There's A (Korean) Sucker Born Every Minute

Pssst! Hey, buddy, wanna get some paradise on earth? ... Yeah? ... All you gotta do is move to ... North Korea!

I don't think anyone's ever really fallen for a line like that and bought the Brooklyn Bridge, but Yumiko Chiba actually did fall for the line above.

OSAKA, June 13 (AP) - (Kyodo)—A woman who fled North Korea and lives in Osaka Prefecture filed an 11 million yen damages suit Friday against the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryon, over its responsibility for a program that promoted the emigration of Korean residents of Japan to North Korea.

Yumiko Chiba, 47, who moved to North Korea in 1963 under the program and defected from the country in 2003, lodged the suit with the Osaka District Court, insisting that she suffered physical and mental pain in a North Korean concentration camp because the pro-North Korea group neglected to explain the reality of the situation in North Korea.

Chiba moved to North Korea with her parents, Korean residents of Japan, after her mother was persuaded by Chongryon members that the country was a "paradise on earth" and that the family would live there "free of worries."

But in reality, the family endured numerous hardships, including being sent to a concentration camp, according to the suit.

Actually, the story is not as bizarre as it seems. In the pre-WWII era, Japan occupied Korea in that nasty kind of occupation that's so different from the "occupation of Iraq" hoo-hah the anti-war Lefties throw around. The Japanese forced a goodly number of Koreans to Japan for menial labor.

In Japan, the Koreans were subject that really nasty kind of racism that's so different from the "you're racist"drivel the PC Lefties throw around.

So it seemed to the Chibas that Chongryon's offer might not be all that bad ... only to discover that even bad treatment in a liberal democracy beats standard treatment in a Communist totalitarian dictatorship.

Yellow Munchkins From Hell

While doing some reading up on North Korea I found a particularly thorough 2003 article in New Republic that included this fascinating tidbit about the Korean People's Army:

... the height requirement for new recruits is now 1.3 metres, reflecting the effects of nearly two decades of malnutrition.

For the metric impaired, that's 4' 3". In 2005, the average American male was 5' 9 1/2" and the average woman was 5' 4" (source). The New Republic article doesn't make it clear whether the 4' 3" height is there mainly to capture NoKo women into the army, and it is a minimum height, not an average height, but its extreme shrimpiness is proof positive that the poor people of North Korea are being starved by their regime.

The article also makes it clear the NoKo cult culture is fanatical and allegiance to Li'l Kim is practically molecular among the long-suffering people. It is not a country where we can expect a people's uprising ... or, at least, expect a people's uprising to succeed.

Finally, Beijing's Torch Finds A Welcome

A nation finally rolled out a red carpet ... albeit, a thread-bear, ratty looking one ... for the Olympic torch today, giving the Beijingoists a welcome relief from demonstrations that marred the torch's progress around the globe.

What country?

Here's a hint: Celebretory crowds were waving artificial bunches of the national flower, kimjongilia.

As in Kim Jong-Il-ia.

Yes, NoKo's torch relay started off with a leg run by Pak Du-Ik, who symbolized North Korea's greatest international sports triumph: their 1966 World Cup soccer team, which advanced to the quarter-finals. As in, here's a nation that's gone 42 years since falling far short of winning.

Of course, there would have been protests in NoKo, too, if people were free to protest. China routinely sends North Koreans who flee Li'l Kim's cesspool nation back to NoKo, where they face imprisonment if they're lucky, death if they're not.

But if they'd protested the torch, they'd face imprisonment if they're lucky, death if their not. So, hey! Welcome China! Cool torch!

Talking To Terrorists: NoKo Aided Syrian Nuke Program

Imagine the progress Syria would have made on its nuclear facilities (left) if Israel hadn't blown them to smithereens (right). Now you finally get to officially imagine how many North Koreans were blown to smithereens in the attack:

WASHINGTON (WSJ) —North Korea was helping Syria build a plutonium-based nuclear reactor, the Bush administration is set to tell Congress, a revelation that could undermine diplomatic efforts to dismantle Pyongyang's nuclear-weapons program.

Speculation about North Korea's alleged role was sparked by a September Israeli strike inside Syria, which targeted what many U.S. government and private analysts believe was a nascent nuclear reactor. To date, neither Israel nor U.S. intelligence officials have made public information about the attack, except for a small number of lawmakers. That's fueled criticism from Republicans who charge the Bush administration with downplaying the matter to avoid hurting talks with the North Koreans.

This week, the Central Intelligence Agency is expected to begin briefing members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees on the Israeli strike, according to Congressional and administration officials, based in part on intelligence provided by the Israeli government.

The information is expected to confirm that North Korea was helping Syria develop a plutonium-based nuclear reactor similar to the Yongbyon facility North Korea built north of Pyongyang, said an official familiar with the deliberations. The briefings are also expected to confirm that North Korean workers were active at the Syrian site at the time of the Israeli attack.

That's the trouble with trying to negotiate with rogue terrorist states. Obama tells us he'll be very good at this kind of stuff given his messianic aura and all, but one third of the American voting populace notwithstanding, do you think Li'l Kim will fall for that ballyhoo?

No, it's much more likely that the very junior senator from Illinois will fall for Li'l Kim's ballyhoo, coming back from Pyongyang with all sorts of assurances based on his abiding ego, not on any semblance of reality, only to find out that he's been duped.

As for Mr. Bush, he's played a pretty smart game with Pyongyang, not providing too much icing until he gets his cake, but this week's CIA briefing hopefully is signaling a new get tougher approach to the crazies in Pyongyang. This is a regime that engenders absolutely no sympathy from any credible countries, so we have a free hand in dealing with them.

Let's slap them around a bit.

Foreign Affairs, Spoiled Brat Style

One nation -- oh, let's say it's South Korea -- tells its neighbor to the north that they will not allow any expansion of a joint industrial park on the border of the two nations unless the neighbor to the north -- let's call it North Korea for convenience sake -- sits down and talks about ceasing production of nuclear weapons.

In a normal world, the two nations might withdraw some diplomats, say some harsh words, then sit down and talk. But that's not how they do it in the School of Spoiled Brat Diplomacy:

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea test-launched a barrage of short-range missiles Friday, the communist nation's latest apparent angry response to the new South Korean government's tougher stance on Pyongyang. ...

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that North Korea launched three ship-to-ship missiles at around 10:30 a.m. (9:30 p.m. EST Thursday), citing unidentified government officials.

Does that response remind you something?

Beer-Soaked Politics

The lengths the Left will go to create anti-American drivel ...

Bear with me. A few days back, the blog Gusts of Popular Feeling ran a post The General Sherman Sails Again, that told the story of a US war ship converted to a merchant trader (the namesake of the post), that was sunk in North Korea's Taedonggang River in Pyongyang in 1866, with the loss of all on board.

Current (revisionist to the max) NoKo history marks the start of modern (oxymoron, anyone?) history to the event, and says Li'l Kim's great-granddaddy led the mob that attacked the ship (although that's probably fabricated).

Gusts of Popular Feeling was moved to re-tell this pretty much forgotten story because the cap of Taedonggang Beer supposedly bears the image of the General Sherman, causing the author to ask:

Does Taedonggang have the honor of being the world's only anti-American beer?

Honor?! Sheesh.

Move forward three days to today, when Andrew Leonard, author of Salon's How the World Works Column, captured this little tale to launch a screed about imperialist America and its many sins. He starts with the history, which is more interesting than the thinking of his brain:

But then... While digging around for more details on the General Sherman, I found "The Opening of Korea by Commodore Shufeldt," published in Political Science Quarterly in 1910, in which author Charles Oscar Paullin tells the tale of how Korea was forced out of its cave and into the family of nations. The opening few pages recount the aftermath of the General Sherman incident -- in 1871, Rear-Admiral John Rodgers and the American minister to China, Frederick Low, led "a flotilla of five steamships, carrying 85 guns and 1235 men" for the purpose of establishing "peaceful relations with Korea."

On June 1 a flotilla from the fleet, while engaged in surveying the river, was unexpectedly fired upon by a Korean fort. The fire of the natives was returned, and a fight took place in which the Americans lost two wounded and the Koreans twenty wounded and many more killed. After a careful consideration of this incident, Low and Rodgers decided that the prestige of the United States would be impaired unless the injury to its flag were avenged or an apology tendered by the Korean government. Through one of his secretaries Low explained to an officer of the local prefecture that sufficient time would be allowed for an apology before any further steps were taken. While deeply regretting the firing on the flotilla, the officer defended the action of the forts, on the grounds that the Korean laws prohibited foreigners to pass a barrier of defense. He sent a present of chickens, bullocks and eggs to Rodgers, who declined to accept it.

The king refused to apologize.

It is sufficient to say that the Americans performed their allotted task with great thoroughness. Five forts were captured or destroyed; fifty flags and four hundred and eighty-one pieces of ordnance were taken, and twenty Koreans were made prisoners. In the principal engagement the loss of the natives were three hundred and fifty men killed and wounded, more than half of them being killed; the loss of the Americans was three killed and ten wounded...

And he concludes with ... brace yourself for the inevitable foul stench of America-hatred:

Is the term "imperialist robbers" too strong to describe such behavior? Maybe not. And as a reminder that the terms of trade agreements between nations often depends on who owns the biggest battleships, even a beer bottle-cap can be effective.

America the imperialist ... worked then, works now, right? Forget that we don't have colonies ... doesn't matter. Forget that trade agreements lift up the nations we make them with, improving lives, not enslaving them ... doesn't matter, either.

Well, besides the obvious historical and political errors in Leonard's analysis, there's this little problem:

Here's the now-notorious beer cap:

And here's a NoKo stamp showing a bridge across the Taedonggang River:

Oops. We've got a flawed launching point for the screed -- it's a bridge not a boat. But that's not what makes the screed flawed. Leonard and his lefties will go back in time -- to the Crusades if necessary -- to find a way to paint a dreary, evil picture of America, while ignoring all the good we do today.

Is NoKo a better place for standing up to America? Would the people -- the people, who are supposed to be the concern of the left -- be living longer, healthier, happier lives if Li'l Kim and his father had stopped being Commie-dictators and tried to do for their people what America tries to do for the people for the world?

Don't bother the Left with such questions; let them see bridges as Yankee ships, terrorists as insurgents, and progress as anti-Progressive.

Foreign Policy Quiz

This is a two parter. The first question is to name the country that is the focus of this passage from Reuter's story about the State Department's 2007 Human Rights Report:

This year ___ was classified among authoritarian countries that are undergoing economic reform and rapid social change but which "have not undertaken democratic political reform," the report said.

In ___, controls were "tightened on religious freedom in Tibetan areas and in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and the treatment of petitioners in Beijing worsened," the report said.

"The government also continued to monitor, harass, detain, arrest, and imprison activists, writers, journalists, and defense lawyers and their families, many of whom were seeking to exercise their rights under the law," it said.

"Although the government pursued some important reforms, such as the Supreme People's Court's resumption of death penalty review power in cases handed down for immediate execution, efforts to reform or abolish the reeducation-through-labor system remained stalled," it said.

Did you guess China? Good! (I know; the photos gave it away.)

Now the second question: What did the State Department do as a result of all this?

If you guessed "It removed China from its list of the world's worst human rights violators," you're right! Congratulations! You've won a trip to the gulag of your choice!

Sure, the top ten offenders could give China a run for its money. After all North Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe, Cuba, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Eritrea and Sudan have nothing much to be proud of in the human rights arena. But with a population of 1.3 billion, China can trounce on more human rights in an afternoon than its competitors can falsely imprison, torture or just plain murder in a month of Sundays. (Remember, no praying allowed on Sundays. Or any other day.)

Obviously, there is some pandering going on here -- most likely an effort to encourage China to get North Korea in tow and de-nuked. If moving them down to 11 on the list of nefarious nations helps, it's worth it, especially since China has proven beyond the shadow of a torture rack doubt that it's not going to change its policies whether it's on the list or not.

Before we go, let's do a little exercise in civics with the top ten:

• North Korea, Communist dictatorship
• Myanmar, Communist junta
• Iran, Islamist theocracy
• Syria, Islamist dictatorship
• Zimbabwe, Socialist dictatorship
• Cuba, Communist dictatorship
• Belarus, Soviet anachronism, Communist style
  
• Uzbekistan, Soviet anachronism, Islamist style
  
• Eritrea, Islamist dictatorship
• Sudan, Islamist theocratic dictatorship
  

Gee, not a democratic nation, Judeo-Christian or otherwise, among them. What have we learned, class?

Scaring Tehran

This announcement from the Pentagon should make the Mullahs shake in their sandals:

U.S. officials say the Pentagon is planning to shoot down a broken spy satellite expected to hit the Earth in early March. (WSJ)

It's just a bulletin now; a full story will follow.

If the mission is successful (which it should be) and the whole world gets to watch us blast a falling satellite out of the sky, leaders of rogue nations developing missile delivery systems will have scratch their evil-filled heads and reconsider their efforts to take down the shining city on a hill.

Sure, a satellite is not a missile -- but let's see the Mullahs or L'il Kim Jong Il try to pull of this mission!

NoKo Busted By Israel In Syria

Did you expect a bit more outrage from the Global Association of Idiot Nations over Israel's attack of what they claimed to be a Syrian nuclear facility? I certainly did. Now we know why the response -- from Damascus to Pyongyang to MoveOn.org -- has been so muted:

Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.

The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.

They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. (Times of London)

So much for that enemy of the Left, Cowboy George Bush. Imagine that he demanded proof before letting the Israelis load up their six-shooters!

And, by the way, so much for that enemy of the Left, the roughshod-running Israelis.

This certainly explains why Damascus has been nearly mute in its response to having its sovereignty invaded by the hated Jews. But what about NoKo? You'd think Li'l Kim Jong Il would have something to say, if nothing more than a lie to distance his regime from the evidence.

Well, it turns out that's an impossible lie, even for the very well-trained Li'l Kim:

Evidence that North Korean personnel were at the site is said to have been shared with President George W Bush over the summer. ...

Diplomats in North Korea and China believe a number of North Koreans were killed in the strike, based on reports reaching Asian governments about conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials.

That conversations would fly between Beijing and Pyongyang after this incident is telling of the state of world terrorism, and, possibly, hints rather strongly that perhaps there's one rather prominent nation missing from the Axis of Evil roster.

We don't know what was said in those conversations, but our intelligence community and our president do. Perhaps China was trying to reign in L'il Kim; perhaps he was getting his knuckles rapped for failing so publicly, thereby embarrassing the Axis. Most likely, China wanted to no what NoKo did wrong that allowed the Israelis to get wind of the whole affair, so the same mistake wouldn't happen again.

Whatever China said, whatever China's role, it is clear that L'il Kim's days must be numbered. While negotiating (in very bad faith) about taking apart his nuke program, we now have hard evidence that he is still trying to create legions of nuclear terrorists. This information comes to us from an Israeli special ops team that risked its life to get the info, so the information deserves more than a space in a file cabinet.

It's time to make L'il Kim's life very, very unpleasant.

L'il Kim Launches Advanced New Missiles

Kim Jong-Il has failed utterly at proving his totalitarian form of rule can outperform South Korea's democratic approach to governance, so it appears he's hellbent on threatening the destruction of the embarassment to the south.

SEOUL, July 2 (AP) - (Kyodo) — The top U.S. military commander in South Korea said Monday that the short-range missiles North Korea test-fired last week were "advanced" and warned that its continued development and testing of a full range of modern missiles threatens peace and stability.

North Korea last week "conducted testing of advanced short-range missiles -- missiles specifically designed to attack the Republic of Korea (South Korea), its armed forces, and its citizens," Gen. Burwell Bell told local journalists, according to a partial text of his remarks posted on the U.S. Forces Korea website.

"These are modern, solid-fuel, which means that they are easy to handle and rapidly capable of being fired," he also said, according to Yonhap News Agency.

Bell, who commands 29,500 U.S. troops in South Korea, expressed concern over "the potential capability of North Korea to couple its missile technology with its demonstrated nuclear ability."

"The North's continued development and testing of a full range of modern short, medium, and long range missiles threaten the Republic of Korea, the region, and indeed the world," he said, according to his command's website. (Brietbart)

Of course, L'il Kim doesn't really care that SoKo is so much more successful, healthy and happy than NoKo. All that matters is that he's happier because NoKo provides him with such wealth, comfort and power.

A man who will sacrifice his people's health and wellbeing so he can indulge in expensive liquor, a massive porn collection and other self-indulgences is not exactly driven by a strong moral core. (I don't mean to imply by this photo that a certain former Sec of State had anything to do with L'il Kim's porn collection.)

Because his value system is basically "what's good for me?" it's perfectly acceptable under his worldview to play at negotiating away his nukes while continuing to advance the technology for delivering his nukes. That's why it's generally better to have wary, anti-Communist Republicans negotiating with him instead of feel good Dems.

No trust, no complacency; that's the framework for working with this guy. And having 29,500 trained and armed U.S. troops hanging out just south of his border isn't a bad idea either -- just like having so much U.S. military power all around Iran is a good idea.

Cash For Kim

Adrianus Petrus Wilhelmus Melkert. Ever heard of him? Contemporary of Mozart, perhaps?

No, how about condemner of Wolfowitz -- that ring a bell? Ad, as he goes, Melkert was one of Paul Wolfowitz' main accusers in the recent World Bank reputation-lynching, and he's a no-gooder if ever there was one. The WSJ is slamming him in its editorial today, so it's a good, good Friday.

In the editorial, nicely titled Kim's UN Buddy, we learn and/or are reminded:

[Melkert] recently threatened to "retaliate" against the U.S. for its efforts to get to the bottom of incompetence and possible corruption in the UNDP's program in North Korea.

The international diplomat's nasty but revealing threat occurred in a meeting this month with Mark Wallace, who is the point man at the U.S. mission to the U.N. for the continuing investigation into the Cash for Kim Jong Il scandal, in which many millions of dollars of UNDP money may have been diverted to Pyongyang. The incident was recounted in a June 14 letter to Mr. Melkert's boss, Kemal Dervis, from Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. permanent representative to the U.N.

"I was surprised and concerned to learn that . . . Mr. Melkert suggested to Ambassador Wallace that UNDP viewed [the] United States inquiry relating to [North Korea] as justifying some kind of 'retaliation' against the Government of the United States," Mr. Khalilzad wrote.

I'll take Khalizad's charge over Melkert's quickly issued denial because the former head of the World Bank's ethics committee is a no good liar, and he's proved it with ExLax-like regularity. For example, he has stated that an audit of the UN Development Program, for which the Dutchman was associate administrator, did nothing wrong in North Korea.

Even without full access to the complete record, which is beautifully buried in the UN bureaucracy, the US has found his claim to be false:

In fact, as Mr. Melkert knows, the U.N. Board of Auditors found that the UNDP repeatedly violated its own rules until it pulled out of North Korea this spring. It hired staffers selected by the North Korean government and paid their salaries directly to Pyongyang; it disbursed large amounts of cash in foreign currency; and it inspected only a small fraction of its projects, which may or may not even exist. The auditors, who were barred from traveling to North Korea, were careful to note that they were unable to follow the money trail. That is, they had no way to know whether, as Mr. Melkert blithely asserts, the UNDP's funds "were used for development purposes."

The bottom line is that no one knows how much money the United Nations has actually spent in North Korea, or where it went. Using sums "self-reported" by the U.N., the Congressional Research Service says U.N. development assistance to North Korea for 1995-2005 was a staggering $1.4 billion. Of that, the UNDP spent a minimum of $33.1 million; if payments made by UNDP on behalf of other U.N. agencies are included, the total could reach more than $100 million. That's money Kim has used to prop up his brutal regime and perhaps to fund his nuclear weapons program.

Melkert and his ilk are part of what's wrong with the UN. Sure, the despotic rulers of various horrorocracies that have full voting rights are a big part of what's wrong with the sump, but they are at times outdone by the professional crooks in diplomatic clothing like Melkert, who feel the UN is their playground and pocketbook. They lie, steal and cover up, all while cloaking themselves in the glorious, sacrificial robes of people who care more about others than we do.

The House has cut $20 million in aid to the UNDP as a statement of dissatisfaction with Melkert's fluff investigation of the Cash for Kim scandal. I doubt if he'll get a single glare at the water cooler from his co-henchmen in the Global Bureaucracy; high-fives are more likely -- he stood up to Wolfowitz and it only cost them $20 million they could have spent to better people, but would have squandered anyway.

Killing The Chicken To Scare The Monkey

Remember last summer, when the Dems went ballistic over North Korea's nuclear test, yelling at the White House about wasting resources in Iraq when countries like NoKo posed a more clear and present danger?

It was bluster, for sure, because they never would have gone for any strong, military-backed measures againt L'il Kim and his Krew in Pyongyang -- and, it turns out, it was ignorant bluster at that, because all the while, the Bush Admin. was patiently attacking a much more vulnerable target. That's it in the photo, Banco Delta Asia, in the greasy little commercial hub of Macao, near Hong Kong.

The tiny bank run by Stanley Au and operated as a closely held family business, was the chicken in an old Chinese proverb that says you kill the chicken to scare the monkey. You'll get it soon enough.

As reported in a great WSJ article today (subscribers only, probably)
the Bush Admin. had decided to use Section 311 of the good ol' Patriot Act to put Uncle Sam's big thumb flat on the back of Banco Delta because the bank was a financial conduit for Pyongyang. Section 311 allows the U.S. to bar its banks from doing business with banks like Banco Delta, which are allegedly involved in illicit businesses. Its provisions had previously been used against banks in Syria and other happy go lucky places.

Banco Delta was hadly the biggest fish in the NoKo financial pond, but it was a good choice for the tactic.

By early 2005, Bush administration officials were ready to take the next big step. Six-party talks among the U.S., North Korea, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea to end Pyongyang's nuclear program had stalled seven months earlier. U.S. officials fretted that the North's erstwhile ally China wasn't doing enough to pressure Pyongyang. ...

After rejecting a proposal to target the Bank of China's Macau branch for fear of angering the Chinese [the monkey in the old proverb], the administration focused on Banco Delta Asia, a small, family-run bank with 30,000 customers and $389 million in deposits. Founded in the 1930s, BDA had nine branches in Macau and two in nearby Hong Kong. U.S. intelligence officials had been following its interactions with North Korean businesses since the mid-1990s and saw it as a major node in North Korea's foreign financial dealings. ...

On Sept. 15, 2005, the U.S. publicly accused BDA of being "a willing pawn for the North Korean government," alleging that it had helped conduct "surreptitious, multimillion-dollar cash deposits and withdrawals" for front companies involved in counterfeit currency, drugs and other illegal activities for more than 20 years. The U.S. said it was weighing whether to bar all U.S. banks from doing any business with BDA.

BDA's chairman, Stanley Au, disputed the allegations. But by noon the next day, long lines of depositors had withdrawn more than $40 million in cash from the bank. The Macau Monetary Authority set up a team to investigate BDA, and two days later, took over its management and froze more than 50 North Korean accounts with about $25 million in deposits.

That may not seem like much money, but all of a sudden, banks in China, Vietnam, Mongolia and elsewhere got jittery, suddenly feeling like Cindy Sheehan about the Patriot Act. They began to stop transacting business with Pyongyang, and L'il Kim felt the pinch immediately. By killing the chicken, we had scared the daylights out of the monkey.

Shortly after this, the stalled six-party talks suddenly fired up again.

But when negotiators met again in Beijing two months later, North Korea's envoy, Kim Kye Gwan, lashed out during a private plenary session. He accused the U.S. of heaping more sanctions on his country and called the BDA action "intolerable," says one U.S. official who was present.

"At first we thought it was one of those typical, blustery North Korean speeches that often go away like a summer shower," he says. "But this one just stayed. They never stopped talking about it."

The Chinese were plenty miffed, too. Like Jack Bauer, the U.S. negotiators looked around at the mayhem they had created and said, "Got 'em just where we want 'em." As negotiations moved forward, the unfreezing of Banco Delta accounts has been center stage because the North Koreans know that once those accounts are freed, other financial doors will re-open.

A brilliant strategy, well played. So, of course, expect the Dems to attack it any day now, probably calling hearings on why the Bush Admin. allowed the accounts to unfreeze without exacting tougher measures to stop that country's counterfeiting and smuggling operations.

Perhaps Pelosi, Reid & Co. don't understand Chinese proverbs. Counterfeiting is the chicken, and in this case, we're just going to scare the chicken, we're letting it live a few more days so we can kill the monkey, the NoKo nuke program.

You can bet your bottom dollar (quite possibily counterfeited by NoKo) that the Mullahs in Tehran have been tracking this story very closely, because we've launched a similar financial strike against them.

U.N. Promotes North Korea In New Brochure

There's nothing like happy, smiling kids to warm you up and pry open that wallet, eh?

That's apparently the thinking of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), which splashed these happy kids on this brochure for its 2007 media fellowships. The program, according to UN-watcher Claudia Rosette, is a fund-raising piece for UNDP programs:

What’s doubly rich about this UNDP pamphlet, linked here, (and downloaded here, in case it now somehow vanishes from the UNDP site), is that the theme for this UNDP “media advocacy” fellowship is supposed to be “Corruption.” For that, you might suppose the UNDP would be trying to encourage the development of an independent press. But no. From the description, this fellowship seems to be mainly about co-opting the media to advertise the UNDP.

Well, nothing new or particularly controversial there: The U.N. has its hand out, and it doesn't much care who gives it money, free democracies or repressive dictatorships.

But if the theme of the media advocacy program is "Corruption," I join Rosette in asking this question: Why are the kids on the cover members of Li'l Kim Jong-Il's Young Pioneers?

And what are the singing children wearing? Why, the red scarves of the Young Pioneers, youngest tier of the ruling, repressive, murderous, totalitarian Workers’ Party of Kim Jong Il’s North Korea.

Of all the happily singing children throughout Asia, the inept, corrupt, mind-boggling U.N. picks children from Li'l Kim's Young Pioneers, rare children of privilege in a regime that sucks the lifeblood out of its slave-citizens, all for the glorious indulgences of Beloved Leader.

Anyone surprised? I didn't think so. Rosette reminds us that this is the UNDP after all, a group that under its former chief and U.N. big dog Mark Malloch Brown ignored its charter's call that its its funds be spent on development, and instead paid more than $567,ooo for what Rosetted describes as a "paean to the UNDP."

And, let's not forget, this same organization that uses Li'l Kim's Red Scarves brigade to promote anti-corruption is the same organization that is being investigated for allegedly funneling hard cash to Pyongyang -- all the while helping Li'l Kim conceal the regime's counterfeiting of U.S. $100 bills.

This post is brought to you as a public service by C-SM. Remember as you write your check to the IRS that Uncle Sam is the U.N.'s biggest source of income, helping to keep programs like the UNDP running.

Stupid Bush Again Out-Thinks His Critics

Normalization of relations with L'il Kim Jong Il's personal pleasure playground? That's not the sort of thing Bush -- the yahoo from Yale, the cowboy from Crawford -- should be capable of pulling off.

The leftyblogs -- Kos, Americablog, DemUnderground -- are all mystically silent on the matter. Perhaps they remember their boy Kerry trying to whop Bush during the debates, belittling the prez for not taking on NoKo one-on-one in bluster-diplomacy. Bush stood his ground, belittling right back with the results of Clinton's one-on-ones with L'il Kim.

This little bit from today's WashTimes coverage underscores the wisdom of the Bush approach:

Kim Kye-gwan, North Korea's vice minister of foreign affairs, arrived in Beijing yesterday and was expected in San Francisco tomorrow, a State Department official told The Washington Times. He will continue to New York for talks with his U.S. negotiating counterpart, Christopher Hill, which will likely begin early next week.

Kim went first to Beijing, then to Washington. That action proves the wisdom of the Bush administration's Six-Party approach. Any deal with NoKo that doesn't include China is doomed because only China exerts any control over the Pyongyang Gang.

And in the process, Bush has skillfully drawn Beijing into a new role of Asian peace-promoter, establishing a foothold that future administrations can build on to manage all the problems and potentials China poses.

And the Leftyblogs just go on and on about conditions at Walter Reed ... fiddling with non-stories while the world changes.