Clash of Civilizations Update

A few days ago, I blogged here that a careful listener would hear secondary explosions near the Blue House during the visit of the mercurial neocon sage Michael Horowitz to Seoul. And without further ado . . . ka-BOOM! Horowitz once advocated changing North Korea through a process like the old Helsinki process, one that I consider hopelessly naive in the North Korean context. Since then, however, Horowitz has joined the militant wing, and Norbert Vollertsen sticks close to Horowitz...

Jenkins: North Korea was training my daughters to be spies

Charles Robert Jenkins, now released and off to live out his remaining years in what he hoped would be obscurity, says that North Korea had designs on his daughters that began with intensive language training: [The North Korean authorities] wanted us to have children so they could use them later. . . . I knew what they were trying to do. . . . They wanted to turn them into spies. My daughters, they could pass as South Korea. There...

Fear and Loathing Update

Is it possible for something to collapse gradually? Or do we just call that “sagging?” Umm, no, Mr. Hwang. Extreme dictatorships don’t sag. They implode. But then again, we can stop all of this speculative nonsense once and for all. South Korea’s unification minister tells us there is “almost no possibility” of that happening. Nope, nothing unusual at all here. What looks deceptively like a purge of Kim Jong Il loyalists (I told you here to watch for this) is...

Roh Signs with the Axis of Weasels; Faust, Interviewed in Hell, Disavows Pact

Roh has had a busy day marginalizing his country on the question of North Korea. The fact that he’s saying this from Paris isn’t even the worst part. This is: The reason that we are more attracted to the French is that the country is different from the United States in terms of culture and values . . . . It is true that Korea has been influenced by the United States since World War II. But the development of...

Clash of Civilizations Update

A few days ago, I blogged here that a careful listener would hear secondary explosions near the Blue House during the visit of the mercurial neocon sage Michael Horowitz to Seoul. And without further ado . . . ka-BOOM! Horowitz once advocated changing North Korea through a process like the old Helsinki process, one that I consider hopelessly naive in the North Korean context. Since then, however, Horowitz has joined the militant wing, and Norbert Vollertsen sticks close to Horowitz...

Jenkins: North Korea was training my daughters to be spies

Charles Robert Jenkins, now released and off to live out his remaining years in what he hoped would be obscurity, says that North Korea had designs on his daughters that began with intensive language training: [The North Korean authorities] wanted us to have children so they could use them later. . . . I knew what they were trying to do. . . . They wanted to turn them into spies. My daughters, they could pass as South Korea. There...

The White Tigers

Not a Vegas act, but the name of a loose collection of North Korean guerrillas who fought against Kim Il Sung, and whom everyone–North Koreans, Chinese, South Koreans, and Americans–conveniently swept aside after the signing of the 1953 armistace. For a while, of course, they were useful to us: Unconventional warfare operations began Jan. 8, 1951, with a South Korean navy ship patrolling near the Yalu River. The ship discovered more than 10,000 North Korean guerrillas fighting the North Korean...

The White Tigers

Not a Vegas act, but the name of a loose collection of North Korean guerrillas who fought against Kim Il Sung, and whom everyone–North Koreans, Chinese, South Koreans, and Americans–conveniently swept aside after the signing of the 1953 armistace. For a while, of course, they were useful to us: Unconventional warfare operations began Jan. 8, 1951, with a South Korean navy ship patrolling near the Yalu River. The ship discovered more than 10,000 North Korean guerrillas fighting the North Korean...

The Crisis of Tolerance and Anonymity

When I was a kid, what attracted me the most about liberalism was its tolerance of views with which it disagreed. Want to lead a parade of Illinois Nazis through Skokie? Well, I’m from the ACLU, I hold your views in contempt, and I’m here to defend your right to march anyway. This sort of thing, however, suggests that at the very least, there’s a crisis of tolerance within liberalism. And then there’s this, which is just plain repellent. And...

The Crisis of Tolerance and Anonymity

When I was a kid, what attracted me the most about liberalism was its tolerance of views with which it disagreed. Want to lead a parade of Illinois Nazis through Skokie? Well, I’m from the ACLU, I hold your views in contempt, and I’m here to defend your right to march anyway. This sort of thing, however, suggests that at the very least, there’s a crisis of tolerance within liberalism. And then there’s this, which is just plain repellent. And...

We Poke the Dragon’s Eye Every Day

Unhappy with the Chinese government? Be kind to the next Falun Gong activist you see. You don’t have to share their beliefs to support their right to practice them. Not direct enough for you? Then you could decide to attend a worldwide protest in front of Chinese Embassies and consulates worldwide on December 22nd. Our specific grievance is the Chinese government’s repatriations of North Korean refugees back to North Korea, where they face a grim fate. All of the protests...

We Poke the Dragon’s Eye Every Day

Unhappy with the Chinese government? Be kind to the next Falun Gong activist you see. You don’t have to share their beliefs to support their right to practice them. Not direct enough for you? Then you could decide to attend a worldwide protest in front of Chinese Embassies and consulates worldwide on December 22nd. Our specific grievance is the Chinese government’s repatriations of North Korean refugees back to North Korea, where they face a grim fate. All of the protests...