North Korea

Let’s Not Forget How the North Korea Crisis Originated

Featured image Liberals are criticizing President Trump for belligerent language directed toward North Korea. They think he should be more diplomatic, like other presidents have been for the last 25 years. Because that worked so well, apparently. This short video clip of President Clinton announcing the 1994 deal under which North Korea agreed not to develop nuclear weapons in return for a great deal of money is a great reminder of how »

For Reporters, the Enemy is Trump, Not North Korea

Featured image Last night I wrote about the fact that the Associated Press has done little or no actual reporting on the North Korea crisis, but rather has used the episode as another excuse to bash President Trump–foolishly, in this case. Earlier this evening I was on the Seth and Chris show in Phoenix, talking about the AP’s absurd coverage of Trump and Kim Jong Un. Michael Ramirez’s most recent cartoon picks »

North Korea responds to Trump’s threat by threatening Guam

Featured image Today, President Trump warned North Korea to stop making threats against the United States. He stated: North Korea had best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. Predictably, Kim Jong Un responded by doing precisely what Trump said he “best not” do. He threatened to attack Guam. According to CNBC: North Korea said on »

On North Korea, Anti-Trump Hysteria Replaces Reporting

Featured image The threat from North Korea is real, and is growing more imminent. President Trump is trying to rally international opposition to the crazed North Korean regime, to prepare Americans for possible dramatic action to remove the threat, and–most important–to deter North Korea from moving forward with aggressive plans against the U.S. This is serious business, but it isn’t being treated as such by most of the news media, which see »

How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?

Featured image The North Korean situation is reaching a crisis point, beyond which the United States will be in the position of having to acquiesce to the Nork’s status in the nuclear club. As is widely understood, the military options today are fraught with peril. Armchair generals might spin out scenarios of a decapitating strike on North Korea, but in the real world the chances of success are too uncertain. Austin Bay, »

North Korea missile launch indicates ability to hit Alaska

Featured image North Korea today successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile. The launch marks a breakthrough of sorts for the regime. The missile flew higher and remained in the air longer than previous attempts — long enough to reach Alaska, experts believe. The New York Times explains: Their missile traveled only about 580 miles, by itself no great achievement. But it got there by taking a 1,700-mile trip into space and re-entering »

What To Do About North Korea

Featured image Here’s very interesting news item—if true—from The Independent in the UK: China ‘tells citizens to leave North Korea’ as tensions with U.S. escalate The Korea Times reports that the Chinese embassy in North Korea began advising Korean-Chinese residents to return to China last month, over fears the country’s military provocations could lead to retaliation from the US. If true, this could perhaps be an expression of China agreeing to put »

Who’s Scarier, Kim Jong Un or Donald Trump?

Featured image Kim Jong Un’s North Korean regime is frightening. Kim’s government is the world’s most totalitarian and most oppressive. It operates slave labor camps and engages in torture, forced medical experimentation, and rape and murder on industrial scales. The regime has worked tirelessly for decades to develop nuclear weapons and ICBMs to deliver them to the United States and other destinations. Currently, the regime is believed to possess 10 to 20 »

Failure to launch

Featured image North Korea put on quite a show Saturday, parading an impressive-looking array of nuclear missiles accompanied by the obligatory goose-stepping soldiers. According to the Washington Post, “experts were stunned at the sheer number of new missiles on display during the parade — including, apparently, a new and previously unknown type of intercontinental ballistic missile.” However, the day ended badly for Kim Jong Un when North Korea’s latest missile launch, touted »

The Stars In Their Courses

Featured image In Syria, in Afghanistan, in North Korea, in Russia and Iran, the wheel is in spin. No one knows what will happen. Will President Trump’s suddenly assertive foreign policy be vindicated? I hope so. I agree with Charles Krauthammer that America is back, and with Paul that kicking the can down the road on North Korea–Obama’s foreign policy, when he wasn’t actively trying to undermine American interests–is no longer viable. »

Trump has rattled North Korea. Is this wise?

Featured image North Korea is threatening military action against South Korea and the United States. Indeed, it has promised to send “nuclear thunderbolts” at the first sign of a preemptive American strike. North Korea has made threats like this before. However, I believe President Trump has rattled Kim Jong Un, something previous administrations failed, or didn’t want, to do. Consider the events of this week. The Trump administration has launched an air »

Clinton emails contained top secret info derived from satellite spying on North Korean nukes

Featured image The latest batch of classified emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server includes information that may well be sufficient to establish that she violated 18 U.S.C. Section 793. However, as I mentioned here, we already knew that “top secret” information on her server derived from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which performs aerial surveillance, had triggered FBI concern in the first place. Even without knowing what, specifically, the information pertained to, it »

The Nork nuke angle

Featured image Omri Ceren promises a report on House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Iran yesterday, with attention to the $50 billion signing bonus President Obama has in store for acquiring the signature of the Supreme Leader’s representatives on the arrangement in process with Iran. The $50 billion will come in handy as the Iranians finance their nuclear program and support their good works in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and elsewhere in »

The Unabomber or Kim Jong Un?

Featured image Some people may remember the fun parlor game from almost 20 years ago, in which the close parallels were observed between the Unabomber’s famous manifesto, “Industrial Civilization and Its Discontents” and Al Gore’s Earth in the Balance. (I extended this problematic aspect of Gore’s philosophy in this paper that noted how closely Gore unknowingly (??) tracked Heidegger.) Now our friends at Mother Jones (heh) have equaled that feat, with a quiz »

Mr. Kim, Tear Down This . . . Wait, What?

Featured image By far the most remarkable article of the week was Richard Haass in the Wall Street Journal on Christmas eve, saying it is time for American foreign policy to seek . . . regime change in North Korea! They don’t make ‘em much more Capital-E “Establishment” than Haass, who is president of the uber-establishment Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR is hardly a nest of adventurous Bushoisie neocons. Still, Haass »

Dr. Evil Versus the Norks

Featured image I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us that Saturday Night Live had a better response to North Korea than President Obama did, starring Mike Myers as “Dr. Evil.”  I especially like the predictable “There’s already a GOP,” because—what took so long? »

Long story short, Iowahawk edition

Featured image Iowahawk took to Twitter yesterday to comment on President Obama’s after-the-fact advice to Sony in the matter of The Interview. As is his wont, Obama affected the position of an innocent bystander. Even without the relevant history I found Obama’s pose somewhere beyond creepy. He thinks we’re really, really stupid, and he’s got the evidence to back it up. Iowahawk took a quote from Obama speaking about Sony at his »