Search Results for “Kathleen Stephens”

September 22, 2008

Grim Vindication: Predictably, Appeasement Fails to Disarm North Korea … Again

[Update: Now they’re asking the IAEA to remove the seals and cameras. More here.] There are some who can look back on decades of failure and learn nothing, while some of us looked into the future two years ago and foresaw everything. One Agreed Framework should have been enough for any observer possessed of an average ration of common sense. Crediting myself with that much, in March of 2007, I wrote a post in the form of news reports...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks

August 12, 2008

If Jay Lefkowitz Falls in the Forest ….

A week after we learned that the North Koreans disinvited him from visiting Kaesong — something about which our State Department offered no adverse reaction — Lefkowitz has canceled a scheduled visit to Seoul as well. These events belie the sincerity of President Bush and even Chris Hill sporadically talking the talk on human rights again: They “shared the view that in the process of normalizing relations, meaningful progress should be made on improving North Korea’s human rights record.” This...

U.S. Politics

June 7, 2008

North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act Passes in House

So I dropped by Open Congress and was pleased to see: Passed by voice vote in the House on May 15, 2008. On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by voice vote. (text: CR 5/13/2008 H3747-3748) Here’s more on the House bill. Here’s the full text (opens in pdf). The list of co-sponsors is impressive for its bipartisanship: Rep Ackerman, Gary L. [NY-5] – 4/17/2008 [Democrat] Rep Berman, Howard L. [CA-28] – 4/17/2008...

Human Rights/U.S. Politics

May 8, 2008

Growing Congressional Opposition to De-Listing North Korea as a Terror Sponsor

Well, other than the omission of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, uranium enrichment, proliferation to other terror-sponsoring regimes, and an oddly low figure for fissile material, North Korea’s disclosure is a full disclosure. Other than the nearly complete 50-megawatt reactor and an unfinished 200-megawatt reactor, it (sort of) caps North Korea’s ability to produce one kind of fissile material. Other than the unknown quantity of completed nuclear weapons left in Kim Jong Il’s hands, it’s a breakthrough for disarmament. And other...

Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics

April 24, 2008

Chris Hill Resignation Watch: Nuke Disclosure Starts a Category 3 Sh*tstorm

[Update: Watch the CIA’s video on the al-Kibar reactor: I’d love to know how they got those photographs of the reactor’s interior, and I can only guess that some trusted person who is now in a much safer place took them.] How stupid and how evil does Kim Jong Il have to be to get the attention of Congress in an election year? This stupid and this evil: The United States on Thursday released an intelligence document with photographs of...

Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics

January 14, 2008

Anju Links for 14 Jan 08

STOP THE PRESSES! Donga Ilbo: Lee Says He’s Exceptionally Pro-Business LEAST UNEXPECTED HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Joongang Ilbo: “Lee Praises Anticipated U.S. Envoy.” On second thought, unexpected and dull is just fine, thank you. As for me, I have low expectations for the ambassador-designate, Kathleen Stephens, for the simple (maybe too simple) reason that nothing good or decent comes from the State Department’s East Asia Bureau. But there is some hope that she won’t be entirely awful: ...

Anju Links

February 23, 2016

Obama Administration’s “peace treaty” grasp explains its lax enforcement of N. Korea sanctions

For years, friends have asked me why the Obama Administration hasn’t made a serious effort to enforce sanctions against North Korea when we know they’ve worked before. I’ve resisted most temptations to psychoanalyze or speculate, but when pressed, I’ve supposed that the administration might have thought that a deal was still possible, however long the odds against it. With this revelation, however, everything suddenly makes sense. Days before North Korea’s latest nuclear-bomb test, the Obama administration secretly agreed to talks to...

Appeasement/Diplomacy

November 26, 2008

Like North Korea, Only Further South

I wonder if this article by the Chosun Ilbo’s Washington Correspondent, Lee Ha Won, pissed you off as much as it did me: [U.S. Ambassador Kathleen] Stephens should inform her government of the very real problems facing Korea’s automotive market, since the issue has the potential to fray ties between the Lee and Obama administrations. Korea has no regulations discriminating against U.S. automobiles. What is not widely known in the United States is that last year alone, 50,000 Japanese and...

U.S. & Korea

August 26, 2008

Chris Hill Resignation Watch: N. Korea Halts Disablement, Balks at Verification, Accounting for Abductees

You had to know that verification was where this thing was destined to fall apart. And that certainly looks like what’s happening today. North Korea said Tuesday it has suspended work to disable its nuclear reactor in anger over Washington’s failure to remove it from the U.S. list of terror sponsors. The North said it will soon consider a step to restore the plutonium-producing facility. The announcement poses the biggest hurdle yet to the communist nation’s denuclearization process under a...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized

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...

Abductions/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks

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...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics

North Korea’s Largest Concentration Camps on Google Earth

The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea estimates that North Korea holds as many as 120,000 people in its system of concentration and detention camps, and that 400,000 people have died in these camps from torture, starvation, disease, and execution. These reports, in the context of estimates that North Korea has allowed between 600,000 and 2,500,000 of its people to starve to death while its government squandered the nation’s resources on weapons and luxuries for its ruling elite, suggest that...

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May 1, 2008

House Republican Leaders Denounce Bush Administration for Withholding Syria Intelligence

Between the Stephens nomination and this, I’d say the Bush Administration has a congressional relations problem on its hands when it comes to Korea policy: The Bush administration’s failure to fully brief Congress on North Korea and Syria has done more than jeopardize the relationship between our two branches of government. It has denied the administration the benefit of congressional support that could have ensured an agreement with North Korea that avoided needless risks, instead of one that may be...