So claims the German newspaper the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Here is an english language translation of the article. This is the headline paragraph of the article:

“America’s accusations against North Korea are on very shaky ground … A rumor has circulated for years among representatives of the security printing industry and counterfeiting investigators that it is the American CIA that prints the Supernotes at a secret printing facility.”

Yes foks an unsubstantiated rumor that cannot be proven in anyway means that American sanctions on North Korea due to it’s counterfeiting of US currency is on "shaky ground". How can an editor at a major German newspaper agree to print something like this? I heard a rumor that Elvis was secretly living with Kim Jong-il and were set to release a debut duet single together entitled "Don’t Step on My Kaeseong Made Shoes".  Don’t question me the tooth fairy told me.  Will the German media print this as front page news as well?  This FAZ article is even less credible than the AP citing a North Korean newspaper to confirm their No Gun-ri article or using Jamil Hussein to confirm their Iraq reporting.

According to this, Kim Jong-il does:

These concerns will look familiar to those who have followed the WFP’s operation in North Korea.  I strongly encourage you to read every last word of Wallace’s scathing letter, which is packed with specific facts and findings that the UNDP violated its own rules of accountability, and essentially turned over its checkbook to the North Koreans.  I know.  Sounds like an exaggeration, doesn’t it? 

Most of the actual “development” programs the UNDP was funding were actually run by the North Korean government with UN funds.  The UNDP’s “international staff” — ie., the two or three staffers who were not North Koreans – were not allowed to inspect them.  There is no independent evidence, no evidence except for North Korean assurances, that these U.N.-funded programs even exist.  The North Korean government received all of the paychecks itself, a la Kaseong, and its nationals handled all the money — all of it in cash.  It charged the UNDP steep rent, and insisted that the UNDP buy all of its supplies from North Korean state vendors at steep prices.

Make sure you read the rest from One Free Korea.  What continues to annoy me just as much as the continuing UN corruption is the fact that such unbelievable corruption is being given very little media coverage.  Kim Jong-il could fire a missile tomorrow over the Sea of Japan and get a week’s worth of news coverage, but these continuing corruption scandals, that help fund those very missile programs, get little attention from the media at all.

From the Stars and Stripes:

Thanks to an increase in counterfeiting of South Korean bank notes, get ready for South Korean paper money that looks different from what you may be used to.

The South Korean government announced recently it would begin issuing newly designed 10,000-won and 1,000-won notes Monday. It already had issued new 5,000-won notes Jan. 2.

But you’ll still be able to use the old money — worth about $10 and $1.

The government is taking the action to thwart what Bank of Korea officials said is a recent increase in counterfeiting, especially of 5,000-won notes.

Those fakes often were a sophisticated product not easily detectable to the unaided eye, bank officials said.

Any guesses who is behind the counterfeiting?  I guess when rigorous sanctions make counterfeiting US currency less appealing, you might as well counterfeit the currency of the nation you know will do nothing towards you about it.

The AAFES commander Major General Essex has vowed to prosecute thoughs involved in the SSRT corruption scandal:

Garza said Air Force Maj. Gen. Paul W. Essex, AAFES commander, “has given our general counsel the authority and the guidance to prosecute violators that have gone and broken our public trust and our customers’ trust, and to prosecute them to the furthest extent.”

Also, he said, “I’m sure that General Essex would not allow a company that has violated the trust” of our customers “to continue to operate for us.”

SSRT on the other hand is claiming everything is hunky dory:

An SSRT official said his Internet and phone service company can do more to improve service to U.S. military customers on the peninsula, but denied its prices are out of line and that its service is substandard.

Justin Ryu, business administration division manager for Samsung Rental Corp. Ltd., or SSRT, also said the company does not exploit the fact that most USFK customers are transient. Rather, he said, SSRT works hard to fix service problems in a timely manner and considers the schedules and working conditions of U.S. military customers.

Really?  Tell that to all the soldiers and airman getting screwed by your corrupt company.  The Stars and Stripes really nailed it with this information:

Here is a list of SSRT’s monthly prices for Internet service on various U.S. military installations in South Korea :

• Cable modem service, $41, available at all installations except Osan and Kunsan air bases.
  
• At Osan and Kunsan air bases, DSL service is $39.95.

At Osan, dial-up Internet is also available, for $13.90 per month.

Web sites for several leading South Korea telecommunications companies showed the following monthly rates (converted from won to dollars) for basic Internet service:

• Korea Telecom Corp.: ADSL service with no contract, $32; for contracts that range from one to three years, $26.69 to $29.90.
  
• Hanaro Telecom Inc.: DSL without contract, $29.90; for contracts of one to three years, $26.91 to $29.
  
• Powercomm: Basic DSL without contract, $31.50; for contracts of one to three years, $26.69 to $29.92.

I’m fairly confident the US authorites will send the corrupt AAFES employees to jail, but will anything be done by the Korean authorities to punish the corrupt SSRT officials?  I seriously doubt it.  Corrupt businessmen are nothing new in Korea and ripping off USFK isn’t really considered a big deal by many Koreans because they figure the Americans are rich anyway.  At least the corrupt AAFES officials will at least get punished. 

Here is an update on last year’s sexual ass assault case involving a 2nd Infantry Divison MP.  Talk about a stupid criminal:

A soldier struck a 21-year-old South Korea woman with a frying pan, then fled in his underwear after unlawfully entering her apartment, according to testimony in Uijeongbu district court on Friday.

Pfc. Jordan Nelson, 19, of the 55th Military Police Company, is charged with assault and attempted rape after entering the unlocked apartment at about 2 a.m. on Oct. 22. He disputed the tearful woman’s claims that he got in bed with her but admitted striking her with the pan.

When the woman began screaming, Nelson left his clothing and dog tags behind, according to testimony.

Is it just me or do MPs make the stupidest criminals?  In my time in the Army I have seen MPs get busted for stupid incidents.  I’m not saying that MPs commit more incidents than anyone else, but it sure seems like when they do get in trouble they commit the stupidest incidents.  You would think MPs would be more clever in covering their tracks.  Even the Air Force has MPs that just leave me wondering what the heck were they thinking?

In Korea news, the week ended with a mild earthquake that was blogged about by bloggers here and here. 

Cheju on the other hand may not have had an earthquake but they did have a polar bear swim. 

Here are some girls I wouldn’t mind seeing take a polar bear swim. 

I do have to say some USFK soldiers have too much time on their hands.  I have to admit though, the song in the second video is quite catchy.

In Japan news, first of all congrats to Japan Probe for his one year blogging anniversary. 

If you are one those people who just has to have the latest in cell phone technology well a Japanese cell phone maker has created the latest advance in cell phone technology, a "smelly phone". 

Ever wonder what the difference between a New York and Tokyo businessman is?  You can find out here. 

In milblog news, the big talk has been about the troop "surge", but does anyone know what the "surge" really is?  Find out here. 

Here is a great run down on the strategic impact of the Chinese missile test for the US Navy.

Finally in Afghanistan here is a story about an Afghan Rambo.

I really don’t see what the big deal about the new "Do It Yourself Blog" is in Korea?  Sounds like a Korean version of WordPress where you can download plugins to customize your blog.

If you ever wanted to debate the merits of the word "gyopo" here and here are the place to do it.

Former Clinton Administration Defense Secretary William Perry is once again advocating starting a war with North Korea by bombing it’s nuclear reactor:

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry proposed Thursday that the United States should consider military action against North Korea if China and South Korea refuse to prod Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons program, according to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Although the move is dangerous, there is no alternative left if China and South Korea, the two key economic lifelines to North Korea, do not join any U.S.-led “diplomatic coercive’’ action against Pyongyang, he told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

AFP quoted Perry, the Pentagon chief under former president Bill Clinton, as saying that the U.S. should consider destroying a large reactor under construction in North Korea capable of making about 10 nuclear bombs a year.

Remember Perry was the same guy who co-authored a Washington Post editorial before July’s North Korean missile test that advocated bombing North Korea’s missile program. I said then that it would be ridiculous to bomb the missile sites because the US had more to gain from the North Koreans firing the missiles compared to if the US attacked North Korea. By firing the missile the US was able to accurately gauge exactly how far along the North Korean missile program was, which ended up being no where near advanced as thought. The US would have never learned this by bombing North Korea. Plus the test continued the isolation of the Kim regime with additional sanctions put on the country and Kim becoming even more of an international pariah.Â

Compare that to a bombing campaign that would have put Kim Jong-il in a more sympathetic light. Remember their were people who were sympathetic with Saddam Hussein, don’t think Kim Jong-il won’t get the same treatment. Cindy Sheehan and her ilk would be toasting Kim Jong-il in no time. The media would show images of killed civilians from the bombing campaign over and over again while ignoring all the civilians dying right now in North Korea, as I type this, due to the Kim regime’s systematic starvation program. Even more dangerous than the political and diplomatic consequences would be the military consequences of a full scale war breaking out on the Korean peninsula. Any war on the Korean peninsula would cause casualties that would dwarf the Iraq War. Especially US casualties with the 2nd Infantry Division continuing to remain located near the DMZ.Â

The consequences of bombing Kim’s nuclear program today would be the same as what I listed above for bombing Kim’s missile program. However, fear not, there will not be a bombing campaign on North Korea and Perry knows it. Remember he was the guy in charge of the Pentagon during the 1994 nuclear crisis when the Clinton Administration decided not to bomb North Korea. He knows President Bush cannot attack North Korea for the very same reasons President Clinton didn’t, which makes it easy for him to come out looking like a hawk on this issue. The Democrats have long been viewed as weak on defense so in order to build their defense credentials, they are looking to take hawkish positions on issues that they know President Bush cannot act upon. North Korea is the best example. Notice you see no one from the Democratic Party advocating bombing Iran which is a much greater danger to the US than North Korea. What’s the difference between advocating bombing Iran compared to North Korea? The only difference is that there is a very real possibility that President Bush may bomb Iran in the future compared to North Korea.Â

Many Democrats are only hawkish when they know they don’t need to act on it. Another example of this was for the past two years the Democrats have been all over TV advocating for more troops in Iraq and made sure to keep bringing up General Shinseki’s name every time they did. They did this to bolster their defense credentials because they didn’t think President Bush would ever actually act upon it. However, Bush did act and sent more troops to Iraq and what did the Democrats do? Condemn Bush for sending more troops to Iraq and threaten to cut funding for the soldiers there. Perry’s latest article is just another example of a long line of Democratic demagoguery of national security issues.

HT: Nomad

This is an interesting piece of news that may have greater strategic consequences than the North Korean nuclear test:

China last week successfully used a missile to destroy an orbiting satellite, U.S. government officials told CNN on Thursday, in a test that could undermine relations with the West and pose a threat to satellites important to the U.S. military.

According to a spokesman for the National Security Council, the ground-based, medium-range ballistic missile knocked an old Chinese weather satellite from its orbit about 537 miles above Earth. The missile carried a "kill vehicle" and destroyed the satellite by ramming it.

Why do I say this may have greater strategic impact than the North Korean nuclear test?  Despite all the media hype over the North Korean nuclear test, little has changed on the Korean peninsula because of it.  Until the North Koreans can demonstrate that they can put a nuclear warhead on a missile and fire it at someone, than the fact that they detonate an extremely small nuclear explosion in a cave is of little consequence at this time. 

Now the fact that the Chinese have proven they can shoot down a satellite is of huge strategic importance.  The US military has gone to great lengths to digitize the force was GPS devices and blue force tracking equipment that can plot and track friendly and enemy locations over a digitized map.  Additionally the military has continued to upgrade the Air Forces "smart bombs" to the JDAM GPS guided versions.  If hostilities broke out over Taiwan for example, the Chinese could shoot down America’s GPS satellites thus rendering all the American JDAM bombs as ineffective.  Does anyone now wonder why the US military won’t do away with conventional bombs such as cluster bombs that have been a popular cause-celeb for anti-military groups to ban?

So what now?  The US and other countries are going through the motions of condemning this test through the UN and other diplomatic channels, but realistically I can’t blame the Chinese for conducting the test.  It is in their national interest to develop this capability and they know Ban Ki-moon and the United Nations will do nothing to stop them.  To expect a great power like China to abide by some agreement to not militarize space is ridiculous.  Does anyone think that if China and the US went to war over Taiwan that either side would abide by some treaty not to destroy each others satellites?  What the US needs to do is react to this reality by developing technologies not depended on satellites or defensive systems to protect the satellites.  Notice that ever since the North Korean nuclear tests you hear no one talking against missile defense.  I suspect that with this Chinese missile test that you will hear no one talking against militarizing space now either. 

After reading about this I immediately thought back to a National Training Center rotation I did a few years back when the evaluators there were making my brigade’s leadership use nothing but the digital technology and the senior leaders were very resistant to it because they were comfortable with using the traditional paper maps, plastic overlays, and grease pencils to manage a battle.  It is ironic that we may need to start taking out and training with the paper maps, plastic overlays, and grease pencils again.