The Shorrock Files
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
The Shorrock Files
New, Rare and Unreleased Material from the DMZ Empire
Tim Shorrock
Tim Shorrock is a Washington-based investigative journalist who grew up in Japan and South Korea. He is the author of SPIES FOR HIRE: The Secret World of Outsourced Intelligence, published in 2008 by Simon & Schuster (see him talking about his book here). Over the past 35 years, his work has appeared in many publications in the United States and abroad, including The Nation, Salon, Daily Beast, Mother Jones, The Progressive, Foreign Policy in Focus and Asia Times. He also appears frequently on the radio as a commentator on intelligence, contracting, foreign policy, East Asia and North and South Korea. He has been interviewed on Democracy Now, NPR’s Fresh Air, HuffPostLive and many other outlets.
Good f***ing riddance!
LAST PUBLIC WORDS: “The great respect that I have for your leadership, Mr. President, in this little understood, unfamiliar war, the first war of the 21st century, is not well-known, it was not well understood, it is complex for people…
DPRK: Japan not welcome at nuclear talks
North Korea, via Reuters: “There is no need for Japan to participate in (the talks) as a local delegate because it is no more than a state of the U.S. and it is enough for Tokyo just to be informed…
Who’s worse? Bush?…or Kim Jong Il?
THE BRITS CHOOSE BUSH. London Guardian: “British voters see George Bush as a greater danger to world peace than either the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, or the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both countries were once cited by the US…
Iranian missile barrage
WHOA… NYT: “Iran fired several missiles with a range of more than 1,000 miles during a military maneuver today, apparently to send a message to the United States and several of its allies in the Persian Gulf after they conducted…
North Koreans seek a way out
The International Crisis Group has a harrowing report out on the large numbers of people leaving North Korea for an uncertain and sometimes perilous life overseas. A sobering assessment of the human costs of the US-North Korea standoff and a…
Nuke for a nuke?
Kim Jong Il got his bomb. So now we’re going to start planning nuclear war? Apparently so, according to the Korea Times. Key grafs; scary: “Gen. B. B. Bell, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), has been mandated by…
We have a bomb, but it’s just a little bomb
WaPo: “The explosion set off by North Korea yesterday appears to have been extremely small for a nuclear blast, complicating U.S. intelligence efforts to determine whether the country’s first such test was successful or signaled that Pyongyang’s capabilities are less…
North Korea tests an A-bomb: Now what?
As I said on Democracy Now! this morning, North Korea’s test of a nuclear bomb is a monumental event that makes the DPRK the world’s eighth nuclear power (Note: I should have said nine – Israel has the bomb, but…
Gulf Coast: Casino Economy
My latest article, posted on Gulf Coast Reconstruction Watch: As tens of thousands of Katrina victims continue to live in dilapidated trailers and thousands more remain stranded in states as far away as Utah and Georgia, multinational corporations loaded with…
We have some victories: Unions and the IMF
Last year I wrote a report for the Washington office of the International Confederation of Trade Unions on how unions around the world have successfully fought back against privatization and other schemes pushed on their countries by the International Monetary…
Koizumi insults Asia once again
Japan’s Elvis-loving Prime Minister has visited Yasukuni Shrine for the umpteenth time. The Germans have left behind their Nazi past. Isn’t it about time Japan does the same for its reactionary emperor system and helping to trigger World War II?…
Tony Snow speaks (Harper’s)
A cartoon by Mr. Fish. For more, read here and here. And here’s video of what an agitated Bush had to say about it.
Lebanon oil spill worse than the Exxon Valdez
More on the economic and ecological damage being inflicted on Lebanon, from Nimrod Halper of Haaretz: “The cost of cleaning up more than 100,000 tons of crude oil that flowed into the Mediterranean Sea when Israel bombed Lebanon’s reserves could…
Lebanon: Economic terrorism
An editorial in today’s business section of Haaretz, Israel’s most insightful newspaper, gives voice to opinions that are all but missing from the American media. Nimrod Halpern writes: The sweeping assault on transport, energy and communications infrastructure in Lebanon have…
Lewis Black, American hero
From Raw Story: “During an interview on CNN, comedian Lewis Black complained about CNN’s “overuse” of key graphic banners and tickers. 24 hour news networks use similar banners and news tickers, that often prevent viewers from seeing the lower portion…
The DPRK on the latest US-Korean ‘crisis’
If Hankyroreh, a South Korean newspaper, can interview Han Song-ryol, North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations in New York, well, so can anyone. It would be nice for once for the New York Times or the Washington Post…
Factional politics in Pyongyang?
Very likely: Japan’s Asahi reports from Seoul that military hardliners appear to be calling the shots in North Korea. Maybe Kim Jong Il is being outflanked by the DPRK’s version of the neocons. Excerpts: “Although it is difficult to tell…
DPRK: In your face
When Democrats like Ashton Carter and William Perry make Dick Cheney look like a moderate, its time to rethink US policy towards North Korea. How about taking the North Koreans up on their offer, made more than five years ago,…
Korean activists shut down FTA hearing
From the Korea Times: “Angry farmers and activists effectively disrupted a public hearing on ongoing free trade agreement (FTA) talks between Korea and the United States, Tuesday, leading to their suspension. Four hundred farmers and anti-free trade activists staged a…