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Monthly Archive: October, 2008

October 30, 2008

N. Korea Marks Terror De-Listing By Threatening to Turn Seoul into ‘Debris.’

Never mind North Korea’s sponsorship of terrorism.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  any government that delivers messages like these should be listed as a specially designated terrorist group: “We clarify our stand that should the South Korean puppet authorities continue scattering leaflets and conducting a smear campaign with sheer fabrications, our army will take a resolute practical action as we have already warned,” the official KCNA news agency quoted the military spokesman as  saying. At a...

Categories Censorship/Democracy/Terrorism (NK)
October 29, 2008

Generalissimo Kim Jong Il Still Not Dead But Rumored to Need Ventriloquist’s Assistance to Brush Teeth, Conduct Inspections, Sign Public Execution Warrants

[Update:  C’est pas vrais, says le docteur.] Every day seems to bring a new rumor about Kim Jong Il’s health, which is in itself a good thing if you consider the effect this must have on the cohesion between ambitious generals, party apparatchiks, and disgruntled young officers in a hungry year.  We know the rumors are circulating in North Korea, and it’s safe to assume that they’re just as contradictory inside North Korea as they are on Earth.  The difference...

Categories Kim Jong Il
October 28, 2008

Anju Links for 28 October 2008

ANOTHER STALINIST WHO’S PISSED AT LEE MYUNG BAK: Noam Chomsky, over an alleged ban on his works. I’m not sure whether Chomsky’s screeds circulate freely in Pyongyang, but the answer is probably useful to prove a point regardless of what it is. I don’t support banning even a yutz like Chomsky, whose work is all over the internet anyway. But if Chomsky is — to use Yonhap’s barren description of him — no more than a “linguist,” then Goebbels was...

Categories Anju Links/Uncategorized
October 28, 2008

While America Drifts, Japan and S. Korea Stand Firm

Does it ever seem that U.S. policy toward North Korea is intentionally designed to clash with those of Japan and South Korea?  No matter how necessary a coordinated approach may be to the success of any policy, and even when Japan and Korea are newly aligned toward the same strategy we’d been pursuing until February 2007, our State Department seems to delight in creating diplomatic chaos at the first sign that order might break out.  Ironically, it’s now America that...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
October 26, 2008

Once Again, Kim Jong Il Starves the People; Once Again, World Doesn’t Know How to Respond

Recently, I was arguing with an influential supporter of a soft-line approach to North Korea about food aid.  Generally, we both supported the provision of food aid, and both of us acknowledged that the regime would use every means at its disposal to divert that aid to loyalists, high-ranking cadres, and the military. We agreed that Kim Jong Il doesn’t see the lives of all North Koreans as having equal value. We diverged when it came to what U.S. policy...

Categories Famine & Food Aid
October 25, 2008

Mystery Solved? Senior N.K. Diplomat Reportedly Defects

We may now know why North Korean diplomats were told to stand by for an important announcement on Monday: The United States declined Thursday to confirm or deny a report that a senior North Korean diplomat has defected and seeks shelter in the United States. “We have no information on that,” said Melanie Higgins, spokesperson for the State Department’s East Asian Affairs Bureau. Reports said that the defection of a senior North Korean diplomat led the Pyongyang regime to order...

Categories Defectors/Regime Change
October 24, 2008

Domestic State Terrorism: North Korea Expands Use of Public Executions

[Updated below] A few weeks ago, the Chosun Ilbo, quoting NGO’s that in turn cite interviews with recent defectors, reported that North Korea carried out 901 public executions in 2007.  This figure, of course, does not include summary executions or those carried out in secrecy, or the ordinary toll of starvation, disease, and torture in the North Korea’s vast concentration camp system.When a society is as opaque as North Korea’s, I originally thought it strained to suggest, as some newspapers...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Inside NK/Regime Change
October 24, 2008

I’ll Give You a Topic: The Verification Protocol is Neither. Discuss.

It’s hardly worth discussing anyway; after all, with North Korea, there’s little point in expecting what’s agreed today to stay agreed tomorrow. We’ve already abandoned the goal of disarmament, there is always another demand, it is always followed by another concession, and someone always wants us to think that this time, it’s really the last one. Still, the State Department justifies its de-listing of North Korea as a terror sponsor by claiming that it has reached a verification protocol with...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
October 20, 2008

Generalissimo Kim Jong Il Is Still Not Dead

If there really was a special announcement played for the diplomats and shadowy “trading company” officials at North Korea’s embassies and consulates yesterday, it may have been about sign-ups for intramural softball or the results of the fantasy football pool.   We did learn that the  Great General offered this on-the-spot guidance, which, for once, I wholly endorse: “get a haircut, hippie!”   Like so many recent reports from North Korea of late, however,  the latest ones  fall sadly short of our...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
October 19, 2008

What Removing North Korea from the Terror List Means

If tomorrow’s Big Announcement from North Korea isn’t that the Great Leader has gone to the Great Meat Locker, it may well be that the North, having met with  such stunning  success at blackmailing the United States,  will throw some new tantrum at South Korea.  I would not credit the North with diplomatic genius for its success at isolating and blackmailing its enemies one at a time.  The trick isn’t new.  It seems more fair to credit us for the...

Categories Appeasement/Asia/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
October 19, 2008

Sankei Shinmun: N. Korea May Announce Transfer of Power

OK, You have my undivided attention. Quoting unidentified sources at Japan’s defense ministry, the Sankei [Shinmun] said Tokyo had information that “there will be an important announcement on (Oct.) 20th.” The Sankei said there was speculation within the Japanese government that the North’s announcement could be about Kim’s death or a government change induced by a coup. North Korea will also ban foreigners from entering the country starting Monday, it said, without giving further details.  [AP] Admittedly, the Sankei has...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
October 10, 2008

Rumor: Bush will de-list N. Korea as a terror sponsor today.

I heard the rumor yesterday afternoon, but now I see the AP is reporting it.  According to the Financial Times, the only thing holding up the announcement is notifying / strong-arming the Japanese, and perhaps the South Koreans.  You can see Condi and her mouthpiece not answer questions about this below the fold, if you’re interested. There’s nothing quite like giving right in to extortion.  Somewhere on the troposphere of Kim Jong Il’s clot-riddled, misshapen, hideously coiffed cranium, a drooly...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
October 9, 2008

S. Korean JCS Chair: N. Korea Building Lighter Nuclear Warheads for Missiles

You might have thought that an agreement whose nominal objective is nuclear disarmament ought to be reasonably clear about dismantling, disabling, or dissing those arms in some specific way. If so, you thought wrong, and here are the consequences of that. In fact, Chris Hill’s February 2007 disarmament deal was intentionally vague about North Korea’s existing nuclear arsenal. Until this summer, State had insisted that the North’s nuclear weapons were covered by the phrase “all nuclear programs,” although North Korea’s...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/NK Military/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/WMD
October 8, 2008

Did They or Didn’t They? (Pt. 2)

You’d think that if Chris Hill and the North Koreans had made up, the North Koreans wouldn’t be launching missiles again.  The new launches appear to have been short-range missiles launched from the island naval base at Cho-Do, which you can see in full Google Earth color here.  One thing this illustrates is why North Korea always seeks to narrow the focus of talks:  while they sell temporary concessions on plutonium, they pursue a uranium program at full speed; then,...

Categories Anju Links/Appeasement/Diplomacy/NK Military/Six-Party Talks
October 8, 2008

Lee’s N. Korea Policy Will Be, as Lee Says, ‘Pragmatic.’

Suzanne Scholte has accepted the Seoul Peace Prize, offering this prescient comment in her speech: “When all the atrocities committed by North Korean dictators are exposed in the future, people will assess how adequately the Seoul government then responded,” said Scholte, referring to the current administration. “Consider the judgment of history.”  [Chosun Ilbo] I’m hoping to have a guest post from a reader who was there.  Warning:  this post will now enter a stream of consciousness. You can already see...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics
October 7, 2008

How Many Divisions Does Ban Ki Moon Have?

Since October 2006, U.N. Security Council resolution 1718 has prohibited North Korea from trafficking in  major weapons systems or WMD techonology.  So sit down for this one: “The Middle East remans on the receiving end of the DPRK’s reckless activities,” Israeli delegate David Danieli told the meeting, referring to North Korea by its acronym. “At least half a dozen countries in the region … have become eager recipients” of the North’s black market supplies of conventional arms or nuclear technology,...

Categories "United" Nations/NK Military/Proliferation
October 7, 2008

The Lewinsky Effect

NORTH KOREA SPY WON JEONG-HWA, who exchanged sexual favors for information from South Korean officers and who plotted to assasinate South Korean officials with poisoned needles, is awaiting sentencing.  The L.A. Times covers the story in considerable detail and publishes photographs of Won and her passport.  On a personal note, I realize that standards of beauty are subjective in any culture, but if there’s apparently not much to be said for Ms. Won’s personality, I remain unable to explain her...

Categories ROK Military/The Fifth Column