Traffic has quadrupled at this site in the last few days (yesterday was an all-time high, thanks!)which may explain why the site is loading so slowly. A commenter gently chides me that it’s probably because I’ve posted to so many images from other low-bandwidth sites–the ones that are sucking up the bandwidth are from the KFA, thus ending the ethical dilemna–so I’ll see if changing them to links will improve matters. Unfortunately, blogger won’t even let me get into the...

Amnesty for Kim Jong Il? I wholeheartedly endorse the Marmot’s response to Prof. Andrei Lankov’s proposal to offer Kim Jong Il amnesty. The promise, of course, would be illusory even if it were advisable to throw away the deterrent value of a potential prosecution, even if that value may pale in comparison to the countervailing deterrent of the lynch mob he most fears. In a sense, the reasoning mirrors the debate on giving terrorists full POW status, something to which...

LiNK News: The Yangban reports on their meeting in Seoul. More about LiNK here.

What Not to Buy: Via the Nomad, Kaesong “peace pots” will be labelled “Made in DPRK.” Why am I so suspicious? This guy, in part.

New Link to the Video from North Korea: Readers have said that the link to the recent video smuggled out of North Korea no longer works. Try this, and please drop a comment to let me know if it works. UPDATE: OK, this works. Hat tip: Chris at freenorthkorea.net. Chris seems to have taken my pleas to heart; he’s blogging again, at least sporadically. No man has ever put anything online that Chris can’t get to and preserve on some...

Lantos Returns from P’yang: The Joongang Ilbo ‘s headline reassures, “Congressman: North Korea addressed nuclear issue,” but nothing in the story supports that conclusion. Read and decide for yourself, but to me it reads like, “yada yada yada productive discussions yada yada continued dialogue yada yada yada.” My original post regarding the trip is here.

Unmitigated Chutzpah: The South Korean government, which needs constant reassurance about the USFK’s monogamous dedication to Korea’s defense but unfailingly demands that U.S. taxpayers carry as much of the USFK’s cost as possible, is secretly cutting back its own military manpower. So much for the howls that the recent USFK withdrawal would create a window of vulnerability. Where, then, are Seoul’s highest budget priorities? If you’re a regular reader, you probably need read no further, but . . . South...

Traffic has quadrupled at this site in the last few days (yesterday was an all-time high, thanks!)which may explain why the site is loading so slowly. A commenter gently chides me that it’s probably because I’ve posted to so many images from other low-bandwidth sites–the ones that are sucking up the bandwidth are from the KFA, thus ending the ethical dilemna–so I’ll see if changing them to links will improve matters. Unfortunately, blogger won’t even let me get into the...

Amnesty for Kim Jong Il? I wholeheartedly endorse the Marmot’s response to Prof. Andrei Lankov’s proposal to offer Kim Jong Il amnesty. The promise, of course, would be illusory even if it were advisable to throw away the deterrent value of a potential prosecution, even if that value may pale in comparison to the countervailing deterrent of the lynch mob he most fears. In a sense, the reasoning mirrors the debate on giving terrorists full POW status, something to which...

LiNK News: The Yangban reports on their meeting in Seoul. More about LiNK here.

What Not to Buy: Via the Nomad, Kaesong “peace pots” will be labelled “Made in DPRK.” Why am I so suspicious? This guy, in part.

New Link to the Video from North Korea: Readers have said that the link to the recent video smuggled out of North Korea no longer works. Try this, and please drop a comment to let me know if it works. UPDATE: OK, this works. Hat tip: Chris at freenorthkorea.net. Chris seems to have taken my pleas to heart; he’s blogging again, at least sporadically. No man has ever put anything online that Chris can’t get to and preserve on some...

Lantos Returns from P’yang: The Joongang Ilbo ‘s headline reassures, “Congressman: North Korea addressed nuclear issue,” but nothing in the story supports that conclusion. Read and decide for yourself, but to me it reads like, “yada yada yada productive discussions yada yada continued dialogue yada yada yada.” My original post regarding the trip is here.

Unmitigated Chutzpah: The South Korean government, which needs constant reassurance about the USFK’s monogamous dedication to Korea’s defense but unfailingly demands that U.S. taxpayers carry as much of the USFK’s cost as possible, is secretly cutting back its own military manpower. So much for the howls that the recent USFK withdrawal would create a window of vulnerability. Where, then, are Seoul’s highest budget priorities? If you’re a regular reader, you probably need read no further, but . . . South...

The Army has assigned Major Mike Holley, probably its best prosecutor, to the Abu Ghraib case. I should know. I supervised Mike during my last year in Korea, and he’s unquestionably the best courtroom attorney I’ve ever seen, myself included. The Army pulled Mike out of a plum assignment as a Criminal Law Instructor at the JAG School in Charlottesville, Virginia and sent him to Iraq to try these cases (I’d add that Mike has a very large family). Consider...

The Army has assigned Major Mike Holley, probably its best prosecutor, to the Abu Ghraib case. I should know. I supervised Mike during my last year in Korea, and he’s unquestionably the best courtroom attorney I’ve ever seen, myself included. The Army pulled Mike out of a plum assignment as a Criminal Law Instructor at the JAG School in Charlottesville, Virginia and sent him to Iraq to try these cases (I’d add that Mike has a very large family). Consider...

Lazarus rising: A former South Korean soldier captured by North Korea during the Korean War escaped to China and was arrested by Chinese police while seeking to enter South Korea, a Chinese source said Monday. . . . Another source familiar with North Korea said if South Korean POWs who escaped from the North were extradited to the communist country they were likely to be executed. Returning Han to Pyongyang would be tantamount to sending him to the scaffold, the...

The Korea Herald’s analysis, boiled down to its essentials: North Korea is stable–despite terrible conditions and the country’s dependence on outside aid, which isn’t coming–because its people are scared of the government. Just like they were in Albania, Romania, and East Germany. Prediction is a very dangerous business when the facts are out of your reach.