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Category: Proliferation

April 7, 2009

Tearful Kim Jong Il Apologizes to Starving Subjects for Blowing Their Kids’ Lunch Money on Missiles

I did not make this up, and I have the link to prove it: North Korea’s state-run media reported Tuesday that Kim Jong-Il shed tears of regret during the country’s controversial rocket launch because he could not use the launch funds to provide aid to his people, the AFP reported. [….] Kim “felt regret for not being able to spend more money on the people’s livelihoods and was choked with sobs,” AFP quoted ruling communist party paper Rodong Sinmun as...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il/Missiles
April 7, 2009

The OFK Plan Hits Mass Circulation

Recently, I wrote a post offering effusive praise for a piece by Chris Badeaux in The New Ledger, a publication I hadn’t yet heard of, but which features such first-class talent as Badeaux, Ben Domenech, and Pejman Yousefzadeh. After a series of friendly e-mails, I’ve published a ten-point plan for dealing with North Korea’s WMD threat there, and I’m told that it will be published in Real Clear World tomorrow. Hopefully, this will answer some of the false laments that...
Categories Missiles/NK Economics
April 7, 2009

Suddenly, Everyone Has an Opinion About North Korea

HILLARY CLINTON IS STRUGGLING at the U.N., as she pleads with China and Russia to agree on a resolution that John Bolton predicts will mean nothing in practice: The initial draft Security Council resolution responding to yesterday’s missile launch, written by Japan and the U.S., is weak. It essentially only reaffirms Resolutions 1695 and 1718, and minimally tightens existing enforcement mechanisms. Moreover, China and Russia made it plain before the launch they had no interest in stricter sanctions — even...
Categories Anju Links/Missiles
April 5, 2009

What President Obama Should (But Won’t) Do About North Korea’s Missile Test

[Update: The nations are not united. The U.N. Security Council fails to agree on the text of a very angry letter. You don’t say.] [Afterthought: So can we conclude that the Obama Administration views even “soft power” as excessive force?] Our Words Mean Nothing Even for North Korea, today’s missile test was an especially flagrant, telegraphed, and premeditated provocation. Whether the missile carried a satellite or not, to launch it was a clear violation of two U.N. resolutions. That the...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Missiles
April 4, 2009

We Can’t Ignore North Korea’s Proliferation Threat

I’m a very big fan of B.R. Myers and very seldom disagree with him, but he’s dead wrong when he tells us that the best way to deal with North Korea’s threats is to ignore them. First, the idea would only be practical if B.R. Myers set editorial standards for all the world’s news media. In fact, Kim Jong Il is very good at not being ignored, and if the media comprise the fourth branch of our government, any minor...
Categories Missiles/Proliferation
April 4, 2009

Psalm for a Lost Utopia

And the era of cowboy diplomacy ended, and the war-gods were banished from the great city, and the world was uplifted on the wings of Hope and Change. And utopia dawned across Mother Gaia, and our wisest emissaries were sent to talk to our enemies rationally, carrying the word of His love and promises of much treasure. And all was calm and placid. Peace was at hand, double rainbows shone over the sacred mount, and stimuli of expropriated cheese and...
Categories Humor/Satire/Missiles
March 31, 2009

Gates to North Korea: You Are Clear for Lift-Off! (Plus, N. Korea’s Nuclear “Reset Button”)

Is Obama the new Kennedy, or the new Carter? It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union”¦. To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation and...
Categories Missiles/Uncategorized
March 27, 2009

It is NOT ‘legal’ for North Korea to launch a satellite, plus miscellaneous observations

Let’s begin with a historical contrast that pretty much speaks for itself: It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union…. To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from...
Categories "United" Nations/Missiles
March 26, 2009

Erection Day!

North Korea is lifting its Taepodong II missile peaceful satellite launch vehicle onto the launching pad. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned that such a “provocative act” could jeopardize the stalled talks on supplying North Korea with aid and other concessions in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program. “We have made it very clear that the North Koreans pursue this pathway at a cost and with consequences to the six-party talks, which we would like to see revived,” Clinton...
Categories "United" Nations/Missiles/NK Military
March 18, 2009

Missiles, Sanctions, and Surprise Attacks

As North Korea continues to prepare for an April missile test, Great Britain warns North Korea of new sanctions, Japan warns of a “harsh response,” and both Japan and South Korea are drawing up target lists for new sanctions. It would be interesting to see how South Korea joining in sanctions instead of undermining them with change things. It would be just as interesting to see whether the new sanctions will be as tough as the old ones that no...
Categories "United" Nations/NK Military/Proliferation/WMD
March 15, 2009

That’s a Lot of Rice

Experts speculate that impoverished North Korea spent at least US$30 million on development of a missile it is apparently poised to launch. While the North says it is launching a rocket to propel a satellite into orbit, many in the West are convinced this is in fact a Taepodong-2 long-range missile. When North Korea test-launched seven medium and long-range missiles in July 2006, South Korean military authorities estimated the total cost at about $63.69 million (about W60 billion according to...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Proliferation/WMD
March 9, 2009

N. Korea: ‘Satellite’ Shootdown Will Mean War

We will retaliate (over) any act of intercepting our satellite for peaceful purposes with prompt counterstrikes by the most powerful military means,” the official Korean Central News Agency quoted a spokesman of the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army as saying. If countries such as the United States, Japan or South Korea try to intercept the launch, the North Korean military will carry out “a just retaliatory strike operation not only against all the interceptor means involved but against...
Categories Terrorism (NK)/WMD
February 25, 2009

One Big Missile Measuring Contest

Kim Jong Il may not really be capable of traipsing around the remote area near the Musudan-ri launch site, but the point here is that his regime wants us to believe its hints and threats. As little regard as Kim Jong Il has for U.N. weapons inspectors and resolutions, you have to ask yourself why they still bother to tell fibs like this: The preparations for launching experimental communications satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 by means of delivery rocket Unha-2 are now making...
Categories Proliferation/WMD
February 20, 2009

Kyodo: N. Korea Enriching Uranium at Yongbyon

South Korea and the United States have shared intelligence that North Korea is operating a plant to produce a small amount of highly enriched uranium at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, a Seoul daily reported Wednesday. ”Despite North Korean authorities’ denial of existence of the uranium enrichment program, South Korea and the U.S. share an intelligence North Korea is running a plant for uranium enrichment,” a high-ranking South Korean source reportedly told the Dong-a Ilbo. [Kyodo News] That would certainly help...
Categories Human Rights/Proliferation
February 13, 2009

Missile Extortion Goes On, Gates Hints at Taepodong Shootdown, Worthlessness of U.N. Again on Display

Chinese fishing vessels have vanished from the region of the Yellow Sea near the Northern Limit Line, which means that the North may be preparing to test a few short-range missiles. The North’s preparations to test a long-range Taepodong II also continue. The likely launch site now looks to be Musudan-ri on the East coast, not the new West coast site I published images of here. According to the Chosun Ilbo, the missile has now arrived at the launch site....
Categories NK Military/Proliferation
February 2, 2009

North Korea Said to Be Preparing Long-Range Missile Launch

Happy Groundhog day. I don’t know if His Porcine Majesty emerged from his palace and saw his shadow today, but it certainly looks like we’re in for four more years of extortion: North Korea appears to be preparing to test-launch its longest range ballistic missile, media reported on Tuesday, just days after Pyongyang warned that the Korean peninsula was on the brink of war. North Korea, which typically launches missiles in periods of political tension, last week said it was...
Categories NK Military/Proliferation
January 22, 2009

Gullible’s Travels: The Selective Disbelief of Selig S. Harrison

Here’s the latest installment of North Korea’s hostile policy: The North Korean military declared an “all-out confrontational posture” against South Korea on Saturday as an American scholar said North Korean officials told him they had “weaponized” enough plutonium for roughly four or five nuclear bombs. American intelligence officials have previously estimated that the North had harvested enough fuel for six or more bombs, although it has never been clear whether the North constructed the weapons. The scholar, Selig S. Harrison,...
Categories Media Criticism/Proliferation/Washington Views/WMD
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