<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>washingtonpost.com - Commentary</title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><description>Commentary</description><language>en-us</language><ttl>15</ttl><image><title>washingtonpost.com</title><width>140</width><height>20</height><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com</link><url>http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/image/wp_web.gif</url></image><item><title><![CDATA[A Failure of Policy, Not Spying]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26524-2005Apr4.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26524-2005Apr4.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  President Bush praised the Robb-Silberman commission report for its scathing and perceptive analysis of "intelligence failures" in the "axis of evil" states of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Indeed, the report contains many useful recommendations for improving intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. But the fallacy in the administration's appointment of a commission to study intelligence failures is that there is almost never such a thing as a pure intelligence failure. Intelligence failure is usually linked to policy failure.]]></description><author> Ashton B. Carter</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Failure of Policy, Not Spying]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20057-2005Apr1.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20057-2005Apr1.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   President Bush praised the Robb-Silberman commission report for its scathing and perceptive analysis of "intelligence failures" in the "axis of evil" states of Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Indeed, the report contains many useful recommendations for improving intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. But the fallacy in the administration's appointment of a commission to study intelligence failures is that there is almost never such a thing as a pure intelligence failure. Intelligence failure is usually linked to policy failure.]]></description><author> Ashton B. Carter</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Missile Defense: Not a Zero-Sum Game]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14386-2005Mar30.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14386-2005Mar30.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[ In calling for cruise missile defense, David Ignatius lampooned  ballistic missile defense ["The Real Missile Defense Gap," op-ed, March 23]. The ballistic missile threat is real: More than 30 nations possess them, and rogue states such as North Korea have no scruples about selling upgraded Scud missiles to the highest bidder. Indeed, North Korea's 1998 test of its medium-range Taepo Dong 1 missile over Japan and its recent decision to end its moratorium on missile tests illuminate the threat from ballistic missiles of all types.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Toxic Indifference to North Korea]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2214-2005Mar25.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2214-2005Mar25.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   A day after Pearl  Harbor, on Dec. 8, 1941, German death squads in the Polish village of Chelmno gassed Jews in specially equipped vans for the first time. Far from generating banner headlines, the story did not appear in the New York Times until nearly seven months later, on Page 6. Like the Allied powers, the Times consistently ignored or buried such reports until it was too late for 6 million European Jews.]]></description><author> Abraham Cooper</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Our Allies Were Not 'Misled']]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64562-2005Mar24.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64562-2005Mar24.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  "U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export," the  March 20 front-page story about nuclear material exported to Libya, was flat wrong. Our allies were not "misled" by the United States about North Korea's proliferation activities. We provided an accurate account of the intelligence assessment of the most likely source of the nuclear material that was transferred to Libya through A.Q.  Khan's network.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[What Surprise?]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61635-2005Feb28.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61635-2005Feb28.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  North Korea's declaration that it possesses nuclear weapons and intends to hold on to its nuclear arsenal "under any circumstances" was greeted with shock and astonishment in much of the world. In fact, the most astonishing part of this momentous development was the fact that North Korea's bold move has come as a surprise, both in Washington and abroad.]]></description><author> Nicholas Eberstadt</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Nuclear Nightmare]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46555-2004Oct19.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46555-2004Oct19.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   The world now has about 20,000 nuclear weapons; there were once 65,000. It must be counted as a major miracle of the modern age that in the 59 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki none of them has been used in anger. With hindsight, history may conclude that the major threat facing the United States -- and the world -- in 2004 was not the war in Iraq or the immediate danger of terrorism. It was the impending breakdown of the global system that for six decades kept nuclear holocaust at bay.]]></description><author> Robert Samuelson</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Talking Human Rights With North Korea]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45417-2004Aug29.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45417-2004Aug29.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  Whatever would Ronald Reagan think of the six-party talks to get North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program? Although Kim Jong Il's Communist government is the world's worst human rights violator, the United States, Japan and South Korea have managed to exclude all reference to humanitarian and human rights concerns from the discussions. Their fear is that any mention of the 200,000 political prisoners in forced labor camps, the suppression of the population's civil and political freedoms or the punishment meted out to those who try to flee the country would antagonize the North Korean government and jeopardize chances for a nuclear agreement.]]></description><author> Roberta Cohen</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Time to Act on N. Korea]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50908-2004Jun17.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50908-2004Jun17.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  It has been  60 years since the world first heard of Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler's successful escape from Auschwitz, an escape that brought to light accounts of Hitler's extermination camps. Their testimony  forced representatives of the democratic world to face truths that many did not want to believe, even after the war. Thanks to Vrba, Wetzler and countless other witnesses, the horrors and extent of the Nazis' Final Solution are universally known.]]></description><author> Vaclav Havel</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[North Korea's Totalitarianism]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64340-2004May3.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64340-2004May3.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[  Edward Cody's April 24 news story   identified  North Korea as having an "authoritarian" government. But many  observers recognize a crucial distinction between authoritarianism and totalitarianism.]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Negotiating With a Nation That's Really Gone Nuclear]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41208-2004Feb13.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41208-2004Feb13.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[No one, perhaps not even North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il, knows whether that country can boost itself into the status of a nuclear weapons state, or even a quasi-nuclear weapons state, within the next year or so. Making a nuclear weapon and the missile to deliver it, even if the essential raw materials are at hand, is not an easy task. But the stakes are very high, and it would be foolish to discount the possibility that the North Koreans can accomplish what they have openly said they plan to do. North Korean engineers recently showed a visiting U.S. scientist a chunk of metal that they said was plutonium, one of the basic ingredients of an atomic bomb. Maybe they were exaggerating their progress to maximize the deterrent effect on the United States. It is safer, however, to assume that where there's smoke, there's fire.]]></description><author> James E. Good</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hope on N. Korea]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50839-2004Jan26.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50839-2004Jan26.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Last August, just after my ninth visit to North Korea since 1987, the six-party talks  on the Korean nuclear crisis ended in stalemate. In the days that followed, I began organizing a return trip by a group of people who had been studying the North's nuclear program and the tortuous path of U.S.-North Korean relations.]]></description><author> John W. Lewis</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Does Aid Really Reach North Koreans?]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11590-2004Jan12.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A11590-2004Jan12.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[In his Jan. 4 op-ed column "In North Korea: First, Save Lives," Masood Hyder avoided a serious issue confronting the United Nations' humanitarian mission to North Korea: that substantial foreign aid is diverted to the government, the military and other cronies while  only a small percentage reaches the "ordinary yet heroic folk."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[The World Just Got Safer.  Give Diplomacy the Credit]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5046-2004Jan9.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5046-2004Jan9.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[In the past few weeks we have witnessed remarkable changes in some of the most difficult and dangerous global nuclear proliferation threats. Rather than heading toward military conflicts, the United States seems to be moving toward negotiated solutions that could end the nascent nuclear weapons programs in Iran, Libya and possibly also North Korea.]]></description><author> Joseph Cirincione</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Nuclear Resolution]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63752-2004Jan7.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63752-2004Jan7.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[As if to emphasize that new years bring new hopes, Libya, Iran, North Korea and Pakistan have in recent weeks altered their defiant or deceitful behavior on nuclear weapons. Pushing these four atomic miscreants to clean up their acts should be a top American priority in 2004.]]></description><author> Jim Hoagland</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[In North Korea: First, Save Lives]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50820-2004Jan2.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50820-2004Jan2.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[PYONGYANG -- Like aid groups  in other troubled parts of the world, the humanitarian community  in North Korea is people-oriented but operates in an environment dominated by politics. It focuses first on the basic needs of the most vulnerable.]]></description><author> Masood Hyder</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Nuclear Distinction]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38540-2003Nov13.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38540-2003Nov13.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[A Nov. 9 news story by Associated Press reporter John J. Lumpkin said that the CIA  "believes North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons similar to what the United States dropped on Hiroshima during World War II."]]></description><author></author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Another American Casualty: Credibility]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14360-2003Nov7.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14360-2003Nov7.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[Forty years ago, an important emissary was sent to France by a beleaguered president of the United States   .  It was during the Cuban missile crisis and the emissary was a tough-minded former secretary of state, Dean Acheson. His mission was to brief French President Charles de Gaulle and solicit his support in what could become a nuclear war involving not just the United States and the Soviet Union but the entire NATO alliance and the Warsaw Pact.]]></description><author> Zbigniew Brzezinski</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[Playing Games With Pyongyang]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3433-2003Oct22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3433-2003Oct22.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[North Korea's Kim Jong Il can claim no more than a temporary and tactical success by having drawn President Bush into talking publicly about possible U.S. security guarantees for North Korea. That's fine by Kim. He'll take temporary and tactical any day.]]></description><author> Jim Hoagland</author></item><item><title><![CDATA[See No Evil, Stop No Evil]]></title><link>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61886-2003Oct21.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</link><guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61886-2003Oct21.html?nav=rss_world/asia/eastasia/northkorea/commentary</guid><pubDate>Sun, 24 Apr 2005 11:12:17 GMT</pubDate><description><![CDATA[   In Bangkok this week, President Bush used long words -- multiparty talks, security guarantees, long-range missiles -- to discuss the problem of North Korea with North Korea's neighbors. Here in Washington, on the other side of the globe, a small organization called the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea will today use pictures to discuss the problem of North Korea with anyone who wants to listen. The pictures that the committee has procured -- and now published, together with a report called "The Hidden Gulag" -- are satellite photographs of North Korean concentration camps. With remarkable clarity they show, for example, the contours of Yodok, one of the most notorious prison camps in North Korea: the barracks and "villages" inhabited by different categories of prisoners, including political prisoners; the mines, the flour mill, the farms where prisoners work; the cemetery. They also show the outlines of Bukchang, another vast camp, including its cement factory, its hospital, its punishment barracks, its school for prisoners' children. Distinct objects, including the high walls that enclose the camps, are clearly visible.]]></description><author> Anne Applebaum</author></item></channel></rss>