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April 3, 2008

Not Another Nazi Ad Campaign in Korea …

Yes, I’m afraid it is. Hurry and see the video on this Naver page before it’s taken down. [Update: Brian, praise be unto him, made YouTube videos, which you can see on a previous post at his blog. Oddly enough, I looked for something about this on YouTube and didn’t find them, but it’s good to record these things for posterity.] “Even Hitler didn’t unite the East and West.” Isn’t fascism erotic? I wonder how long she would have lasted...
Categories Korean Society/Racism/WTF?
April 3, 2008

What Should the Senate Ask Kathleen Stephens?

A reader tells me that the nomination hearing for Kathleen Stephens, State’s pick to be our next Ambassador to Seoul, will take place on April 16th, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So if you sat on that panel, what would you ask? Naturally, I presume that every single answer to that kind of question will be thoughtful and intelligent, and the most intelligent and thoughtful questions have some unquantifiable chance to be seen by the people who will write...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
April 1, 2008

A North Korean Runs in a Real Election

The Daily NK introduces us to North Korean defector Lee Ae Ran, who represents another step forward in the development of a class of post-Kim Jong Il leaders for North Korea. “I know it is laughable that a North Korean defector is running for a seat in the South Korean National Assembly,” the candidate admitted during a phone interview with Daily NK on March 28. She added, “In North Korea, if you come from a bad family background, there is...
Categories Defectors/Democracy/Korean Politics
March 31, 2008

Kathleen Stephens: The Wrong Person for the Job

A  few months ago, the Korean press reported that State had submitted the name of Kathleen Stephens to be the next U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, to replace the competent and affable  Alexander Vershbow.  At the time, I did not have strong opinions about Ms. Stephens’s fitness for that position.  Further research has convinced me that Ms. Stephens, though well qualified for the job and apparently a perfectly fine person, is the wrong person to be our next Ambassador to...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
March 28, 2008

South Korea Grows Up

First the Human Rights Commission, now this:      The South Korean government has decided to vote for a resolution on human rights in North Korea to be adopted by the UN Human Rights Council this week, it emerged on Tuesday. South Korea has so far boycotted or abstained from all UN votes on North Korea including the General Assembly, except for 2006, when the North conducted a nuclear test. [….] A government official, speaking on the customary condition of...
Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/Appeasement/NK Military/U.S. & Korea
March 18, 2008

Rule of Law or Rule By Law?

The Hanky has the vapors over President Lee’s plans to let the police use a bit more force against violent protestors. The plans include detailed rules on the use of force, and plans to arrest people who engage in violence and cross police lines. To this, the Hanky reacts with hyperbolic charges of a return to dictatorship: President Lee seemed to have been encouraging the police when he said, “If foreign television programs show the nation’s unlawful, violent demonstrators wielding...
Categories Censorship/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society
March 17, 2008

The Ides of 3ì›”

So why is Lee Myung Bak is avoiding ideological fights with the left?  Probably because he’s concentrating his energy on purging his own party of political enemies, including supporters of Park Geun-Hye.    The Grand National Party has as expected eliminated a large number of its 62 incumbent lawmakers from the Gyeongsang Provinces, the party’s political heartland, in the selection of candidates for the general election next month. Twenty-five lawmakers or 43.5 percent were eliminated, the largest number in the...
Categories Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
March 13, 2008

Surprise! Roh Administration Files Mysteriously Vanish

Despite Lee Myung-Bak’s specific warnings, many of the paper and electronic files in Roh Moo-Hyun’s Blue House have mysteriously disappeared: When the new government started work, chief secretaries of President Lee Myung-bak were shocked to find that there were no useful references other than trivial manuals and policy reports in Cheong Wa Dae’s work management system e-Jiwon (digital knowledge park). Most documents and files had been deleted and some parts of the hard disk were damaged. [….] It was especially...
Categories Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
March 13, 2008

Surprise! Roh Administration Files Mysteriously Vanish

Despite Lee Myung-Bak’s specific warnings, many of the paper and electronic files in Roh Moo-Hyun’s Blue House have mysteriously disappeared: When the new government started work, chief secretaries of President Lee Myung-bak were shocked to find that there were no useful references other than trivial manuals and policy reports in Cheong Wa Dae’s work management system e-Jiwon (digital knowledge park). Most documents and files had been deleted and some parts of the hard disk were damaged. [….] It was especially...
Categories Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
March 5, 2008

North Korea Has a Meth Problem, Part 2

After I wrote here recently about North Korea’s growing meth problem, it occurred to me that I never talked about how, as a prosecutor, I learned how awful meth really is. I spent just shy of two years of my Army time assigned to Ft. Irwin, California, home of the OPFOR. During most of that time, I was the prosecutor, or Trial Counsel. Irwin is a great place to drive a T-72, shoot AK’s, or go out on field exercises...
Categories Drugs & N Korea/Korean Society/UCMJ & SOFA
March 1, 2008

May This Be the Last N.Y. Philharmonic Post

I am really, really tired of blogging about this, but I have two more links that I can’t pass up (thanks to the readers who forwarded them). Both have to do with the N.Y. Philharmonic’s financial backers, and both reflect very different ways of viewing the orchestra’s visit — with and without its moral context. The first story, from long-time Korea hand Don Kirk, is mildly inspiring: During one of the carefully scripted tours of the capital prior to Tuesday’s...
Categories Appeasement/Deprogramming/Korean Society
February 28, 2008

When did pining for the collapse of a genocidal tyranny become a bad thing?

Somewhere in Washington, Joshua is no longer smiling. Nam Joo-Hong, the nominee to be Unification Minister whom I had called “my kind of guy,” has withdrawn from consideration after becoming a lightning rod for those on the left who lost the election by a landslide. Nam Joo-hong, the unification minister-designate, and Park Eun-kyung, the environment minister-designate, stepped down as they were grilled by opposition parties over their accumulation of wealth and alleged misconduct. Nam does not qualify for the unification...
Categories Korean Politics
February 25, 2008

The Long National Nightmare Is (Officially) Over

[Update: Now that I’ve read LMB’s inaugural, I’ve posted more detailed comments / ridicule below the fold and the video.] The 17th presidency of Korea started as Lee Myung-bak formally took over presidential authority from former president Roh Moo-hyun at midnight on Monday, with the Bosingak Bell in downtown Seoul tolling the momentous hour. Lee now embarks on a government of pragmatic conservatism after putting an end to the decade-long leftwing rule. [Chosun Ilbo] Judging by Lee’s inaugural address and...
Categories Korean Politics
February 21, 2008

The Morally Retarded Lorin Maazel, Part 2

Lorin Maazel could really use a publicist who understands the concept of “stop digging.” Just when we thought we’d put this flame war behind us, he goes off again, in the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page. With time for further reflection and careful editing, here’s how he rephrases his central point: If we are to be effective in bringing succor to the oppressed, many languishing in foreign gulags, the U.S. must claim an authority based on an immaculate ethical record,...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Deprogramming/Human Rights/WTF?
February 20, 2008

The Restoration: More on Lee M.B.’s Cabinet Picks

Lee Myung Bak has announced some more cabinet picks. I’ve already given my strong approval to his pick for Unification, and I like his pick for National Defense, too: Lee Sang-hee, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, will be the defense minister, sources also said. Lee is known for his hard-line stance toward the North. After the North fired seven missiles on July 5, 2006, the Blue House called it “high level political pressure.” Lee openly criticized the...
Categories Korean Politics
February 19, 2008

Honor, Delayed, Part 2

Kim Jong-Seon, who bitterly denounced Roh Moo Hyun’s appeasement-driven snubbing of memorial services for her husband and five other sailors killed in a 2002 naval battle with North Korean warships, has announced that she will return to South Korea. Now she has changed her mind, motivated by reports that president-elect Lee Myung-bak’s Transition Team and the Defense Ministry decided to upgrade the memorial service for the victims of the West Sea Battle to a state event. The ceremony has so...
Categories Appeasement/ROK Military
February 19, 2008

S. Korea’s Next Unification Minister Denounced as “Collapsist” and “Neocon”

The left-wing Hankyoreh is predictably disgruntled about the new Unification Minister: Nam [Joo Hong] is your typical member of the “school of collapse. He has consistently claimed that there are signs that a sudden situation could arise in the North, saying that it has problems in five major areas, including food, energy and succession. Immediately after the February 13 agreement was made, he said that the crisis management ability of the leadership in Pyongyang was reaching a breaking point. Naturally...
Categories An Alliance?/Korean Politics/Reconstruction/Regime Change
February 12, 2008

I Wonder How Much $4 Million Can Buy in Gitmo

There’s yet more news on our South Korea-Taliban ransom story. Last September, I told you that Mullah Abdallah Jan, one of the leaders in the kidnapping and murder of South Korean hostages, had an unexpected meeting with an American J-Dam and shortly thereafter, 72 virgin prepubescent boys. This week, when I heard that Mansoor Dadullah had been captured, it occurred to me that the name was familiar, but the Chosun Ilbo makes the connection: Pakistani authorities said that Mansoor Dadullah...
Categories An Alliance?/Terrorism (NK)