June 28, 2008

Chris Hill Busted Again

[Update 1 Jul 08:   According to a reader tip,  the day after I published this post and the photos below, a State Department desk officer contacted Mrs. Kim through supporters to talk about her letter.  So Chris Hill can’t tell this particular lie again, but  he’s still going to do what  he wants to do.  The next lie, I suspect, will be delivered directly to Mrs. Kim.  It will consist of unenforceable promises to account, eventually,  for the fate...
Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
June 28, 2008

Mad Sheep Disease

Update, 12/08: Here’s how history will record this whole ridiculous episode. It is an inviolable rule of today’s South Korea that all social movements will eventually become violent and anti-American.  So inevitably, a movement  that was, at first,  ostensibly about food safety has descended into a violent anti-American riot, with protestors ransacking the offices of newspapers that don’t  echo the street’s bleat.   I’d love to know a little more about who  the shepherds are: Junior Naver, the children’s site of...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/Korean Society
June 27, 2008

The Year of the Boat People?

 With the worst of  this year’s North Korean famine concentrated in southern coastal areas, flight across the Tumen River to China is no longer the easiest way to flee North Korea.  This famine map, courtesy of Good Friends, is instructive (click for full size):   In the past, North Koreans have fled to South Korea by sea in onesies and twosies.  The first attempt at mass defection by sea ended with disastrous results — the South Koreans sent them back...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Refugees
June 27, 2008

George W. Bush: A Uniter at Last!

For all the failings  of his accord with Kim Jong Il, Bush has made remarkable progress in unwittingly brokering an accord between a liberal Democratic presidential nominee, the House’s most conservative Republicans, and the Republican presidential nominee.  To various degrees, all have noted the inadequacy of Kim’s declaration and declared their opposition to de-listing North Korea as a state sponsor of terror unless it permits verfication.  (Which it won’t, of course): This is a step forward, and there will be...
Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
June 26, 2008

Get Ready for Kim Jong Il’s Incomplete, Incorrect, and Expensive Nuclear Declaration (Updated and Bumped)

[Updated below:     Today, President Bush embarks on the process of throwing away most of our diplomatic leverage against North Korea in exchange for a declaration that’s incomplete, incorrect, and unverified.  Those who rightly criticized President Clinton for  appeasing North Korea after the 1994 Agreed Framework should be honest enough to admit that Bush’s eleventh-hour grasp at a diplomatic legacy  is probably even more dangerous.] [Original Post, 24 Jun 08]   In a speech at the Heritage Foundation  last week,...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
June 25, 2008

Paroled from Death, Or Worse

The anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s invasion of South Korea is a fitting time to post about just the latest Ssouth Korean prisoner of war to return home after being held in North Korea  since a 1953  Armistice agreement in  it agreed to  return  its prisoners.    A prisoner of war (POW) escaped from North Korea 55 years after being captured and is currently staying in China awaiting entry to South Korea, the association of abductees’ family members said Tuesday. ...
Categories Abductions/Korean War
June 25, 2008

With Friends Like These (Pt. 2)

Via Robert, there is finally confirmation for something I’ve long suspected — the South Korean government brings anti-Americanism to the bargaining table and uses it as a negotiating tool: Hong Seong-tae, a sociology professor at Sangji University, said, “The anti-American sentiment, voluntarily created by citizens, helps South Korea increase its negotiating power in its relations with the U.S. In fact, Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon said, “Whenever the negotiations were at risk of failing, I produced a picture of the candlelight...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism
June 25, 2008

With Friends Like These (Pt. 1)

Today is June 25, 2008, the 58th anniversary of Japan’s America’s North Korea’s invasion of South Korea.  I hope you’ll excuse my temporary confusion; my han has been acting up again: More than half of teenagers here do not know when the Korean War broke out or who started it, showing ignorance about the country’s history and national security.  The Ministry of Public Administration and Security said Monday that a survey of 1,016 middle and high school students showed nearly...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean History
June 23, 2008

Kos Diarist Calls for Prayers for Michelle Malkin’s Death

Thanks to everyone of every point of view who linked to this post.  Of course, any high traffic post is a mixed blessing.  You get good links and comments and widen the circulation of your ideas, and you also dredge the swamp.   I’d have to say that the  call by  Kos diarist “Gramarye”  for prayers for Michelle Malkin’s death (and after her blog linked this one) sets a new low.  Seriously: According to her blog, “Take me now, Lord. My...
Categories Blogs & Blogging
June 22, 2008

Obama Gets Another Unwanted Endorsement

[Update: Well, that didn’t take long. Welcome from Little Green Footballs, Michelle Maklin, the Jawa Report, the unlinkable Memeorandum, and my good friend at Gateway Pundit. Regulars here know that I’m completely disgusted with Bush’s own appeasement of Kim Jong Il, but while you’re here, don’t miss the story of Esther Kim, an Obama constituent whose husband was kidnapped and killed by the North Koreans. Obama inspired her Hope, then crushed it with Change.] The Chosun Sinbo, the mouthpiece of...
Categories Appeasement/U.S. Politics
June 20, 2008

Why Should We Believe Chris Hill?

Chris Hill is the man in whom Congress will have to invest its trust if it decides to throw away America’s leverage and let the State Department de-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism this summer.  The terms of Hill’s deal with Kim Jong Il are  so  hopelessly vague  and endlessly flexible  that the viability of this whole process rests on two  thin  and brittle reeds: Kim Jong Il’s good faith and  Chris Hill’s veracity.   Enough said?  If not,...
Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Refugees/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
June 20, 2008

Some Food Situation Updates

MARCUS NOLAND FORWARDS  two more updates on  North Korea’s food situation.  The first (“North Korea: The Emergence of Pre-famine Conditions”) is co-authored with Stephan  Haggard; the second (“Korean Institutional Reform in Comparative Perspective”) is co-authored with Erik Weeks.  RICE EATERS, CORN EATERS, GRASS EATERS:  The Daily NK has  more on how the different classes in North Korea are surviving the current food crisis, and a very detailed report on food aid monitoring and manipulation.  Among other things, some members of...
Categories Famine & Food Aid
June 20, 2008

Anju Links for 20 June 2008

THE KOREAN GOVERNMENT HAS PUBLISHED a guidebook for foreigners.  The guidebook contains a warning about the dangers of … fan death.   Have you heard of this “fan death?”  (ht).  BUT WE MUSTN’T POLITICIZE THE OLYMPICS:  China’s  anti-North Korean refugee pogrom  continues, though almost no one sees fit to mention it, and the people of South Korea still don’t really care about it.  I wonder if they’d care more if they felt completely safe criticizing China. AT TIMES, IT  ALMOST SEEMS...
Categories Anju Links
June 20, 2008

How Much More Don’t We Know?

There are two  unfolding enigmas  from that black hole of disappearing humanity known as North Korea this week.  The L.A. Times  catches us up on the rumors that North Korea may soon “discover” that, notwithstanding years of denials, it may have some more Japanese abductees after all.  I wonder how many Yen this will cost the Japanese  in ransom reparations.  Wouldn’t that make this, you know, terrorism? The second story involves an American who has been missing since the Korean...
Categories Abductions/China/Korean War/Uncategorized
June 20, 2008

Brain, Trust

The other day, commenter Sonagi asked, “Now who do you think is more likely to excise the vestigal organ that is USFK – McCain or Obama?”  Judging by this, the answer is “neither one.”  McCain’s choice of a brain trust is generally disappointing, at least as depicted here, although McCain’s own statements on North Korea have been spot-on, and sounded as though they came from  his own  mind and heart (Obama, not so much).   Gordon Flake,  a very bright and...
Categories U.S. Politics
June 19, 2008

Who Remembers Kim Dong Shik? Answer: The Washington Post, Barack Obama, and Condoleezza Rice

Regular readers know that I’ve been a persistent critic of politicians of both parties who would  politicize and trivialize two  essential and  long-standing principles of American national security policy:  the intolerance of state terrorism, and the intolerance of proliferation.  North Korea’s refusal to be bound by any norms of  human civilization tempts a certain  class of politician to simply exempt North Korea from those principles.  Notwithstanding President Bush’s hawkish and mostly empty  words, his administration is about to  do exactly...
Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
June 18, 2008

Good Friends: Suspected Avian Flu Epidemic in North Korea

Here’s Good Friends Newsletter 143:  good-friends-143.pdf A lot of people are getting sick and dying in the northeast due to a mysterious illness. The North Koreans seem to think that they have an outbreak of avian flu on their hands. If that’s true, we can thank His Porcine Majesty for a global health crisis that governments worldwide have dreaded and braced for. Among the places where dead birds were found, and where one child died, is Camp 16.  Bird-flu Virus...
Categories Famine & Food Aid