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Category: Appeasement

April 15, 2007

Anju Links for 15 April 2007

*    We’ve Lost the True Meaning of Kim Il Sung’s Birthday.   It’s another OFK exclusive — I have the first video of North Korea’s Kim Il Sung Day parade.  In North Korea, where devotion comes from the barrel of a gun, the object of this  devotion  is now a side of preserved meat; thus,  I urge everyone to  pay their respects  with  a feast  appropriate for the occasion.  If only the people of North Korea were fortunate enough...
Categories Abductions/Anju Links/Appeasement/Korean War/Refugees
April 14, 2007

Agreed Framework 2.0: A Day 60 Scorecard

[Update:   I decided to  append various newsworthy or interesting reactions to the  passage of this deadline at the end of this post;  please scroll to the bottom to read.  For new readers, the man on the right is Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who  expended years of connivance on getting us to make this deal, and who personally negotiated its amorphous terms.  Hill has staked his reputation on the idea that North Korea is capable of abiding by...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD
April 13, 2007

‘Kim Jong Bill’ Richardson and Camp 22

[Update:   The dissenting comments have been erased again.  Gov. Richardson’s fans want to create a cult of adulation in which all  dissent is stifled and concentration camps are never mentioned.   All of this is somehow  familiar to a North Korea-watcher.] [Update 2:   Help us keep “Kim Jong Bill” on Wikipedia until he asks Kim Jong Il to close down Camp 22.  I’ve put the text and code at the bottom of the post, below the line.  Everyone is...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/WMD
April 12, 2007

Law Enforcement Will Be Compromised

Correction:   I subsequently found the transcript for the February 27, 2007 hearing, and Chris Hill did not say, quote, “Law enforcement will not be compromised.”  On reading the full quote, you’ll probably agree that Hill found another way of saying the same thing; however, I regret the error, which was no doubt due to me scribbling notes of the hearing by hand, and transposing Rep. Royce’s question with Hill’s answer.  Here’s the correct quote from Hill: Ambassador HILL. Mr....
Categories Appeasement/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering
April 11, 2007

Anju Links for 11 April 2007

*   Are You Effing Kidding Me?   The Bush administration, reversing a six-year-old North Korea policy based on deep mistrust, said it will now rely on Pyongyang’s “good faith” to ensure that funds released yesterday from a Macao bank are not misused…. Mr. McCormack said the North Koreans had promised “to spend the money for the betterment of the North Korean people,” and not for the personal benefit of its officials. [Wash Times] Stupidity with malice aforethought is its...
Categories Activism/Anju Links/Appeasement/Kremlinology/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics
April 9, 2007

Peace in Our Time: Bracing for a Missed Deadline, and the ‘Good’ Unilateralism

If you wonder just how fundamental our policy shift on North Korea has been — fundamentally bad, that is — just look at the fact that Bill Richardson’s amateur diplomacy toward Kim Jong Il is no longer being ignored by the White House  [AP, Foster Klug].  Six months ago, a Bill Richardson visit to his friends in Pyongyang would have followed some White House statements that Richardson was acting  on his own as a private citizen.  Today, as President Clinton...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/WMD
April 8, 2007

John Bolton on Agreed Framework 2.0

“I think this deal will inevitably fail,” Bolton said. “That day cannot come too soon in my view.”  [CBS] That was John Bolton speaking at the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday (I was home sick).   If you were to ask me the reasons why I think AF 2.0 is a flat-out capitulation —  one that will make our world more dangerous,  hurt our friends, and reward our enemies before it fails — all I have to do is look who...
Categories Appeasement/U.S. Politics
April 8, 2007

N. Korea gets a U.S. green light to sell arms, and six months after its unanimous passage, UNSCR 1718 is a dead letter

That resolution may have been the only potentially effective U.N. action in my living memory, and the hand that held the dagger belonged to none other than our own State Department.  The United States ignored an apparent violation of the international sanctions against North Korea by turning a blind eye to an arms shipment that Pyongyang sent to Ethiopia earlier this year, according to a story in Sunday’s edition of The New York Times. North Korea has been subject to...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)/Washington Views/WMD
March 23, 2007

How Many North Koreans Was the World Program Really Feeding?

Update:   Paul Eckert of Reuters did a very fine interview with Marcus Noland.  “It could well be that a nuclear deal that resulted in greater amounts of aid would actually allow the North Korean government to intensify activities that are essentially reestablishing economic and political control over the population,” he said. …. “When things look better … the North Korean government tries to pull back on this process of marketization and reform,” Noland said. “One of the saddest things...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/WMD
March 21, 2007

Anju Links for 3/21

*   It’s a pity both sides can’t  lose:  It’s Taliban v. Al-Qaeda in Pakistan, with high casualties on both sides (I’ll be praying for more).  it’s nice to see that the bad guys are just as capable of  self-destructive division as we are. * Larry “Bud” Melman has passed away.   He was 85. *   Fifth Column Update:   South Korea’s  far-left “civic groups” have seen a significant decline in membership.  This fits with other recent evidence that...
Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Korean Politics/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism/Iraq/The Fifth Column
March 20, 2007

Anju Links for 3/20

*   Renaissance man Kevin Kim, a/k/a The Big Hominid, has launched his new book, “Water from a Skull.” *    Missed the train, but  not the train wreck.  “Notice me!,” cries Ban Ki Moon, just as the February 13th deal starts to strike immovable objects, one  of which has  an atomic  mass of 238. *   I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  the Japanese are an odd people. *   Don’t Forget to Ask for Receipts:...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Diplomacy/Japan/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/WMD
March 19, 2007

Anju Links for 3/19

*    Radio Megumi.  An international body has granted Japan  permission to increase broadcasts into North Korea.  The broadcasts will be directed  at a small audience:  its abducted citizens.  I tend to think that Japan would see them home again sooner if it broadcast words of dissent and subversion to the North Korean people. *   Short-Selling Appeasement.   Japan now stands alone in standing up to the North Koreans in Beijing:  not one Yen until you give us back...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Japan & Korea/Media Criticism/NK Economics/Terrorism/Iraq
March 18, 2007

Ill-Gotten Gains: Who Still Remembers Resolution 1718?

[Scroll down for updates.] (d) all Member States shall, in accordance with their respective legal processes, freeze immediately the funds, other financial assets and economic resources which are on their territories at the date of the adoption of this resolution or at any time thereafter, that are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the persons or entities designated by the Committee or by the Security Council as being engaged in or providing support for, including through other illicit means,...
Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 16, 2007

N. Koreans May Have Given U.N. Counterfeit $100 Bills

[A]  new twist now emerging in the Cash-for-Kim scandal is that while the UNDP has been giving Kim real money, Kim’s regime may have been handing over counterfeit banknotes to the UNDP–which apparently had a stack of counterfeit $100 bills sitting in its office-safe in Pyongyang.  [National Review] We owe this revelation to — who else? — Claudia Rosett.
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Economics/WTF?
March 16, 2007

Congressional Conservatives Threaten Rebellion on N. Korea Policy

A reader and friend forwarded me a press release by three conservative Republican members of Congress (thanks), including the Ranking Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.  The press release accompanies a letter that urges “caution” on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in attempting to normalize diplomatic and trade relations with the North too quickly.  The clear subtext is that conservatives think that Rice may not be demanding enough of North Korea in meeting the necessary prerequisites on disarmament, terrorism,...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
March 15, 2007

Peace in Our Time! Yongbyon Edition

North Korea has told the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency that it will not shut down its 5-MW reactor at Yongbyon until the U.S. lifts its sanctions against the North: “The DPRK mentioned that they are waiting for the lifting of sanctions with regard to the Macau bank before they implement the part of the agreement allowing the agency to monitor and verify the shutdown of the Yongbyon facility,” ElBaradei told a news conference….  [Reuters, Chris Buckley] Kim...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 13, 2007

The Worst Friend, The Best Enemy

[Update:   My worst fears are coming true.  Now the  opposition Grand National Party  is trying to soften up its North Korea policy as it braces for a summit visit from Kim Jong Il and a presidential election this year.  One possible effect is that the GNP’s own perpetual appeaser, Sohn Hak-Kyu, could become the new flavor of the month.] One of the disadvantages of appeasing North Korea is that the North Koreans are so despised and distrusted, you can...
Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/Money Laundering
March 10, 2007

Eight Questions Our Shenyang Consul General Won’t Answer

About a week ago,  I published  this post,  relaying Adrian Hong’s assertion that the U.S. Consulate in Shenyang,  in direct contravention  U.S. law,  stood by and refused entry to six North Korean refugees who where just feet from the  Consulate’s front gate.   Shortly thereafter, the refugees, Hong and other LiNK activists were arrested by the Chinese authorities.    After I published that post, a reader supplied me with the e-mail addresses of the Stephen Wickman, the U.S. Consul General in...
Categories Appeasement/China/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Refugees