Search Results for: frag

February 3, 2012

Why we should support the Syrian opposition, in spite of everything we know

Things sure aren’t looking too good in Egypt these days. I can’t say I’m terribly surprised by this. For decades, the true character of its society lay latent behind the veil of a dictator friendly to our interests, who mouthed words we like to hear about moving toward a more open, secular society. This never really happens under unrepresentative governments, of course. What happens instead is that the people seethe and their grievances build, and they’re drawn to well-organized, well-financed...

Categories Regime Change
January 27, 2012

Jabba the Kim among the Ewoks, or worst photo op ever

Maybe the Associated Press’s new vocation as a propaganda outlet for North Korea has a brighter side than I’d originally realized. Today, the AP brings us what must be the worst photo op ever, a barracks inspection by Kim Jong Eun. Where to begin? The unwittingly (I think) subversive decision to surround the morbidly obese kid — has he ever looked so fat? — with these lean, hungry leprechauns and their leathery, wizened officers? Posing him next to the their...

Categories Kim Jong Un/Propaganda/Unfortunate photo ops
July 19, 2011

Reunifying Korea, One Shot at at Time!

You may remember that several years ago, a liquor distributor in the United States tried to introduce North Korean soju into the U.S. market. That effort failed long before President Obama reimposed trade sanctions on North Korea, partially because of the importer’s legal troubles, but probably also because the stuff supposedly tasted awful. Apparently, North Korean consumers share that assessment, because the same brand of South Korean soju that once kept me fully occupied as a prosecutor and defense counsel...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/NK Economics/Subversion
July 16, 2011

Some Fascinating-if-True Reports from North Korea

Everyone knows that North Korea does a lot of things that we can’t explain without resorting to mostly groundless speculation about its internal power politics. This goes beyond cultural differences. I don’t know any South Koreans who can explain things like the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong incidents, which imposed real (if insufficient) financial and diplomatic costs on the regime. In our conversations, not even Kim Kwang Jin claimed to understand for certain why Kim Jong Il does things that appear to...

Categories Inside NK/Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
June 17, 2011

Why the American political mainstream has turned against China

For the record, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen did not say this: The United States has named China, Iran, Libya, North Korea and 10 other nations that it wants the U.N. to hold accountable for alleged human rights violations. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Human Rights Council said Wednesday “too many governments repress dissent with impunity.” [….] She said the U.S. opposes China’s “growing number of arrests and detentions of lawyers, activists, bloggers, artists, religious believers, and their families.” Ileana Ros-Lehtinen did...

Categories China
November 3, 2010

South Korea fires shots at a North Korean fishing boat near the NLL. ________________________ Kim Jong Nam predicts that the North Korean regime will collapse “soon.” ________________________ Our airborne laser system hasn’t been doing well in recent tests, but Japan has carried out a successful missile interception test. ________________________ Some observations on Kim Jong-Eun, from his former dietitian, Kenji Fujimoto: Added Fujimoto: “His chubby appearance is probably from eating a lot. In North Korea, those with power at the top...

Categories Anju Links
October 31, 2010

Plan B Watch

Canada and Singapore have both imposed sanctions on North Korea: Singapore Customs said in a statement Friday that exports or transit of any nuclear equipment or missile materials to North Korea will be banned as of Nov. 1. Trading with North Korea of luxury goods such as cigars, plasma televisions and motorboats also will be banned. It said items no longer traded to Iran will include low-enriched uranium and military hardware such as tanks, artillery and warships. [AP] You know,...

Categories Sanctions
August 2, 2010

Plan B Watch: Robert Einhorn Visits Seoul; State Directs Strong Criticism at China

Robert Einhorn, President Obama’s special adviser for non-proliferation and arms control, is visiting Seoul and Tokyo this week. He is accompanied by Daniel Glaser, who works with Treasury’s Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, and who was a key architect of the Banco Delta Asia sanctions in 2005 and 2006. At the risk of making a comparison that Glaser might not necessarily welcome, his presence in Seoul has far more deterrent value than parking an aircraft carrier off the coast...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Sanctions
July 10, 2010

Debunking the 3/26 Conspiracy “Science”

I have not, until now, seen the report of the The Joint Civilian-Military Investigation Group linked elsewhere, so let’s begin there. You can read the whole thing for yourself, but for your convenience, I’ll reproduce something about the composition of the investigative group itself. Emphasis mine: The Joint Civilian-military Investigation Group (JIG) conducted its investigation with 25 experts from 10 top Korean expert agencies, 22 military experts, 3 experts recommended by the National Assembly, and 24 foreign experts constituting 4...

Categories Cheonan Incident/Useful Idiocy
July 9, 2010

Yet Another Report of Anti-Regime Leaflets in N. Korea

It’s the second such report I’ve seen this week, which is pretty extraordinary for North Korea: North Korea’s National Security Agency (NSA) has launched a hunt for the individual or organization responsible for scattering 5,000 won bills scrawled with words criticizing the Kim Jong Il regime in Chongjin, North Hamkyung Province. A source reported on Thursday that around the Kim Il Sung statue in Pohang and parts of Shinan district in the city, large numbers of 5,000 won bills inscribed...

Categories Resistance
June 19, 2010

WaPo: North Korea Lifts Market Restrictions

In Part Three of my capitalist manifesto, I’d documented North Korea’s efforts throughout 2009 to destroy the markets on which most of the North Korean people had come to rely on for their survival. The efforts included with bans on imported goods, the closure of large markets, the imposition of restrictions on who could sell in others, and finally, the Great Confiscation, which wiped out the savings of millions of families, along with the working capital of the traders who...

Categories Capitalism/Famine & Food Aid
June 18, 2010

18 June 2010

You know, it’s as if Michael Gerson reads this blog or something: There are limits to the policy of isolation. Given that North Koreans did not revolt when millions were dying of starvation in the mid-1990s, it is difficult to imagine that economic pressure alone will bring down a committed, completely ruthless regime that cares nothing for the opinion of the world or the lives of its own people. The most fragile thing about the North Korean regime is the...

Categories Anju Links
May 24, 2010

Overthrowing Kim: A Capitalist Manifesto

[Originally published at The New Ledger, May 2010; edited for brevity in October 2017] Within the next 48 hours, South Korea is expected to announce that North Korea torpedoed and sank the warship Cheonan and killed 46 of her crew. Among the evidence the multinational investigation will cite will be the North Korean serial number on the torpedo’s propeller, recovered from the ocean floor. The sinking of the Cheonan may be the most serious North Korean provocation since 1968 —...

Categories Capitalism/Regime Change
May 13, 2010

Cheonan conclusions will mean tougher N. Korea policies … for a while, anyway

It certainly looks like every government official outside Beijing who has seen the evidence now believes that North Korea sank the Cheonan and killed 46 members of its crew. Among those who have drawn their conclusions are the South Korean government, the Obama Administration, and the Republicans in Congress. The multinational investigation is now sufficiently advanced that the official Yonhap News Agency says that the findings could be released as early as next week. One interesting leak references a stray...

Categories Cheonan Incident/North-South/Sanctions/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
May 4, 2010

4 May 2010

The Wall Street Journal rips into W.H.O. Director-General and useful idiot Margaret Chan. The fact of Ms. Chan’s origins in Hong Kong raise the obvious suspicion that she’d never have gotten her current job without the backing of the China’s oligarchy in Beijing. And given the vast gulf between China’s views on health and human rights and ours, this is a good illustration of why the United Nations will never be united by a common purpose or outlook. Instead, some...

Categories Anju Links
April 19, 2010

As North Korea Emerges as a Prime Suspect, Discussion Turns to How South Korea Should Respond

As my sense grows that the Cheonan Incident could be one of the most consequential events on the Korean Peninsula since the provocations of 1968, it has become the event that eats most of my human bandwidth, and I apologize if I’ve been delinquent in blogging other stories. Here are some updates for today: The Investigation The man heading South Korea’s investigation into the cause of the blast that sank the Cheonan answers one of my first questions about the...

Categories Cheonan Incident
April 15, 2010

China Helps North Korea Import Infant Formula New Cars Despite U.N. Sanctions

I dedicate this post to John Feffer and Christine Ahn, who may now rest in the security of knowing that U.N. anti-proliferation sanctions aren’t causing starvation in North Korea: Around 100 Chinese-made cars have been brought into North Korea through a checkpoint on the border with China, probably for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to give to favored officials. The delivery was made on Tuesday, two days before former leader Kim Il-sung’s birthday, which is the biggest holiday in the...

Categories China & Korea/Sanctions
February 7, 2010

Alejandro Cao de Benós Interview – Part 2

Following Part 1, here’s Part 2 of Enzo Reale’s interview with Cao. This week, Cao informs us that North Korea’s public distribution system is in perfect working order, that there are no concentration camps in North Korea, that Kim Jong Il eats the simple peasant fare as everyone else and does not in fact live in a palace, and that every single North Korean agrees with every decision the government makes. Surely I exaggerate, you say. No, Cao actually says,...

Categories Interviews/Useful Idiocy