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December 4, 2009

Another Lawsuit Against North Korea in a U.S. Court

Previously, I’ve posted about the lawsuit in a U.S. federal court by the crew of the U.S.S. Pueblo — heroes in my book, who resisted and humiliated their captors despite unendurable torture — and about the efforts of the plaintiffs’ lawyers to find and recover North Korean assets to satisfy the judgment. The plaintiffs took advantage of a 2001 amendment to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (see subsection (a)(7)) that allows the victims of “torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage, hostage...
Categories Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Law
November 15, 2009

Amb. James Lilley, 1928-2009

So much will be said about Ambassador Lilley in the next few days, at places of far greater consequence than this site, that I need only add a few personal observations. In Washington, Lilley was treated with greater respect than I’ve ever seen afforded to any other person in Asia policy circles. At public events where rooms were filled with well known and respected people, the whole room would rise to recognize Ambassador Lilley when he walked in. My wife,...
Categories Washington Views
November 11, 2009

Happy Veterans’ Day

Sure, I could link to a sappy YouTube tribute, but my weakness for empirical data gets the best of me in my weaker moments, so I decided to link to the latest Brookings Iraq Index instead. If you’re like me, you also look forward to the day when Iraqis are banning GI’s from their booking clubs, protesting the SOFA, and bitching about the high price the Americans are charging for the biofuels that began to edge gasoline aside in 2015...
Categories U.S. Military
November 6, 2009

Michael Green on Bilateral Talks and Sanctions

Beyond Christine Ahn’s alternative universe, the insiders are unanimous for now, whether on or off the record:  for the foreseeable future, the Obama Administration intends to sustain — if not intensify — sanctions until North Korea disarms.  Like most of you, I suspect that eventually, we’ll lift them for another promise to disarm, but for now, the unanimous message I’m hearing is to the contrary: A major factor in Washington’s reluctance to rush into talks, Green says, is that “the...
Categories Diplomacy/Sanctions/Washington Views
October 19, 2009

Wanted: North Korean Assets

William Thomas Massie’s nightmares almost always begin in a dusty prison cell. His arms are lashed behind his back, and North Korean guards are karate-chopping his neck, kicking his groin and ankles, and smashing his face with fists and rifle butts. The frigid room is illuminated only by tannin-tinted light trickling through newspaper-covered windows. The guards are screaming. One thrusts an assault rifle into Massie’s mouth. The soldier’s finger is on the trigger. Sweat stings Massie’s eyes. He is terrified....
Categories U.S. Law/U.S. Military
October 9, 2009

N. Korea Expands Special Forces

For two of the four years I spent in Korea, I lived, not in a tent or a Quonset hut, but in apartments in Seoul, directly adjacent to the Han River, with breathtaking views of the city lights reflecting on the river at night. It was, ironically, the most comfortable and luxurious existence of my life. Yes, there was the occasional annoyance of rising early to come to a PT formation and the other petty despotisms of Army life —...
Categories NK Military/U.S. Military
September 29, 2009

Obama Administration Says First Words About Human Rights in North Korea

Eight months, a missile test, and a nuclear test after President Obama’s inauguration, he has finally gotten around to nominating Bob King to be Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, a move mandated by the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 and the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act of 2008. The United States said Friday it was “very concerned” about human rights violations in North Korea, as President Barack Obama named an envoy to focus on...
Categories Activism/Diplomacy/Human Rights/U.S. Politics
September 27, 2009

Here in America, We Are Still Very Far from 150-Day Battles, But Close to Mid-Term Elections

KCJ’s comment here, on the fawning Songs of Obama sung in a New Jersey classroom, inspired me to write a response that may warrant its own post. Here is the video KCJ is talking about: This is creepy stuff, and I’d be livid if my kids ever come home singing something like this. Now, where is the evidence that this is the work of the Obama Administration, as opposed to that of one unintelligent Kool-Aid drinking teacher? WSJ blogger James...
Categories U.S. Politics
September 3, 2009

Hope, Change, and Bigger Bombs

You can choose to dwell on the contradictions, or you can thank Zeus that we haven’t abandoned the whole notion of deterrence. Me being the glass-half-full sort, I choose the latter option and tip my hat to our president for understanding that it’s prudent to have a few “Massive Ordnance Penetrators” on the shelf as a backup to Hillary Clinton’s smooth, glib charm: The U.S. military wants to speed production of 10 to 12 huge “bunker buster” bombs, the Air...
Categories U.S. Military
August 22, 2009

Take the OFK Challenge: Name One Time Selig Harrison Was Right About North Korea

The AP’s Foster Klug interviews North Korean tool Selig Harrison, and catches him in this Kanye West moment: Harrison, addressing his critics, says: “Everything I’ve ever said about North Korea since 1972 has seemed at the time like screaming into the wilderness, and everything I’ve ever advocated has come to pass.” [AP, Foster Klug] If Harrison means that he consistently called for the U.S. to cave and it always did, Harrison is correct. Never overestimate the U.S. Department of State....
Categories Media Criticism/Washington Views
August 19, 2009

What’s Going on with North Korea’s “Conciliatory Moves”?

At times, reading about the life of Kim Dae-jung made me think I was reading the brief for a blockbuster movie in the making. His struggles and accomplishments read like the stuff films are made of and it’s true, no matter what you thought of him, DJ leaves behind a legacy in South Korea full of successes and failures. But during my readings, a statement about his death’s impact on the future of North-South relations caught my eye (see page...
Categories Media Criticism/North-South/U.S. Politics
August 10, 2009

Kremlinology Watch, Washington Edition: Did the Clintons Just Screw Up Our North Korea Policy Again?

How far has Kim Jong Il’s skillful use of two American hostages set back our efforts to disarm him?  Assuming, as we safely can, that President Obama made some concessions for their release, all now depends on whether the President is willing to let himself be upstaged by the Clintons, be cornered into making concessions under the duress of an implicit threat to the safety of two American hostages, and give needlessly fastidious honor to a deal between two men...
Categories Appeasement/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
August 9, 2009

Whoa. That’s just cold.

I’d have to say that this is the nastiest thing I’ve read yet about Laura Ling and Euna Lee.  And that said, it contains much interesting information that may or may not be at all true.  This, for example: Kim Jong Il has ruled it with absolute authority since 1994. He was born in the Forties, but his exact birthday is asecret. He wears platform shoes and a teased hairdo and is reputed to have had a string of lovers,...
Categories Ling/Lee Incident/U.S. Politics
August 8, 2009

Henceforth, All Art Must Serve the State

In a world fully possessed of its senses, Lanny Davis would have marked himself indelibly as a national laughingstock by now.  It worries me that as one, the “artistic community” has wheeled from near-unanimous opposition to the state to near-unanimous opposition to any dissent against it.  And now that I mull it some, it may be the very term “artistic community” that scares and confuses me the most: Consider the recent flurry of debate over the Obama “Joker” posters that...
Categories Censorship/Democracy/U.S. Politics
August 7, 2009

Lanny Davis Impersonates KCNA, Beclowns Self

So intricately forked is Lanny’s tongue that he’s apparently capable of performing analingus on three subjects at the same time: The release of the two journalists by the North Koreans on Tuesday night D.C. time was the result of a tour-de-force, trifecta combination of the three most talented and truly great political leaders of our times — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; her husband, former President Bill Clinton; and President Barack Obama.  [Lanny Davis, The Hill] He forgot to...
Categories U.S. Politics/Unintended Humor
August 7, 2009

In What Sense Is John Choe Morally Distinguishable from a Neo-Nazi?

John Choe, personifying the appellation “useful idiot” as pictured here, won’t shift U.S. foreign policy if he’s elected to represent a district in Queens in the New York City Council.  Technically, Choe is correct when he evades questions about his sympathies with North Korea’s regime and demurs, “I’m not running for secretary of state–I’m running to represent the 20th district in the City Council,” Choe said. That is true in the same sense that David Duke ran for governor of...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/The Fifth Column/U.S. Politics
August 1, 2009

What’s Still Missing from Obama’s North Korea Policy

Suddenly, editors at prominent liberal publications feel safe letting stories about North Korea’s atrocities see page one, and scholars at prominent liberal think tanks feel safe raising human rights.  The topic is no longer subsumed uncomfortably beneath the misbegotten hope that ignoring atrocities unequaled in these times would allow us to negotiate and verify the disarmament of a nation that remained blanketed in secrecy and terror. (Proponents of this premise, which crowned us with the glory of Agreed Frameworks I...
Categories Human Rights/Washington Views