tdaxp

"NKHRA Progress Report: Who Is Keyzer Soze?," by Joshua, One Free Korea, 23 November 2005, http://freekorea.blogspot.com/2005/11/nkhra-progress-report-who-is-keyzer.html (from Live from the FDNF).

"At the State Department...," by Mi-Hwa, One Free Korea, 26 November 2005, http://www.haloscan.com/comments/stantonjb/113278554598136125/#133605.

"Mi Hwa...," by Joshua, One Free Korea, 27 November 2005, http://www.haloscan.com/comments/stantonjb/113278554598136125/#133611.

Props to Eddie of Live from the FDNF for alerting me to an OFK post that I missed.

Why, some of us want to know, has the North Korean Human Rights Act lodged in the State Department's windpipe? Why, over a year after the bill was signed into law, does an executive agency that's nominally answerable to the President of the United States fail to accept North Korean refugees who knock at the embassy gates? I specifically cite Section 303 of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, which is now binding law:

The Secretary of State shall undertake to facilitate the submission of applications under section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act [meaning, asylum applications] (8 U.S.C. 1157) by citizens of North Korea seeking protection as refugees (as defined in section 101(a)(42) of such Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(42)).

In plain English, that means that our embassies violate federal law if they fail to "facilitate" asylum applications at our embassies abroad. Yet Tim Peters not only informs me that our embassies are refusing to take these refugees, he's said the same to Congress under oath, and he has it on film, thanks to CNN. One overseas ambassador, so another source tells me, went so far as to seek legal advice from Foggy Bottom as to how to interpret the law. He was told in no uncertain terms not to ask again.

One Free Korea's Joshua Stantaon is a well respected blogger. He recently met with Ambassador John Bolton, and a plaque he designed now hangs prominantly in Bolton's office. Maybe that's why a government leaker has chosen OFK to release the news

My source says that Burns doesn't want our State Department taking any actions that would unduly offend Kim Jong Il, such as taking in refugees, or letting any pesky part-time Special Envoy muck it all up with unpleasant remarks about investigating infanticides, concentration camps, or gas chambers. Hence, we hear relatively little from Lefkowitz, and shouldn't expect to hear much more of consequence. Just to be sure--according to a different source--State has placed individuals sympathetic to the Burns world view in Lefkowitz's office . . . to better keep him inside the range of his electronic ankle bracelet.

Of course, this is only a leak -- it may not be true. Conceivable it could be part of a power play by a secret cabal - a conspiracy - to embarrass a pesky enemy. But given the State Department's history of rogue policy, the news is all too believable.

On the story's discussion thread," Mi-Hwa wonders if Dr. Barnett's old enemy, the Department of Homeland Security, is behind the trouble:

At the State Department, the buck stops at Condi Rice. She obviously does not welcome North Korean refugees. Homeland security is probably the reason -- they don't want North Korean spies or terrorists.

The news even has Joshua, a firm Republican, questioning Secretary Rice's leadership

Mi-Hwa, Other than your speculation about Homeland Security being the culprit (one doesn't need one if my source is right about State), I'm actually forced to admit that I agree with you.

Condi Rice is responsible for what her subordinates and our ambassadors are doing, or failing to do. She has sworn to uphold our nation's laws. She must be accountable if she fails to do this.

Unless we kill Kim, we break North Korea through connectivity -- not guarding the gates of Pyongyang's prisons for them.

"Exporting democracy: not a job for State," by Thomas Barnett, Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog, 16 July 2005, http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/archives2/002059.html.

Remember PISRR: Penetrate-Isolation-Subvert-Reorient-Reharmonize: the five steps to victory? The Joe Wilson shenanigans were an Isolation attack on the President, trying to separate him from American people. Here's word on another part of the anti-Bush Doctrine effort: Subversion by the State Department

Review of Larry Diamond's book on the CPA in Iraq (Squandered Victory and David Phillips' bitch-session on how all that brilliant postwar planning at State was ignored by the Pentagon (Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco.

How good was the State postwar planning effort?

Many critics of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq (including Diamond) have cited this project as an enormous opportunity lost, because of turf battles between the State Department and the Pentagon. By this account, Foggy Bottom had planned for a post-Saddam Iraq, anticipating many of the awful things that could go wrong. There is only one problem with this version of events: for the most part, it's not true. The Future of Iraq Project was not a serious post-Saddam planning exercise for a department readying itself for war. According to the Iraqi writer Kanan Makiya, who was perhaps the most influential voice within the democratic principles working group, it was mostly busywork for Iraqi exiles whom State wanted to guide and control. For exiles like Makiya-and some neoconservatives in Washington like me, who would have welcomed serious postwar planning in any quarter-it was clear that the Near Eastern bureau at State, which oversaw the project, did not want to engage in any planning that might make the path to war easier.

This is why the new office of stability and reconstruction ops in State will never work. State will always (and should always) want to avoid war, because it's the Department of Peace. Meanwhile, the Defense Department will always (and should always) want to avoid the peacekeeping that must inevitably follow war. What's needed is a third department between the two, one that focused not on war in the Gap or peace in the growing Core but on getting weak states from the Gap to the Core.