July 18, 2006

A Wedge Between China and North Korea?

Update 7/21: Senator John Voinovich, who cried when he previously announced that he couldn’t support John Bolton’s confirmation, now says he would. More. North Korea’s decision to test those missiles is looking more like a miscalculation today than it did two weeks ago. South Korea has halted the delivery of aid (for now), Japan is preparing for a new round of sanctions, the United States may do the same, and the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that John...

Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Kremlinology/NK Economics/WMD
July 18, 2006

Iran, Hezbollah, and 9/11

While I continue to believe that Israel ought to play it smarter by trying to coopt and empower anti-Hezb Lebanese, this seems to be an appropriate time to explain why the eradication of Hezbollah is absolutely in the U.S. national interest, if this were not reason enough. I’m reprinting an unedited excerpt from the 9/11 Commission Report on how Hezbollah and Iran knowingly assisted al-Qaeda prior to the 9/11 attacks. There’s no evidence that they specifically knew about 9/11, but...

Categories Terrorism (NK)
July 17, 2006

I Can See My House from Here!

I guess it’s been raining a bit in Korea. Oddly enough, my first year in Korea, 1998, was another of those wet years. The flooding in Samgakji knocked down several buildings, killed a few people, and did major damage to the No. 6 Subway line construction. The flooding that year was about the same as what you see here. Afterward, I strolled down to the riverside walkway — since landscaped at great cost — and found a dead dog rotting...

Categories Miscellaneous
July 17, 2006

The Death of an Aliance, Part 43: Kim Won-Ung, Nutcase

The problem with identifying the most unhinged politician in South Korea’s ruling Uri party is a lot like trying to identify France’s most offensive armpit: at a certain point, extremity renders empirical comparison pointless. Still, I’m not sure anyone in the Uri party has built a more solid record than ex-GNP’er Kim Won-Ung, the only South Korean parliamentarian to have earned two of his very own “DOA” posts. His latest oral discharge is a ferocious denial that North Korea’s short-range...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/WMD/WTF?
July 17, 2006

Japan Considers New Sanctions on N. Korea

These would be severe: Tokyo may ban cash remittances and freeze assets held by North Korea in Japan, according to local media. A ban on bilateral trade is also under consideration. Japan is in a foul mood over North Korea’s threats, and it appears dissatisfied with the limited sanctions imposed by the U.N. Japan has recently coordinated its actions closely with the United States, which causes one to wonder what additional measures the U.S. will impose, and whether it will...

Categories Japan/Japan & Korea/NK Economics/WMD
July 17, 2006

NYT: Iraq’s Sunnis Want U.S. to Stay

This certainly seems significant: As sectarian violence soars, many Sunni Arab political and religious leaders once staunchly opposed to the American presence here are now saying they need American troops to protect them from the rampages of Shiite militias and Shiite-run government forces. …. The new stance is one of the most significant shifts in attitude since the war began. It could influence White House plans for a reduction of the 134,000 troops here and help the Americans expand dialogue...

Categories Terrorism/Iraq/Uncategorized
July 15, 2006

Terror By Remote Control?

I have long feared that this would be the future of terrorism. This time, it’s a terrorist organization hitting a military target. Hezbollah’s MO suggests that darker things are ahead. Update: Not a UAV, but a missile, supplied by our “strategic partners” in China to Iran, and then to Hezb. Hopefully, this will put a lid on Israeli proliferation of US technology to China. More on Chinese proliferation to Iran, and what can be done about it, here.

Categories Technology/Terrorism (NK)
July 15, 2006

Too Little, Too Late

There may be no better way to defeat a radical movement than to let it win an election. The radical is an inherently emotional creation, one ill suited to the objective analysis of facts that effective government requires. If democratic institutions can survive their tenure of office, they generally discredit themselves in short order. I can’t imagine a better illustration of this principle than watching a South Korean government with a 14% approval rating meekly promoting a military alliance and...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/NK Economics/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
July 14, 2006

Guilty

Tongsun Park has been convicted in his Oil for Food trial, for acting as an unregistered agent for Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. History will note this as just one more time the U.N. abetted a dictator’s self-aggrandizement at the expense of his suffering subjects. A hat tip to Claudia Rosett herself for sending. And in a delicious coincidence, South Korea picked today to formally nominate Ban Ki Moon to be the next U.N. General Secretary. This story says not one peep...

Categories "United" Nations/U.S. Law
July 14, 2006

Killing the Cedar Revolution

When Israel responds to attacks on its soldiers by bombing Hezbollah and Hamas, I say bomb away. God has more than sufficient capacity to sort them out. I understand that in the Middle East, one must acquire a certain retaliatory credibility. But at the risk of provoking the mother of all flame wars in the comments section, I cannot understand why Israel is also bombing bridges and runways that belong to the newly elected government of Lebanon, which had neither...

Categories Terrorism (NK)
July 13, 2006

The FTA Has Turned Ugly

An anti-Free Trade Agreement protest of 25,000 has clogged downtown Seoul, and on that day, it wasn’t safe to look “American” on the streets, not even for the Swiss. A Swiss man and two friends were set upon by a mob of angry protestors who apparently mistook them for Americans on Wednesday. The group of 10, who were taking part in a Gwangwhamun rally to protest against an FTA between Korea and the U.S., approached the man and his friends...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Society/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
July 13, 2006

The Sunshine Policy Is Dead

I guess the whole protection racket thing was the last straw. Now they’ve even managed to rile South Korea’s UniFiction Minister, Lee Jong-Seok. Efforts to bring North Korea back to disarmament talks were in tatters on Thursday as Pyongyang stormed out of a meeting with the South and a senior U.S. diplomat left the region after a week of shuttle diplomacy. …. “The South side will pay a price before the nation for causing the collapse of the ministerial talks...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Unintended Humor/WTF?
July 13, 2006

A TKL Re-Run: Winning the Information War

Richardson’s writings on the maintenance of the Cult of Kim, and Matt‘s latest comment on my post on recent acts of resistance inside North Korea turn my thoughts back to the question of what the outside world could do to influence events inside North Korea. The answer: at least something, although the impact is hard to guess before we make a concerted effort. I previously posted my thoughts on the subject at NKZone, in October 2004, and republish them here...

Categories Democracy/NK Economics/NK Military