Search Results for: Obama not ready

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)
January 15, 2009

John Bolton Abducts Hillary Clinton, Assumes Her Identity, Nears Easy Confirmation Wearing Drag and Mask

First George W. Bush became Jimmy Carter, now this, at “Hillary Clinton’s” confirmation hearing: “Our goal is to end the North Korean nuclear program – both the plutonium reprocessing program and the highly enriched uranium program, which there is reason to believe exists, although never quite verified,” she said. Her vision of North Korea policy was much stronger in her written statements provided to Senator Richard Lugar before the hearing. “The new Administration will pursue direct diplomacy bilaterally and within...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
December 17, 2008

Even the Metaphors Are Deadlocked!

In the summary of its December 15th press briefing following the collapse of the Not-Quite-Agreed Framework, the State Department admitted that the talks are at an impasse and declared that the “[b]all is in North Korea’s court.” Interestingly, the Chosun Ilbo, summarizing a Rodong Sinmun editorial calling on North Koreans to unite around “the strength of comradeship,” headlines with the opposite conclusion: “Ball Is in America’s Court, N.Korea Warns.” Here, I must register rare agreement with our State Department. Our...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
December 1, 2008

N. Korea Expels Half of the South Koreans from Kaesong.

North Korea has allowed 880 South Korean people to stay in the inter-Korean industrial complex in the border city of Kaesong, far less than expected by the South, South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman said Monday. North Korea verbally informed South Korea of its decision Sunday night, Kim Ho Nyoun told a press briefing. [Kyodo] You say that like it’s a bad thing. Updates: The better media reporting on this subject probes two questions: (a) how will this affect Kaesong and...

Categories Appeasement/NK Economics
December 1, 2008

Watch Your Back, Comrade

No, this is not a post about Hillary Clinton’s role in Barack Obama’s cabinet. I’ve read a lot of silly reporting about Kim Jong Il’s rumored stroke, but I’ve also seen and heard enough leaks from people who ought to be in the know that I’m actually starting to believe that he’s seriously debilitated. This latest one comes from former CIA officer Art Brown, and it makes it sound as though the power struggle to inherit all this is already...

Categories Diplomacy/Kremlinology/U.S. & Korea
November 25, 2008

Because if it’s counterintuitive and groundless, it must be true!

I think the headline of this New York Times story by Choe Sang Hun ought to give you the idea: “Latest Threats May Mean North Korea Wants to Talk” Right. North Korea is serially flicking all of switches on the Sunshine machine to the “off” position, snipping the hotlines, storming out of talks, typing up eviction notices for the fools and scoundrels who inhabit Kaesong, and shooting the occasional housewife. Yet “experts” are found to conclude that this means that...

Categories Appeasement/Uncategorized
November 14, 2008

And the lions shall lie down with the lambs, and there shall be good eatin’ for the lions.

I am not one who believes that Barack Obama is a closet Muslim or Trotskyite just waiting to fling open the republic’s gates to let the barbarians in, nor have I seen credible evidence that a significant percentage of the population ever really did. On the other hand, the significant percentage of the population wearing those creepy cultish idol-worshipping shirts will find the feet of clay in due course. I do believe that within the next several years — the...

Categories Geopolitics/U.S. Politics
October 24, 2008

I’ll Give You a Topic: The Verification Protocol is Neither. Discuss.

It’s hardly worth discussing anyway; after all, with North Korea, there’s little point in expecting what’s agreed today to stay agreed tomorrow. We’ve already abandoned the goal of disarmament, there is always another demand, it is always followed by another concession, and someone always wants us to think that this time, it’s really the last one. Still, the State Department justifies its de-listing of North Korea as a terror sponsor by claiming that it has reached a verification protocol with...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
October 19, 2008

What Removing North Korea from the Terror List Means

If tomorrow’s Big Announcement from North Korea isn’t that the Great Leader has gone to the Great Meat Locker, it may well be that the North, having met with  such stunning  success at blackmailing the United States,  will throw some new tantrum at South Korea.  I would not credit the North with diplomatic genius for its success at isolating and blackmailing its enemies one at a time.  The trick isn’t new.  It seems more fair to credit us for the...

Categories Appeasement/Asia/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
October 10, 2008

Rumor: Bush will de-list N. Korea as a terror sponsor today.

I heard the rumor yesterday afternoon, but now I see the AP is reporting it.  According to the Financial Times, the only thing holding up the announcement is notifying / strong-arming the Japanese, and perhaps the South Koreans.  You can see Condi and her mouthpiece not answer questions about this below the fold, if you’re interested. There’s nothing quite like giving right in to extortion.  Somewhere on the troposphere of Kim Jong Il’s clot-riddled, misshapen, hideously coiffed cranium, a drooly...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
October 8, 2008

Lee’s N. Korea Policy Will Be, as Lee Says, ‘Pragmatic.’

Suzanne Scholte has accepted the Seoul Peace Prize, offering this prescient comment in her speech: “When all the atrocities committed by North Korean dictators are exposed in the future, people will assess how adequately the Seoul government then responded,” said Scholte, referring to the current administration. “Consider the judgment of history.”  [Chosun Ilbo] I’m hoping to have a guest post from a reader who was there.  Warning:  this post will now enter a stream of consciousness. You can already see...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics
September 16, 2008

Joe Biden Is Blocking North Korea Human Rights Legislation, and You Can Help Un-Block It (Update: Biden’s Staff Denies, Predicts Bill Will Pass This Term)

[Update:   Not so, says Frank Jannuzi, who wrote in after I put up this post.  According to Jannuzi, Biden has never blocked this bill and has never opposed the two provisions mentioned in the post below.  As to the refugee provisions of H.R. 5834, Jannuzi says Biden supports them just as they are in the House version.  Jannuzi also says that not only does Biden support a full-time Special Envoy with ambassadorial rank, Biden offered the amendment to the...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. Politics
August 30, 2008

Suckers ….

THE FULL TEXT OF KCNA’S PENULTIMATE TANTRUM is at the link after this money quote: The U.S., however, raised all of a sudden an issue of applying an “international standard” to the verification of the nuclear declaration, abusing this agreed point. It pressurized the DPRK to accept such inspection as scouring any place of the DPRK as it pleases to collect samples and measure them. The “international standard” touted by the U.S. is nothing but “special inspection” which the IAEA...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
August 18, 2008

Dems’ N. Korea Platform Collapses Under the Weight of History and Logic

You’d think that with a cast of 300 foreign policy advisors on Obama’s team alone, the Democrats could find one who has some idea of who Roh Moo Hyun was, what he stood for, and what he would not stand against. The Democrats have rolled out their 2008 platform. Party platforms aren’t widely regarded for being repositories of substance. They’re better known dispensing crumbs to interest groups. When those interests conflict, they get resolved in the great unseen food chain...

Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics
August 14, 2008

North Korea’s Next Tantrum

A  shoe is about to drop, but  which shoe?  Among Washington’s Korea-watching klatsch, there’s a popular parlor game that goes like this: DOVE:  The North Koreans are proud, fanatical, and emotional.  You have to be careful not to antagonize them with idle talk about human rights and  intrusive verification or you’ll spoil the negotiations.  And we’re this close (thumb and index finger a milimeter apart) to a breakthrough. HAWK:  The North Koreans are calculating and react  with malice aforethought.  Their...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
August 2, 2008

Senate Confirms Kathleen Stephens as Ambassador to Korea

[Updates below and in the text.] A couple of days ago, while traveling on business, I was informed that Sen. Brownback would lift his hold on the nomination of Kathleen Stephens to become Ambassador to the Republic of Korea. She was confirmed in a voice vote later that day. This is the first time I’ve had a chance to post about it. The Senate confirmed a new American ambassador to South Korea on Friday, after a senator dropped his objections...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
July 28, 2008

Anju Links for 28 July 2008

WHAT’S MISSING HERE? “For the past seven years, we’ve spoken out against human rights abuses by tyrannical regimes like those in Iran, Sudan and Syria and Zimbabwe,” Bush said in a speech here titled “the Freedom Agenda Introduction.”  “We’ve spoken candidly about human rights with nations with whom we’ve got good relations, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia and China,” he said.  [Yonhap]   Of course, it’s not as if Bush did  much to materially advance freedom in any of...

Categories Anju Links
July 3, 2008

Anju Links for 3 July 2008

STARVING NORTH KOREAN WOMEN TURN TO PROSTITUTION:  “Around stations in big cities, you can see many pimps affiliated to inns . . . .  They approach pedestrians, euphemistically saying that “˜I am selling a bed,’ or “˜selling a flower.’”  Sadly,  some of those forced to survive this way are children.  IT’S CAUTIOUSLY ENCOURAGING to hear USAID official John Brause say something like this about the first shipment of U.S. food aid to North Korea  since 2005:  The agreement to provide...

Categories Anju Links