Page 204

October 21, 2007

The Unstoppable Self-Destruction of Kim Jong Il

[Updated below] We often hear reports that China has curtailed or cut aid to the North Korean regime. I’ve usually been skeptical of those reports because I believe that Kim Jong Il’s arch-patron China wants us to believe that it’s being “helpful” in disarming North Korea of its nuclear programs, but actually considers it a useful distraction for American power in the region. Now, a new report claims that China is holding up cross-border rail traffic to the North over...

China & Korea/Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il/NK Economics

October 20, 2007

Fighting Hard Power With Soft: Sanctions, Iran, and Burma

Burma’s generals, confident that they have reestablished the rule of terror, have just relaxed their curfews and bans on public assemblies. It’s exceedingly depressing to write about yet another ongoing atrocity that no one has the courage or vision to really fight, and Burma is another of those atrocities. If the Administration thinks that modest sanctions like these will end the slaughter, it’s fooling no one: The president directed the government to freeze any U.S.-controlled assets held by 11 senior...

Iran/Southeast Asia/Uncategorized

October 15, 2007

Links for 15 Oct 07

* North Korea is building or repairing the fences around its nuclear test site in the northeast. What reports like these don’t mention, however, is that directly to the northeast of that test site lies Camp 16, one of North Korea’s more horrendous concentration camps. And if the Daily NK’s December 2006 report of a mass escape is true, it might be that the North Koreans are actually repairing the camp’s fences, not the test sites. Hopefully, an intrepid...

Anju Links

October 14, 2007

NYT: It Was a Reactor

Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports. [N.Y. Times, David Sanger and Mark Mazzetti] Even among other journalists who cover this story and the White House, Sanger is well known for having good sources...

Six-Party Talks

October 12, 2007

Links for 12 Oct 07

* Irrational Exhuberance, via the AFP’s P. Parameswaran: “A team of US experts left Tuesday for North Korea to disable the hardline communist state’s nuclear weapons arsenal in a crucial phase of a six-nation disarmament pact.” Mr. Parameswaran is a good enough fellow, but the first sentence of his report is absolutely false. Not only are U.S. experts not on their way to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, North Korea has yet to declare what, specifically, that arsenal consists...

Anju Links

October 11, 2007

Summit Perceptions

So what will be the enduring effect of the meeting between Roh Moo Hyun and Kim Jong Il? I could speculate, but others have already done that. Simply read the divergent brands and ask yourself: who is better informed and grounded in reality: a semi-random sampling of ordinary North Koreans, or a New York Times reporter? (Big hint: it’s Norimitsu Oniishi, who is almost always over his head when he strays beyond culture and fluff stories). I’ll just observe that...

Appeasement/Inside NK/Korean Politics

October 9, 2007

The Last Chance

Does this sound like a country that’s made the decision to give up its nuclear arsenal? The North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper ran a lengthy editorial to mark the anniversary, imploring the poverty-stricken population of 23 million to rally around Kim, the official Korean Central News Agency said. “Never forgettable are acclamations of October, 2006, when we shouted hurrah again and again at the top of our voices in admiration of General Kim Jong Il who unfolded an eternally clear...

Six-Party Talks

October 7, 2007

Who Cares About Politicizing Intelligence Now?

Washington was plunged into sleepy apathy this week as ABC News reported that the Bush Administration ingored, then failed to act on intelligence about nuclear proliferation and potential terrorism that could have endangered millions of lives. The report claims that the Secretary of State and the President received credible reports that North Korea transferred nuclear technology to Syria, but suppressed the information to save a troubled diplomatic deal, and even sought to tip the Syrians off. The latest report follows...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks

October 3, 2007

Define “All”

Update: A reader was kind enough to send a copy of the latest six-party joint statement, which you can read here. Some of the key langugage: 2. The DPRK agreed to provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs in accordance with the February 13 agreement by 31 December 2007. A deadline. I like deadlines. But this adds no clarity that nuclear “programs” means nuclear “weapons,” and nothing about inspection or verification beyond Yongbyon. 3. The...

Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks

September 24, 2007

The Rangoon Autumn

Updates below: 9/21: Original post, background of the protests. 9/22: Monks march to Aung San Suu Syi’s home in record downpour; 10,000 protest in Mandalay. 9/23: Protests hit 8 cities; Rangoon turnout at 20,000; World leaders speak out against use of force to quell protests, but the U.N. is silent. 9/24: Rangoon protests draw 100,000; Their hold on power seriously threatened, junta generals threaten to use force; Bush to announce new sanctions before U.N. General Assembly; Burmese entertainers join the opposition....

Democracy/Southeast Asia

September 24, 2007

Some USFK Stats and History

A few days ago, a reader asked me how much the presence of the USFK cost American taxpayers. This is a research project I’ve taken on before, only to be confronted by few answers from credible sources. You’re about to see what I mean here. Writing for the Nautilus Institute, Selig Harrison claimed in 2001 that the annual cost was $42 billion per year. Another Nautilus alum, Doug Bandow, claimed in his recent Korea book that withdrawing from the...

An Alliance?/History/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military

September 22, 2007

Sunday Times: Israelis Seized N. Korean ‘Nuclear Material’ in Syria

I wonder how Chris Hill is going to talk his way out of this one: Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem. The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say. They confirmed that samples taken from Syria...

Axis of Evil/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks

September 20, 2007

We must be smoking what they’re growing

North Korea was dropped from the U.S. list of countries producing illicit drugs, a sign of further relief of tensions between the two countries. “North Korea is not affecting the United States as much as the requirements on the list,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Christy McCampbell said on Sept. 17 in Washington, according to a transcript of her speech on the State Department Web site. [Bloomberg] And that decision is based on what? On absolutely nothing but the interests...

Appeasement/Axis of Evil/Drugs & N Korea/Six-Party Talks

September 19, 2007

Have Fun Spending That $20 Million in Hell

Mullah Abdullah Jan, the Taliban commander who led the kidnappings of 23 Korean hostages in Afghanistan, was killed in an air strike by U.S. forces. U.S. forces launched an airstrike on a house in Ghazni province where a council of Taliban commanders was meeting on Monday night, the Associated Press reported. Twelve Taliban leaders were killed including Abdullah, the commander of Qarabagh district in Ghazni, AP said on Tuesday, citing Ghazni provincial police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai. Abdullah was believed...

Islam/Terrorism/Iraq

September 18, 2007

Q&A With Professor Andrei Lankov: On Changing North Korea

[OFK: This post is a follow-up Q&A to my review of Professor Andrei Lankov’s new book, “.” Prof. Lankov is a lecturer at the Australian National University, now on leave and teaching at Kookmin University. You can see more of Prof. Lankov’s books here, and you can find plenty more of his work linked on this blog. Two of his more notable recent articles include “The Natural Death of North Korean Stalinism” and “How to Topple Kim Jong Il.”] Q....

Books & Films/Deprogramming

September 18, 2007

Chaos Conquers North Korea

I had really wanted to publish a Q&A with Professor Andrei Lankov this morning, but since Yahoo’s e-mail service has gone from bad to worse, it’s simply not possible for me to even open up my e-mail to pull up his responses. So spread the word: Yahoo! mail stinks. Meanwhile, there’s a wave of fresh evidence, most of it via the Daily NK, to support Lankov’s thesis that North Korea can’t control the spread of chaos or the erosion of...

Famine & Food Aid/Inside NK/NK Economics

September 17, 2007

The Orchard File: What are North Korea and Syria up to?

In the wake of the first reports about a reported Israeli air strike in Syria, a new crop of reports has considerably muddied facts that initially had seemed much clearer. Journalistic politics is certainly a part of the problem. Some of the reports are alarming, while others seek to downplay, and anyone who claims to be objective about war, diplomacy, and WMD today is lying. You probably know where I stand on Agreed Framework 2.0 by now. If the more...

Axis of Evil/Proliferation/WMD

September 16, 2007

Review: ‘North of the DMZ,’ by Andrei Lankov

[Update: I’ve since received some responses to specific questions I asked Prof. Lankov, so the discussion should begin either later tonight or tomorrow AM, depending on other stuff I need to do first.] I first read Andrei Lankov’s work when both of us were blogging on NKZone, through his columns in the Korea Times, and through his more recent scholarly works. I imagine that most readers have also read something of those works. The first time I met Prof. Lankov...

Books & Films/Inside NK