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June 12, 2009

Behold … the Awesome Moral Authority of John Kerry! (Updated)

Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on North Korea to release the women “promptly and unconditionally.” While he said the release should be a humanitarian gesture not linked to the nuclear showdown, Kerry said that North Korea had an opportunity to reach out. “We hope that common sense is going to prevail and that North Korea will see this not as an opportunity to further dig a hole but as an opportunity to open up and...
Categories Diplomacy/Ling/Lee Incident/U.S. Politics
June 11, 2009

House Dems Block Bill Demanding Release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee, Re-Listing N. Korea as a Terror-Sponsor

Almost everywhere in Washington, one can sense a seismic shift in the consensus about dealing with North Korea.  Gone are the gauzy fantasies that North Korea’s disarmament is just one more (American) concession away.  You can see this in the Obama Administration’s emerging policy, and you can see it in the think tanks that supply the media much of their analysis.  At an event yesterday, I heard Victor Cha and Jack Pritchard broadly agree on the need for tough sanctions...
Categories Appeasement/U.S. Politics
June 7, 2009

Is Barack Obama Finding His Inner Churchill?

[Update:   Clinton hints at putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and calls the charges against Laura Ling and Euna Lee “absolutely without merit or foundation.”  Does that mean Clinton’s best information is that they were inside China?] I continue to be gleefully amazed by the toughness and seriousness of Obama’s words on North Korea.  Now let’s see if they translate into effective action.  In his young presidency, Obama has already jettisoned some of...
Categories "United" Nations/Ling/Lee Incident/Sanctions/Washington Views
June 5, 2009

Obama Gears Up for “Plan B;” John Kerry Blocks Terror Re-Listing

I really don’t know what to make of this.  A young, inexperienced president, one whom the North Koreans arguably endorsed, comes into office showing every sign of being easier meat than Lance Bass in Riker’s Island.  The North Koreans, true to Joe Biden’s prophetic gaffe, and with their exquisite sensitivity to American weakness, don’t even let the man get inaugurated before they begin the noisy repudiation of every agreed framework, U.N. resolution, and armistice they can stuff into a shredder....
Categories "United" Nations/China/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Crime/NK Economics/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Politics
June 1, 2009

SecDef Gates Not Pushing for Agreed Framework III

Michael Yon traveled with Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Singapore and passes along these observations: One matter that you will see in the press is that North Korea is the elephant in the room. Secretary Gates has made it clear that we have no intention of rewarding bad behavior, as we have done in the past with North Korea. Many readers seem to hold a special disdain for President Obama, and I actively campaigned for McCain, but I get the...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. Military/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
June 1, 2009

Koreans Flock to U.S. Army

It’s certainly an improvement on how the Army was received in Korea when I was there. For everyone who says “Yankee Go Home,” someone else says, “and take me with you:” The program was authorized without fanfare late last year by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to attract temporary immigrants who speak strategically important languages such as Arabic, Farsi and Korean. The bait: The soldiers could immediately apply for U.S. citizenship, skipping the sometimes decadelong process of securing a green card...
Categories An Alliance?/Korean Society/U.S. Military
May 30, 2009

A Point of Order on ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

G.I. Korea’s latest posting on the renewed “don’t ask, don’t tell” controversy causes me to note a point that this entire debate is missing:  I saw very few cases in which soldiers were discharged involuntarily solely because of homosexual conduct.  In my experience as a former Army JAG, at least 80% of the Chapter 15 (homosexual conduct) discharges I saw were self-reports by soldiers who may or may not have been gay, but who just wanted out of the Army. ...
Categories U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
May 30, 2009

Korean War 2, Day 4: Gates Hints at Military Action if North Korea Proliferates Nuclear Material

Three days after North Korea repudiated the Armistice agreement it had never complied with anyway, and as North Korea was seen preparing for yet another long-range missile test, Defense Secretary Robert Gates used the occasion of a security conference in Singapore to issue a veiled threat to Kim Jong Il: “The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States and our allies,” Gates told...
Categories Proliferation/U.S. Military/WMD
May 30, 2009

Korean War 2, Day 4: Everyone, Take a Deep Breath

I’m the last one to downplay the danger that North Korea really represents.  I’ve said all along that there is no purely diplomatic solution to that danger, and I’ve spent the last five years arguing for a combination of economic strangulation, political subversion, and strong conventional deterrence with the specific purpose of overthrowing Kim Jong Il.  By showing you Kim Jong Il’s death camps and the vast fields of graves that surround North Korea’s cities, I hope I’ve helped to...
Categories Regime Change/U.S. Military
May 28, 2009

Selected North Korea Commentary

The most depressing thing about North Korea’s April missile test wasn’t the test itself; it was the vacuousness of most of the reactions to it.  Many of the writers seemed poorly read on the facts, and conservatives and liberals had both stretched their credibility to defend the Bush and Clinton administrations, respectively, despite the general consistency of the policy through both administrations.  Recent events prove that both policies failed. This time around, the commentary seems smarter and better informed.  Part...
Categories Proliferation/Washington Views/WMD
May 27, 2009

What? That Is Your Day Job? (Part 2)

David Albright, who has spent the last several years discounting the evidence of North Korea’s nuclear cheating and cheerleading for diplomatic giveaways to Kim Jong Il, has joined the coalition of the willing.  Sort of: “North Korea’s thrown something in our face that we have to deal with now and it could have tremendous ramifications for the ability to stop proliferation in the future,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a nuclear disarmament think...
Categories Washington Views/WTF?
May 27, 2009

What? That Is Your Day Job? (Part 1)

I never was a fan of Lawrence Eagleburger, and I see no reason to become one now: VARNEY: Would you — do you believe that the U.S. and/or China should now seriously consider and plan for a military attack? EAGLEBURGER: I have believed that for some time. So, you’re — you’re call — you are asking the wrong person, I guess, because I have felt, as I say, for the better part of 10 years, that we could see this...
Categories Washington Views/WTF?
May 11, 2009

John Kerry: Clueless About North Korea

History will deservedly remember John Kerry as a failed poseur, a man too self-important and detestable to unseat George W. Bush in 2004, and one of my least favorite American politicians of all time.  We are still burdened with Kerry as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in which capacity he spirited the incompetent and congenital liar Christopher Hill to confirmation as the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.  In that capacity, Kerry seems to have learned much from the nominee’s...
Categories Diplomacy/U.S. Politics
May 6, 2009

Oberdorfer to Be Inducted Into Irrational Exuberance Hall of Fame

I like Don Oberdorfer as a person, but he really should ask the Council on Foreign Relations to put this link in a more obscure place: This morning when I turned on the BBC, the newscast started by saying that the last days of the Cold War may be near. They were talking about the developments regarding North Korea at the Six-Party Talks and signing of the latest agreement between North and South Korea looking toward an eventual peace treaty,...
Categories Washington Views
May 4, 2009

N. Korea: Obama Just Like Bush!

Someone still isn’t feeling the hope and change: North Korea blasted U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday as no different from his predecessor in trying to “stifle” countries that are uncooperative with the U.S., referring to Washington’s move to punish Pyongyang’s rocket launch.  [….] “With nothing can the U.S. justify such illegal provocation as forcing the UNSC to table the issue of the DPRK’s (North Korea) launch of a satellite for peaceful purposes and issue ‘a presidential statement,’” the North’s...
Categories "United" Nations/Diplomacy/Japan/Missiles/Proliferation/U.S. Politics
May 2, 2009

At The New Ledger: On the New Hostage Diplomacy

I have a new piece up at The New Ledger: As President Barack Obama basks in the adoration of the media, the captivity of three of their colleagues — one in Iran and two in North Korea — now looks very much like a calculated test of whether terrorism will be restored to its former place as a tolerated method of diplomacy. The new administration’s reaction thus far has seemed paralyzed and unprepared for the test that Joe Biden, after...
Categories Media Criticism/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics