Tag: Terrorism

Considering how North Korea has never apologized or compensated any families of the people killed in the 1987 Korean Air bombing like Libya did to get off of this list, the North Koreans should have never been removed from this list in the first place:

The United States left out North Korea from its list of states sponsoring terrorism despite calls for adding Pyongyang to the list in the wake of a massive hacking attack on Sony Pictures late last year.

“The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987,” the State Department said in Country Reports on Terrorism 2014, referring to the North’s official name.

North Korea was put on the U.S. terrorism sponsor list for the 1987 midair bombing of a Korean Air flight that killed all 115 people aboard. But the U.S. administration of former President George W. Bush removed Pyongyang from the list in 2008 in exchange for progress in denuclearization talks.

Calls grew for redesignating Pyongyang as a state terrorism sponsor after the FBI determined the North was responsible for the cyber-attack on Sony Pictures last November, but the State Department was negative about its effectiveness.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link, but notice that they were removed from the list in 2008 by the Bush administration for promises of making progress in denuclearization.  History has now shown how well that has worked out.

Can someone please explain to me what diplomatic initiatives with North Korea the US government is pursuing currently that would make this a concern?

Putting North Korea back on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism would complicate not only future diplomatic initiatives between Washington and Pyongyang, but also Seoul’s efforts to improve relations with Pyongyang, according to a U.S. congressional report.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, which was dated Jan. 21, also said that redesignating the North as a terrorism sponsor is unlikely to inflict significant economic punishment on North Korea, particularly in the short term.

Redesignation “could have a significant impact on international diplomacy with North Korea,” it said, adding that the regime could take redesignation as a threat to its two track policy of nuclear development and economic development, with the latter goal partially dependent upon influxes of foreign investment.

Calls have risen for re-listing North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism since the FBI determined the North was responsible for the cyber-attack on Sony Pictures. U.S. President Barack Obama also said the administration would review such a possibility.

The CRS report said the U.S. has more to lose than gain from redesignation.

“Placing North Korea back on the list could forestall future diplomatic initiatives between Washington and Pyongyang, particularly if North Korean leaders, as well as Chinese leaders, interpret it as a sign that the United States is not interested in dialogue,” it said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the only initiative I can think of is if appeasement is the strategy the US wants to pursue?

Via One Free Korea comes this Foreign Policy article where the author Micah Zenko doesn’t believe North Korea is a state sponsor of terrorism:

On Friday, Dec. 19, the FBI declared that it “has enough information to conclude that the North Korean government is responsible” for the purported hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Soon after, President Barack Obama warned, “We will respond proportionally, and we’ll respond in a place and time and manner that we choose.” Given the relatively meager leverage that the United States — at least unilaterally — has over North Korea, there are precious few practical response options that would deter future comparable malicious actions. According to a senior administration officials, one option under consideration is placing North Korea back on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, from where it was removed in 2008. Those included on the list are, “Countries determined by the Secretary of State to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.”

A small problem with such a designation is that North Korea simply is not a state-sponsor of terrorism. As the latest State Department Country Reports on Terrorism explicitly stated: “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not known to have sponsored any terrorist acts since the bombing of a Korean Airlines flight in 1987.” The North Korean sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in March 2010 was deemed a violation of the 1953 armistice agreement, but was also declared by a State Department spokesperson to have been “a provocative action but one taken by the military or the state against the military of another state. That, in our view, does not constitute an act of international terrorism.” Thus, by putting it back on the terrorism list, North Korea would be proportionally responded to by reclassifying its government for undertaking a behavior that the United States acknowledges it does not actually do. [Foreign Policy]

You can read the rest at the link, but it is amazing how much this guy leaves out to support his position.  As One Free Korea writes there has been a number of kidnap and assassination attempts and arming of terrorist groups carried out by the Kim regime.  Also using this guy’s logic in regards to the sinking of the Cheonan, was the marine barracks bombing in Lebanon not terrorism as well then?  Or how about Khobar towers or the attack on the USS Cole?  These were all attacks against non-hostile military targets just like what happened with the Cheonan.  Zenko also leaves out the fact that North Korea shelled an island killing civilians.  What does Zenko define that as?  Most importantly North Korea has never come clean on the 1987 Korean Air bombing.  When Libya came off of the terrorism list they had to make huge concessions in regards to their responsibility for downing Pan Am Flight 103.  Why hasn’t North Korea been forced to make these same concessions to get off the list in the first place?

Here is an interesting report that says that North Korea was training agents to conduct terrorist attacks within the United States according to Bill Gertz in the Washington Free Beacon:

 

North Korea dispatched covert commando teams to the United States in the 1990s to attack nuclear power plants and major cities in a conflict, according to a declassified Defense Intelligence Agency report.

The DIA report, dated Sept. 13, 2004, reveals that five units of covert commandos were trained for the attacks inside the country.

According to the report, the “Reconnaissance Bureau, North Korea, had agents in place to attack American nuclear power plants.”

The document states that the North Korean Ministry of People’s Armed Forces, the ministry in charge of the military, “established five liaison offices in the early 1990s, to train and infiltrate operatives into the United States to attack nuclear power plants and major cities in case of hostilities.”

“One of the driving forces behind the establishment of the units and infiltration of operatives was the slow progress in developing a multi-stage ballistic missile.”  [Washington Free Beacon]

You can read more at the link, to include the comments from a ROK Drop favorite and Korean War historian Mark Sauter on this issue.  Gertz’s information is based on heavily redacted documents that Mark Sauter was able to uncover through Freedom of Information Act requests.  Here is probably the most interesting passage from these documents:

North Korea’s interest in training its agents about Americans is supported by many other reports, including the one below about an alleged U.S. citizen known as “Jackson” who instructed North Korean special forces operatives in “U.S. Special Forces tactics, American English, and interrogation techniques” from before 1983 to at least 1993. The American, called “Comrade Ch’ang-sik” in Korean and said to be a U.S. Air Force POW, trained members of the 52^nd Seaborne Sniper Battalion. He was reported to be the chief of psychological operations study at the Reconnaissance Bureau’s Madonghui College.*  [DMZ War]

Here is a copy of the redacted report about this American:

What is really interesting about this is that the EC-121 shootdown occurred over the Sea of Japan.  Some wreckage from the crash along with two bodies were recovered on the Sea of Japan.

• DMZ Flashpoints: The 1969 EC-121 Shootdown

So the picture the source saw could not have been the EC-121.  Maybe it was just a picture from the Korean War years that people mistook for the EC-121?  Looking at his estimated age of “Jackson” he would be too young to be a Korean War POW and I have never heard of an Air Force officer being taken hostage or defecting across the DMZ.  So who is this guy?  Mark Sauter believes it may be US Army defector Jerry Parrish:

However, if the “Jackson report” above is accurate, it may be even more likely that “Jackson” was one of the five U.S. Army defectors to North Korea during the Cold War. These men were sometimes described as “POWs” by escapees from North Korea and some of “Jackson’s” characteristics match defector Jerry Wayne Parrish, now dead. [DMZ War]

Specialist Jerry Parrish defected to North Korea in 1963 while on patrol along the DMZ.  Here is a picture of Parrish while in North Korea:

If the mysterious “Jackson” is Parrish it seems what US Special Forces knowledge he was teaching was not from personal experience.  This leads me to believe his main job was teaching English like the other US defectors did.  Anyway this is just another interesting chapter of the ongoing conflict with North Korea that these declassified documents are slowly shining a light on.

Via Flickr user Allen.

The South Korean government plans to support President Obama’s ISIS strategy with humanitarian assistance aid:

South Korea expressed support Thursday for U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan for airstrikes in Syria and expanded strikes in Iraq to defeat the Islamic State militant group.

Obama said Wednesday he won’t hesitate to take action against the Islamic State in Syria, as he pledged to “degrade, and ultimately destroy” the extremists responsible for beheading two American journalists.

“South Korea voices its support to the efforts by the international community to defeat the Islamic State militant group,” Noh Kwang-il, spokesman for Seoul’s foreign ministry, told a regular press briefing. “As part of such support, Seoul has already announced its plan to provide a combined US$1.2 million in aid (to displaced Iraqi people).”

South Korea said in June and August that it plans to offer $200,000 in humanitarian assistance and an additional $1 million to help Iraqi refugees amid escalating violence in the country.  [Yonhap]

Isn’t amazing that just a year ago the US wanted to bomb the Syrian government and now the US is planning to become the Syrian government’s Air Force.  You can read more about the new ISIS strategy at this Yahoo News link, but here is another example of how so many things have flipped in such a short period of time:

Before the speech, senior administration officials cited the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force as the legal basis for taking the fight to Syria. Strikingly, a little over a year ago, in a major counterterrorism address at the National Defense University in Washington, Obama said he wanted to “refine and ultimately repeal” the AUMF, which President George W. Bush had relied on for his Global War on Terror.