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Category: Diplomacy

February 7, 2009

Unifiction Ministry Reverts to Form

It’s official: the Unifiction Ministry should have been abolished after all: The Ministry of Unification announced Wednesday that it would ask police to investigate anti-Pyongyang activist leaders if they press ahead with their plan to launch propaganda leaflets and North Korean banknotes across the border to the North. A ministry official, along with a representative from police, met with organizers planning to launch the anti-North Korean leaflets, activists said. The two organizers who met the ministry official were Choi Sung-yong,...
Categories Activism/Appeasement/Deprogramming/Famine & Food Aid
February 6, 2009

‘To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.’

Or so we were told not very long ago. And while I think Richard Holbrooke added some much-needed sac to the Clinton Administration’s approach to Bosnia — and could well do the same for this administration’s approach to, say, Iran — I have to question whether it’s effective public diplomacy to rip nominally allied foreign governments in the press, or to compare an American diplomat to a guy who gassed thousands of men, women, and kids.
Categories Diplomacy
February 5, 2009

Obama Policy Watch, Plus: Chris Hill Reminisces on Failure

With most of the major players in Obama’s cabinet selected, the question turns to what sort of policies we’ll see during this administration. The shape of those policies is already being tested by North Korea’s state terrorism against South Korea, its threat to test an ICBM — in flagrant violation of two U.N. resolutions — and its continuing repudiation of its 2007 disarmament commitments. So far, the preponderance of evidence suggests that the Obama Administration lacks a coherent plan for...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
February 4, 2009

Diplomacy, Hubris, and the ‘Management’ of Sociopaths

The United States warned North Korea Tuesday that any testing of its longest-range missile would be seen as “provocative,” amid signs the reclusive Stalinist state could be preparing a launch. “North Korea’s missile activities and, you know, missile programs are a concern to the region. There’s no secret there,” said State Department spokesman Robert Wood. “And a ballistic missile launch by North Korea would be unhelpful and, frankly, provocative.” [AFP] Who believes that a statement like this is anything other...
Categories Appeasement/China/Diplomacy/Uncategorized
February 2, 2009

Sun Rises, Geese Fly South, North Korea Reneges on Promises to Disarm

Ad nauseum. Any old excuse will do: North Korea said on Monday it would never unilaterally dismantle its nuclear weapons and demanded inspectors probe the South to make sure it is not harbouring U.S. atomic arms, further stepping up tensions with its neighbour. [….] A North Korean army spokesman said in comments carried by the state’s official KRT TV that the North and the South remained in a state of war and it was “a shameless act of imprudence” to...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
February 2, 2009

Hostile Policy Update: State Terrorism Meets Priceline Diplomacy

As used in this chapter – (1) the term “international terrorism” means activities that “¦ (B) appear to be intended – (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they...
Categories Appeasement/Terrorism (NK)
January 30, 2009

Hostile Policy Update: North Korea Kills Off Sunshine

[Scroll down for updates] I don’t know why it comes as a surprise to anyone when North Korea reneges on anything: North Korea said Friday it is ditching a nonaggression pact and all other peace agreements with South Korea, in an apparent attempt to use the threat of an armed clash to press Seoul to give up its “confrontational” stance. The communist nation also said it will no longer respect a disputed sea border with the South, raising the prospect...
Categories Appeasement/NK Military
January 29, 2009

Obama Cabinet Watch: Abandon All Hope Now

Governor “Kim Jong” Bill Richardson is reported to be in the running for appointment as Special Envoy to North Korea, a position the Democrats are talking about dual-hatting with the position of special envoy for human rights. As I noted previously, Richardson’s statements to or about North Korea are conspicuously devoid of any references to North Korea’s death camps, its malign neglect of millions of starving people, or public executions. Worse, Richardson actively sought out photo ops with officials of...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
January 28, 2009

U.N. Special Rapporteur Soldiers On

He was seconded by a fallen government, gets no respect from the U.S. government, and works for the world’s most overrated entity, but Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in North Korea is making (in U.N. terms, at least) a creditable effort to do his job: An independent U.N. investigator on North Korea’s human rights situation Tuesday described the food shortage and rights violations in the country as ”very grim” and called on Japan to strengthen support...
Categories "United" Nations/Abductions/Human Rights
January 28, 2009

Jimmy Carter Would Serve Mankind Best by Retiring

There is nothing so harmful to the interests of a nation as a politician desperate for a legacy: Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says North Korea’s nuclear issue could be worked out “in half a day” given the right conditions. Carter told AP he believes North Korea would surrender its nuclear weapons in return for U.S. diplomatic recognition, a peace agreement with South Korea and the U.S., and new atomic power reactors and fuel oil. He said North Koreans “have...
Categories Appeasement
January 24, 2009

Jay Lefkowitz: Requiem for a Bantamweight

To the limited degree history remembers Jay Lefkowitz at all, it should remember him as a good and well-meaning man who was unequal to the great task laid before him. I have sometimes suspected that this was the very design of those who appointed him. With the change of administrations this week, Lefkowitz departed as Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, leaving behind a final report that still clings obediently to the myth of constructive engagement with sociopaths:...
Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Washington Views
January 19, 2009

AEI Scholars Predict Gloomy Future for N. Korea Policy

Dan Blumenthal, who was a senior foreign policy advisor to John McCain, has teamed up with Aaron Friedberg again to offer “An American Strategy for Asia,” one that might have gotten wider circulated had the economy not collapsed shortly before the election. Their ideas will probably experience continuous vindication as we near the mid-point of the third Clinton Administration, which by my count started around December 2006. Unfortunately, there is little reason to doubt at this point that the Kim...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views
January 17, 2009

For the Thousandth Time, Secretary Rice ….

Ad infinitum, ad nauseum, ad eternitum, ad apocalyptum, North Korea will never negotiate away its nuclear weapons, no matter what it promises our gullible diplomats in treaties or agreed frameworks: In an apparent message to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama who will take office next week, North Korea said Saturday it may not give up its nuclear weapons even if Washington normalizes relations with it. “Normalization of diplomatic relations and the nuclear issue are entirely different issues,” a spokesman for the...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/WMD
January 15, 2009

John Bolton Abducts Hillary Clinton, Assumes Her Identity, Nears Easy Confirmation Wearing Drag and Mask

First George W. Bush became Jimmy Carter, now this, at “Hillary Clinton’s” confirmation hearing: “Our goal is to end the North Korean nuclear program – both the plutonium reprocessing program and the highly enriched uranium program, which there is reason to believe exists, although never quite verified,” she said. Her vision of North Korea policy was much stronger in her written statements provided to Senator Richard Lugar before the hearing. “The new Administration will pursue direct diplomacy bilaterally and within...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
January 14, 2009

Lee Myung Bak’s Nightmare Scenario

Yesterday, I noted that North Korea is now demanding the full normalization of diplomatic relations with the United States as its latest demand prerequisite to nuclear disarmament … notwithstanding the fact that as recently as February 2007, it had agreed to disarm in exchange for a completely different set of demands. Having achieved its first set of demands — the lifting of U.S. sanctions, the terror-sponsor designation, and probably enough fuel oil and food to take care of its inner...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Japan/U.S. & Korea
January 5, 2009

Rice Denies Idiocy Rumors

The first rule of escaping an obvious conclusion is not to suggest it yourself: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview released on Friday only an “idiot” would trust North Korea, which is why the United States is insisting on a way to check its nuclear claims. [Reuters] Well, thanks for clearing that up for us, Madame Secretary. Was this just a case of protesting too much or does this suggest that Maoist self-criticism will be this year’s...
Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views
December 17, 2008

Even the Metaphors Are Deadlocked!

In the summary of its December 15th press briefing following the collapse of the Not-Quite-Agreed Framework, the State Department admitted that the talks are at an impasse and declared that the “[b]all is in North Korea’s court.” Interestingly, the Chosun Ilbo, summarizing a Rodong Sinmun editorial calling on North Koreans to unite around “the strength of comradeship,” headlines with the opposite conclusion: “Ball Is in America’s Court, N.Korea Warns.” Here, I must register rare agreement with our State Department. Our...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks