Comments on: President Roh ‘Carpet Bombs’ White House

By: The Marmot's Hole U.N. brings tidings of joy!

The Marmot's Hole U.N. brings tidings of joy! — Thu, 25 Nov 2004 03:13:04 +0000

[...] uns recent remarks in Los Angeles, the unification minister told reporters. [...] uns recent remarks in Los Angeles, the unification minister told reporters. http://blog.marmot.cc/archives.....ite-house/“ target=”_blank” title=”Marmot: President Roh ?€?Carpet Bombs?€™ Whi [...]

By: usinkorea

usinkorea — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 10:13:25 +0000

To Won Joon Choe,

No. I’m not Ben Eller. Honestly.

By: Davis

Davis — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 07:44:33 +0000

Time for the U.S. to get out of Korea. Our interests and the SK’s fundamentally differ. Roh is just expressing that reality. We want to stop the Morth from getting nukes. For the South keeping NK artillery from flattening Seoul is far more important than Krazy Kim Jong Il getting nukes. After all whether you die from nukes or convential artillery, dead is dead. Koreans being Koreans I honestly don’t think they care whether the North would sell its nuclear weapons to Islamic terrorists.

Noh and the Koreans are pursuing their best interests. I can’t really blame them for that BUT they should do it on their own dime. Get our troops out so that we have more options, military or otherwise, and so that we can pursue our best interests as well.

By: Simon World

Simon World — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 01:34:33 +0000

Asia by Blog
Asia by Blog is a twice weekly feature, posted on Monday and Thursday, providing links to Asian blogs and their views on the news in this fascinating region. Previous editions can be found here.

This edition contains Chinese condoms, sexless Singapor…

By: Won Joon Choe

Won Joon Choe — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 01:15:59 +0000

usinkorea,

Are you Mr. Ben Eller?

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 22:18:48 +0000

There’s a lot of fantasizing in this government–that moving state government offices to the sticks will “balance” development, that “redistributing” wealth will make society more equitable, that Kim Jong-ill’s regime is a downtrodden underdog…Koreans deserve better.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 18:37:54 +0000

Roh is either stunningly naive, or disingenuous and playing the norks off the U.S., for whatever return he fantasizes that will bring. I doubt it’s the latter.

By: usinkorea

usinkorea — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 14:20:19 +0000

On Paul’s point, one key thing to recognize between Iran and North Korea (and how it effects SK’s relationship with the US) is that Iran is “do-able” while North Korea is not. Israel will back and even put pressure on the US to take Iran out if it goes nuclear, and no coalition of Middle Eastern nations and backers from outside the region will be able to stop it. Worse case, we could have crippling oil sanctions like in the 1970s, but that will hurt fragile kingdoms like the one in Saudi Arabia too, more so than with the US, because we have a more stable political system. Ontheotherhand, we can’t take North Korea out because our key allies in the region won’t help and we can’t afford great damage to Japan. So, the guys wanting to change USFK are also playing a “let’s cut our losses” game, removing troops constantly under danger to free them up for real, potential combat in the primary key area for the US.

And on Mark’s point, I’ve been saying that for a few years now. North Korea is a basketcase nation, but, really, the regime has been successful in limiting its exposure to the outside world. The regime is more than willing to let the nation as a whole suffer greatly, as long as they stay in power.

We could strangle them out of power if the world community would agree, but key players won’t (China, South Korea, and then eventually Japan).

And North Korea pretty much knows the US can’t/won’t attack. In my opinion, Clinton and crew made it “look real” in the early 1990s, but I believe it was 98% bluffing. And as I said, the bluff was a good one, but even though people bought into the idea the US was about to attack the North without even telling South Korea, it didn’t work. The Clinton team ended up cutting a bad deal to prevent having to show its cards and thus confirming for Pyongyang that we were never really prepared to pull the trigger.

I believe the Bush team will seriously, and I think very seriously, cut our exposure to South Korea to a bare minimum (or they will at least attempt to) and formulate a lasting policy of letting North Korea know that if they invade the South or sell nuclear material/weapons to another nation or group, we will unleash all our power on them —- again, something like the strategic ambiguity we use with China on Taiwan. We say we’ll defend Taiwan, but we don’t spell out how, and I truly believe we would not fight China for Taiwan, but we are good at making people believe we would.

And lastly, I think the best policy for the US on dealing with North Korea is keeping up the kind of pressure we’ve seen for the last few years, but put our primary hope on covert ops —

—- mainly I’m thinking of infiltrating the North with as much information about the outside world as we possibly can. The regime is corrupt, brutal, and inept at funtioning for the society as a whole. The people can’t be blind to the fact their suffering is in large part due to their leaders - no matter how much propaganda they feed them from birth. They might hate the US more, but they can’t mistake their government for a good one. And the propaganda from birth can work in our favor big time if we can’t put the covert resources in country. Knowledge of the outside world will be shocking to North Korean’s bred on ignorance of the world. Pumping in knowledge can lead to a volcano in North Korea, I think…….

By: Paul H.

Paul H. — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 13:55:26 +0000

The one thing USinKorea doesn’t mention, but gives even more force to his argument, is the Iranian drive toward the bomb. Once they come on line with nukes, the world situation will become even more dangerous. Dispassionate political science logic will argue even more for the withdrawl of the “hostage” US ground forces from the peninsula, particularly if NorK and Iran have mastered “miniaturization” of nuclear warheads. And I don’t see why they can’t, as such technology is now almost 50 years old. By all accounts the Chinese got it from our own insanely security-lax nuclear weapons labs, and given the “free-enterprise” of the AQ Khan network it’s just a matter of time before NorK and Iran develop this ability as well.

By: mark

mark — Mon, 15 Nov 2004 12:07:26 +0000

Good point about the bargaining chips, Marmot…but remember: there might come a time when the SKs have to back that up!

I just think that the NKs already know what Roh is willing to do and what he’s NOT willing to do…I mean, Roh Moo-Hyun: Commander in Chief of the SK Invasion Forces Marching North?? That’s a joke, and everyone knows it. I can’t imagine that kind of politics emerging in SK nowadays. At least the guy was speaking his feeble mind. Would it be better if he backed a military strike, then (inevitably) took it off the table when things got too hot? Basically, I’m not really sure if tough posturing really pressures the North to get what we want from them. It seems they are the ones to get what they want from us when the pressure gets ratcheted up.