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Category: Appeasement

August 8, 2007

The Going-Out-of-Business Summit

I’ve had the better part of a day to wonder what good can come of an eleventh-hour lame-duck summit between Roh Moo Hyun and Kim Jong Il, and one possibility finally did occur to me.  When Roh returns to Seoul, a DNA swab of his chin will guarantee us  a  positive  ID of  Kim Jong Il’s disfigured  corpse  once it is recovered from  some shallow grave or lamppost.  Don’t laugh.  He supposedly keeps a few doubles, and how long were...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
August 3, 2007

Newsweek: Seoul Paid Ransom to Fake Kidnappers

First, a few updates.  A representative for the hostages’ families has rejected invitations  from radical groups to turn this into the next anti-American election year  issue: The families of the Korean hostages spoke out against a movement to hold the U.S. responsible for the unresolved crisis, saying anti-American demonstrations could put the hostages’ lives at greater risk. The families turned down an offer by some anti-American organizations to stage a candlelight rally. Lee Jeong-hoon, a representative of the families, said...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Korean Politics/Terrorism/Iraq
July 20, 2007

A License to Stall

If you read those breathless reports that North Korea was really, really  ready to fully denuclearize,  you can  catch your breath now:  “We had a big discussion about putting an overall deadline in,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator, told reporters after talks concluded today. “We had a consensus. Since we were not very successful in meeting the date in the spring, we decided that we should have working groups before we come up with a...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
July 13, 2007

Law Enforcement Will Be Compromised, Part 2

Law enforcement will not be compromised. ““ Chris Hill, Feb. 27, 2007   [Update:   Welcome Wall Street Journal readers.]   The latest refutation of this whopper of diplomatic mendacity is an extensive new investigative report on North Korea’s criminal enterprises from Time  (thanks to a reader for forwarding).  The report suggests that our State Department’s incomprehensible  decision to return $25 million  of Kim Jong Il’s criminally derived funds,  now under GAO investigation as a possible violation of our own...
Categories Appeasement/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks
July 3, 2007

Anju Links for 7/3

Forgive the light blogging of late, the result of competing obligations, a bigger project I hope you’ll see here soon, and frankly, a lack of interesting fodder in the news recently. *   When I read that South Korea was already preparing to ship fuel oil to North Korea (see also), even before Yongbyong is shut down, I thought that seemed a bit overconfident.  AF 2.0, as explained by Chris Hill to the Congress, specified that the first 50,000-ton delivery...
Categories An Alliance?/Anju Links/Appeasement
June 24, 2007

Vanishing Goalposts and a Fool’s Errand

The minute we have bilateral talks, the six-party talks will unwind. That’s exactly what Kim Jong Il wants. — George W. Bush  seemed to understand  the  stupidity of  holding both multilateral and bilateral talks with North Korea when John Kerry was proposing them  back in 2004.  To truly discredit that idea, however,  Bush had to flip-flop and try it on himself.  Now we know what the worst of both worlds looks like.  First, we got together with the representatives of...
Categories Anju Links/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD
June 16, 2007

Dude, Where’s My Spine? Agreed Framework 2.0 at Four Months

Yesterday, the press reported that after months of multilateral bungling,  we had  finally transferred either 20 or 25 million dollars of frozen assets to the disposal of Kim Jong Il for whatever purposes he chooses.  Those assets had  gathered in a shady Macau Bank known as Banco Delta Asia until September 2005, when the Treasury Department  published an  interim rule noting  that they were, in large part,  laundered proceeds of counterfeiting and drug dealing.  Does anyone think  Kim’s purposes  will...
Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/WMD
May 29, 2007

Wachovia Backs Off of North Korea Funds Transfer

State must  really regret having let the Banco Delta issue  enter the mainstream of our nuclear diplomacy with the North Koreans.  What a terrifically mangled excuse it has become for North Korea’s nonperformance. The United States believes a banking dispute blocking a nuclear disarmament accord will drag on and has pressed North Korea to start shutting its reactor in return for a firm US promise of a solution, a report said Monday.  [AFP] This is just odd.  You’d think that...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Money Laundering
May 21, 2007

Frostbrain

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A snag in what is probably the easiest phase of the North Korea nuclear agreement has sparked new criticism of the Bush administration but U.S. officials appear committed to pursuing a solution, even if it reverses previous policy. More than a month after Pyongyang was due to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear complex under a Feb 13 deal, it has not done so, insisting it first receive $25 million in once-frozen accounts. “It’s tricky but I think...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
May 14, 2007

One Man’s Diplomacy Is Another Man’s Conspiracy (or Chris Hill, Call Your Lawyer)

Whoever [in the  United States or in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States] knowingly engages or attempts to engage in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000 and is derived from specified unlawful activity, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).  —   So  here’s something I though I’d never see:  U.S. government officials more-or-less openly engaging in a conspiracy that would land anyone else in a federal prison...
Categories Appeasement/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks
May 14, 2007

Surprisingly Strong Criticism of AF 2.0 on WaPo, NYT Editorial Pages

It’s a surprising reversal to see the Washington Post in particular speaking so critically of the results of something for which it spent so many years and so much ink advocating.  North Korea first made clear that it would take no action until the banking issue was settled by the unfreezing of its accounts. The administration conceded that. Then Pyongyang demanded all of its money back, including that linked to criminal activity. Again, the administration gave in; on April 10,...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
May 6, 2007

North Korea Demands That U.S. Launder Its Counterfeiting Money

What do you get for making concessions to North Korea?  Demands for even more ridiculous concessions! North Korea has demanded the United States allow it to open an account at a bank in New York and its funds at a Macau bank be transferred there, a Japanese daily reported in Sunday. …. “The United States hurt the credibility of North Korea by imposing financial sanctions. The United States must correct this,” the source quoted an unnamed North Korean official as...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
May 5, 2007

A Denuclearization Agreement, But Without the ‘Denuclearization’ Part

It’s Day 21 since Peace in Our Time Day, and here’s the latest “peace in our time” update: Yonbyong is running; no IAEA inspectors have gone to North Korea and none have been invited; there have been no substantive six-party sessions since March; North Korea denies having the uranium program it previously admitted; North Korea may or may not be running away with the ransom in dirty money that held this deal up, even though it wasn’t part of the...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized
April 25, 2007

North Korea’s Sponsorship of Terrorist Acts, 1996-2007

As I noted here, at the end of  Update  4/24 to my North Korea Freedom Week post, the State Department is now  rumored to be seriously considering removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.  This conflicts with signals  State had sent earlier, and as I noted here,  would probably trigger a rebellion by  conservatives  in Congress. With Japan’s Prime Minister set to visit Washington next week, unverified gossip holds that the Bush Administration will put pressure...
Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/WMD
April 24, 2007

Kaesong, Kim Jong Il, and Killing the Goose

Update: South Korea may be reconsidering the expansion plans after all.The Kaesong Slave Labor Park may want to reconsider its expansion plans in light of the Daily NK’s new breakdown casting doubt on just how successful the existing venture really is. Of 23 businesses that were supposed to have started operations at Kaesong since 2005, 4 have abandoned their space reservations; 1 or 2 more are considering abandoning their reservations; 4 have placed their space reservations on hold; 6 or...
Categories Appeasement/Human Trafficking
April 24, 2007

Anju Links for 24 April 2007: China and South Korea Claim Their Largesse Has Limits, Another Fresh-Faced Septuagenarian Rises in Pyongyang, and Why the Defunding Debate Should Focus on the U.N., Not Our Troops

*   North Korea is now eleven days past the April 13th deadline by which  it agreed to shut down and seal the Yongbyon reactor, make a meaningful showing at another session of six-party talks,  begin discussions about the full extent of its nuclear programs, and invite U.N. inspectors back in.  As of today, it has failed to fulfill any of those conditions.  I  just  wanted to point that out in case Chris Hill is reading or Kim Jong  Bill...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Kremlinology/NK Economics
April 23, 2007

Anju Links for 23 April 2007

*   The Ides of April.   I’ve previously blogged about the replacement of Premier  Pak Pong Ju with Kim Yong Il.  Now, we learn that Kim Kyok-Sik is taking over as the new “military first,” to borrow a tired  expression,  which technically makes him second only to Korigula himself (ht: Richardson).  Two other old party hacks have gone off to that Eternal Party Congress chaired by Mephistopheles himself, or soon will:  Foreign Minister  Paek Nam-Sun  and Marshall Cho Myong-Rok.  All...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Korean Society/Kremlinology/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/Southeast Asia/Uncategorized/WMD
April 16, 2007

Anju Links for 16 April 2007

*  My latest K-blog discovery is “Six Happy Feet,” a superb photoblog with a great  name.  You’ll want to put this one on your blogrolls.  It’s hard to read  it without concluding that this is just a genuinely nice family. *   A Nation’s Conscience.   Some South Koreans are demanding freedom for those North Korean refugees in Laos — the ones the South Korean government refused to help.  *   Heal Thyself, Part 1.   I can understand why...
Categories Activism/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD