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Category: Appeasement

December 12, 2007

Senate resolution would set conditions for de-listing North Korea as a terror sponsor

I knew this was coming but was asked not to  write about it.  But now, I see that Richardson has a link to a Yonhap story about it.  Now that it’s out, I’ll speak out of school for a moment and say that I suggested  a couple  of the provisions that made it into the resolution, although I’d rather not say which ones. The sponsor is Sam Brownback, who having dropped his presidential bid, is back to doing what earned...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. Politics
December 8, 2007

North Korea hasn’t lost its talent for making enemies

[Update: This seems as good a place as any to tack on two more sets of comments from Chris Hill; plus, the Administration’s loyal soldier  Victor Cha weighs in at the Chosun Ilbo.  Scroll down.]   Let’s face it: American conservatives are more interested in and concerned by events in the Middle East than they are in North Korea, and a bad deal with North Korea might not have been enough to mobilize their opposition if it only affected Korea....
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Proliferation
December 8, 2007

Time to Shake Some Money-Makers

Recently, I articulated my suspicion that the Eugene Bell Foundation’s plan for family reunions between elderly Korean-Americans and their North Korean relatives would turn out to be just what Kaesong, Kumgang, and just about every other “grand opening” scheme also was: a cash pipeline to the North delivering dubious benefits and incalculable costs — incalculable because we have little or no idea of how Kim Jong Il spends the large sums he extracts from the South. In the case of...
Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
December 7, 2007

How Far to the Right has South Korea Moved?

Although the polls suggest that South Koreans have made a modest shift to the right on how to deal with North Korea, issue polls don’t measure the intensity of opinion or how candidates’ North Korea policies affect their appeal to voters. Those matters are key, however, when you try to whom the voters will choose to set national policy. It was this article, which I’ll quote extensively below, that brought me to the realization that I may have underestimated just...
Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
December 3, 2007

North Korea Faces the End of the South Korean Gravy Train

[Update:   The field narrows further, but could Lee Hoi Chang be thinking of sticking it out through the election to lead an opposition group from the right?  It’s starting to look that way.  If Comrade Chung continues to remain way back in third place, that would allow Lee H.C. to continue to have a (from my perspective) positive influence on Lee Myung-Bak’s governance.  On the other hand,  by drawing conservatives out of the GNP, it could  solidify the GNP’s...
Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
November 29, 2007

Inter-Korean NLL Talks Deadlocked

The Northern Limit Line (NLL) is  the disputed martime boundary between the Koreas, the western extension of the Korean DMZ (map here).  The sea border was one of the issues that the 1953 Armistice talks never resolved, so the South Koreans drew a line.  Since then, the North Koreans have realized that the waters near the NLL are rich crab fishing grounds, and that crab bring in badly needed foreign exchange.  Thus, the North Koreans have developed a habit of...
Categories Appeasement
November 28, 2007

Chris Hill (Possibly) Heading for P’yang

Hill has already left for Tokyo and Beijing; the stopover in Pyongyang is still unconfirmed.  In Japan, I suppose we can expect Hill to tell his hosts to forget about ever seeing their abducted citizens again, to hurry up and pay ransom, or perhaps both.  In China, after performing a full kowtow before  Jiang  Zemin, Hill will  not mention the impending repatriation, torture, and execution of the dissident  Yoo Sang Joon or any other North Korean refugee.  Ever so stealthily,...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
November 27, 2007

Terrorism, Plain and Simple

If you stick with me for a modest amount of law, I promise you that this post will end with a nice little adventure in participatory democracy.  But to get there, we must begin with how the United States Code defines “international terrorism,” at section 2331 of Title 18: As used in this chapter –       (1) the term “international terrorism” means activities that –                 (A) involve violent acts or...
Categories Appeasement/Terrorism (NK)
November 26, 2007

Impervious to Evidence: State’s Appeasement Express Arrives at the Koryo Hotel

[Update:   Richardson links to State’s quasi-denial:  why, yes, we have stationed a State Department  employee in Pyongyang, but he’s strictly there to supervise the equipment for the technical process of disabling North Korea’s nuclear programs.  That’s peculiar.  If this employee’s job is strictly scientific or technical, why not avoid giving people the wrong idea and  send someone from the Department of Energy or Defense  instead?  At best, this is a trial balloon.   More likely, we’ve just seen  the camel’s...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Proliferation
November 15, 2007

Kim Jong Il’s Moment of Truth, and Bush’s

Not off to a very encouraging start, are we?  Of North Korea’s intentions and attitudes, we already know plenty from past experience.  The real question is what our own government is willing to do for a few friendly headlines.  I think personalities in the State Department who would overlook inspection, verification, and proliferation to please their Chinese and South Korean friends  have the tiller firmly in their grasp.  Bush is worn  down from bleeding wounds to his ankles,  going through...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
October 11, 2007

Summit Perceptions

So what will be the enduring  effect of the meeting between Roh Moo Hyun and Kim Jong Il?  I could speculate, but others have already done that.  Simply read the divergent brands and ask yourself:  who is better informed and grounded in reality:  a semi-random sampling of ordinary  North Koreans, or a New York Times reporter?  (Big hint:  it’s Norimitsu Oniishi, who is almost always over his head when he strays beyond culture and fluff stories).   I’ll just observe that...
Categories Appeasement/Inside NK/Korean Politics
October 7, 2007

Who Cares About Politicizing Intelligence Now?

Washington was plunged into sleepy apathy this week as ABC News reported that the  Bush Administration  ingored, then  failed to act on intelligence about  nuclear proliferation and potential terrorism that could have endangered  millions of lives.  The report claims that the Secretary of State and the President  received credible reports that North Korea transferred nuclear technology to Syria,  but suppressed the information  to save a troubled diplomatic deal, and even  sought to tip  the Syrians off.  The latest report follows...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
September 20, 2007

We must be smoking what they’re growing

North Korea was dropped from the U.S. list of countries producing illicit drugs, a sign of further relief of tensions between the two countries. “North Korea is not affecting the United States as much as the requirements on the list,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Christy McCampbell said on Sept. 17 in Washington, according to a transcript of her speech on the State Department Web site.  [Bloomberg] And that decision is based on what?  On  absolutely nothing but the interests...
Categories Appeasement/Axis of Evil/Drugs & N Korea/Six-Party Talks
September 5, 2007

The Shooting Starts Before the Whimpering Ends

I hope this will be the last post I do on the Korean-Afghan hostage story, at least until we start to see the proceeds of its  resolution in bombs, mangled bodies,  and the next round of kidnappings  it will  inspire.  Koreans are still furious,  but mostly at  the victims rather than the terrorists.  I admit to having thought, “better them than us.”  The Korean street is a capricious thing. Consider all that the South Korean government was willing to do...
Categories Appeasement/Terrorism/Iraq
August 17, 2007

Who Changed Who?

There must be something contagious in Korea. The South  Korean Embassy has put out the  text of the agreed  “rules” for the upcoming delivery of new instructions to southern cadres North-South summit, which a friend graciously sent me.  It’s good fodder for reflecting on the Sunshine Policy, the legacy of which leftist President Roh Moo Hyun and tyrant Kim Jong Il would have us celebrate with them.  So what is there to celebrate? If there’s a new spirit of openness...
Categories Appeasement
August 15, 2007

God Has a Veto

[Update 8/18:   Called it:  “The two Koreas on Saturday agreed to reschedule the inter-Korean summit slated for late August in Pyongyang to Oct. 2-4 after North Korea requested a delay because of its extensive flood damage, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.”]   Would Kim Jong Il host a summit in Pyongyang if he couldn’t make a propaganda spectacle of the visit?  Yesterday, I relayed the latest reports of serious flooding North Korea that have reportedly killed hundreds...
Categories Appeasement/Famine & Food Aid/Korean Politics
August 14, 2007

For Whom Do They Speak?

It’s not assured that the South Korean public will see President Roh’s going-out-of-business summit for what it is, but if it does not, it won’t be because South Koreans didn’t hear from enough cooler heads about  it.  Richardson presents a broad sampling of reaction from the  (mostly conservative) Korean papers that dominate their country’s market.   Most  share a  skeptical  view and agree on that this is an obvious,  cynical election-year  ploy.  There isn’t anything Roh is proposing to do in...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy