19 March 2009

THE WEEKLY STANDARD BLOG is reporting that Senator Brownback is publicly threatening to hold Chris Hill’s nomination, which would doom it. TWS points out that Brownback isn’t running again and has little to lose by raising the ire of Sen. Richard Lugar. Lugar, who represents the State Department in the Senate, is also Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

IT WAS LUGAR, you will recall, who quietly torpedoed the nomination of John Bolton as U.N. Ambassador, despite the fact that Bolton rammed the only effective U.N. resolutions on North Korea through the Security Council. The Obama Administration, Japan, and South Korea now see those same resolutions as their main diplomatic leverage in preventing a new North Korean missile test. Which all goes to show you how much irony there is in this world.

YES, I FIGURED AS MUCH: North Korea is now demanding light-water reactors before it allows verification. With all of the excellent questions this new demand raises, my favorite is “verification of what?,” given that there has been zero actual disarmament.

THEY DENIED IT, SO IT MUST BE TRUE, RIGHT? South Korea denies that it is considering closing the Kaesong Slave Labor Industrial Park.

OBAMA LEADING WAR MANIACS‘ PLOT FOR HEGEMONY! Says KCNA:

The concentration [they mean USFK restructuring around Camp Humphreys, south of Seoul] is a revelation of the U.S. undisguised scenario to perpetuate the presence of the U.S. imperialist aggressors in south Korea and realize its ambition to dominate the Asia-Pacific region.

Why do they still hate us? By the way, this must be the perfect KNCA headline: “Ever-victorious DPRK Led by Great Brilliant Commander.”

IT’S A QUAGMIRE! NO END IN SIGHT!