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June 18, 2008

Kathleen Stephens Nomination Update

The Chosun Ilbo that the White House may not be interested in expending scarce capital on this one: There is only a slim chance of the U.S. Senate approving the nomination of Kathleen Stephens as ambassador to Seoul, Radio Free Asia reported Tuesday.  Her nomination bill was passed by the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in April and sent to a plenary session for a vote. But according to the RFA, Republican Senator George Voinovich has delayed his approval,...
Categories Human Rights/U.S. Politics
June 12, 2008

Great Moments in Congressional Relations: ChiComs Caught Hacking into Congress’s Computers

A staffer  for Rep. Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican and stalwart opponent of China’s human rights abuses (pictured here at a Darfur rally), e-mailed me the texts of  a statement, a speech to have been given yesterday,  and a resolution to be introduced in the House.  Here’s the gist of it: Madam Speaker, in August 2006, four of the computers in my personal office were compromised by an outside source.  In subsequent meetings with House Information Resources and officials from...
Categories China/U.S. Politics
June 9, 2008

Leaked to OFK: Lugar Will Go to Pyongyang

Or intends to, anyway (the road to Pyongyang is paved with unrealized intentions).  Maybe when he’s there he can clarify Kim Jong Il’s intention not to disarm, or he can help  the State Department boys write Kim Jong Il’s nuclear declaration for  him (which should make it easy to disavow). Sen. Lugar, one the the Senate’s most liberal Republicans, is memorable for his failure to get John Bolton’s confirmation through the committee he formerly chaired.  Lugar is advised by staffer...
Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
June 7, 2008

North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act Passes in House

So I dropped by Open Congress and was pleased to see: Passed by voice vote in the House on May 15, 2008. On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by voice vote. (text: CR 5/13/2008 H3747-3748) Here’s more on the House bill.  Here’s the full  text (opens in pdf).  The list of co-sponsors is impressive for its bipartisanship:  Rep Ackerman, Gary L. [NY-5] – 4/17/2008  [Democrat] Rep Berman, Howard L. [CA-28] – 4/17/2008...
Categories Human Rights/U.S. Politics
June 2, 2008

Chris Hill Resignation Watch

[Update:   Here, at Channel News Asia, Kim Sook seems to be saying that the North Koreans are refusing to hand over their declaration until the Americans de-list North Korea first.  Remember — State’s best chance of successfully de-listing North Korea means giving Congress notice of its decision in late June and taking advantage of the August recess to wrong-foot its congressional opponents.  As a practical matter,  that means North Korea won’t be de-listed  until August, but of course, that’s...
Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
June 1, 2008

Pyongyang Soju Story Takes a Strange Twist

There’s more news about Steve Park, a/k/a Park Il Woo, the importer of the foul-tasting  Pyongyang Soju, who was charged with acting as an unregistered agent for South Korea by giving its agents off-line intel about his business trips to Nouth Korea. Park has since pled guilty to lying to FBI agents.  When FBI agents asked Park whether he’d had any contact with South Korean officials Park not only denied it, but denied that he’d had any contact within the...
Categories NK Economics/U.S. Law
May 31, 2008

Kathleen Stephens Nomination Woes Deepen

In  March, I explained why I believe that Kathleen Stephens is the wrong person to be our next ambassador to South Korea.  In  April, I  explained why  Senator Sam Brownback had placed a hold on Stephens’s nomination, effectively blocking it.  Brownback announced his opposition  by going to the Senate floor to deliver an impassioned speech — “Google Earth has made witnesses of us all” — that made use of my own satellite image grabs  of Camp 22.  State had applied...
Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
May 31, 2008

N. Korea to Jack Pritchard: We Won’t Disarm

The U.S. State Department on Friday bashed its former envoy to North Korea, who a day before said Pyongyang is not going to meet Washington’s requirements on denuclearization despite laborious negotiations underway.  [Yonhap] No one should be surprised by anything about  this revelation except the name of the prophet.  This has started a delicious  red-on-red, Mick-on-Keith slap fight  between Pritchard and  the State Department.  Pritchard, of course, was a Clinton holdover, an early defector from the Bush Administration, and a...
Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views
May 29, 2008

Barack Obama’s First Broken Promise

I’ve finally obtained a  scan of the original letter in which Senator Barack  Obama and 19 other members of the Illinois congressional delegation promised not to support  de-listing North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism  absent a full  accounting  for the fate of  Reverend Kim Dong Shik.  Rev. Kim,  a U.S. lawful permanent resident, was  kidnapped by North Korean agents in China in 2000, while trying to help North Korean refugees fleeing starvation and oppression in their homeland.   The...
Categories Appeasement/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
May 26, 2008

Of Hollow Men: Obama Flip-Flops on Removing N. Korea from Terror-Sponsor List

In March of 2005, I blogged about this letter from the Illinois congressional delegation to the North Korean government, in which all members of the delegation warned Kim Jong Il that they would firmly oppose removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism unless North Korea accounts for the fate of the Reverend Kim Dong Shik, a lawful permanent resident of the United States who had resided in Illinois. In 2002, Rev. Kim was in northeast China...
Categories Japan/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
May 15, 2008

Today, In Some Parallel Universe

Addressing the Israeli Knesset today, President Bush apparently said some inflammatory things: “Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this...
Categories Appeasement/Iran/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
May 14, 2008

N. Korea Human Rights Bill May Have Passed in House

[Update: I can’t confirm the final outcome, but I’m led to believe that the vote on these bills was put off at the last minute.] Someone supplied me (thanks) with this press release from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s office, dated yesterday: (WASHINGTON) ““ The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve two North Korea-related bills today coauthored by U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), including an initiative to improve procedures for resettling refugees and funding programs to promote human rights. Separate...
Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics
May 9, 2008

Leaked to OFK: Internal House Memo on N. Korea’s Support for Terrorism

Update: Link fixed, sorry. A reader and friend has provided me with an unclassified memo (thank you) summarizing a more detailed report by Larry Niksch of the Congressional Research Service (CRS).  The memo is addressed from Ranking Member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to fellow House Republicans.  The memo reveals details that do not appear in this December 2007 CRS Report.  Although the links  to the Japanese Red Army are old news, there  is some alarming information...
Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
May 8, 2008

Growing Congressional Opposition to De-Listing North Korea as a Terror Sponsor

Well, other than the omission of North Korea’s nuclear weapons, uranium enrichment, proliferation to other terror-sponsoring regimes, and an oddly low figure for fissile material, North Korea’s disclosure is a full disclosure. Other than the nearly complete 50-megawatt reactor and an unfinished 200-megawatt reactor, it (sort of) caps North Korea’s ability to produce one kind of fissile material.  Other than the unknown quantity of completed nuclear weapons left in Kim Jong Il’s hands, it’s a breakthrough for disarmament.  And other...
Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
May 5, 2008

Out With a Whimper: Scholars and Policymakers on Bush’s Legacy of Indecision and Weakness on North Korea

Last week, I attended a program at the American Enterprise Institute about Bush’s new North Korea policy, in which we are reduced to negotiating against our positions of last year, while the North Koreans observe with a mixture of arrogance and befuddlement.  The sum total:  the Administration has lost all will and all backbone.  Don’t expect any policy changes toward accountability or reciprocity.  Instead, expect the lesson to be that you can proliferate nukes to anyone and not just get...
Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views
May 1, 2008

House Republican Leaders Denounce Bush Administration for Withholding Syria Intelligence

Between the Stephens nomination and this, I’d say the Bush Administration has a congressional relations problem on its hands when it comes to Korea policy: The Bush administration’s failure to fully brief Congress on North Korea and Syria has done more than jeopardize the relationship between our two branches of government. It has denied the administration the benefit of congressional support that could have ensured an agreement with North Korea that avoided needless risks, instead of one that may be...
Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
May 1, 2008

President Bush Issues Statement on North Korea Freedom Week

Laura and I send greetings to all those observing North Korea Freedom Week. I am deeply concerned about the grave human rights conditions in North Korea, especially the denial of universal freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly, and association, and restrictions on freedom of movement and workers’ rights. I have met in the Oval Office with some of the brave individuals who have escaped from that country. I am deeply concerned by the stories of divided families, harsh conditions, and...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. Politics