By This past week had a pretty good online show down between two of the most well known names in the North Korean human rights issue, Joshua Stanton and Christine Ahn. Most ROK Drop readers should know Joshua as the blogger who write the One Free Korea blog that is one of my Must Read links on my side bar that if you are not reading yet you should. Joshua has long advocated for the human rights and freedom of the North Korean people, while on the opposite side of the issue is Christine Ahn. Ahn would rather keep the Kim family regime power structure in place in North Korea and blames everything on you guessed it, America!:
After North Korea signed the armistice, the North Korean people set out to rebuild their devastated nation according to the juche philosophy that promoted self-reliance and national independence. This inspired two New York Times writers in 1972 to note with astonishment that this country, the size of Mississippi, had developed a “well organized and highly industrialized socialist economy, largely self-sufficient, with a disciplined and productive work force.”
Despite their efforts to remain food sovereign, and because of events beyond their control, North Korea could not sustain the stranglehold of the United States. For five decades, the U.S. has pursued military and economic policies that have held 22 million North Koreans hostage and threatened them with nuclear annihilation. These same mad politics are driving the insane military budgets of both nations, diverting vital government resources that would improve the welfare of its people. [Christine Ahn]
It is interesting that Ahn doesn’t comment on the fact that North Korea has foot shortage, but Kim Jong-il still has enough money to buy luxury yachts.
Anyway, now it appears that Christine Ahn and her like minded North Korea apologists are launching a campaign against Joshua to shut him up by trying to focus attention on his job instead of his views. In the East Bay Express, the reporter Kathleen Wentz has written an article criticizing Joshua while showering praise on Christine Ahn. I highly recommend everyone read the whole article just to appreciate the propaganda value of it.
Picture of Kathleen Wentz from her Twitter page.
Of course the article had to bring up the No Gun Ri issue and the Korean Truth & Reconciliation Commission without providing any context about the issue or the KT&RC. I recommend reading these postings before believing the propaganda:
- Responding to the Bridge at No Gun Ri
- The Forensics of No Gun Ri
- Revisiting No Gun Ri
- Transcript of Briefing to Seoul Rotary Club
- The No Gun Ri Document Shell Game
- Korean Truth & Reconciliation Commission Faces Disbandment
- The Truth is of Little Concern to the KT&RC
In response to this article Joshua has published his own posting criticizing the article, which was just hilarious at times. Here is the passage that kind of sums things up:
In the end, Ahn and her mouthpiece, Wentz, still can’t debate how this regime treats its people without the deliberate ignorance of damning facts … and it’s hard to write something that pointlessly long-winded while still ignoring them. They can quibble about how many people live in these huts or behind these walls, but they can’t deny what the images show, and they can’t claim any greater knowledge than the witnesses do. Don’t they believe the questions are worth asking, especially of Kim Jong Il? For all their righteous anger about a couple hundred overweight terrorists at Gitmo, have they no concern left for the children of Camp 22? Do they dispute that, even without Kim Jong Il’s permission to take a census, the number of huts there must have a capacity of thousands? How do they deny this while going to such lengths to evade the truth? In the end, their only defense for Kim Jong Il is to hide behind his secrecy. [One Free Korea]
Like said before make sure to read the whole thing.
Joshua has also written in the past a great posting with all the statements made my Christine Ahn and the organizations that she is part of. When you read what she has said before in the past it just makes it more incredible how mainstream news outlets continue to give creditability to her by broadcasting her. For example the NBC Today show had her on after the Cho Seung-hui killings claiming that the lack of national health care for Korean immigrants contributed to the killings:
The scariest thought of all as the Marmot notes is that Washington may be listening to people like Christine Ahn.
So you decide is Christine Ahn a useful idiot?:
5:02 pm on November 7th, 2009 1
[DELETED BY ADMIN - Personal attack]
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November 7th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Entirely inappropriate. She is an idiot, you are scum.
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November 7th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Let him speak. Why try to hide how American GI’s really talk?
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November 7th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
Tom, you DO have a point- it is quite a monolithic culture, that US military!
November 8th, 2009 at 2:47 am
How would you know he/she is a GI? How would you know if they were even American?
It could be you yourself posting that bait.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Want to talk to a GI, Tom?
Talk to me. I have twenty years of being a GI under my belt.
Nine years of being a GI in korea, Tom.
You want to talk to a GI, you talk to ME.
7:36 pm on November 7th, 2009 2
“The scariest thought of all is that Washington (the current administration) may be listening to people like her.” Yep, scares me also.
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November 7th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
No Gerry- you’re wrong. They aren’t listening to her- they ARE her.
Where’s that damned asteroid???
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7:37 pm on November 7th, 2009 3
“well organized and highly industrialized socialist economy, largely self-sufficient, with a disciplined and productive work force.”
…if you believe North Korean propaganda. It remains that it has always been dependent upon China and Russia. Since North Korea workers are forced to attend daily indoctrination sessions, it’s probably safe to say that in all intent and purposes the North Korean work system is more about population control than industrial output.
“Despite their efforts to remain food sovereign, and because of events beyond their control, North Korea could not sustain the stranglehold of the United States. For five decades, the U.S. has pursued military and economic policies that have held 22 million North Koreans hostage and threatened them with nuclear annihilation.”
Or so goes North Korean propaganda. The North Korean government has made the systematic use of starvation for social engineering purposes and used the US as a scapegoat to distance itself from its policies. China’s involvement in the Korean War should serve to cast doubt on her claim that North Korea needs to spend such a large portion of its budget on defense. No, North Korea spends a huge portion of its budget on its military because without it the Kim regime would fall.
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10:31 pm on November 7th, 2009 4
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November 8th, 2009 at 4:20 am
You make my case for me scum. Anyone with an sliver of decency would have backed off the undefendable statement you made.
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She doesn’t deserve to be raped, she deserves to be publically made a fool of with the dozens of illogical arguments she makes and her ability to ignore the horrid nature of Kim Necrotacracy.
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Unfortunately it is imbeciles like you that idiots like Christine Ahn use as proof that soldiers are baby killing rapists. Cueing your statements getting quoted at the Huffpo in 3.2.1…..
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The sad truth is that you are either a fake or the Army just hasn’t chaptered you yet.
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12:33 am on November 8th, 2009 5
Well by saying the obvious, which is the truth, Christine wouldn’t be getting any attention would she? But by blurting out a whole bunch of nonsense she distances herself from common sense and becomes a lightning rod for the anti-American bandwagon that entrenches itself in ill-conceived logic and unresearched fallacies.
By treating her as someone worth debating, you run the risk of legitimizing her arguments as real ideas thought of by a real person with a real brain. I recommend taking the action of the silent majority and just ignoring this fool, or treating her as nothing more than she is: ridiculous.
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5:55 am on November 8th, 2009 6
North Korea was wealthier than the South until early 1960’s. This is not because of the “well organized and highly industialized socialist economy” as Christine Ahn mentions. But because Japanese industrial investments during the colonial period were mostly made in what is now North Korea rich in natural resouces. Noth Korea did not build any significant economic/social infrastructures. The major industrial facilities such as power plants, railways, seaports, chemical plants, etc. they still use are all they inheritated from Japan. They have just run through what the Japanese built.
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November 9th, 2009 at 12:00 am
“But because Japanese industrial investments during the colonial period were mostly made in what is now North Korea rich in natural resouces.”
Bingo!
It’s a well-known fact to boot, so clearly someone doesn’t know what she is talking about.
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8:03 am on November 8th, 2009 7
Jesus Christ. Obama, so far, has done more to cut off funding and isolate Nork. than Bush did, or Clinton, or Bush, or Reagan. UN sanctions, i’m amazed, have actually done something in terms of strangulation. Probably to end soon, mind you…that fickle entity, the UN.
Reading Lefty shit from the Oakland area and fusing it with Onefree Korea’s stuff is like the intellectual equivalance of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster.
Taking this reporter’s report, and her subjects responses, and blowing it out of proportion, is a bit sensationalist. Right or left…..
Can’t we just call BS, BS, and leave it at that? It’s not like this is really making it’s way into policy….IT’S THE BAY AREA! The current admininstration is much too centrist to be hugging the lefties from the Bay area.
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November 8th, 2009 at 10:14 am
“centrist”
How can I take anything seriously from you after that.
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November 9th, 2009 at 8:36 am
Not too concerned about it.
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8:05 am on November 8th, 2009 8
Oh, and you particularly nasty elements here speaking of raping people….it’s folks like you that GI should kick off and ban. C’mon GI. You have Aholes advocating rape.
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November 8th, 2009 at 9:14 am
I took care of it, it isn’t like I sit round all day waiting for the next comment on my blog. I got a life you know.
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November 8th, 2009 at 10:10 am
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3:37 pm on November 8th, 2009 9
Lee and foflappy get it quite right: Noone is listening to these people. The EBE article wrongly suggests that one non-partisan study advocating measured engagement with North Korea was influenced by the statrs of Wentz’ article. If I were the authors of that study I would issue a clarification. I don’t get the Frankenstein analogy, though.
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12:10 am on November 9th, 2009 10
Sorry GI, my apologies.
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1:11 am on November 9th, 2009 11
I wonder how she can substantiate the claim that “Koreans are the largest minorety group without access to health care,” What exactly does she mean by that?
She also seems to praise the “Juche,” philosophy. Correct me if I am wrong, but I heard that the guy who came up with “Juche,” defected a few years ago.
I’m not convinced that the people in Washington are listening to her though. It certainly isn’t helpful that this lady is going around talking about the extent to which North Korea was bombed, the DOD already knows that and has record, but giving an ear to these people can be used to gain their trust and to potentially route out any subversives. So just becuase people might be having lunch with Ahn, doesn’t mean that she is writing policy.
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