South Korean delegates watch a 3D movie during a visit to the Sci-Tech Complex in Pyongyang on Oct. 4, 2018. A 160-strong South Korean delegation is now in Pyongyang to attend an event to jointly celebrate the anniversary of the 2007 inter-Korean summit. (Yonhap)

This picture is just calling for a caption contest.

Mr. Greg Scarlatoiu who is the executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea recently had an article published in the Wall Street Journal describing how he believes President Moon is ignoring human rights abuses in North Korea, tacitly advocating for North Korea’s “juche” ideology, and propping up a dictator:

The South Korean president stated that the two leaders had agreed to the principle of jaju-wonchik, or unification through self-determination. This principle is derived from North Korea’s juche ideology of self-reliance. A quick Korean-language internet search of the term will bring up North Korean propaganda websites such as Uriminzokkiri and the Korean Central News Agency. “Unification through self-determination” also excludes outsiders, especially the U.S.

Mr. Moon’s speeches may read like peace-building. But to those familiar with North Korean ideology, a speech tacitly endorsing juche only validates Mr. Kim’s brand of totalitarianism. It’s a statement of support for North Korean ideology and all that goes along with it, including nuclear weapons. Mr. Moon’s speech gave legitimacy to Mr. Kim’s corrupt and horrific rule.

Opposing the Pyongyang regime’s repression of the North Korean people and its threats to the South has become increasingly difficult with Mr. Moon in office. His government has reduced funding for organizations that promote human rights in the North by more than 90%, stopped balloon launches and loudspeaker broadcasting across the Demilitarized Zone and has been censoring the content of USB thumb drives smuggled by activists into North Korea. It is hard to imagine how Mr. Moon will ever move from warm praise of Mr. Kim to addressing the dire human-rights situation of North Koreans.  [Wall Street Journal via a reader tip]

You can read much more at the link.

The Korean left has taken down another one of their boogeymen:

A Seoul court sentenced former President Lee Myung-bak to 15 years in jail for corruption Friday, making him the fourth ex-South Korean leader to be criminally convicted.

In the live televised trial, the court found the 76-year-old former leader guilty of bribery, embezzlement and other charges. He was ordered to pay 13 billion won (US$11.5 million) in fines and forfeit 8.2 billion won.

Lee, president from 2008-2013, was arrested on March 22 and indicted on April 9. Prosecutors demanded 20 years in prison on 16 counts of charges. The court convicted him of seven charges.

The court ruled that he embezzled 2.46 billion won from DAS, an auto parts company at the center of the scandal. It concluded, on the basis of testimony by Lee’s close aides, that he is the de facto owner of the company, disguising it as his brother’s company.

Lee denied the allegation he was the real owner of the company.

The court also ruled he accepted 5.9 billion won in bribes from Samsung Electronics Co. in the form of retaining fees for DAS.

Samsung paid the money seeking a presidential pardon for Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who was jailed for tax evasion, it said.

Lee was also found guilty of receiving about 2.4 billion won in bribes from a financial company chief, a former intelligence agency chief and a former lawmaker.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but President Lee says the charges brought against him were political retaliation for the corruption investigation brought against former President Roh Moo-hyun during President Lee’s time in office.  Roh ended up committing suicide because of the investigation.  The Chief of Staff for President Roh was current President Moon Jae-in.

I don’t know if the allegations against Lee are true or not, but what I do know is that the Korean left is happy to put him in jail, while at the same time championing Kim Jong-un, the dictator responsible for killing and injuring dozens of Korean citizens and being a general threat to regional peace.  The Korean left even has Kim Jong-un’s image posted on the side of Seoul City Hall.

If Lee Myung-bak has been held responsible for his alleged crimes against Korea, then who is going to hold Kim Jong-un accountable for his crimes?  Obviously it will not be the Korean left.

Here is the latest on North Korea’s criminal cyber operations that is netting the Kim regime tens of millions of dollars:

North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests have stopped, but its hacking operations to gather intelligence and raise funds for the sanction-strapped government in Pyongyang may be gathering steam.

U.S. security firm FireEye raised the alarm Wednesday over a North Korean group that it says has stolen hundreds of millions of dollars by infiltrating the computer systems of banks around the world since 2014 through highly sophisticated and destructive attacks that have spanned at least 11 countries. It says the group is still operating and poses “an active global threat.”

It is part of a wider pattern of malicious state-backed cyber activity that has led the Trump administration to identify North Korea — along with Russia, Iran and China — as one of the main online threats facing the United States. Last month, the Justice Department charged a North Korean hacker said to have conspired in devastating cyberattacks, including an $81 million heist of Bangladesh’s central bank and the WannaCry virus that crippled parts of Britain’s National Health Service.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned of the use of malware by Hidden Cobra, the U.S. government’s byword for North Korea hackers, in fraudulent ATM cash withdrawals from banks in Asia and Africa. It said that Hidden Cobra was behind the theft of tens of millions of dollars from teller machines in the past two years. In one incident this year, cash had been simultaneously withdrawn from ATMs in 23 different countries, it said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

3 key invasion routes fm #NorthKorea to #SouthKorea: Cheolwon, Gaesong-Munsan (near JSA) & east coast (in Gangwon Prov) approaches. "Remains recovery" is a cover. If they really felt it priority, NK could return 500 still living SK POWs. Instead, invasion routes are clearing. https://t.co/mttjKYJCZS

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) October 1, 2018

South Korean troops begin work to remove land mines at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) near Chorwon, Gangwon Province, on Oct. 2, 2018. (Joint Press Corps-Yonhap)

Not that this took much foresight, but I called it that the 2nd Trump-Kim Summit if held would be to sign the end of the Korean War and that is apparently what it will be:

South Korea is proposing that the United States hold off on a demand for an inventory of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and accept the verified closure of a key North Korean nuclear facility as a next step in the negotiations, Seoul’s top diplomat said in an interview with The Washington Post.

The plan is designed to break the impasse between North Korea and the United States as President Trump comes under mounting pressure to demonstrate progress on the denuclearization talks. It will be one of the options available to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo as he arrives in North Korea on Sunday to restart negotiations.

In exchange for the verified dismantlement of the Yongbyon nuclear facility, the United States would declare an end to the Korean War, a key demand of Pyongyang that U.S. officials have been reluctant to make absent a major concession by North Korea.

“What North Korea has indicated is they will permanently dismantle their nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, which is a very big part of their nuclear program,” South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said during a discussion at the South Korean mission to the United Nations. “If they do that in return for America’s corresponding measures, such as the end-of-war declaration, I think that’s a huge step forward for denuclearization.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but closing of Yongbyon is once again just more “pretend denuclearization”.  The North Koreans can drag the closure out and then at a time of their choosing the North Koreans could kick any inspectors they do allow in out and blame the US for some manufactured reason.  Additionally we don’t even know what secret facilities they may be hiding.  Before this all happens they will have already be rewarded with the peace treaty they have been seeking.  Nuclear experts seems to understand this:

“If the Yongbyon shutdown proves to be the first bite of the apple, it might be an OK starting point, but if it proves to be the only bite of the apple, it will be deeply unsatisfying – and totally reversible,” said Scott Snyder, a Korea expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Duyeon Kim, a Korea expert with the Center for a New American Security, said the closure of Yongbyon would be a “welcome” and “tangible” step but noted that North Korea would still be able to expand its nuclear arsenal and fissile material production at covert facilities elsewhere in the country.

The Kim regime wants the peace treaty so badly because it then challenges the legitimacy of the US military presence in South Korea.  If there is peace why is USFK needed?  John Bolton seems to understand this:

Hawks inside the Trump administration, in particular national security adviser John Bolton, remain skeptical of signing such a declaration out of fear that it will give North Korea and China justification to demand the removal of the 28,500 U.S. forces stationed in South Korea, people close to Bolton said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations.

Kang downplayed concerns about the declaration, emphasizing that it would be a purely “political” document and “not a legally binding treaty.”

President Moon has been saying all the right things that USFK will remain after any peace treaty is signed.  Despite claims in the media that Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in want US troops to stay after any peace deal is reached, this is just all rhetoric to prevent energizing South Korean conservatives against Moon.

Remember Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down.  If he advocated openly for a USFK withdrawal that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces.  That is why I think the Moon administration will publicly say they support USFK staying, but will then have their surrogates do things to make life difficult for USFK.

If the US government decides to withdraw USFK in the future on their own accord then the Moon administration is able to get what it ultimately wanted without getting blamed for it.  It appears that Trump might play along:

Trump, according to diplomats familiar with the negotiations, is open to signing the declaration and may not be bothered by ensuing demands about U.S. forces given his long-standing complaint that the United States pays far too much to station troops in East Asia.

It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out, but considering the mid-term elections are coming up it seems this would have to happen fast for maximum political benefit if the Trump administration really thinks this is a great deal.

The 1st Armored Division is the next rotational unit to come to Korea.  The division did not participate in the Korean War and according to the division’s history it made no rotational deployments to Korea either over the years.  So this is likely the first time that the “Old Ironsides” patch will be in Korea:

Tracked vehicles and other equipment for a new U.S. unit on a 9-month rotational mission here will arrive in South Korea next week, the U.S. Eighth Army said Thursday.

The equipment from the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Armored Division based at Fort Bliss, Texas, will arrive in the country’s southeastern port city of Busan, 450 kilometers south of Seoul, early next week.

The new team is set to replace the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division based at Fort Stewart, Georgia, which is completing its rotational deployment in support of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, a forward-deployed unit in Korea.

Aside from the equipment, approximately 490 troops of the new team have already arrived. The Eighth Army refused to elaborate on the total number of its personnel.

Unlike previous rotational deployments, the outgoing team will take some of their equipment, including M1 Abrams tanks and M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, back to the United States, while the new team will bring in some of their own equipment.

In the past, equipment stayed in Korea while rotational troops moved on and off the peninsula.

The exchange of equipment is aimed at ensuring “proper maintenance” and service of the old equipment and aligning deployed forces with current U.S. Army-wide modernization and readiness efforts, the Eighth Army said.

“The noticeable difference this time is the movement of tracked vehicles,” Col. Joseph R. Morrow, the Eighth Army logistics chief, said. “This added complexity gives our soldiers the opportunity to maintain skills in shipping and safely moving large-scale equipment.  [Yonhap]

“Kim Jong Un said that he is well aware that a lot of people in the world still cannot trust North Korea or think North Korea is deceiving…But what can North Korea gain from deceiving…?” Moon said quoting Kim. https://t.co/Kf79JY47VQ

— North Korea & Human Rights (@nefornkhr) October 2, 2018

This photo belatedly released by the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae on Oct. 2, 2018, shows South Korean magician Choi Hyun-woo (L) performing with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during an inter-Korean summit dinner at the North’s state banquet hall in Pyongyang on Sept. 18. (Yonhap)