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Two year ago the South Korean government tried to puchase the Global Hawks and was denied.  I guess if you fail once try, try again:

South Korea said Wednesday it is still seeking to buy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from the United States despite Washington’s previous refusal to sell it the high-altitude spy plane. The defence ministry plans to acquire four Global Hawk UAVs by 2012, a spokesman told AFP. The 45-million-dollar craft can cruise at an altitude of 19,500 metres (more than 64,000 feet) for up to 42 hours and identify 30-centimetre (12-inch) objects on the ground.

South Korea is seeking the planes partly so it can keep a better watch over North Korea, as it takes over greater responsibility for its defence from its ally the United States.

But its request for the Global Hawks was rejected in 2005. The US says that the Missile Technology Control Regime, which covers the unmanned plane, should be revised first.

So why was the Global Hawks denied to South Korea two years ago you may ask?  Unsurprisingly, this is why:

The U.S. is thought to have rejected the request for fear that the core technology might be leaked. Some are known to be worried that confidential information collected on North Korea using the Global Hawk might be leaked to the North.

It is pretty much no secret in the military community that anything given or sold to South Korea ends up being leaked to the North and nothing in the last two years has changed this fact.  If anything trust between the US and Korea has decreased even more.

Look at who the US did sell the Global Hawk too:

The Defense Acquisition Program Administration said, While continuously requesting the U.S to sell us the Global Hawk, we are also developing a domestic mid-altitude UAV system. However, the mid-altitude UAV system development will be possibly completed around 2015. On the other hand, Japan received consent to buy the Global Hawk last June, and it has already secured budgets and commenced preparations to introduce the Global Hawk into its system.

This is probably the main reason why South Korea wants the Global Hawk, simply because Japan has them.

You have got to love the charade called the six party talks. The latest charade comes today where news has come out about how peace is just waiting to break out all over the Korean peninsula with the announcement of North Korea’s intention to completely denuclearize:

North Korea is willing to declare and disable all its nuclear programs in the next five or six months, the South Korean chief nuclear negotiator said Wednesday. […]

“Talks on a peace framework for the Korean Peninsula are vital, he added.

Lee hinted that President Roh Moo-hyun could bring up the issue at the inauguration ceremony of the 13th Advisory Council on Democratic and Peaceful Unification on Thursday. “I expect that President Roh Moo-hyun will make positive remarks on inter-Korean relations and peace on the Korean Peninsula,” the minister said. Asked if the peace framework proposal could come before Aug. 15 Liberation Day, Lee said, “It’s hard to specify the timing. But it’s necessary to discuss at least part of the idea, if not all of it. Officials from Cheong Wa Dae, the Foreign Ministry, the Unification Ministry, and the Defense Ministry are preparing to launch an organization to study and discuss a peace framework.” On Tuesday, he said, “We have to find a way to declare an end to the Korean War.

There is only one problem with this momentous announcement today, no one has bothered to ask North Korea what they plan to denuclearize:

South Korean officials admitted that Pyongyang has not been asked directly to confirm that it also needs to declare its nuclear weapons. North Korea has never acknowledged that nuclear weapons are included in the declaration phase, but the other parties are pounding on that idea, a diplomatic source said yesterday. By not making this point clear, it ensures that the talks will continue. The real substance has not been addressed, only a timeline.

Asked if the North understood that nuclear weapons are included, Christopher Hill, Washington’s chief negotiator, said, We are going to have to keep talking about that. Hill said the issue was very technical and would require extensive clarification. Mentioning explosive devices, bombs in which the fissile material is located, Hill said, that clearly has to be in the declaration.

Earlier, he said, There are two main tasks on the North Korean side, one is to come up with the comprehensive declaration of all nuclear programs and that backs into the issue of the UEP [uranium enrichment program] question so its a very important task. And the second task is the disablement of all nuclear programs.

This is the greatest example so far of what a charade the six party talks process is. How do you declare to the world that North Korea plans to denuclearize if you don’t even bother asking them if they are going to dismantle the nuclear weapons they currently have as well as their uranium enrichment program? This is because this is all a charade to keep the “myth of progress” alive.

Pyongyang may give up their uranium enrichment program for the right price, but it has no intention of giving up their nuclear weapons they currently possess for reasons I have mentioned before and everyone knows it. North Korea wants time to keep perfecting their nuclear and tactical ballistic missile programs while the ruling South Korean government wants to keep their failed Sunshine Policy going in hopes of scoring a second inter-Korean Summit before this year’s presidential elections. On the Chinese side, they just want things on the Korean peninsula to remain quiet until after next year’s Olympic Games and the Russians probably just want to maintain the status quo in order to keep US foreign policy and troops tied down in Korea. The American side just wants North Korea to behave and keep quiet so the Bush Administration can claim credit for a foreign policy victory before the eventual showdown with Iran over their nuclear program.

These realities make pretending “progress” is happening to be in everybody’s interest, well everybody except the Japanese. The Japanese want the North Koreans to account for all the Japanese citizens that have abducted over the years from Japan. North Korea has refused to come clean and the Japanese have been marginalized in these talks by all sides. Thus the Japanee taken measures of their own to punish North Korea.

To keep the “myth of progress” alive expect more and more talks while the North Koreans continue to perfect their nuclear and missile programs. Additionally, expect North Korea to try and use the other nations involved in the talks to pressue Japan to remove their tough penalties against North Korea in order to keep the myth alive. By keeping the myth alive, all sides, except Japan, will get what they wanted out of the negotiations, but the next time North Korea acts up, and mark my words there will be a next time, the payoff for appeasement will be much higher.

From Newsbusters:

What is even more outrageous than this cartoon is the fact that the leftist propagandist, Ted Rall, that made this cartoon is published in more than 140 publications:

His cartoons now appear in more than 140 publications, including the Philadelphia Daily News, Aspen Times, Hartford Advocate, Newark Star-Ledger, Los Angeles Times, Wilmington News-Journal, San Diego Reader, Village Voice, Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News, Las Vegas Review Journal, Washington City Paper, Tucson Weekly, Sacramento News & Review, San Jose Mercury-News, Lexington Herald-Leader and New York Times.  […]

In 1996, he was one of three Finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. He was one of the New York Times’ most reprinted cartoonists in 1997, 1999 and 2001. He also did color strips for both Time Magazine and Fortune Magazine from 1998 to 2001. He was awarded the 1998 Deadline Club Award by the Society of Professional Journalists for his cartoons. Rall received first place in both the 1995 and 2000 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards for Cartoons. The award, founded in 1968, recognizes distinguished work on behalf of disadvantaged Americans.

Whatever happened to that line about supporting the troops and not the war?  As I have been pointing out over and over again; that line went out the window a long time ago and this is just another example of the liberal media effort to paint soldiers as uneducated low lives that are committing war crimes all over Iraq and thus not worthy of the nation’s respect.  People like Rall do not support the troops and they never did. 

HT: MM

North Korea has reportedly shut down its nuclear reactor and the countdown to the eventual reneging on the deal by the North Koreans has begun.  What will be the cause for the reneging?  This Chosun Ilbo article casually mentions it here:

After shutting down its main facility, Pyongyang has pledged to disclose and disable all of its nuclear programs in exchange for humanitarian assistance equivalent to one million tons of heavy fuel oil.

Does anyone really think Pyongyang is going to give up the nuclear weapons they currently have as well as fully disclose their secret HEU program?  If you believe in this deal that is what you have to trust the North Koreans to comply with.  History has shown us that North Korea has no intentions of giving up their nuclear weapons program, but are more than willing to use them as a bartering tool to get concessions from the international community for giving back little in return.  Look how much Kim Jong-il received for shutting down a reactor he can just as easily turn right back on again.  Meanwhile an issue that it appears governments around the world would rather just forget about is the massive human rights violations and suffering of the North Korean people. 

The Bush administration doesn’t appear to eager to confront Pyongyang on these issues so I expect the status quo to remain until President Bush leaves office.  When Kim Jong-il demands his next pay day from the next US President you can expect the ransom to be much higher with the time he has gained to perfect both his ICBM and nuclear capabilities.  Despite these realities some how in Washington this deal is applauded as a foreign policy victory.  It boggles the mind. 

Make sure you check out DPRK Studies as well as One Free Korea for even greater analysis on this issue.

Four North Korean refugees have defected to the Danish embassy in Vietnam and are requesting to be sent to South Korea.

 UPDATE: MCC has the latest article up on the Metzger case.  Things are getting more interesting in this case and it is becoming clearer why the Air Force is in full cover up mode.

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The Stars & Stripes today provides an update on the strange story of Jill Metzger:

Maj. Jill Metzger, the Air Force officer who went missing for three days in September in Kyrgyzstan, then said she’d been kidnapped, is to be temporarily retired from the Air Force after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome, her father said Tuesday.

Metzger is to be on the “temporary disability retired list” starting this month, her father, retired Air Force Lt. Col John Metzger, said in a telephone interview Tuesday from his home in North Carolina.

For those who haven’t been following this case, MAJ Metzger disappeared from a shopping center in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan last fall. She was found three days later when she knocked on the door of a home in a nearby village asking for the family to call for help because she had escaped from a group of people who had kidnapped her.

(more…)

Seriously this Judge Roy Pearson needs to get over it.  After losing his $54 million dollar lawsuit over a pair of pants, he is again going after the Chungs:

He’s baaaa-ack: Roy Pearson, the D.C. administrative law judge who filed, fought and lost a $54 million lawsuit against the Korean immigrants who own his neighborhood dry cleaners, chose the Fourth of July holiday to make it clear that he will not be going away.

Despite a clear finding by D.C. Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff that Pearson’s case against Custom Cleaners had no merit and that the cleaners’ possible misplacing of a pair of Pearson’s pants was not worth a penny to the plaintiff, Pearson is back. He wrote to defense lawyer Christopher Manning this week to let the Chung family know that Pearson plans to file today a motion arguing that Bartnoff failed to address Pearson’s legal claims and asking the judge to reverse her verdict in the case.

Get this, Pearson says that he is fighting on the behalf of all Washington residents.  What an idiot and a disgrace to the legal profession.  Support the Dry Cleaners!

The International Herald Tribune’s Choe Sang-hun writes a chilling account of life in a North Korean prison camp from a NK defector:

Shin, now 24, was a political prisoner by birth. From the day he was born in 1982 in Camp No. 14 in Kaechon until he escaped in 2005, Shin had known no other life. Guards beat children, tortured grandparents and, in cases like Shin’s, executed family members. But Shin said it did not occur to him to hate the authorities. He assumed everyone lived this way.

He had never heard of Pyongyang, the capital city 90 kilometers, or 55 miles, to the south, or even of Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader.

"I didn’t know about America, or China or the fact that the Korean Peninsula was divided and there was a place called South Korea," he said. "I thought it was natural that I was in the camp because of my ancestors’ crime, though I never even wondered what that crime was. I never thought it was unfair."

Make sure you read the entire article because life in Camp 14 is extremely chilling stuff and should make you feel sick to your stomach that such evil exists in this world.  Thanks to Choe Sang-hun for putting a face to such evil that many would prefer to pretend doesn’t exist. 

To further put a face on evil I have decided to an OFK like job and see if I can locate Camp No. 14 on Google Earth.  Here is where the city of Kaechon is located:

Kaechon is in fact located just south of North Korea’s nuclear facility in Yongbyon.  If you zoom in on Kaechon you can see just to the south of the city what appears to be a possible prison camp:

As you can see the northern portion of the camp does not have a detailed view yet from Google Earth, but the southern portion does.  Here is a close up look at the southern portion of the camp:

There is a number of long barracks buildings along with some possible farming fields and possible mining activity:

The area with detailed imagery does appear to be totally surrounded with fencing of some kind.  Could it be Camp No. 14?  I can’t say for sure, but looking around the area I cannot find any other large fenced in compounds in the area besides this North Korean Air Force Base to the north of Kaechon:

Maybe some of you readers can find other possibilities for Camp No. 14, but even looking at the civilian areas around Kaechon they do not look much better than the possible prison camp.  Overall, what a bleak and horrible place. 

HT: Marmot

I blogged before about the politicizing of the body armor issue.  Notice you have heard nothing about this body armor issue any more from anyone.  If you want to know why you might want to watch this report.  HT: MM

I have never seen a brigade Command Sergeant Major get in this much trouble before.  If I had the chance to ask him one question it would be where he planned to flee to from the CID agents pursuing him in Balad, Iraq?