Smart, Tough Diplomacy: Hillary Clinton Asks Bloggers to Free U.S. Journalists from North Korea
Because if there’s one thing Kim Jong Il simply cannot withstand, it’s that lethal instrument of soft power known as “snark:”
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday urged women students to use the Internet to campaign for the release of two American women journalists held in North Korea.
Clinton urged graduates of Barnard College, a women’s university in New York City, to show their opposition to Pyongyang’s detention of the two journalists who are due to go on trial on June 4.
“We have two young women journalists right now imprisoned in North Korea and you can get busy on the Internet and let the North Koreans know that we find that absolutely unacceptable,” Clinton told the graduation ceremony. [AFP]
Let me see if I understand this: the Secretary of State who represents a government that has the power to restore North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism, freeze the assets of its overseas accounts and entities, invoke Executive Orders 13224 or 13382, collapse its financial system with a few carefully chosen comments from the Treasury Secretary, or sanction its state financial organs for essentially being one big money laundering operation actually believes we can strike fear into the hearts of a clique of bloody-minded, purge-hardened commisars — most of whom have never so much as used the internet — with … twitter?
Either something about the direction of Mrs. Clinton’s appeal is absurdly out of sequence, or Mrs. Clinton really is on to something. Maybe we could even hire people on a full-time, professional basis to defend the interests of the United States and protect the safety of its citizens. We could even establish special offices for them in the countries where we want to “campaign.” We could call those offices “embassies,” and we could staff them with people who are specially trained in campaigning in thoughtful and diplomatic ways to protect our citizens, our interests, and our values. To emphasize that point, we could call these people “diplomats.”
And the best part is, they’d all have twitter and Face Book accounts!
Just imagine how much better a world this would be if some people like that actually worked for Mrs. Clinton. Or better yet, if they worked for us.
UPDATE: Or would that distract from the “bigger issues?” The State Department won’t send an envoy to Pyongyang until Laura Ling and Euna Lee are freed, or so say the South Koreans. Personally, I don’t see much point in sending diplomats to Pyongyang now. The Treasury Department has had much better luck in getting a clear message through to Pyongyang in any event.