Archive for May, 2004
Posted by Joshua Stanton on May 26, 2004 at 10:44 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It’s come to this–Kang Chol-Hwan tells us that North Korea is building a border fence and tiger traps to kill and maim refugees. If there were a futures market on North Korea, I’d be indicted for insider trading. As you heard me speculate here, the NK secret police suspect an assassination attempt by “rebellious forces” was behind the Ryongchon explosion; they’re in full purge mode and are confiscating every cell phone they can find.
The Korea Herald may be onto something. They are starting to suspect that the U.S.-Korea alliance is in trouble. This piece in the NYT might explain why (hint–revelations that North Korea sold uranium to Libya were greeted with yawns in Seoul). The USFK is talking like we haven’t seen the last of the troop reductions. Coincidentally, the lack of foreign investment and its domestic ripple effect is worrying South Korean business leaders.
Over in Japan, several political parties are unhappy with Koizumi’s visit to Pyongyang and his offer of aid to NK in exchange for some of the hostages’ families. They intend to show that by finally barring NK ships from Japanese ports. Meanwhile, several former hostages tell us the lengths to which North Korea went to hide them from curiosity. They report that from 1997 to 2002, they were kept in isolation, which is saying a lot in North Korea.
Posted by joshua on May 26, 2004 at 5:44 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It’s come to this–Kang Chol-Hwan tells us that North Korea is building a border fence and tiger traps to kill and maim refugees. If there were a futures market on North Korea, I’d be indicted for insider trading. As you heard me speculate here, the NK secret police suspect an assassination attempt by “rebellious forces” was behind the Ryongchon explosion; they’re in full purge mode and are confiscating every cell phone they can find.
The Korea Herald may be onto something. They are starting to suspect that the U.S.-Korea alliance is in trouble. This piece in the NYT might explain why (hint–revelations that North Korea sold uranium to Libya were greeted with yawns in Seoul). The USFK is talking like we haven’t seen the last of the troop reductions. Coincidentally, the lack of foreign investment and its domestic ripple effect is worrying South Korean business leaders.
Over in Japan, several political parties are unhappy with Koizumi’s visit to Pyongyang and his offer of aid to NK in exchange for some of the hostages’ families. They intend to show that by finally barring NK ships from Japanese ports. Meanwhile, several former hostages tell us the lengths to which North Korea went to hide them from curiosity. They report that from 1997 to 2002, they were kept in isolation, which is saying a lot in North Korea.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on May 25, 2004 at 11:39 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We haven’t heard from that chorus much since the war in Iraq started, but Rebecca at NKZone posts a warmed-over blog post to that effect. I posted a partial response in the comments. Here is my response in full:
I would first offer my congratulations to the Lightweight for managing to contradict himself in his very first paragraph. So is North Korea really “a meaningful military threat to its neighbors, who are our allies/trading partners” or “too impoverished to invade [its] neighbors?” You can draw a hair-thin distinction, I s’pose, but not one that matters to this discussion; either it’s a threat or it isn’t.
As for his main assertion, “North Korea is worse,” he misses the point–intentionally. Our government isn’t supposed to start fights it can’t win, it’s supposed to analyze each complex foreign policy problem, weigh the merits and risks of each alternative, and pick the one that’s less bad than all the others. Here, Lightweight can make plenty of good arguments about Iraq without resorting to bad ones (no need to thank me).
Saying that North Korea is worse than Iraq is as true as it is irrelevant. In Iraq, we had options; in North Korea, we haven’t had any obvious ones since Jimmy Carter and Warren Christopher (as seen in “Weekend at Bernie’s”) cooked up that diplomatic masterstroke in ’94 that got us where we are today. Comparing Iraq to North Korea is simply a way to change the subject from a place where we had options to one where we seemingly don’t-—to one where the military option carries unacceptable risks and where diplomacy has only managed to worsen those risks and sustain a murderous regime. “North Korea is worse” is, by the Lightweight’s admission, an excuse to do nothing in either place (note his glee that North Korea could “really fight back;” go North Koreaaaaaaa!). You should also note that the Lightweight offers no fresh ideas for solving the NK nuke / humanitarian crises (ie., training and funding a resistance movement, strengthening the PSI, economic warfare, a blockade, radio and propaganda drops, food drops directly to the starving, coating the country with fake money and travel papers, or even a credible case for more deals and payoffs).
Lightweight also uses “North Korea is worse” to suggest that Bush’s concerns about human rights are insincere. Please. There’s no point in Lightweight attacking Bush’s convictions on human rights when his whole piece is swimming in cynical relativism, incredulity that America could or should care about mass murder abroad on any scale, and a cynical faith that any professed concern could possibly be anything but disguised greed (which explains why we’re all paying $2.10 a gallon for gas now and why Bush scheduled the pacification of a dysfunctional Middle Eastern dictatorship for the denouement to his reelection campaign . . . but I digress . . . and by the way, he made up the whole WMD thing but it never occurred to him that we’d fail to find them—or even bother to plant some—-in an election year, too, that crafty s.o.b. . . . but I digress again). Also, I don’t recall seeing Lightweight and his friends at the Capitol on April 28th. Where, then, is there a whiff of a hint of a shred of a wisp of evidence that the appeasers would take one tangible step to ease the suffering of the North Korean people? The “North Korea is worse” chorus forgot them the moment North Korea ceased to be a useful way to change the subject from Iraq. They’ve turned their wagging fingers toward Abu Ghraib, where the scale of the cruelty will never approach that of one tough day in Camp 51, which gets more press in day than the North Korean gulags do in a year, and where the UCMJ is already running at full throttle.
There are solid arguments against intervention in Iraq (and good ones against how it was done), but “North Korea is worse” isn’t one of them, particularly given how disingenuous its proponents turned out to be. Admittedly, Iraq contains lessons about how to manage post-KJI North Korea, but that’s about the extent of it. In fact, North Korea is at least as strong an argument favoring war in Iraq as opposing it—Iraq unchecked would eventually have become another North Korea, a problem posing grave dangers but defying lasting and peaceful solutions. Isn’t one of those plenty? That was the point of going into Iraq when we did, while it was still a “grave and gathering” threat, not an immediate one—-like North Korea is now. That is also the point of preemption itself—-to stop grave threats while you still can, to exercise options before you lose them, to fight small wars sooner rather than big ones later, and to maintain a credible enough threat of force to make effective diplomacy possible. In Libya and Sudan, we learned that such a credible threat of force can pay dividends for diplomacy and peace. In Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, we learned that a toothless foreign policy tempts even those who claim to be your friends to stab you in the back. No foe is less forgiving of weakness or gullibility than North Korea.
The final reason “North Korea is worse” is irrelevant is the fact that we are already in Iraq, and the only way out leads through Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s perforated skull. Although many have recently discovered, to their feigned astonishment, that war is hard sometimes, the road to Pyongyang leads through Baghdad now, even if you didn’t believe that 14 months ago (I had my doubts), and even if you think (as I do) that the solution to the NK crisis isn’t a military solution, but a combination of targeted political and economic subversion. Success in Iraq—-for NK purposes, that means a security situation that is steadily getting better and unlikely to get much worse—-will allow us to apply all of our diplomatic power and military deterrence to Pyongyang, thus making war less likely. Failure in Iraq will leave us where we found ourselves in June 1975, with our military demoralized, our diplomacy paralyzed, and our enemies poised to attack ruthlessly, secure that our atrophied hand-wringing will stay our fists. Defeat in Iraq means that no terrorist or tinpot dictator need ever fear us again. That would be an irreversible turning point in our history, one in which bus bombings, anthrax attacks, and suitcase nukes would be the steady punctuations of our nation’s slow but certain extinction.
Posted by joshua on May 25, 2004 at 6:39 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We haven’t heard from that chorus much since the war in Iraq started, but Rebecca at NKZone posts a warmed-over blog post to that effect. I posted a partial response in the comments. Here is my response in full:
I would first offer my congratulations to the Lightweight for managing to contradict himself in his very first paragraph. So is North Korea really “a meaningful military threat to its neighbors, who are our allies/trading partners” or “too impoverished to invade [its] neighbors?” You can draw a hair-thin distinction, I s’pose, but not one that matters to this discussion; either it’s a threat or it isn’t.
As for his main assertion, “North Korea is worse,” he misses the point–intentionally. Our government isn’t supposed to start fights it can’t win, it’s supposed to analyze each complex foreign policy problem, weigh the merits and risks of each alternative, and pick the one that’s less bad than all the others. Here, Lightweight can make plenty of good arguments about Iraq without resorting to bad ones (no need to thank me).
Saying that North Korea is worse than Iraq is as true as it is irrelevant. In Iraq, we had options; in North Korea, we haven’t had any obvious ones since Jimmy Carter and Warren Christopher (as seen in “Weekend at Bernie’s”) cooked up that diplomatic masterstroke in ’94 that got us where we are today. Comparing Iraq to North Korea is simply a way to change the subject from a place where we had options to one where we seemingly don’t-—to one where the military option carries unacceptable risks and where diplomacy has only managed to worsen those risks and sustain a murderous regime. “North Korea is worse” is, by the Lightweight’s admission, an excuse to do nothing in either place (note his glee that North Korea could “really fight back;” go North Koreaaaaaaa!). You should also note that the Lightweight offers no fresh ideas for solving the NK nuke / humanitarian crises (ie., training and funding a resistance movement, strengthening the PSI, economic warfare, a blockade, radio and propaganda drops, food drops directly to the starving, coating the country with fake money and travel papers, or even a credible case for more deals and payoffs).
Lightweight also uses “North Korea is worse” to suggest that Bush’s concerns about human rights are insincere. Please. There’s no point in Lightweight attacking Bush’s convictions on human rights when his whole piece is swimming in cynical relativism, incredulity that America could or should care about mass murder abroad on any scale, and a cynical faith that any professed concern could possibly be anything but disguised greed (which explains why we’re all paying $2.10 a gallon for gas now and why Bush scheduled the pacification of a dysfunctional Middle Eastern dictatorship for the denouement to his reelection campaign . . . but I digress . . . and by the way, he made up the whole WMD thing but it never occurred to him that we’d fail to find them—or even bother to plant some—-in an election year, too, that crafty s.o.b. . . . but I digress again). Also, I don’t recall seeing Lightweight and his friends at the Capitol on April 28th. Where, then, is there a whiff of a hint of a shred of a wisp of evidence that the appeasers would take one tangible step to ease the suffering of the North Korean people? The “North Korea is worse” chorus forgot them the moment North Korea ceased to be a useful way to change the subject from Iraq. They’ve turned their wagging fingers toward Abu Ghraib, where the scale of the cruelty will never approach that of one tough day in Camp 51, which gets more press in day than the North Korean gulags do in a year, and where the UCMJ is already running at full throttle.
There are solid arguments against intervention in Iraq (and good ones against how it was done), but “North Korea is worse” isn’t one of them, particularly given how disingenuous its proponents turned out to be. Admittedly, Iraq contains lessons about how to manage post-KJI North Korea, but that’s about the extent of it. In fact, North Korea is at least as strong an argument favoring war in Iraq as opposing it—Iraq unchecked would eventually have become another North Korea, a problem posing grave dangers but defying lasting and peaceful solutions. Isn’t one of those plenty? That was the point of going into Iraq when we did, while it was still a “grave and gathering” threat, not an immediate one—-like North Korea is now. That is also the point of preemption itself—-to stop grave threats while you still can, to exercise options before you lose them, to fight small wars sooner rather than big ones later, and to maintain a credible enough threat of force to make effective diplomacy possible. In Libya and Sudan, we learned that such a credible threat of force can pay dividends for diplomacy and peace. In Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, we learned that a toothless foreign policy tempts even those who claim to be your friends to stab you in the back. No foe is less forgiving of weakness or gullibility than North Korea.
The final reason “North Korea is worse” is irrelevant is the fact that we are already in Iraq, and the only way out leads through Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s perforated skull. Although many have recently discovered, to their feigned astonishment, that war is hard sometimes, the road to Pyongyang leads through Baghdad now, even if you didn’t believe that 14 months ago (I had my doubts), and even if you think (as I do) that the solution to the NK crisis isn’t a military solution, but a combination of targeted political and economic subversion. Success in Iraq—-for NK purposes, that means a security situation that is steadily getting better and unlikely to get much worse—-will allow us to apply all of our diplomatic power and military deterrence to Pyongyang, thus making war less likely. Failure in Iraq will leave us where we found ourselves in June 1975, with our military demoralized, our diplomacy paralyzed, and our enemies poised to attack ruthlessly, secure that our atrophied hand-wringing will stay our fists. Defeat in Iraq means that no terrorist or tinpot dictator need ever fear us again. That would be an irreversible turning point in our history, one in which bus bombings, anthrax attacks, and suitcase nukes would be the steady punctuations of our nation’s slow but certain extinction.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on May 19, 2004 at 5:09 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Like many of you, I have been puzzled at the selective outrage of OhMyNews, Hankyoreh, and other lefist / anti-American media in Korea about Iraqi prisoners forced to wear leashes and panties, a matter which I hope to put in its proper context, not to downplay. At the same time, those “news” sources seldom or never mention the 4 million North Koreans currently living on the brink of starvation, the 2 million already culled through engineered famine, the uncounted scores of kids maimed by what may have been a WMD mishap at Ryongchon (and then left untreated), the reports of gas chambers at Camp 51, the quarter of a million in the death camps, the thousands of women sold into sex slavery in China, Chinese border guards shooting North Korean refugees . . . you get the idea.
The key to this misunderstanding is our own failure to understand that among some South Koreans, especially those who hate America, human life is valued on a sliding scale. In the hope of promoting greater international sensitivity and awareness, I now present the result of years of careful empiricial analysis . . . the OhMyNews Human Life Valuation Scale.
Take any story with a human rights angle and use it to test the accuracy of this scale in predicting the public and media reaction in South Korea. Readers are encouraged to report back on the predictive accuracy of the OhMyNews Scale to help our researchers adjust it accordingly.
The Oh MyNews Scale:
A Qualitative Analysis Method for the Valuation of Human Life
in Contemporary South Korea
The Victim Is (choose one):
Killed= Plus 2 points
Abducted / Enslaved= Plus 2 points
Loses face= Plus 1 points (2 if Victim is South Korean)
Maimed= Plus 1 point
Temporarily Injured= Plus zero points
Victim’s Nationality:
South Korean= Plus 2 points (1 point if victim is a “bad woman”)
Iraqi or Afghan= Plus 1 point
Al-Qaeda Member= Plus 1 point
North Korean= Plus 1 point
European, ANZAC, or Canadian= Plus ½ point
Chinese= Plus ½ point
Other Asian / African= Minus ½ point
Japanese= Minus 1 point
American= Minus 2 points
Guilty Party’s* Nationality:
American= Plus 3 points
Japanese= Plus 3 points
Other Asian / African= Plus 1 point
European, ANZAC, or Canadian= Plus 1 point
Chinese= Minus ½ point
Al-Qaeda Member= Minus 1 point
Iraqi or Afghan= Minus 1½ points
North Korean= Minus 3 points
South Korean= Minus 3 points
Judicial Proceedings:
U.S. Court= Plus 2 points
Post-Surrender Amnesty= Plus 1½ Points
Japanese Court= Plus 1 point
None= Zero points
Peoples’ Revolutionary Tribunal= Minus 1 point
Fatwa= Minus 1 point
South Korean Court= Minus 2 points
Cash Payoff / Blood Money / Sonhae Paesang= Minus 2½ points
Number of Victims:
1 person Zero points
2-10 persons= Zero points
10-500 persons= Zero points
500-5 million persons= Zero points
Add 1 point if any victim is under 20.
Interpretation of Results:
2 Points or less= Small. A virtual non-story
2½-4 Points= Modest. Joongang Ilbo, Page 4.
4½-6 Points= Noteworthy. Choice of a small vigil at an embassy, a 30-minute MBC documentary, or a commemorative stamp.
6½-8 Points= Large. Major demonstrations requiring a riot police show of force, ceremonial acts of student violence, restaurants refuse to serve offending nation’s citizens.
8½-10 Points= Perfect Storm. Massive demonstrations, widespread violent attacks on and discrimination against offending nation, firebombings and ransackings of businesses and installations associated with offending nation, offending nation’s athletes booed at international sporting events, politicians demand “independence” from the offending nation.
* Guilt is presumed once the accused’s nationality is printed in OhMyNews
Posted by Joshua Stanton on May 19, 2004 at 3:31 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
This time, the media is the circus. It’s election season in Washington. How can I tell? The Washington Post’s headlines were full of non-news “news analysis” of gloomy views about Iraq. Here is today’s cartoon from the Post, and here is today’s front-page picture of John Kerry from the Washington Times. I could use many of the same words to describe both–unfair, distorted, cheap, and blatantly partisan. No wonder people are defecting to blogs for their news.
Yesterday’s media burial of the Iraq sarin confirmation story sealed the deal for me. No, two chemmo shells don’t prove Powell’s case, but they do upset the media’s “there were no WMDs” mantra. It is has now come to this–the media have made their conclusion and are willing to hide the facts to protect it from open minds. Page 12 is always there to document that they did report the story, but it’s more of a CYA document than real reporting; just two stages above the legal notices. What will they say if we dig up the ammo dump from where those shells came?
Posted by joshua on May 19, 2004 at 12:09 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Like many of you, I have been puzzled at the selective outrage of OhMyNews, Hankyoreh, and other lefist / anti-American media in Korea about Iraqi prisoners forced to wear leashes and panties, a matter which I hope to put in its proper context, not to downplay. At the same time, those “news” sources seldom or never mention the 4 million North Koreans currently living on the brink of starvation, the 2 million already culled through engineered famine, the uncounted scores of kids maimed by what may have been a WMD mishap at Ryongchon (and then left untreated), the reports of gas chambers at Camp 51, the quarter of a million in the death camps, the thousands of women sold into sex slavery in China, Chinese border guards shooting North Korean refugees . . . you get the idea.
The key to this misunderstanding is our own failure to understand that among some South Koreans, especially those who hate America, human life is valued on a sliding scale. In the hope of promoting greater international sensitivity and awareness, I now present the result of years of careful empiricial analysis . . . the OhMyNews Human Life Valuation Scale.
Take any story with a human rights angle and use it to test the accuracy of this scale in predicting the public and media reaction in South Korea. Readers are encouraged to report back on the predictive accuracy of the OhMyNews Scale to help our researchers adjust it accordingly.
The Oh MyNews Scale:
A Qualitative Analysis Method for the Valuation of Human Life
in Contemporary South Korea
The Victim Is (choose one):
Killed= Plus 2 points
Abducted / Enslaved= Plus 2 points
Loses face= Plus 1 points (2 if Victim is South Korean)
Maimed= Plus 1 point
Temporarily Injured= Plus zero points
Victim’s Nationality:
South Korean= Plus 2 points (1 point if victim is a “bad woman”)
Iraqi or Afghan= Plus 1 point
Al-Qaeda Member= Plus 1 point
North Korean= Plus 1 point
European, ANZAC, or Canadian= Plus ½ point
Chinese= Plus ½ point
Other Asian / African= Minus ½ point
Japanese= Minus 1 point
American= Minus 2 points
Guilty Party’s* Nationality:
American= Plus 3 points
Japanese= Plus 3 points
Other Asian / African= Plus 1 point
European, ANZAC, or Canadian= Plus 1 point
Chinese= Minus ½ point
Al-Qaeda Member= Minus 1 point
Iraqi or Afghan= Minus 1½ points
North Korean= Minus 3 points
South Korean= Minus 3 points
Judicial Proceedings:
U.S. Court= Plus 2 points
Post-Surrender Amnesty= Plus 1½ Points
Japanese Court= Plus 1 point
None= Zero points
Peoples’ Revolutionary Tribunal= Minus 1 point
Fatwa= Minus 1 point
South Korean Court= Minus 2 points
Cash Payoff / Blood Money / Sonhae Paesang= Minus 2½ points
Number of Victims:
1 person Zero points
2-10 persons= Zero points
10-500 persons= Zero points
500-5 million persons= Zero points
Add 1 point if any victim is under 20.
Interpretation of Results:
2 Points or less= Small. A virtual non-story
2½-4 Points= Modest. Joongang Ilbo, Page 4.
4½-6 Points= Noteworthy. Choice of a small vigil at an embassy, a 30-minute MBC documentary, or a commemorative stamp.
6½-8 Points= Large. Major demonstrations requiring a riot police show of force, ceremonial acts of student violence, restaurants refuse to serve offending nation’s citizens.
8½-10 Points= Perfect Storm. Massive demonstrations, widespread violent attacks on and discrimination against offending nation, firebombings and ransackings of businesses and installations associated with offending nation, offending nation’s athletes booed at international sporting events, politicians demand “independence” from the offending nation.
* Guilt is presumed once the accused’s nationality is printed in OhMyNews
Posted by joshua on May 19, 2004 at 10:31 am · Filed under Uncategorized
This time, the media is the circus. It’s election season in Washington. How can I tell? The Washington Post’s headlines were full of non-news “news analysis” of gloomy views about Iraq. Here is today’s cartoon from the Post, and here is today’s front-page picture of John Kerry from the Washington Times. I could use many of the same words to describe both–unfair, distorted, cheap, and blatantly partisan. No wonder people are defecting to blogs for their news.
Yesterday’s media burial of the Iraq sarin confirmation story sealed the deal for me. No, two chemmo shells don’t prove Powell’s case, but they do upset the media’s “there were no WMDs” mantra. It is has now come to this–the media have made their conclusion and are willing to hide the facts to protect it from open minds. Page 12 is always there to document that they did report the story, but it’s more of a CYA document than real reporting; just two stages above the legal notices. What will they say if we dig up the ammo dump from where those shells came?
Posted by Joshua Stanton on May 19, 2004 at 12:57 am · Filed under Uncategorized
NKZone is noting that there’s a small panic brewing in South Korea over the planned U.S. troop reductions. Disbelief has shattered the complacent confidency that America was in Korea for its own reasons–that Uncle Sugar would never leave.
My logical reaction is that this move is good for U.S. strategic flexibility, good for the war effort in Iraq, and good for South Korea, which will finally have its “independence.” Keeping that independence will require some sober maturity in its foreign policy and much more revenue for its own defense spending. My emotional reaction–I confess–is to savor this story like a bottle of strong, cheap red wine on a balmy evening in Capri. Savor the schadenfreude, sniff the cork, and quaff heartily.
During my years as a soldier in Korea, I met many kind people of varying political persuasions, but many others who were definitely not-so-kind. Regrettably, the impression that stuck most is of those who directed contempt, racism, and even violence toward us personally while perpetually expecting us to carry Uncle Sugar’s rice to their bowls. Kipling called it “the hate of those ye better, the blame of those ye guard.” Contrary to Confucian notions of collective blame, few of us had done anything to deserve being spat on or met with signs that said “No Americans.” Those simple acts of unkindness may have proved persuasive.
If their newspapers are any clue, South Koreans still don’t get it. Hankyoreh is in denial (not over the fact that we’re leaving; over the fact that 77% of the South Koreans don’t actually want us to leave), and the Chosun is just blaming it on Roh. Both sides fail to perceive the degree to which the majority of the South Koreans themselves brought this on themselves, or at least hastened it. They assume or hope, as the case may be, that nobody heard their adolescent cry for attention. If Americans are so mad, they ask, where are the riots? In fact, the people they pissed off–once the core of those who supported the alliance–aren’t exactly the rioting type. In this case, I suspect that those angry Americans were overwhelmingly Korean War vets and soldiers, and that they wrote their congressmen trainloads of mail. Although nobody’s bothered to publish detailed poll results, some evidence supports this view. If I’m right, South Koreans will continue to miss the point–that this isn’t a Yankee bluff or the failure of their politicians to wield influence and grease the right palms; it’s the result of a seismic bottom-to-top shift in American attitudes about Korea.
Now try telling your average group of South Koreans that the collective responsibility for America’s angry backlash is theirs alone, and that it’s going to cost them. They’d probably look at you like you’ve just declared that Korea isn’t really one.
Poor Korea. It’s about to learn that the true harbinger of independence isn’t a firebomb-wielding radical, he’s just a tax collector. As they say, freedom isn’t free. Not anymore.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on May 18, 2004 at 9:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Ruud Lubbers, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, has been accused of sexual harassment by an American woman who has worked for the agency for 20 years. Given Lubbers’ pathetic performance of his duties–especially when it comes to North Koreans in China–it’s tempting to presume the truth of the accusations and hound him into retirement for the good of all humanity. If it’s true, it suggests one way China might have corrupted him. Having investigated, prosecuted, and defended dozens of claims of that sort, I won’t fall into the trap of presuming guilt and will wait to see the evidence. What’s really saddest is that Lubbers’ mere incompetence in the face of a gargantuan humanitarian crisis isn’t enough to send him back to Amsterdam, and that it takes something like this instead.
* * *
Ryongchon Update According to this story (I don’t vouch for the site, but that applies to the NYT, too), the U.S. government is confirming reports that the train was carrying Syrian technicians and WMD components. One’s heart goes out to the victims, many of them still untreated, but coyly fails to answer the knock for the Syrian death-merchants and their escorts. I suppose this must be a real disappointment after all those promises of 17 virgins. Yep, evil has an axis after all.
How do we know this? My own best guess is that our surveillance aircraft can sniff some fairly low concentrations of airborne contaminants that the smoke cloud would have contained.
* * *
Sarin Update–The Pentagon is confirming it. No, it’s not what Powell promised us, but it reminds us to keep our minds open a little longer. If Japan successfully hid mustard gas in China for 60 years, Iraq can hide them in a desert the size of California for one year (or, for that matter, ship them to Syria while we waste time arguing with Dominique de Villepin, who is reportedly a man). Could virtually every intel agency on earth have been wrong that Saddam was lying? It’s worth asking, but I still don’t consider it likely. It defies logic that a man who had lied and given up as much as Saddam did to keep his WMD would quietly–and permanently–dispose of them. One suspects that our military is searching frantically for the ammo dump from which those shells came. Chemmo shells are normally indistinguishable except for the paint they wear. What could be easier than repainting them?
Oh, and why don’t CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times report this? I still don’t think it’s The Smoking Gun, but it’s at least as newsworthy as any piece of Page One Abu Ghraib porn.
Posted by joshua on May 18, 2004 at 7:57 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
NKZone is noting that there’s a small panic brewing in South Korea over the planned U.S. troop reductions. Disbelief has shattered the complacent confidency that America was in Korea for its own reasons–that Uncle Sugar would never leave.
My logical reaction is that this move is good for U.S. strategic flexibility, good for the war effort in Iraq, and good for South Korea, which will finally have its “independence.” Keeping that independence will require some sober maturity in its foreign policy and much more revenue for its own defense spending. My emotional reaction–I confess–is to savor this story like a bottle of strong, cheap red wine on a balmy evening in Capri. Savor the schadenfreude, sniff the cork, and quaff heartily.
During my years as a soldier in Korea, I met many kind people of varying political persuasions, but many others who were definitely not-so-kind. Regrettably, the impression that stuck most is of those who directed contempt, racism, and even violence toward us personally while perpetually expecting us to carry Uncle Sugar’s rice to their bowls. Kipling called it “the hate of those ye better, the blame of those ye guard.” Contrary to Confucian notions of collective blame, few of us had done anything to deserve being spat on or met with signs that said “No Americans.” Those simple acts of unkindness may have proved persuasive.
If their newspapers are any clue, South Koreans still don’t get it. Hankyoreh is in denial (not over the fact that we’re leaving; over the fact that 77% of the South Koreans don’t actually want us to leave), and the Chosun is just blaming it on Roh. Both sides fail to perceive the degree to which the majority of the South Koreans themselves brought this on themselves, or at least hastened it. They assume or hope, as the case may be, that nobody heard their adolescent cry for attention. If Americans are so mad, they ask, where are the riots? In fact, the people they pissed off–once the core of those who supported the alliance–aren’t exactly the rioting type. In this case, I suspect that those angry Americans were overwhelmingly Korean War vets and soldiers, and that they wrote their congressmen trainloads of mail. Although nobody’s bothered to publish detailed poll results, some evidence supports this view. If I’m right, South Koreans will continue to miss the point–that this isn’t a Yankee bluff or the failure of their politicians to wield influence and grease the right palms; it’s the result of a seismic bottom-to-top shift in American attitudes about Korea.
Now try telling your average group of South Koreans that the collective responsibility for America’s angry backlash is theirs alone, and that it’s going to cost them. They’d probably look at you like you’ve just declared that Korea isn’t really one.
Poor Korea. It’s about to learn that the true harbinger of independence isn’t a firebomb-wielding radical, he’s just a tax collector. As they say, freedom isn’t free. Not anymore.
Posted by joshua on May 18, 2004 at 7:57 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
NKZone is noting that there’s a small panic brewing in South Korea over the planned U.S. troop reductions. Disbelief has shattered the complacent confidency that America was in Korea for its own reasons–that Uncle Sugar would never leave.
My logical reaction is that this move is good for U.S. strategic flexibility, good for the war effort in Iraq, and good for South Korea, which will finally have its “independence.” Keeping that independence will require some sober maturity in its foreign policy and much more revenue for its own defense spending. My emotional reaction–I confess–is to savor this story like a bottle of strong, cheap red wine on a balmy evening in Capri. Savor the schadenfreude, sniff the cork, and quaff heartily.
During my years as a soldier in Korea, I met many kind people of varying political persuasions, but many others who were definitely not-so-kind. Regrettably, the impression that stuck most is of those who directed contempt, racism, and even violence toward us personally while perpetually expecting us to carry Uncle Sugar’s rice to their bowls. Kipling called it “the hate of those ye better, the blame of those ye guard.” Contrary to Confucian notions of collective blame, few of us had done anything to deserve being spat on or met with signs that said “No Americans.” Those simple acts of unkindness may have proved persuasive.
If their newspapers are any clue, South Koreans still don’t get it. Hankyoreh is in denial (not over the fact that we’re leaving; over the fact that 77% of the South Koreans don’t actually want us to leave), and the Chosun is just blaming it on Roh. Both sides fail to perceive the degree to which the majority of the South Koreans themselves brought this on themselves, or at least hastened it. They assume or hope, as the case may be, that nobody heard their adolescent cry for attention. If Americans are so mad, they ask, where are the riots? In fact, the people they pissed off–once the core of those who supported the alliance–aren’t exactly the rioting type. In this case, I suspect that those angry Americans were overwhelmingly Korean War vets and soldiers, and that they wrote their congressmen trainloads of mail. Although nobody’s bothered to publish detailed poll results, some evidence supports this view. If I’m right, South Koreans will continue to miss the point–that this isn’t a Yankee bluff or the failure of their politicians to wield influence and grease the right palms; it’s the result of a seismic bottom-to-top shift in American attitudes about Korea.
Now try telling your average group of South Koreans that the collective responsibility for America’s angry backlash is theirs alone, and that it’s going to cost them. They’d probably look at you like you’ve just declared that Korea isn’t really one.
Poor Korea. It’s about to learn that the true harbinger of independence isn’t a firebomb-wielding radical, he’s just a tax collector. As they say, freedom isn’t free. Not anymore.
Posted by joshua on May 18, 2004 at 4:00 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Ruud Lubbers, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, has been accused of sexual harassment by an American woman who has worked for the agency for 20 years. Given Lubbers’ pathetic performance of his duties–especially when it comes to North Koreans in China–it’s tempting to presume the truth of the accusations and hound him into retirement for the good of all humanity. If it’s true, it suggests one way China might have corrupted him. Having investigated, prosecuted, and defended dozens of claims of that sort, I won’t fall into the trap of presuming guilt and will wait to see the evidence. What’s really saddest is that Lubbers’ mere incompetence in the face of a gargantuan humanitarian crisis isn’t enough to send him back to Amsterdam, and that it takes something like this instead.
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Ryongchon Update According to this story (I don’t vouch for the site, but that applies to the NYT, too), the U.S. government is confirming reports that the train was carrying Syrian technicians and WMD components. One’s heart goes out to the victims, many of them still untreated, but coyly fails to answer the knock for the Syrian death-merchants and their escorts. I suppose this must be a real disappointment after all those promises of 17 virgins. Yep, evil has an axis after all.
How do we know this? My own best guess is that our surveillance aircraft can sniff some fairly low concentrations of airborne contaminants that the smoke cloud would have contained.
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Sarin Update–The Pentagon is confirming it. No, it’s not what Powell promised us, but it reminds us to keep our minds open a little longer. If Japan successfully hid mustard gas in China for 60 years, Iraq can hide them in a desert the size of California for one year (or, for that matter, ship them to Syria while we waste time arguing with Dominique de Villepin, who is reportedly a man). Could virtually every intel agency on earth have been wrong that Saddam was lying? It’s worth asking, but I still don’t consider it likely. It defies logic that a man who had lied and given up as much as Saddam did to keep his WMD would quietly–and permanently–dispose of them. One suspects that our military is searching frantically for the ammo dump from which those shells came. Chemmo shells are normally indistinguishable except for the paint they wear. What could be easier than repainting them?
Oh, and why don’t CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times report this? I still don’t think it’s The Smoking Gun, but it’s at least as newsworthy as any piece of Page One Abu Ghraib porn.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on May 17, 2004 at 9:50 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Everyone really ought to stop hyperventilating (ok, please forgive me for that one) . . . in a political sense, I mean. It doesn’t sound very certain that it is sarin, and if it is, it’s just one shell that may not have had any markings. Has everyone on either side of the political spectrum forgotten that there are more important questions than who looks bad because of this? Our first concern ought to be getting those weapons out of the wrong hands, even if we have to go all the way to Damascus to do it. Our second concern ought to be whether our intel is any good. Whether or not this turns out to be sarin, or more than one shell, is beside the point.
As the right is trumpeting this shell as The Smoking Gun, at this moment, CNN doesn’t even mention it! Others are claiming that it doesn’t matter because we don’t know who made the shell–an idiotic claim given that Russian sarin is just as deadly and just as banned as Iraqi sarin.
Bush deserves to be judged by the quality of his judgment and leadership, not the quality of the intel he gets. Even good intel can’t be perfect when you’re talking about secretive dictatorships. Ditto North Korea. The real question is this–how much risk are you willing to let your government take with your life? I want my government to give the benefit of any doubts to my two-year-old, not Saddam or Kim Jong-Il.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on May 17, 2004 at 9:17 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
The Pentagon just confirmed that it won’t replace the brigade that it will withdraw from Korea. It also says that the number to be reduced is 3,600, not 4,000. As stated before, however, that doesn’t include thousands more whose function had been to provide their combat support, medical, dental, legal, commo, etc.
Aidan Foster-Carter has a must-read denunciation of the thugs who may succeed in shutting down FreeNK, the effort of a few North Korean defectors to broadcast into their homeland. Shades of Berlin in 1934?
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