Bloodthirsty Liberal

I can’t blame North Korea on President Obama. That miserable little chunk of fecal matter, Kim Jong Il, has confounded presidents and pundits for a long time now, and this wet-behind-the-ears man in the White House (with such ears!) is only the latest patsy.

But in boxing terms (where would this blog be w/o sports metaphors?), liberals lead with their chins. Tis a far, far better thing we do to permit you to abuse us.

Let me demonstrate.

The WaPo this morning:

President Obama came into office saying he wanted to demonstrate that engagement with hostile nations is more effective than antagonism, but North Korea’s nuclear test now leaves the young administration with critical choices about its response.

Not bad. But compare to Fox News:

The Security Council stalemate over North Korea’s rocket launch is turning into an early test of the Obama administration’s U.N.-focused multilateralism.
Six days after U.S. President Barack Obama called for swift punishment of North Korea, the Security Council hasn’t acted.

If you’re wondering why it reads a little different, that’s because it was written forty-five days ago! It had become apparent to some a little earlier than others that Obama’s policy of engagement with tyrannical little putzes (yes you, Mahmoud) was bound to fail.

This time, it looks like the UN will act, as long as the spaghetti-spined spacones on the Security Council can manage to stand up to the Mad Gardener of Pyongyang.

He’s returned serve, by the way:

One day after a surprise nuclear test drew angry and widespread condemnation, North Korea continued its defiance of the international community on Tuesday by test-firing two more short-range missiles, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap, which cited unidentified government sources in Seoul.

Again, I’ll leave it to liberals to excuse the criminal and justify bad behavior. I blame Kim, and I say let him starve. As a matter of fact, I want him to starve and keep a video diary like Mia Farrow on her hunger strike, so I can watch his hunger pangs. I’ll make popcorn.

But if you really want to see craven squirming, you have to read the Times (as is so often the case):

Acutely aware that their response to the explosion in the mountains of Kilju, not far from the Chinese border, would be seen as an early test of a new administration, Mr. Obama’s aides said they were determined to organize a significantly stronger response than the Bush administration had managed after the North’s first nuclear test, in October 2006.

Speaking in the Rose Garden after returning to the White House from Camp David and meeting with his top aides in the Oval Office, Mr. Obama vowed to “take action” in response to what he called “a blatant violation of international law” and the North’s declaration that it was repudiating past commitments to dismantle its nuclear program.

But as they had meetings every few hours — including a lengthy session in the Situation Room on Monday evening — some of Mr. Obama’s aides acknowledged that the administration’s options were limited.

Aww, poor little Obama aides. They get to play in the Situation Room, but they lose to the little Asian Idi Amin in Korea. If I weren’t laughing so hard I might cry for them.

When you guys get serious, call John Bolton. Otherwise, don’t waste our time.

Was that a nuke test I heard, or is North Korea’s stomach growling? Based on past performance, it amounts to the same thing:

North Korea announced on Monday that it had successfully conducted its second nuclear test, defying international warnings and dramatically raising the stakes in a global effort to persuade the recalcitrant Communist state to give up its weapons program.

The North’s official news agency, KCNA, said, “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way as requested by its scientists and technicians.”

The test was safely conducted “on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control,” the agency said. “The results of the test helped satisfactorily settle the scientific and technological problems arising in further increasing the power of nuclear weapons and steadily developing nuclear technology.”

…

Hours after the test was reported, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, quoting an unidentified intelligence source in Seoul, said the North had test-fired three short-range, surface-to-air missiles. The three missiles were launched toward the sea between North Korea and Japan and had a range of 80 miles, according to the news agency. They were fired from a base not far from the nuclear test site in northeast North Korea, Yonhap said.

Let your old Uncle BTL provide a little context here. When North Korea runs out of food and grows hungry, it gets a little cranky and fussy. Who doesn’t?

But instead of asking for a bite or a couple of bucks (too proud), they detonate a nuclear weapon or fire off a few missiles—sometimes, as here, both. Doesn’t mean they’re going to raze Seoul or revisit Hiroshima on Nagasaki (or vice versa). They behave this way because it works. I shouldn’t be surprised if a covered dish of dog with scallions isn’t being delivered to the presidential palace right now.

Oh, we say the right things:

President Obama reacted swiftly to the nuclear test, warning the North to retreat from its defiance of the international community.

…

“These actions, while not a surprise given its statements and actions to date, are a matter of grave concern to all nations. North Korea’s attempts to develop nuclear weapons, as well as its ballistic missile program, constitute a threat to international peace and security.

President Obama is fond of pointing out that he inherited all the problems of the world—hasn’t created or exacerbated any. Funny that, given how much he claimed to have accomplished over his first 100 days.

Anyway, it would seem he inherited the same mushy language from his predecessors, as well. “Grave concern” is always a popular response. I would argue for “Starve, you commie bastards, until I see your ribs and your sunken eyes”; or even “You want ballistic missiles? I’ll show you ballistic missiles”. But I don’t expect it.

Line for the buffet forms to the right, North Korea! All you can eat.

PS: Nostradamus (aka John Bolton), right again.

Damn, you look good:

Mr Kim arrived in the Supreme People’s Assembly to a standing ovation from his fellow ministers.

He was wearing his trademark khaki military suit, but he appeared considerably thinner and older than the last time he was seen in public nine months ago.

“Having comrade Kim Jong-il at the highest post of our country again is a great honour and happiness,” a newscaster said on state-run television.

…

Mr Kim’s suspected stroke last August kept him out of the public eye through a series of important anniversary events, and is believed to have caused a delay to the parliamentary elections.

In recent weeks, North Korean media have released video images of Mr Kim touring farms and factories, in what analysts say was a strategy designed to show he was fit and well before the parliament vote.

Well, obviously:

Kim has always been a man of the people. Maybe he’s been eating like one of them.

Dude, I like a cut jaw-line as much as the next person, but don’t they have bacon in your country?

If you want to know what President Obama is thinking, ask not him—no, no, not uh…uh… him—ask David Axelrod:

On Fox News Sunday yesterday, Chris Wallace tossed David Axelrod the world’s most obvious question, “if the president wants to cut nuclear weapons, shouldn’t he spend more, not less, on missile defense, to protect the United States?” Fine. Many of us have been wondering the same thing (and, yes, I understand that comprehensive strategic missile defense could, theoretically, trigger an arms race). But look at the video. Axelrod was obviously unprepared for the question, as if there were no relationship between the subject of the interview — the Nork missile launch — and the missile defense issue.

Too critical?

You decide:

WALLACE: But, Mr. Axelrod, if the president wants to cut nuclear weapons, shouldn’t he spend more, not less, on missile defense to protect the United States?

AXELROD: Well, I think that missile defense — the missile — the president has said that he is — he is willing to embrace, wants to embrace, missile defense if it’s necessary, if it’s cost-effective and if it works. And he’s never taken that off the table.

Oh my God. Now I’m scared.

But I think he’s right. President Obama is willing to embrace missile defense—as long as it’s meant to protect Europe:

President Barack Obama said the U.S. will proceed with development of a missile defense system in Europe as long as there is an Iranian threat of nuclear weapons.

He said that if that threat is removed, “The driving force for missile defense in Europe will be removed.”

Well, Europe has always been more advanced and forward-thinking.

But this raises another question (for another day): how will that threat be removed? I don’t think “pretty please” is going to get it done.

At a certain point, I have to wonder if everyone else is crazy—or is it just me?

Prior to North Korea’s launch yesterday of a Taepodong-2 ballistic missile, President Barack Obama declared that such an action would be “provocative.” This public statement was an attempt to reinforce the administration’s private efforts to urge the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (DPRK) not to fire the missile.

That effort failed, as have countless other attempts to deal softly with Pyongyang. Incredibly, U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Stephen Bosworth revealed — just a few days before the launch — that he was ready to visit Pyongyang and resume the six-party talks once the “dust from the missiles settles.” It is no wonder the North fired away.

Once the missile shot was complete, the administration’s answer was hand-wringing, more rhetoric and, oh yes, the obligatory trip to the U.N. Security Council so that it could scold the defiant DPRK. Beyond whatever happens in the Security Council, Mr. Obama seems to have no plan whatever.

In 2006, when Pyongyang last lit off a volley of missiles and then exploded a nuclear device, the Security Council responded unanimously with Resolutions 1695 and 1718, which imposed extensive military and some economic sanctions. Unfortunately, the impact of these resolutions was dramatically undercut by subsequent Bush administration diplomacy, which effectively let North Korea off the hook. By re-engaging Pyongyang diplomatically rather than increasing the external pressure, George W. Bush relegitimized the North and gave it yet more time to bargain.

Yesterday’s launch is attributable to prior failures, but the global consequences now unfolding are Mr. Obama’s responsibility. In fact, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is expected to announce today deep cuts in the U.S. missile defense program, an extraordinarily ill-advised step.

That’s John Bolton, cautiously ladling out the blame fairly and evenly—we arrived at this place by a virtual GPS of past dimwitted and misguided decisions.

But when Kim Jong Il flips you the bird and demonstrates his will and his way to plant a missile in Wasilla, Alaska, is unilateral disarmament a sane response?

North Korea has again defied the Security Council, gotten away with its launch with the support of Russia and China, and now will likely confront only pleas by Mr. Obama and others to return to the six-party talks.

Those talks are exactly where North Korea wants to be. From them ever greater material and political benefits will flow to Pyongyang, in exchange for ever more hollow promises to dismantle its nuclear program.

So far, therefore, the missile launch is an unambiguous win for North Korea.

Again (and again), I’m not blaming Obama for Kim. Kim is his own fault.

But it must have been nearly a year ago that I first opined on how our country’s first metrosexual president would stand up to the nutsos in the world, particularly this one.

Kim Jong Il displayed the usual attitude of despots when faced with unanimous disapproval: he doesn’t give a s**t:

North Korea defiantly carried out a provocative rocket launch Sunday that the U.S., Japan and other nations suspect was a cover for a test of its long-range missile technology.

Liftoff took place at 11:30 a.m. (0230GMT) Sunday from the coastal Musudan-ri launch pad in northeastern North Korea, the South Korean and U.S. governments said. The multistage rocket hurtled toward the Pacific, reaching Japanese airspace within seven minutes, but no debris appeared to hit its territory, officials in Tokyo said.

The U.N. Security Council approved an emergency session for Sunday afternoon in New York, following a request from Japan that came minutes after the launch.

Whoa, that oughta scare him.

As ought this:

Following is the text of President Obama’s statement Sunday on North Korea’s rocket launching, as released by the White House:

The launch today of a Taepo-dong 2 missile was a clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718, which expressly prohibits North Korea from conducting ballistic missile-related activities of any kind. With this provocative act, North Korea has ignored its international obligations, rejected unequivocal calls for restraint, and further isolated itself from the community of nations.

We will immediately consult with our allies in the region, including Japan and the Republic of Korea, and members of the U.N. Security Council to bring this matter before the Council. I urge North Korea to abide fully by the resolutions of the U.N. Security Council and to refrain from further provocative actions.

…

North Korea has a pathway to acceptance in the international community, but it will not find that acceptance unless it abandons its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and abides by its international obligations and commitments.

You’re kidding, right, Mr. President? I mean, that’s supposed to be funny, right?

Look, I don’t blame him for “losing” Korea: the responsibility goes back several administrations—and lies with that loopy Kim most of all. But the hopey-changey part of me thought he’d at least write an updated statement. As my mother used to say, if you’ve got nothing to say, don’t say anything at all.

Anyway, the commies say they used the rocket to launch a communications satellite, and I haven’t seen any confirmation that’s a lie. Trust me, I expect everything Kim says to be a lie, but no news story I’ve seen has confirmed it.

While Obama was flexing his pecs for the Europeans, North Korea misbehaved, Darfur got worse (if such a thing were possible), and the Palestinians killed an Israeli child (and tried to kill more).

Really bad people doing really bad things. Got a plan for that, Mr. President?

I didn’t think so.

UPDATE
So it was a satellite, and it failed. Does this mean we should believe Kim over our own leaders?

North Korea failed in its attempt to get a satellite into space after a rocket launch early on Sunday, US and South Korean officials say.

Two stages of the rocket and its payload landed in the Pacific Ocean, a US military statement said.

Hours earlier North Korea claimed the satellite had successfully been put into orbit and was transmitting data.

The US, EU, Japan and South Korea condemned the launch, thought to be a cover for a long-range missile test.

Again, Kim is the a-hole in this scenario. But how do you solve a problem like pariah?

A reader has been asking us to write about the nomination of Christopher Hill as Ambassador to Iraq.

There. I just did.

But when you look into it further, you find it’s a little funny—and I don’t mean ha-ha:

Senate Democrats are preparing an effort to force Sen. Sam Brownback to make a move if he intends to delay President Obama’s pick to be ambassador to Iraq.

The Democrats have drafted an agreement for four hours of debate followed by a vote on the nomination of Christopher Hill. Given the Senate’s busy schedule and Brownback’s dilatory threats, it’s the only way Hill can get confirmed this week.

Brownback, R-Kan., says he’ll do everything he can to block the nomination, so the
Democrats want to force him to follow through by objecting to the agreement, which they drew up without his participation. If he does, the Senate would have to take several days of procedural actions to break his objections, though Hill appears to have support for easy confirmation.

Brownback says Hill misled Congress, overstepped his authority and failed to address human rights issues as the lead U.S. negotiator in multilateral talks over North Korea’s nuclear program.

Is he that bad? Are we talking about the same guy—little fellow, really pale?

Yeah, that’s the guy. What’s Brownback have against him?

Well, this:

U.S. Senator Sam Brownback today joined several Senate colleagues in sending a letter to President Obama expressing concern over the nomination of Chris Hill to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.

Signatories to the letter are Senators Brownback (R-KS), John Ensign (R-NV), James Inhofe (R-OK), Kit Bond (R-MO), and Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ).

Full text of the letter follows:

Dear Mr. President:

We write to express our concern about your decision to nominate Ambassador Christopher Hill as the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq. While we respect Ambassador Hill’s long and distinguished career in the Foreign Service, we believe that he is the wrong choice for this post, and we respectfully request that you withdraw this nomination.

The U.S. mission in Iraq is the world’s largest and, along with our embassy in Kabul, one of the two most important. Choosing the right individual to lead the embassy in Baghdad is of critical importance, particularly at this delicate moment in the history of our war effort. As the security situation stabilizes and U.S. troops at last begin to withdraw from the country, skillful and effective diplomacy will assume an ever greater role in securing American national interests in Iraq and ensuring that the country does not backslide into violence.

…

Ambassador Hill, on the other hand, has a long record of service outside the Middle East and outside the sphere of civil-military relations. He has served in at least seven overseas posts, but none in or around Iraq. He speaks three foreign languages, none of them Arabic. Nothing in his resume suggests more than a basic familiarity with the complicated issues at hand in Iraq and in the region, nor does he have any experience in working closely with the U.S. military in counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operations.

…

Moreover, we found aspects of Ambassador Hill’s most recent work in the Six Party Talks for North Korean nuclear disarmament to be deeply troubling. Whatever one thinks about the overall thrust of the Bush administration’s North Korea policy, Ambassador Hill engaged in evasive and unprofessional activities, including sidelining key officials at the State Department and breaking commitments made for the record before congressional committees.

For example, on July 31, 2008, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he told Senator Brownback that “I would be happy to invite [North Korea special envoy Jay Lefkowitz] to all future negotiating sessions with North Korea.” This did not occur. Other diplomats also complained of being shut out of the Six Party process by Secretary Hill. In a cable reported in the Washington Post, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer warned of irreparable harm to U.S.-Japan relations resulting from deals with North Korea that did not address Japanese interests, adding that he could play no role in assuaging such concerns as he had been cut out entirely from the flow of information on North Korea by Secretary Hill.

In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on October 25, 2007, Secretary Hill said, “Clearly, we cannot be reaching a nuclear agreement with North Korea if at the same time they are proliferating. It is not acceptable.” Yet only months after making these statements, Ambassador Hill succeeded in reaching such an agreement before Congress had a chance to answer key questions about North Korea’s alleged nuclear proliferation to Syria, taking place during Mr. Hill’s own negotiations.

Finally, it has come to our attention that Ambassador Hill cooperated in a series of interviews for a recent book by New York Times reporter David Sanger. In that book, Ambassador Hill is quoted as referring to his superiors in the Administration in dismissive and derogatory terms, conduct wholly unbecoming a sitting US official. While we prefer not to list the statements in this letter, we would be happy to furnish you with specific examples, as necessary.

Mr. President, the United States needs an ambassador in Iraq at this crucial juncture. Moreover, we require an ambassador who will deal with the American people, our President and Congress with frankness, honesty and professionalism. Ambassador Hill, we are afraid, has proven otherwise.

“Ambassador Hill is quoted as referring to his superiors in the Administration in dismissive and derogatory terms, conduct wholly unbecoming a sitting US official.”

Are you kidding? Talking that way about the Bush Administration is conduct we’ve come to expect out of the Obama administration. Far from disqualifying him, I’d say it makes him One of the Boys.

But as the rocket fueling on the launching pad in North Korea testifies to, Ambassador Hill was not exactly a success in North Korea. I’m not sure anyone could have been—actually, I’m quite sure no one could have been—but he was singularly unsuccessful.

One Free Korea has an encyclopedic round-up of the charges and refutations.

Beyond his disparagement of Bush, Hill’s appeal to Obama is a mystery to me. I guess that’s enough.

A reader asked by email if we thought North Korea would exploit the inexperience and naivete of cute little President Obama (I paraphrase).

That’s a rhetorical question, right?

Since the election of Little Lord Fauntleroy (I probably shouldn’t call him Leroy again, should I?), Kim Il-Jung has abrogated every treaty and threatened every retaliation against the USA and the South.

But F North Korea (F as in forget). You know who’s worse?

CHINA.

Now, wait just one minute, BTL, I hear you say. Bad as China is, how can you rate it worse than that national concentration camp known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (which contains three lies in its name alone)?

Easy. China permits North Korea. China not only permits it, China aids and abets it.

Got a doctor’s appointment this month?

Then read this month’s National Geographic:

A frigid November day pressed against the windows of a shabby apartment building in the Chinese city of Yanji, ten miles from the North Korean border. Three stories up, footsteps stopped outside a door. At the sound, two young women hurried to a back room and shrank against a wall. Then came a knock. The women, defectors from North Korea, bowed their heads, expecting the worst. If the Chinese police found them without identity cards, they would be deported in handcuffs and chains. Back in North Korea, they would be sentenced to years of hard labor in a prison camp.

There are no people worse off than the North Koreans. Not in Burma, not in Somalia, not in Philadelphia. So burdened by political oppression and starvation, they are barely human.

And China will blithely round up the lucky few who manage to escape the barbed wires and snipers, and ship their asses back to the People’s Gulag to break rock for the rest of their shivering, famished lives.

When South Korea welcomes every asylum seeker with citizenship and financial support.

Un-effing-believable.

Hard to believe that China has diminished in people’s eyes:

China’s positive ratings fell six points over the year to 39%, while negative views of Russia jumped eight points to 42%, according to the survey.

Who the hell are those 39%? Oh wait, that would be the Chinese themselves.

I don’t suppose I can fill anyone with dread at the thought of Barack Obama trying to handle Kim Jong Il—he can hardly do any worse than his predecessors:

Senior North Korean officials say the communist regime has “weaponized” its stockpile of plutonium, according to a U.S. scholar, in a move suggesting that North Korea may have significantly hardened its stance on nuclear negotiations.

Selig Harrison, one of the few U.S. scholars granted access to senior North Korean officials, said at a news conference in Beijing that the officials told him they had weaponized 30.8 kilograms of plutonium, enough for four or five warheads.

…

If it is true, the news portends a gloomy outlook for the future of the six-party talks that began in 2003 with the goal of getting North Korea to end its nuclear program.

“It does change the game,” Harrison said.

It’s always been a game to Kim, and he always cheats, so he always wins. I don’t see a sap like Obama (sorry, President Sap) doing any better—but he really can’t do much worse.

Can he?

Who came up with that phrase?

Guy knew what he was talking about:

A few weeks before dropping North Korea from the United States’ list of countries that sponsor terrorism, the Bush administration thwarted a shipment of missile parts, possibly including gyroscopes for guidance systems, from the far eastern country to Iran, the weekly news magazine Newsweek reported Sunday, quoting US officials.

On August 4, an aircraft operated by Pyongyang’s state-controlled airline was given permission by India to fly from Burma to Teheran, traversing Indian airspace.

On August 7, The Indian Express newspaper reported that the office of India’s prime minister “hurriedly” asked authorities to withdraw the clearance.

The US officials said that clearance was annulled following a request from Washington.

Of course, he can still be an idiot:

The US then removed North Korea from its state sponsor of terror status in October, after Pyongyang agreed to halt its nuclear program. However, what seemed a brisk start began to stutter as Japanese and South Korean officials publicly proclaimed that North Korea had stopped the process of decommissioning its reactor, and was not standing up to other sides of its agreement with the US.

George Bush should trust his first instincts: evil SOBs like Saddam, Kim, and the rat pack of Iranian ayatollahs can’t be trusted, and are better off dead or hiding in their bunkers. It’s where they belong and where they’ll end up sooner or later.