Category: Uncategorized

I guess it was only a matter of time before these guys made an appearance:

A small group of anti-American activists rallied in central Seoul on Monday, voicing their objection to a U.N. resolution sanctioning North Korea for its claimed nuclear weapons test.

Last week, the 15-member U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution imposing stringent non-military sanctions on North Korea which claimed to have conducted a nuclear test in defiance of international warnings.

The U.N. resolution calls on its members not to make any weapons-related dealings with North Korea and orders all countries to freeze funds linked to the North’s weapons mass destruction programs.

Chanting anti-American slogans near the U.S. Embassy, about 30 protesters accused the U.N. of collaborating with Washington trying to smother the North’s communist regime.

“The U.S. sanctions and pressure on North Korea are the fundamental cause of North Korea’s nuclear test, and the U.N. resolution failed to mention even a bit of that truth,” Han Sang-ryeol, a representative of the group, said.

The protesters claims are groundless because the US financial sanctions are because of North Korean counterfeiting and money laundering of US currency and are not related to the nuclear issue.  It is easy to criticize the US over the financial sanctions if it isn’t your currency being counterfeited. All the people that criticize the US for the financial sanctions act as if the US should just let the North Koreans counterfeit US currency so the Norks will play nice and be quiet. Screw them and I’m glad the US is standing up to the North Koreans and not letting them counterfeit US currency or blackmail the US with their antiquated nuclear program.

One Free Korea has a great round up of the winners and losers of the recent UN North Korean Sanctions. Here are two of the big winners:

John Bolton: Winner. I’d like to hear John Bolton’s critics deny that, as with Resolution 1695, he has wrung far more effectiveness from the U.N. than we had come to expect. Not only should we confirm this man, pronto, we should clone him. Madeleine Albright never got results like these. The United States: Winner. We got everything we really wanted here:

* help constricting Kim Jong Il’s financial arteries
* the right to search his ships and planes.
* an embargo on the purchase and sale of heavy weapons and WMD components.
* something to hurt Kim Jong Il and his loyalists — the ban on luxury goods.
* the real capacity to investigate, monitor, and enforce all of the above, including pursing them to Iran.

Make sure you read the rest of the winners and losers.

John Bolton has been an amazing UN ambassador and you would think his effectiveness would over ride the political partisanship that seeks to deny him of his confirmation. However, this same effectiveness will probably only make his political enemies even more determined to tear him down.

PDATE: Blackfive has more on the new Army motto and highly approves of it.  Plus the Army’s new recruiting video is posted there as well, which IMHO is very well done.  Go check it out.Goodbye “Army of One”, hello “Army Strong”.

The US Army has finally replaced the “Army of One” slogan which no one liked with a new “Army Strong” motto:

 Soldiers’ minds, hearts, characters and sense of purpose must all be strong, Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey said Monday at the Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting as a video of Soldiers training and fighting played in the background.

“Soldiers must be strong for themselves,” the secretary said. “There is only one place to find this strength. You are Army strong.”

The new advertising campaign slogan will replace “the Army of One” Nov. 11. The “Army Strong” campaign is part of the secretary’s efforts to sustain the all-volunteer force against tough competition form the other services and colleges.

I have to say I like “Army Strong” much better than the “Army of One” slogan because the Army is really the ultimate testament to team work which the “Army of One” slogan did not appeal to.  With “Army Strong” it appears the Army is trying to appeal to patriotism and the challenge of joining an Army at war.   New recruits today are joining the Army knowing full well that they are going to war.  It is good to see that the Army is recognizing this fact and adjusting recruiting towards the importance of service to the nation by being part of an Army at war.

Well it looks like Kadena Airbase will be getting their PATRIOT missile batteries in place soon:

Okinawa police early Wednesday peacefully removed some 80 protesters from their encampment in front of the gate to Tengan Pier, allowing the transfer of Patriot missiles to Kadena Air Base.

The break-up of the camp, established Sunday night to protest delivery of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile interceptors to a new U.S. Army site on Kadena Air Base, took about five minutes, a police spokesman said. Police at the site Wednesday outnumbered protesters by more than 2 to 1.

“Upon the request of U.S. military, Okinawa prefectural police sent special riot police to Tengan Pier to remove the protesters from the exit,” a police spokesman told Stars and Stripes. There were no reports of injuries.

A line of riot police stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the gate while others herded the protesters to a narrow sidewalk, where they stood shouting anti-war slogans as the cargo ship unloaded 10 shipping containers. Trucks hauling the containers left the port about 9:30 a.m. without further incident.

Charles Krauthammer has a pretty good article in the Washington Post.  I find myself agreeing with a lot of what he has to say:

Everyone has tried to figure out how to disarm North Korea. It will not happen. Kim Jong Il is not going to give up his nukes. The only way to disarm the regime is to destroy it. China could do that with sanctions but will not. The United States could do that with a second Korean War but will not either.

So we are back to deterrence. Hence the familiar echoes of the Cuban missile crisis with North Korea’s rude entry into the nuclear club this week. The United States had to immediately put down markers for deterrence. President Bush put down two.

Detterence as Krauthammer notes President Bush is already put in place by reaffirming the US nuclear umbrella over South Korea and Japan.  So what does Krauthammer reccomend to deter North Korean proliferation to terrorist groups?:

A good first draft, but it could use some Kennedyesque clarity. The phrase “fully accountable” does not exactly instill fear, as it has been used promiscuously by several administrations in warnings to both terrorists and rogue states — after which we did absolutely nothing. A better formulation would be the following:

Given the fact that there is no other nuclear power so recklessly in violation of its nuclear obligations, it shall be the policy of this nation to regard any detonation of a nuclear explosive on the United States or its allies as an attack by North Korea on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon North Korea.

This is how you keep Kim Jong Il from proliferating. Make him understand that his survival would be hostage to the actions of whatever terrorist group he sold his weapons to. Any terrorist detonation would be assumed to have his address on it. The United States would then return postage. Automaticity of this kind concentrates the mind.

However, Krauthammer notes one problem with this policy:

This policy has a hitch, however. It works only in a world where there is but a single rogue nuclear state. Once that club expands to two, the policy evaporates, because a nuclear terror attack would no longer have a single automatic return address.

Which is another reason why keeping Iran from going nuclear is so important. With North Korea there is no going back. But Iran is not there yet. One rogue country is tolerable because it can be held accountable. Two rogue countries guarantees undeterrable and therefore inevitable nuclear terrorism.

I disagree with this part of Krauthammer’s article because I think even if Iran does go nuclear you can still hold both countries accountable by making it very clear that any nuclear attack by terrorists on US soil will mean both Iran and North Korea will instantly be turned into glowing parking lots regardless of which country is responsible for it.   This policy of dual deterence may actually have the effect of Iran making sure themselves that no terrorist groups are trying to purchase nuclear material from North Korea in order to not be attacked themselves by the United States.

If a nuclear terrorist attack occurs in the United States with hundreds of thousands of casualties, no matter what the UN, France, China, Russia, Amnesty International, or anyone else says there is going to be massive nuclear retaliation from the US because much like after 9-11, no one in the US besides a peacenik like Dennis Kucinich, would try and stop the massive retaliation from taking place against these rogue regimes.

I have to give big props to Krauthammer though for writing a good article that does not descend into the recent Washington blame game cycle of the blame Bush/blame Clinton garbage because none of it is helpful and doesn’t do anything to solve the North Korean issue.  Krauthammer also provides solid policy advice instead of falling back on the well used cliches of “we need to work with allies in the region^TM” garbage that many pundits and politicians keep repeating as if that isn’t already going on.  You have to look really long and hard in the media today to find solid journalism anymore and Krauthammer is one of the few.

The odds of seeing the GI Korea Blog, Iraq Edition one day has gotten more likelier:

For planning purposes, the Army is gearing up to keep current troop levels in Iraq for another four years, a new indication that conditions there are too unstable to foresee an end to the war.

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, cautioned against reading too much into the planning, which is done far in advance to prepare the right mix of combat units for expected deployments. He noted that it is easier to scale back later if conditions allow, than to ramp up if they don’t.

“This is not a prediction that things are going poorly or better,” Schoomaker told reporters. “It’s just that I have to have enough ammo in the magazine that I can continue to shoot as long as they want us to shoot.”

I did it once, and I’ll do it again if I have to.

With all the blame Bush, blame Clinton going at least I hope we can agree that it is good that at least this guy isn’t running things:

There is no precedent for permitting a mentally ill state to possess nuclear weapons. It would be incredibly irresponsible — even suicidal — to let this happen.

Therefore, war: A surprise attacks aimed at swiftly destroying the enemy using all necessary means available to the U.S. military. Though it may seem extreme, the use of sudden, devastating force may be the only way to resolve this problem. Kim and his cohorts are not likely to go quietly into the night. Retirement and exile are out of the question; rather than submit to strangulation by sanctions and blockades, the regime will likely attack South Korea, where thousands of U.S. troops are stationed, and fire missiles at Japan. Even if North Korea is not presently capable of putting a nuclear warhead on a missile, it can strike out with chemical and possibly also biological weapons; and analysts generally agree that the casualties of a new Korean conflict would surpass the numbers of dead and injured in the Korean War.

Preemptive war — crushing the enemy before it can attack South Korea and Japan – better be on the U.S.’s menu of options. Staying the course definitely won’t work here.

Why does the Washington Post Blog publish crap like this?

Speaking of crap Shelton at the Marmot’s Hole found even stinkier crap than this, in the Boston Globe.  Is the American media so uninformed about Korean affairs that garbage journalism like this continues to slip through?

At least Robert found the sage of all things Korean Dr. Lankov’s piece in the Wall Street Journal.  How come it seems like for every good piece of journalism on the North Korean issue their is at least two articles from idiots which continue to distort the issue?

Senator John McCain recently came out and criticized former President Clinton’s failed 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea for leading to the current nuclear crisis. In fairness to Clinton I do believe diplomacy should be tried before starting a war and he tried diplomacy and failed due to the untrustworthiness of the North Koreans who went ahead and continued a covert nuclear program while simultaneously moving even more troops and equipment to the DMZ between North and South Korea. Clinton tried diplomacy which I think no one should fault him for and it didn’t work. The Democrats accused McCain of playing politics, but what do the Democrats do in response? Continue playing politics themselves of course; with former Clinton Secretary of Defense William Perry writing this blame Bush editorial in the Washington Post:

North Korea’s declared nuclear bomb test program will increase the incentives for other nations to go nuclear, will endanger security in the region and could ultimately result in nuclear terrorism. While this test is the culmination of North Korea’s long-held aspiration to become a nuclear power, it also demonstrates the total failure of the Bush administration’s policy toward that country. For almost six years this policy has been a strange combination of harsh rhetoric and inaction. President Bush, early in his first term, dubbed North Korea a member of the “axis of evil” and made disparaging remarks about Kim Jong Il.

Continue reading “Playing Politics Over the NK Crisis “

I wonder if Perry prefers that Bush call Kim Jong-il the “Dear Leader” instead of the tyrant that he is?

Some of you may remember that Perry also wrote an editorial before the July NK missile tests in the Washington Post advocating a bombing campaign against the NK Taepodong missile before it could be tested. Perry like many former Clintonites are trying to rewrite history. Their policies were a failure then and their advice is a failure now.

Just think about if the US followed Perry’s advice before July’s missile test. A bombing campaign against NK would validate the very reason Kim Jong-il proclaims for needing both a ICBM and nuclear programs; to protect the country from US aggression not to mention possibly causing a second Korean War which the US would have clearly been the aggressor. Additionally the US would have never gathered the valuable intelligence of the failed test. The US didn’t totally know the NK ICBM capabilities, now the US does. It is the same thing with the nuclear test. The US now knows that the NK nuclear program is not as advanced as the North Koreans would want you to believe. Plus the NK actions have driven a wedge between China and North Korea which a bombing campaign would have never done. If anything it would bring the two allies closer together against US aggression. Now this is not the case after the nuclear test because China is actually seriously considering backing a UN resolution that would allow a US naval blockade of North Korea. Do you think a bombing campaign would have brought this close cooperation with China about?

So what does Perry advocate in the wake of the nuclear test, when his bombing campaign policy would have been an obvious failure? Well I really don’t know because the article is all blame Bush with no policy alternatives. Maybe he learned from his last article that blaming Bush is safer politics than actually providing alternative policy ideas.

HT: Marmot

Who can name specifically what this place is called?

I can’t say I agree with this letter to the Korea Times, but it did give me a good chuckle because yes, things would be so much easier if Kim Jong-il would just hurry up and nuke somebody:

  I am a citizen of the United States. It is my understanding that the North Korean president has made a threat against my country in that North Korea would launch (if capable) a nuclear-tipped missile toward the United States if we do not do what they want.

As a citizen of the United States I would welcome such action from North Korea. Simply stop talking and do it. It would make things so much easier for us since nobody in the world (aside from possibly Iran) would argue about our right to return fire upon North Korea.

There would be no need for a ground assault that can require so much military manpower and expense but rather a nuclear attack by North Korea upon the United States would allow us to respond in kind with nuclear weapons.

It is sad that North Korea would be so incapable with their limited nuclear weapons program to respond to our thousands of nuclear weapons that would could fire from our soil without having to dispatch a single aircraft or human military person.

This is the difference between how we could deal with North Korea as opposed to how we are dealing with Iraq and possibly Iran at this time.

By North Korea opening the nuclear door it would save us from having to dispatch troops from the middle east _ we could just simply respond with a much stronger nuclear response.

Please tell Kim Jong-il to stop talking and just do it so we can send a message to the world that we are NEVER going to be intimidated by this type of threat but we will ALWAYS be able to give a response thousands of times greater than any attack like this upon us.

We simply need an excuse to attack North Korea. Tell the North Korean president to stop tap dancing around like a little girl with a big mouth and be a man and … just do it. And, then find a comfortable place to tuck his head between his legs and kiss his ass goodbye.

Sincerely,

David Lee

HT: Jodi