Europe and Asia Are Saving NK-Kumbaya

[Annie]

The NYT is in total meltdown. Because of this administration, the US may become isolated, while trying to do just that to North Korea. Cute, huh?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/international/asia/20korea.html?th

Excerpt:

North Korea Is Reaching Out, and World Is Reaching Back
By NORIMITSU ONISHI

Published: August 20, 2004

SEOUL, South Korea, Aug. 15- Even as the Bush administration has worked to isolate North Korea in a campaign to make it drop its nuclear program, Asian and European governments have been actively engaging it on diplomatic, cultural and economic levels. Now, with the pace of engagement quickening, it is the administration that risks becoming isolated, experts say, a possible factor in a recent moderation in its stance...

 

[Comrade]

The NYT is in total meltdown. Because of this administration, the US may become isolated, while trying to do just that to North Korea. Cute, huh?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/20/international/asia/20korea.html?th

Excerpt:

Wow, it's not even an editorial, but categorized as news story.

Why do authors like Norimitsu Onishi feel compelled to write such things like:

A country famous for its hermetic borders, North Korea now has embassies in 41 countries and diplomatic ties with 155. It recently held the first-ever military talks with its former archenemy, South Korea, and is moving toward normalizing diplomatic relations with its former colonizer, Japan.

Famous for hermetic borders?

How about famous for state sanctioned famine, massive political repression, murderous concentration camps, massive militancy (40% of GDP), nuclear weapon technology distribution to other terrorist states. Of all things, these famous hermetic borders are more infamous for keeping their own people from escaping out of the country, not keeping others out. In that case, calling the country 'hermit-like' isn't exactly a fair description. Actually it's a stupid one.

Germany, which has led European efforts to engage North Korea, opened the first Western cultural center in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, in June. The Goethe Information Center - a step below a full-fledged institute - now operates on the second floor of a cultural center next to the Ministry of Culture. It offers uncensored access to German reading material - half of it consisting of popular media, the other of scientific material - and is open to all. North Korea is said to have German speakers because of its ties with the former East Germany.

I bet you're thinking the same thing I am after reading about Kimland in the travelogue.

Who in their right mind would try to walk in from the streets, past state intelligence monitors, up to the 2nd floor, into a foreign office, and access the material, without state permission?

"We can call this a breakthrough," said Uwe Schmelter, who is the director of Seoul's Goethe Institute and negotiated the Pyongyang center's opening with North Korean officials. "For a country that has been labeled as isolated, reclusive and unchanging, a change is a change."

During negotiations, Mr. Schmelter said that North Korea never objected to the center's contents or open access. After negotiations over the center were completed, North Korea asked Germany to build a training center for librarians and researchers. In September, Germany is expected to begin offering 10-day classes on modern research techniques, including use of the Internet.

Party officials appreciate the free access to information they would already have permission to fund themselves.

But what bothers me about the NTY's bias, is the way each comment by sane, rational people is offset by a statement to support the general theme of what is supposed be sincere reform developing in the country.

ie:

Proponents of a hard line against North Korea say it is not really interested in change, but in simply avoiding economic collapse and driving a wedge between the United States and its allies. Whatever the North's motives, those favoring engagement argue, the North Korea of today is less isolated and more economically stable than it was just two years ago.

Instead of:

Those favoring engagement argue, the North Korea of today is less isolated and more economically stable than it was just two years ago. Whatever the North's motives, proponents of a hard line against North Korea say it is not really interested in change, but in simply avoiding economic collapse and driving a wedge between the United States and its allies.

Which sounds less sympathetic to Kim Il's regime?

Even as the Bush administration has worked to isolate North Korea in a campaign to make it drop its nuclear program, Asian and European governments have been actively engaging it on diplomatic, cultural and economic levels. Now, with the pace of engagement quickening, it is the administration that risks becoming isolated, experts say, a possible factor in a recent moderation in its stance.

Extremist Bush BAD! Moderation GOOD.

Need more engagement with nuclear armed tyrant! :69:

As an indication of the different approach taken by the United States, South Korean officials have chafed at a human rights bill passed last month by the House of Representatives. Called the North Korean Human Rights Act, it seeks to support North Korean refugees in China and promote human rights in China.

"We hope the bill won't have any bad effect on the Korean peninsula," Mr. Kim said

God forbid Human Rights have a bad effect on the peninsula. Pesky humans and their rights!

To steal the famous phrase of a Liberal blogger on Iraqi contractors, (Daily Kos), "Screw them!!!"