Why didn't David Gregory correct Rick Santorum?

The rising star among the Republican slate of dim lights vying for the GOP's nomination for the presidency, Rick Santorum waxed threatening on the 'influential' during an interview with 'Meet the Press' moderator David Gregory.

Bold as brass he promised, that if elected president, he would 'bomb' Tehran if Iran refused to allow UN inspection of its nuclear sites. You would think the former senator would have his facts straight. He doesn't. UN monitors do inspect Iran's nuclear sites!

More troubling, though: media star Gregory didn't challenge Santorum on misstating the truth. This omission speaks volumes over the fecklessness of the US media; they are there to be handmaidens of the power elite, not the derring dos who speak truth to power.

Oil Embargo on Iran: a version of old fashioned gunboat diplomacy

As the European Union follows into lockstep with the US on inching towards an embargo on Iran oil, we are witnessing a dusted off version of old fashioned gunboat diplomacy.

An EU embargo is a serious step to take: the consequences of such a move could and would threaten fragile economies of its members, already in deep debt. An embargo would shoot up the price of a barrel or oil, some say to a benchmark price of us$150 or more, thereby not only exacerbating social tensions but encouraging strikes and possibly serious attacks on property and the government itself in member countries.

So, it is not a move to be taken lightly. Moreover, an embargo increases the chances of missteps which could lead to military action in the Straits of Hormuz, threatening friend and foe alike. Even the reactionary monarchy in Saudi Arabia shies away from such a manoeuvre.

We are witnessing the blind pursuit of a policy that could bring down the economic house of cards of the US and the EU as it would challenge China's surging economy.

It is obvious the tack in the winds of political taken by the US and the EU is the triumph of ideological stupidity over commonsense.

'New York Times' suggested North Korea reading list

Two days after the death of Kim Jong il [17 December 2011], John Williams' 'Toward a North Korea Reading List' appeared in the 19 December edition of the 'New York Times'.

'Looking for insight into North Korea', he offered the same old same old list of books which hardly break new ground; the list conforms to the official line of how horrible the DPRK is.

Well, that's hardly new: it is a refrain that the US has sung for the last 60 years.

North Korea is not an earthly paradise, yet the list offers no historical understanding of its history or the intense nationalism North Korea espouses.

Most titles Williams selected tell of the hidden daily life of North Koreans, much documented by refugees who have suffered economic hardship and some years spent in gulags. The accounts are moving, yet they are devoid of historical context.

Bruce Cumings, a Korean scholar, is an exception. But since his award winning writings are critical of North Korea and, say, Kim Jong il, he fleshes out Korean history--north and south--which depart from the pieties of the US North Korean clerisy. Although Williams doffs his hat at Cumings' 'Korea's place in the sun' [1997], he significantly omits his 'North Korea: another country' [2004], as well as Random House's Modern Library's edition 'Korean War' [2010].

In fact, missing from Williams' bird's eye view on 'insights into North Korea' is any mention of the Korean War which has never ended but is frozen in time by a 1953 armistice awaiting a peace treaty. In other words, the US and North Korea remain at war. This omission may help explain why North Korea remains a country armed to the teeth, and will remain so until the US enters into negotiations without preconditions for a peace treaty and an end to stated US policy, coordinated with Seoul' of 'rolling back' the North to the point of collapse.

On the contrary, the scholarly and popular critical works of Cumings is an occasion by the usual suspects like BR Myers who read every imaginable North Korea publication for eight year and came up with the naive conclusion Kim Il Sung was a second rate copy of the militarist Japanese emperor Hirohito whom the US transformed into a mild manner constitutional monarch. And the more gentle Nicolas Kristof who reviewed Cumings' 1997 book who nonetheless, whilst disagreeing with the Korean scholar's conclusions found his arguments 'engaging'.

Cumings is the whipping post of the US North Korean clerisy simply because he begs to walk a different path in studying North Korea, and has drawn his own conclusions through visits and yes interviews with 'defectors', the source of most of the books on Williams' list. Since Cumings adheres to an 'independent' standpoint, he is game in an never ending open season. Rarely do you see him on the mainstream media! Best ignored seems common wisdom.

For the detective reading public there are the four books in the Inspector O series, written by James Church [an nom de plume of an intelligence agent who regularly visits North Korea]. Some rare gems of insight, for sure, but one must never lose sight of the glaring fact that the US and the ROK intelligence services have miserably failed in cracking the 'mystery' of North Korea.

Finally, an ironic mention of two books by Kim Jong il on the art of cinema and the art of opera, the cheapest copy on Amazon is us$128.45 plus handling charges! Williams' dig simply conforms to the laughter that the West shows on the notion that Kim Jong il has any brains.

Well, the old darling, left out the chapter in Madeleine Albright's meeting with the 'Dear Leader', and why not, since her appreciation might set off alarm bells in minds which threaten simple minded stereotypes.

Lee Myung bak goes to Beijing

South Korea's hang dog president Lee Myung bak is packing his bags for a trip to Beijing. Weeks ago, he announced it at the time of Kim Jong il's death. There is no mystery as to Lee's motives: he like his partner in squeezing North Korea to the point of surrender to their aims or to the edge of collapse US president Barack Obama, is to persuade China to pressure Kim Jung eun indirectly to heed the joint US ROK demands.

In fact, after North Korea's rebuff of Lee, he sort of made nice although the thrust of his reply could hardly be interpreted as 'friendly'. Somehow, the 'revanchist' South Korean lame duck president is under the impression his promises of lessening tensions with the North came wash away four years of a pointed policy of trying to overthrow it through denial of food aid, fertilisers, sanctions, so on.

As Lee prepares his trip to China, Beijing has thrown it full support behind Kim Jung eun, and has invited him for a state visit, one hears. What, then, GuamDiary wonders will Lee have to offer the Chinese?

Already in South Korea the winds of 'glasnost' have stirred a growing sector of South Koreans calling for a return of sorts to the 'Sunshine Policy' that Lee scuppered the moment he took office in 2008 in favour of confrontation with the DPRK. The record of his tack has proven disastrously dangerous, and almost sparked a renewal of the frozen Korean War in November 2010.

So the question remains: what does Lee want? Does he wish Beijing to act as an intermediary in negotiations with the North to talks with Seoul? Is his visit a smokescreen for a meeting with Kim Jung eun's representatives, even though the DPRK has publicly declared that it has no intention of dealing with him. In brief, what gift of concessions, if any, is the ROK president offering? And then there the possibility, he is playing for time so that he can defer on past pledges of food aid to the North and easing tensions?

One way or the other, China has to look with a jaundice eye at Lee's intentions. By building a naval base on Jeju island to accommodate US war [atomic?] ships is an open threat to China's territorial waters in the Yellow Sea, as well as Beijing's claims to undersea oil & gas and mineral deposits. Of course, Lee's trip may be a self promotion tour: you see, I tried, but no one is willing to give me a chance type of excuse when he returns empty handed to South Korea.

Still, Lee has to quiet his own citizens lack of support for returning his party to power in the 2012 presidential elections, in spite of the growing odds they wont. Already, public grumbling over his policy towards North Korea and his 'unKorean' response to allowing people to offer condolence to Kim Jong il has branded him, sotto voce, a 'traitor' to the goal and cherished hope of reunification.

Lee Myung bak: will the cowardly leopard change his spots?

Responding to North Korea's military authoritative December announcement [30 December 2011] that the DPRK will not deal with the Lee Myung bak regime in Seoul, ROK's 'revanchist' president tried to smooth the sharp elbow reply with 'vanilla' observations that a new leader in the North offers the South opportunities in 'talking to' a Kim Jung eun & co.

Harvard's John Park read into Lee's word a 'high road ' appeal to reducing tensions in the divided Korean peninsula. GuamDiary questions Park's assertion. We look at Lee's openly broadside attack against Kim Jong il from day one of his ascension to the Blue House, beginning with the suppression of the 'Sunshine Policy', followed by denying fertilisers and food aid, and a propaganda war the person of the 'Dear Leader'; the South Korean president's assault, closely coordinated with the Obama administration, had revived the harsh winds of the Cold War which Lee's two predecessors Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo hyun tamed and quieted. Not only that, he pushed the envelope so that either the North would implode or it would commit a warlike action that the ROK and US could take advantage of. Unfortunately for 'revanchist' Lee, the DPRK called joint US ROK's bluff during joint military exercises along the Northern Limit Line within a spittle of DPRK territorial waters in November 2010. Obama took fright that it would have to engage America in a third war in Asia; to his South Korean ally, the US president stayed Lee's hand, settling for 'rollinb back' the Northern regime through 'patient constraint'

Broadly speaking, GuamDiary has to restate the known history that the US and South Korea media conviently ignore in favour of the mystical veneration of hoary slogans from the last 60 years at least.

So we ask can the lame leopard as president of the ROK change his spots? Possibly, but we wont hold out breath.

Lee like Obama lost a golden opportunity to engage Kim Jung eun by sending food aid to the North. He did not; he only offered hollow buzzwords of 'new opportunities'.

2012 is an election year in South Korea. And there is a general dissatisfaction with Lee and his party. They lost the import post of mayor of Seoul Lee used as a springboard to win the Blue House in October 2011. His aggressive policy towards the DPRK has galvanised a broad swath of opinion in South Korea that considers Lee 'a national traitor' for abandoning the 'Sunns, shine Policy'.

Lee dropped another stitch by severely restricting an unofficial delegation of 18 South Koreans, headed by the widows of Kim Dae Jung and Hyundai's founder, to venture to Pyongyong to convey their condolence at Kim Jong il's bier. Were Lee 'sincere' in reducing enmity with the North, he could have easily allowed ordinary citizens in the South to do the same. Yet, he dare not! The feet that would have wended their way to the North would have been a referendum of the failure of his hostile policy towards Kim Jong il & co.

So, the cover the egg on his face, Lee peppered a hardline response to the North with empty pious hopes of opportunities to turn a new page on inter Korean relations. Will he? That is the question! Is he a leader who can and does grow? Judging by his record, prospects are indeed dim.

'Patient Restraint': US' narrow and naive policy towards 'rolling back' North Korea

Streaming PR's 'News Hour', GuamDiary, at last, a strong expression of why the death of Kim Jong il provided an opportunity to depart from the disingenuousness of 'patient contraint', otherwise known as 'rolling back' North Korea.

Every idea behind 'rollback' is masked in larger consideration which is dishonest in a framework of 'realism' that tend to stave North Korea into submission to the non negotiable aims of the US and aided and abetted by a revanchist Lee Myung bak regime in South Korea.

Donald Gregg, chairman emeritus of the New York Korea Society, former ambassador to Seoul, former national security advisor to George WH Bush, and a 30 year veteran of the CIA, is a voice of reason in a level of discussion, thought, and implementation of 'pattient restraint' that is a willing acceptance of failure in the corridors of power in Seoul and Washington.

With a minimum of words, Gregg suggested that the death of the 'Dear Leader' is an occasion to lump the sinking of the 'Cheonan', the shelling of 'Yeongpyeong' military base, and the second nuclear test into the legacy of Kim Jong il. The advent of his son Kim Jong eun, furthermore, offers the US the opportunity to show maturity by making a gesture to the DPRK to lessen the tensions in the divided Korean peninsula.

A new opening! Sound advice you would think? Hardly. The US North Korean clerisy, as well as the Obama administration and the revanchist Lee Myung bak regime, view it as a weakening of the two countries' spirit. It was as though Gregg, who in some policy making quarters may be seen as a 'heretic'. Gregg's reputation and long government service do protect him from the direct criticism, if not condemnation, yet the failure of 'patient constraint' lies in US Korean history. More, Gregg put it bluntly, he is against holding a starving population hostage to the denial of promised food aid, a comment which Bobolina Hwang, now professor at Georgetown, former advisor in the Bush fils White House, and before that wrote policy on Korea at the right wing think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. She disagrred mostly with Gregg in that polite but sharp elbow difference of opinion. A hard liner she embraced 'rollback' forcefully, praising president Obama. Her standpoint is hardly surprising, since any opening to the North, would bring down the temple of orthodoxy that the past 60 years had thrown up against talking to the DPRK, even though Kim Jong il never tired signaling to Washington for talks with no preconditions which he transmitted through two former US president and any number of Americans and westerners visiting North Korea.

A thaw in relations would cut the ground from under a cottage industry of US North Korean clerics, thereby threatening jobs and fat salaries and overheated reputations. Unlike Gregg, Hwang, like her cohorts, is no risk taker, embroiled as they are in the byzantine politics and reflexes learnt and perpetuated during the heady days of the Cold War against the Soviet empire.
By steadfastly holding on the past, they got the answer they wanted by Kim Jong eun. No opening, no changes in DPeRK policy.

Tis a pity, Gregg is preaching to the deaf and dumb and dumber.

Obama & Lee renege on food aid to North Korea

Kim Jung il's sudden death on 17 December 2011 allowed president Obama and his sidekick in Seoul the revanchist Lee Myung bak to wiggle out of pledges of hundreds of millions of dollars of food aid to North Korea.

These two defenders of 'democracy' and deep believers in the teachings of their professed saviour Jesus Christ took coward's courage in the gnomic formula first ennuciated by Donald Rumsford: 'unknown knowns', as well as the long cherished fear of the bogeyman they created in the image of the DPRK. In ordinary English, 'unknown knowns' means the truth is as plain as the nose on your face, yet Obama and Lee chose to ignore to ignore or not know it.

The demise of the 'Dear Leader' called for stability at home so that the passing of the baton of power to Kim's anointed successor the young Kim Jong eun could and would proceed without the slightest burp; which did happened to the distaste of the clerics and advisors in Washington and Seoul whose silly

predictions of collapse and doom proved manifestly wrong. Another black mark in the poverty of

their 'scholarship' that the poor taxpayer's pence pays for.

The 'young general' Kim Jong eun put the US and the ROK on warning as the two countries raised the tone of Cold War rhetoric and pursued the coordinated policy of 'patient constraint' to topple the DPRK.

What Obama and Lee did not expect, and what Kim Jung eun did was to announce the need for food aid

to tide a deeply undernourished North Korea.

Kim's appeal was an indictment of the Obama Lee policy, and showed the egg on the US and ROK's face for

not living up to pledges of food aid.

As former US ambassador to Seoul strongly suggested that the ascension to the supreme posts of power in North Korea offered an excellent opportunity to open lines of communications to the new regime, and that food aid should never be tied to food.

Obama and Lee dropped the stitch. GuamDiary finds it doubtful whether they ever had the foresight to seize the moment to offer food aid to North Korea, and thus live up to their hollow promises of better relations at the beginning of Kim Jong eun's reign, thereby easing the DPRK's resistance to rejoin the six party talks in Beijing to denuclearise the divided Korean peninsula.

Instead Obama and Lee head of two strong economies and military industrial complexes, feigned weakness. Consequently, they turned themselves into Pyongyang's cat's paw, for as the weaker , North Korea used its strength to stymie the US and ROK who are too cleaver by half . Sooner than later, Obama and Lee will have to put their money where their mouth is and supply food relief to the people of the DPRK. But before that, these two 'powerful' men had to show the world what fools they aure when an extended hand to Kim Jung eun would and could have perced the abcess of heightened tension.