New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
I never in a thousand years imagined that I could force the Director of National Intelligence to make a statement about a document I obtained as a journalist. But it happened. Earlier this month, in Salon, I reported that 70…
NYT: Bush sends envoy to talk to the DPRK. “For years the administration has refused to engage one on one with the North Koreans. Ms. Rice had to maneuver around Vice President Dick Cheney, officials said in February, to reach…
Just posted: My interview Sunday (6/17) with former DEA agent Mike Levine, on The Expert Witness Radio Show on Pacifica’s WBAI in New York. To listen, click here. Plus: Thanks to WBAI’s Mark Marshall, I can post here for the…
HANKYOREH: “Amid a furor over the alleged contamination of U.S. military bases being returned to South Korea, the National Assembly environmental committee on Friday urged the government to release classified documents on its agreement with Washington or face legal action.…
R.J. Hillhouse, who publishes an excellent blog on intelligence outsourcing, has parsed the DNI Powerpoint slides I obtained last week and come up with some surprising conclusions. “By reverse engineering the numbers in an underlying data element embedded in the…
Mark Magnier of the L.A. Times is one of the best American correspondents in Asia. I used to work with him at the Journal of Commerce, where he was the paper’s Tokyo correspondent and trade editor. He recently spent four…
My latest, from Salon: “On May 14, at an industry conference in Colorado sponsored by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. government revealed for the first time how much of its classified intelligence budget is spent on private contracts: a…
Today marks the 27th anniversary of the Kwangju Uprising in South Korea. On May 18, 1980, students, workers and citizens of the southwestern city of Kwangju took up arms after Special Forces under the command of Lt. Gen. Chun Doo…
Amazing – after nearly 60 years, the two Koreas are joined by rail. Once, long ago, it was possible to board a train in Pusan, on Korea’s southern tip, and travel all the way to Paris. What a trip that…
Here’s a story you won’t find repeated in the ‘left’ press. The Washington Post‘s brilliant Rajiv Chandrasekaran reports that a DoD unit in Iraq has sparked a confrontation with the State Department over its plans to reopen state-owned companies in…
AP: Former CIA official Kyle “Dusty” Foggo was indicted Friday for accepting bribes in return for steering contracts towards an old buddy. “According to the new indictment, Foggo provided (Brent) Wilkes with ‘sensitive, internal information related to our national security,’…
WaPo: Major break seen in labor provisions in Bush/Dem trade bill. “The key to the agreement…was the Bush administration’s reluctant assent to Democratic demands for more stringent labor rules. Under the new policy, enforceable labor provisions will be written into…
My latest on the Intelligence Industrial Complex, in Salon. Tenet’s making lots of dough from intelligence and defense contractors – $2.3 million in 2006 alone.
YONHAP: “North Korea expressed support for a House resolution demanding Japan’s apology for sexual enslavement during World War II as more congressmen were signing on as resolution co-sponsors, campaign leaders said Wednesday. Soh Ok-cha, president of the Washington Coalition for…
My latest piece, from Foreign Policy in Focus: “The FTA cannot be seen apart from U.S.-South Korean security ties, the presence in South Korea of more than 30,000 US troops and a 50-year economic relationship that has been heavily weighted…
One of America’s greatest journalists died today in a tragic car accident. I will never forget Halberstam’s reporting from Vietnam for the New York Times. It helped shape my understanding of the Indochina War and inspired me to become a…
Gavan McCormack, an Australian analyst of Korean affairs, sees the deal as a major turning point in East Asian history. Worth reading. “The tectonic plates under East Asia have begun to shift. In a world where gloom predominates and resort…
Bush & company finally got off their collective asses and cut a deal ending North Korea’s nuclear program that should have, and could have, been signed five years ago. Two well-informed Korea experts have explained the intricacies of the deal…
My latest article, in Salon. Jan. 8, 2007 | The Bush administration’s choice last week of J. Michael McConnell to be director of national intelligence is a major blunder — and not just because the man who will be overseeing…
US and the UK put the screws on Iran, with the US running the show. The Independent: “A senior executive at one of the (British) banks affected said: ‘The consequences of not toeing the American line on Iran have not…