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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
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 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 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
April 27, 2008

Chris Hill Resignation Watch: National Review on Agreed Framework 2.0

Our long national  slumber is  ending with a very cranky awakening, and  editorialists are starting  to  transform  Chris Hill into a political liability for the Bush Administration:  We still have no idea whether North Korea engaged in or is engaging in surreptitious uranium enrichment to complement the plutonium processed at Yongbyon. And we have not even asked Kim to dismantle his existing nuclear arsenal. Exactly what is it about this picture that has convinced Christopher Hill, the State Department’s top...
Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
April 26, 2008

Chris Hill Resignation Watch: Lord and Gelb in the Washington Post

Winston Lord and Lawrence Gelb are two senior members of Washington’s foreign policy establishment,  a constituency that has  been pushing, conditionally, for  Agreed Framework 2.0 ever since the death of Agreed Framework 1.0.  The establishment has supported, in principle, the idea of  making a deal  and sacrificing adjectives to get one, but  they’ve always kept  one eye on the exits in case the North Koreans just wouldn’t play along.  Maybe the flaw for which they can be most faulted is...
Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
April 25, 2008

Sen. Sam Brownback Puts Hold on Kathleen Stephens Nomination

Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.  — The Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:8 (37a) Let me be first nice Jewish boy to say it:   “G-d bless Sam Brownback.”  One of the Senate’s oldest traditions  is the nomination  “hold.”  For judicial appointments,  holds are the exclusive prerogrative of home-state senators.  For ambassadors, senate custom allows  any senator  to place a...
Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
April 24, 2008

Chris Hill Resignation Watch: Nuke Disclosure Starts a Category 3 Sh*tstorm

[Update: Watch the CIA’s video on the al-Kibar reactor: I’d love to know how they got those photographs of the reactor’s interior, and I can only guess that some trusted person who is now in a much safer place took them.] How stupid and how evil does Kim Jong Il have to be to get the attention of Congress in an election year?  This stupid and this evil: The United States on Thursday released an intelligence document with photographs of...
Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics