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July 25, 2009

Give to Them As They Do, Not as They Say

In our second great WTF moment of this week, the Republican Party just called me asking for money to buy ad space to condemn Barack Obama’s weak Jimmy Carter-style foreign policy. Set aside the fact that the major premise of the pitch just doesn’t square with the truth.  How the hell can anyone make that claim with a straight face in light of George W. Bush’s North Korea legacy?  Did these people, in the name of a strong foreign policy,...
Categories U.S. Politics
July 22, 2009

John Kerry Tries, Fails to Stop Amendment Calling for N. Korea to be Re-Listed as Terror Sponsor (Update: Dems Defeat Amendment, 54-43)

Progress on ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is always tenuous and remains incomplete. But the regime’s nuclear declaration is the latest reminder that, despite President Bush’s once bellicose rhetoric, engaging our enemies can pay dividends…. Now the president must not prematurely close the books on North Korea’s alleged uranium enrichment activities and nuclear exports. We must ensure there are credible verification and monitoring procedures to ensure North Korea is out of the nuclear business for the long term. —...
Categories Appeasement/Ling/Lee Incident/Sanctions/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
July 21, 2009

Absolute Must Read: Washington Post on North Korea’s Concentration Camps

At last.  The Washington Post has done a truly detailed, comprehensive, well-researched story on North Korea’s concentration camps.  It’s a story that the Post wouldn’t have done had Anthony Faiola or Glenn Kessler been doing the reporting; Blaine Harden deserves much credit for writing what deserves to become a major exhibit in the indictment of our State Department for its culpable complicity.  The satellite imagery of the camps features prominently in the story. (Disclosure:  I provided Mr. Harden and one...
Categories Human Rights/The Camps/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
July 20, 2009

Gates’s Advice to Kim Jong Il: “Don’t Do Anything Stupid.”

On a visit to lovely Fort Drum, New York, last week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates discounted the threat of a conventional North Korean attack: “Frankly, this is an army that’s starving. The average North Korea, at this point, is seven inches shorter than his South Korean counterpart. This is a country where the famine of the mid-1990s has affected the physical and even intellectual development of those that are now coming into the zone who would be eligible for...
Categories NK Military/U.S. Military
July 14, 2009

On Second Thought, Let’s Not Talk to Our Enemies Without Preconditions!

As someone who openly seeks the violent overthrow of the regime by cultivating and arming an internal opposition, I never thought I’d see the day when the Obama Administration moved to in a diplomatic direction at least as extreme as mine, and possibly more so: American diplomatic efforts on North Korea are coming under fire within the Obama administration from officials who consider talks futile and instead want to focus on halting the regime’s trade in nuclear weapons and missile...
Categories Diplomacy/Uncategorized/Washington Views
July 10, 2009

Brownback Introduces Sanctions Bill in the Senate

Thomas still doesn’t have the text for S.1416, though it summarizes the bill as follows: Title: A bill require [sic] the redesignation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, to impose sanctions with respect to North Korea, to require reports on the status of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and counterproliferation efforts, and for other purposes. The bill has two co-sponsors, Kyl and Gregg, both Republicans, although it’s not clear how Democrats will react, given the administration’s mood:...
Categories Ling/Lee Incident/Sanctions/U.S. Politics
July 6, 2009

Improving Obama’s Grade on North Korea

I admit, when things with North Korea under the new Obama administration first started heating up, I was cynical and doubtful due to what I perceived as Washington’s lack of organization on the issue. When the Asia Society gave Obama a “C” on his first 100 days in office with the spotlight on the DPRK, I felt that was being a bit generous. But I’m now up to entertaining the possibility that I might be growing more cautiously optimistic about...
Categories America
July 1, 2009

Robert King to Be Next NK Human Rights Special Envoy? (Updated)

So says a reader I trust.  The little I know is that he was a staffer who worked for Rep. Tom Lantos, meaning he probably knows plenty about foreign policy and shares his former boss’s interest in human rights, but may not have much specific Asia expertise.  Here’s a photo of him. There are three things that I like about King without knowing anything else.  First, he’s not a State Department insider.  Second, he’s not the same person who will...
Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
June 30, 2009

Plan B Watch

A year ago, who would have suspected that we’d be celebrating the replacement of a liberal accommodationist named George W. Bush with a hard line neocon named Barack Obama, who would finally show signs of grasping not just the reality of North Korea’s bad faith, but some of the very best tools for breaking it?  Christine Ahn’s misery (and Selig Harrison’s, and Leon Sigal’s) is my pleasure: The Treasury Department’s 2005 blacklisting of Macau’s Banco Delta Asia, which held a...
Categories Money Laundering/Sanctions/Washington Views
June 29, 2009

Obama Forms Team Plan B

The Washington Post is reporting that President Obama is forming an inter-agency team, much like the Illicit Activities Initiative that David Asher headed in G.W. Bush’s first term, to coordinate sanctions against North Korea: The White House is forming an interagency team to coordinate sanctions efforts against North Korea with other nations, senior administration officials said yesterday.  The team will be led by Philip S. Goldberg, a former ambassador to Bolivia who is slated to leave for China in the...
Categories Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Sanctions/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
June 28, 2009

Sam Brownback Strikes Again

Now, he’s holding the nomination of Kurt Campbell to replace Chris Hill as Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs.  Recently, Brownback has used the power of the nomination hold to become the congressional oversight over State’s spectacularly unsuccessful North Korea policy that no one on the Foreign Relations Committee is willing to be.  He’s brought a degree of public scrutiny to some of State’s dumbest decisions, and has managed to slow down — but not stop — the...
Categories Diplomacy/Sanctions/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
June 24, 2009

Issue of U.S. Troop Withdrawal from ROK Resurfaces in Opinion Piece

Interesting. I remember hearing many people (American and South Korean alike) call for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from the ROK during the Roh Moo-hyun years. Some of the calls coming from South Korea in particular were clearly based off anti-American sentiments while other people simply felt the absence of the U.S. military in Korea (or at least a reduced presence) would help the ROK become more self-sufficient militarily. At the time, I remember having conversations with people who...
Categories ROK Military/U.S. Military
June 19, 2009

In Other News, North Korea Plots Attack on Hawaii

Tora! Tora! Tora! The missile, believed to be a long-range Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea’s Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan’s top-selling newspaper. The report cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.  [AP] Satellite imagery of the Dongchang site here.  This is a new site, whose construction apparently continued in flagrant violation of U.N. Security...
Categories Missiles/U.S. Military
June 18, 2009

David Sanger: Obama Tired of Kim Jong Il’s B.S.

Regardless of what you think of N.Y. Times correspondent David Sanger or his paper, Sanger is rightly known for the quality of his access to the White House, regardless of who occupies it.  Here, he reveals the administration’s thinking about North Korea: The decision to confront North Korea with overwhelming pressure — designed to bring its shipping and financial transactions to a virtual standstill — is based on the conclusion that re-entering negotiations to buy the dismantlement of the country’s...
Categories Diplomacy/Washington Views
June 16, 2009

Some Good Reads

Both appear in the Wall Street Journal, and both are too good to just graf and go.  Read them both in their entirety. Nicholas Eberstadt:  A New Plan for Pyongyang Paul Wolfowitz:  Resettle the North Korean Refugees Plus this from Melanie Kirkpatrick:  “I pray Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling will come home soon. But if the Americans’ ordeal raises international awareness of the horrors of North Korea’s gulag, it will not have been in vain.”
Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Refugees/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
June 16, 2009

Poll: Obama Too Soft on North Korea

Admittedly, I’m ambivalent about this.  On the one hand, I’ve noted signs that Obama’s North Korea policy is headed in the right direction — a far better one than Bush’s, if carried out in a sustained and comprehensive way — although I think Obama will probably do a Chris Hill and buy the same horse all over again the minute North Korea offers to sign Agreed Framework III.  Still, my idea of “loyal opposition” extends an elected president and its...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics
June 12, 2009

Obama Muzzles Gore, Richardson

Apparently, Secretary of State Clinton thinks one Special Envoy is plenty: The New Mexico governor, who negotiated the return of Americans from North Korea in the 1990s, was a ubiquitous presence in the early days of the crisis, but on Monday, he abruptly went dark and is now refusing all media requests, Caitlin Kelleher, a spokeswoman, said. His silence, people following the situation closely said, is part of a broader administration strategy to handle the delicate situation with immense care...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. Politics/Uncategorized