once bellicose rhetoric, engaging our enemies can pay dividends…. Now the president must not prematurely close the books on North Korea’s alleged uranium enrichment activities and nuclear exports. We must ensure there are credible verification and monitoring procedures to ensure North Korea is out of the nuclear business for the long term. —...

Appeasement/Ling/Lee Incident/Sanctions/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics

July 1, 2009

ROK Defense Minister: N. Korea Steps Up Uranium Enrichment

I can only thank God for Chris Hill, whose Jedi mind tricks completely, verifiably, and irreversibly disarmed these people in the nick of time … not: North Korea appears to be enriching uranium, potentially giving the state that has twice tested a plutonium-based nuclear device another path to making atomic weapons, South Korea’s defense minister said on Tuesday. “It is clear that they are moving forward with it,” Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee told a parliamentary hearing, adding such a programme...

Proliferation/WMD

July 1, 2009

Why Re-Designate North Korea as a State Sponsor of Terrorism?

I make my best case here, at the New Ledger: Almost a year to the day after Bush’s announcement, North Korea threatened to “wipe out the aggressors” — meaning America — “on the globe once and for all,” and to unleash a “fire shower of nuclear retaliation” on South Korea. The nation most recently stricken from the list of state sponsors of terrorism is also the world’s most accomplished at using its official state media as an instrument of terrorism. ...

Terrorism (NK)

June 30, 2009

Plan B Watch

A year ago, who would have suspected that we’d be celebrating the replacement of a liberal accommodationist named George W. Bush with a hard line neocon named Barack Obama, who would finally show signs of grasping not just the reality of North Korea’s bad faith, but some of the very best tools for breaking it? Christine Ahn’s misery (and Selig Harrison’s, and Leon Sigal’s) is my pleasure: The Treasury Department’s 2005 blacklisting of Macau’s Banco Delta Asia, which held a...

Money Laundering/Sanctions/Washington Views

June 17, 2009

Iranian Regime Lays the Groundwork for a Crackdown

In Tehran, the Revolutionary Guards and Basij are “disappearing” journalists and prominent reformers — probably starting at the bottom and working their way up. Like Ramin Ahmadi, I see this as a prelude to a violent crackdown. What can we do about this? I had given serious consideration to President Obama’s first position, which was that by supporting the opposition, we’d be playing into Ahmedinejad’s hands. Then I read this piece by Dan Senor and Christian Whiton (former Special Assistant...

Iran

June 17, 2009

KCNA: Ling and Lee Filmed Themselves Entering North Korea (Updated, Bumped)

[Original post, 16 Jun 09] I’ll certainly reserve judgment until we see the videotape and until Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee can freely authenticate it, but if that’s true, it would be, well, stupid, even if it were done with the purpose of informing us about an important issue: “We’ve just entered a North Korean courtyard without permission,” the Korean translation of their narration on the videotape said, according to KCNA. One of them picked up and pocketed a stone...

Ling/Lee Incident

June 12, 2009

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 (Updated with Analysis)

For better or for worse, they passed it. As with UNSCR 1695 and 1718 before it, this will be as effective as the implementation. Much has been said about how China undermined both of those resolutions, and that is true, but too little has been said about how much the U.S. State Department also did to undermine them for the sake of a failure called Agreed Framework II. The good news is that this time, there are some early and...

"United" Nations/Sanctions

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...

Abductions/Terrorism (NK)

May 28, 2009

Selected North Korea Commentary

The most depressing thing about North Korea’s April missile test wasn’t the test itself; it was the vacuousness of most of the reactions to it. Many of the writers seemed poorly read on the facts, and conservatives and liberals had both stretched their credibility to defend the Bush and Clinton administrations, respectively, despite the general consistency of the policy through both administrations. Recent events prove that both policies failed. This time around, the commentary seems smarter and better informed. Part...

Proliferation/Washington Views/WMD

May 26, 2009

And Now, the Fallout

Kim Jong Il has followed yesterday’s nuke test by firing two more short-range missiles, as a rudderless world tries to decide how to respond. When you consider each of these developments, ask yourself whether Kim Jong Il could reasonably have anticipated that it would happen. So far, everything I see happening fits within the range of Kim Jong Il’s calculation of “acceptable consequences.” FOR ONE THING, KIM JONG IL IS PROBABLY BETTING that John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi don’t possess...

"United" Nations/Diplomacy/Proliferation/WMD

May 25, 2009

Nuclear Groundhog Day in North Korea

[Welcome to the readers coming in from the Wall Street Journal, Gateway Pundit, Ed Driscoll, Patterico, and Little Green Footballs, and thanks to the authors of those sites for linking.] Well, all I can say is, thank God Christopher Hill’s ingenious diplomacy disarmed North Korea in time: “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way as...

Proliferation/WMD

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...

Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)

May 10, 2009

N.Y. Times: It’s Safe to Ignore North Korea Again!

It’s odd, though, how my mind can’t let go of what’s gone down the New York Times memory hole — alarmist warnings about North Korean nukes, peddled with the meme that George W. Bush transformed a contained North Korea into a grave national security threat. I still remember Nick Kristof warning us of a nuclear 9/11 if the Bush Administration failed to appease North Korea with aid, in the same way that worked so brilliantly for Roh Moo Hyun. ...

Media Criticism/Proliferation/WMD

Search Results for: Obama not ready