Search Results for: Lefkowitz

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...

Categories Iran
March 26, 2009

Chris Hill Lies to Entire Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Sam Brownback’s Finest Hour

[Updated below.] [A]s the current assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, [Christopher Hill] presided over negotiations with North Korea that deliberately minimized focus on the bleak human rights record of that country, ignored its nuclear proliferation, and had the practical effect of affirming its nuclear weapons capability. Hill also has a troubling hotdog tendency to play by his own rules, to the detriment of U.S. diplomacy…. Hill’s brand of cowboy diplomacy might be justified if it...

Categories Human Rights/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics
March 20, 2009

Chris Hill Update: Man Tells Lie, Lie Catches Up With Man, Dog Bites Man

The Washington Times, reporting that Senator Brownback is increasingly open in his threat to hold Chris Hill’s nomination as Ambassador to Iraq, relates just the latest story of Hill misleading a member of Congress: In [a] hearing on July 31, in response to a request to bring Jay Lefkowitz, who was a special envoy for North Korea human rights, to future talks, Mr. Hill said, “I would be happy to invite him to all future negotiating sessions with North Korea.”...

Categories Diplomacy/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics
March 16, 2009

Opposition to Christopher Hill’s Iraq Ambassador Nomination Grows

Somewhere, Anthony Zinni must be smiling. There are now four senators — Brownback of Kansas, McCain of Arizona, Graham of South Carolina, and Ensign of Nevada — who have declared their opposition to Chris Hill becoming the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Recall from the experience of Kathleen Stephens, now our Ambassador to South Korea, that it takes just one senator to hold an ambassador’s nomination. Hill’s nomination will not go forward unless those senators all lift their holds. [Oops:...

Categories Diplomacy/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
October 24, 2008

Domestic State Terrorism: North Korea Expands Use of Public Executions

[Updated below] A few weeks ago, the Chosun Ilbo, quoting NGO’s that in turn cite interviews with recent defectors, reported that North Korea carried out 901 public executions in 2007.  This figure, of course, does not include summary executions or those carried out in secrecy, or the ordinary toll of starvation, disease, and torture in the North Korea’s vast concentration camp system.When a society is as opaque as North Korea’s, I originally thought it strained to suggest, as some newspapers...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Inside NK/Regime Change
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 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 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 22, 2008

Anju Links for 22 July 2008

BUT WE MUSTN’T POLITICIZE THE OLYMPICS:  To further its pre-Olympic “cleansing” policy, China will shut down the bridges to North Korea until the Olympics are over.  Those who promised us  that the Olympics would mean more openness and liberalization have a lot of  refugee “cleansing,” oppression, censorship,  arrests, and  a tidal wave of state-inspired  Lebensraum rhetoric  (see comments) to answer for.  IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER (PT.1):  Pressed by a reporter last week, White House  Spokeswoman Dana Perino  said...

Categories Anju Links
May 8, 2008

Anju Links for 8 May 2008

JOSEPH HONG, ONE OF LiNK’s RISING STARS and one of this site’s most valued readers, writing in the International Herald Tribune, asks, “Where has all the courage gone?” After summarizing the current conditions both inside North Korean and for the refugees who have managed to flee, Hong says: In light of this, it is fair to say that international institutions have totally failed in their duty to protect refugees and curtail human rights violations. President George W. Bush has met...

Categories Anju Links
March 31, 2008

Kathleen Stephens: The Wrong Person for the Job

A  few months ago, the Korean press reported that State had submitted the name of Kathleen Stephens to be the next U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, to replace the competent and affable  Alexander Vershbow.  At the time, I did not have strong opinions about Ms. Stephens’s fitness for that position.  Further research has convinced me that Ms. Stephens, though well qualified for the job and apparently a perfectly fine person, is the wrong person to be our next Ambassador to...

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

When did pining for the collapse of a genocidal tyranny become a bad thing?

Somewhere in Washington, Joshua is no longer smiling. Nam Joo-Hong, the nominee to be Unification Minister whom I had called “my kind of guy,” has withdrawn from consideration after becoming a lightning rod for those on the left who lost the election by a landslide. Nam Joo-hong, the unification minister-designate, and Park Eun-kyung, the environment minister-designate, stepped down as they were grilled by opposition parties over their accumulation of wealth and alleged misconduct. Nam does not qualify for the unification...

Categories Korean Politics
February 20, 2008

The Restoration: More on Lee M.B.’s Cabinet Picks

Lee Myung Bak has announced some more cabinet picks. I’ve already given my strong approval to his pick for Unification, and I like his pick for National Defense, too: Lee Sang-hee, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, will be the defense minister, sources also said. Lee is known for his hard-line stance toward the North. After the North fired seven missiles on July 5, 2006, the Blue House called it “high level political pressure.” Lee openly criticized the...

Categories Korean Politics
February 12, 2008

Stage Four Watch: The Great Purge of 2008?

The Korean edition of the Chosun Ilbo is reporting on the impending execution of a beautiful 35 year-old North Korean woman, “Miss Kim,” who grew wealthy as a defection and reunion broker in Moosan, North Hamgyeong Province. To put this delicately, Miss Kim shared both her substantial wealth and (rumor has it) her substantial physical blessings with a number of senior North Korean officers and officials, so as to ensure that each passage through the border would be, erm, well...

Categories Inside NK
January 26, 2008

Anju Links for 26 Jan 08

THE STREETS ARE NOT PAVED WITH GOLD: North Korean refugees talk about working two jobs, missing their families, immigration paperwork, English, and surviving. It’s not perfect, but it sure beats the alternatives: “During the March of Starvation 10 years ago, I lay in my bedroom after having had nothing to eat for three days and thought, ‘So this is how people die.’ For me to be here is like a dream. I do not have anything in North Korea and...

Categories Anju Links
January 23, 2008

Just What We Needed: Our Very Own Ministry of Unification.

From a White House press briefing today:  Q       Is the administration about to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism?      MS. PERINO:  No.  Right now where we are is waiting on the North Koreans to provide a complete and accurate declaration of their nuclear activities.  So we’re continuing to wait for that.  We still have people on the ground helping with the disablement of the Yongbyon nuclear facility.  So at this...

Categories Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
January 23, 2008

Classless Condi

[Update:   Miss that warm, moist pungence rising around your ankles?  Here’s your fix for that: “I’m going to have a great deal more to say about elevating the issue of human rights in North Korea, which is clearly a priority for the president and Congress,” he said.  [N.Y. Times, Helene Cooper] Exactly how stupid do these people  think we are?  Condi Rice has scarcely uttered a word about this in four years, has prevented anyone else but the marginalized...

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Washington Views
January 19, 2008

Gridlock and infighting stalk collapse of Agreed Framework 2.0

You could  write the epitaph for the President Bush’s North Korea policies in six words:  There are worse things than gridlock.  Now that Agreed Framework 2.0 has reached its failure point  and not even  sympathetic media  can still deny it, the New York Times reports that the same  old factions have formed up  to battle about the fruitlessness of dealing with Kim Jong Il.  With North Korea sending signals that it may be trying to wait out Mr. Bush’s time...

Categories Google Earth