Category Archive 'North Korea'
09 Jan 2015

The New Criticism

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NewCritics

Hat tip to Walter Olson.

20 Dec 2014

“How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?”

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19 Dec 2014

“A Decline in Courage”

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NorthKoreaAllows

Bill Kristol quotes Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 speech at Harvard.

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course, there are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life.

“Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity, and perplexity in their actions and in their statements, and even more so in theoretical reflections to explain how realistic, reasonable, as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And decline in courage is ironically emphasized by occasional explosions of anger and inflexibility on the part of the same bureaucrats when dealing with weak governments and with countries not supported by anyone, or with currents which cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.

“Should one point out that from ancient times declining courage has been considered the beginning of the end?”

10 Apr 2013

Viral Humor

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Hat tip to Henry Bernatonis.

22 Mar 2013

North Korea Destroys US Capitol (In Imagination At Least)

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North Korea resumed war against South Korea, the United States, and the United Nations earlier this month when it declared the 1953 armistice that ended Korean War hostilities nullified.

The outbreak of war has attracted little notice in the United States, and North Korea’s efforts at genuine military action have been so far non-existent. North Korean belligerence is, however, expressing itself quite vigorously in propaganda.

in the four-minute video below, loaded by North Korea on to YouTube, ballistic missile carriers are seen, along with artillery firing shells, and “Stalin-organ” Katyusha rocket-launchers pour out endless volleys, all evidently raining “fire storms” upon the “headquarters of war,” i.e. us.

We see crosshairs lining up the White House, but the projectile fired appears actually to blow a large hole in the dome of the US Capitol. That’ll show us!

large size version of 4:09 video

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

29 Nov 2010

Most Alarming Leak

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Danger Room:

T]he most worrisome news to come out the diplo doc dump is that North Korea secretly gave Iran 19 powerful missiles with a range of 2,000 miles. The missiles, known as the BM-25, are modified from Russian R-27s, which were submarine-based missiles carrying nuclear weapons. “If fired from Iran,” the New York Times notes, a missile with that range could “let its warheads reach targets as far away as Western Europe, including Berlin.” The BM-25, unveiled in a North Korean military parade last month, may be North Korea’s longest-range missile yet. Ares’ David A. Fulgham observed that its design “is showing second-stage and nose-cone design characteristics associated with Iran’s Shahab 3 missile,” indicating growing missile ties between the two rogue states.

No wonder why European leaders are suddenly so keen on missile defense.

28 Nov 2010

North Korean Artillery Fire Strikes Yeonpyeong Island

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Last Tuesday video from South Korean Television:

29 May 2010

Korean War: Round Two?

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Donald Kirk, in Asia Times, delivers a guide to the likely flashpoints on land and sea.

In the duel between North and South Korea, the question now is who will pull the trigger first? The answer may be neither, but don’t count on it. The dueling now focuses on two quite different flashpoints.

The first is the West or Yellow Sea, where North Korea has vowed to open fire against any South Korean vessel intruding in its waters.

One issue there is how to define which waters are North Korean. The North refuses to recognize the Northern Limit Line, set by the United Nations Command after the Korean War (1950-1953) and challenged by North Korea in bloody gun battles in June 1999 and June 2002. A North Korean boat was sunk in the former incident, killing at least 40 sailors on board. Six sailors died on a South Korean patrol boat in the second battle.

It’s almost June again, the height of the crabbing season in the fish-rich seas and the month when the North is most likely to threaten South Korea’s defense of the line, including islands wrested from North Korean troops in the Korean War. …

If the Yellow Sea is an obvious battleground, however, almost anywhere along the 248-kilometer-long demilitarized zone that’s divided the Korean peninsula since the end of the Korean War could erupt in gunfire. That’s possible quite soon if South Korea makes good on its notion of switching on mega-loudspeakers capable of spewing forth propaganda for the benefit of tens of thousands of North Korean soldiers within shooting distance.

North Korea has said it will respond to the verbal volleys with live fire targeting the loudspeakers. The North Koreans presumably know where they are since they used to shout out the propaganda until both sides agreed to stop the shouting six years ago. That was at the height of the decade of the “Sunshine” policy of North-South reconciliation initiated by the late president, Kim Dae-jung, in 1998.

South Korea’s conservative president, Lee Myung-bak, has turned the clock back on Sunshine since his inauguration a decade later, in 2008. This week he suspended North-South trade, cut off most humanitarian aid, barred South Koreans from visiting the North and opened a global diplomatic offensive in which he’s trying to get the rest of the world, notably China, to go along with condemnation of North Korea and strengthened sanctions.

The diplomatic campaign won’t upset the North Koreans nearly as much, however, as propaganda falling on the ears of their own troops. Lee faces a serious test of nerve. Will he dare order the loudspeakers to blast away knowing the North Koreans may take potshots at them?

And if the North Koreans do fire, will South Korean gunners fire back at the North Korean positions? There’s no telling when the shooting would stop, or whether North Korean troops would try to challenge the South Koreans on the ground.

29 Aug 2009

UAE Seizes North Korean Arms Shipment

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ANL Australia

Wall Street Journal reports on a UN leak revealing a month-old event. The appearance of the news story is probably related to a more recent development. It may represent a warning to North Korea, saying in essence, don’t bother sending that loaded container ship out of port, we arranged the seizure of the last one, and we can do it to the one you just loaded, too.

Authorities in the United Arab Emirates recently seized a shipment of military hardware from North Korea aboard a vessel bound for Iran, according to people familiar with the seizure.

The seizure could fuel efforts by the U.S. and other Western powers to push for greater economic sanctions against Tehran, if diplomatic outreach fails.

The equipment included detonators and ammunition for rocket-propelled grenade launchers, according to a diplomat to the United Nations Security Council, but no nuclear-related material.

Their purchase by Iran would violate new U.N. sanctions imposed against North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s test of a nuclear device in May. They would have been legal under earlier sanctions regimes.

According to the Security Council diplomat, the weapons were carried on an Australian vessel, the ANL-Australia, which was flying under a Bahamian flag. According to an Aug. 14 letter sent to the U.N. sanctions committee, the exporting company was an Italian shipper, Otim, which exported the items from its Shanghai office.

“The cargo manifest said the shipment contained oil-boring machines, but then you opened it up and there were these items,” the diplomat said. ANL and Otim officials couldn’t immediately be reached to comment.

The sanctions committee replied to the letter earlier this week, informing the U.A.E. it had an obligation to “seize and dispose” of the weapons. The weapons have been offloaded from the ship, and the ship has been released, according to people familiar with the action.

The seizure took place roughly a month ago, according to an Emirati official. It was earlier reported on the Web site of the Financial Times.

11 Apr 2009

President Pantywaist

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Gerald Warner has a few choice derisive comments on the European accomplishments and foreign policy prospects of the man he describes as the “new surrender monkey on the block.”

President Barack Obama has recently completed the most successful foreign policy tour since Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. You name it, he blew it. What was his big deal economic programme that he was determined to drive through the G20 summit? Another massive stimulus package, globally funded and co-ordinated. Did he achieve it? Not so as you’d notice.

Barack is not the first New World ingenue to discover that European leaders will load him with praise, struggle sycophantically to be photographed with him and outdo him in Utopian rhetoric. But when it comes to the critical moment of opening their wallets – suddenly it is flag-day in Aberdeen.

06 Apr 2009

57% Favor a Military Response to North Korean Missile Launch

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Rasmussen Poll:

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of U.S. voters nationwide favor a military response to eliminate North Korea’s missile launching capability. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 15% of voters oppose a military response.

29 Mar 2009

Iran Assisting North Korea

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The London Times quotes a Japanese report demonstrating more cooperation among the membership of the Axis of Evil.

Missile experts from Iran are in North Korea to help Pyongyang prepare for a rocket launch, according to reports.

Amid increasing global concern over the launch, which the US and its allies consider to be illegal, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun newspaper claimed today that a 15-strong delegation from Tehran has been in the country advising the North Koreans since the beginning of March.

The experts include senior officials from the Iranian rocket and satellite producer Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, the newspaper said.

They are clearly sharing missile technology.

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