Obama's Running Mate Joe Biden and North Korea Policy

Barack Obama has chosen Joseph Biden (Delaware) as his running mate for the 2008 US presidential election.

For those who favor engagement policy towards North Korea rather than confrontational policy, Biden is a good choice. Along with Bill Richardson, Biden has long been a proponent of engaging with North Korea to resolve contending issues.

He has sponsored hearings and fora on Korea security/peace issues at the Congress, with one forum featuring representatives from both South and North Korea. His staff has travelled extensively to the two sides of Korea, to assess pragmatic steps toward resolutions to thorny issues. He and his Democratic staff at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have pursued collaborative, bipartisan efforts in addressing Korea security issues with Senator Richard Lugar and his Republican staff. Biden's foreign policy experience and knowledge will be a great asset to the Obama-Biden candidacy. See related article.

"Ending the U.S.-Korea Alliance"

For over two decades, Doug Bandow has run counter to conventional Washington wonks' positions in his calls for the withdrawal of US troops from Korea, first as the researcher for the libertarian Cato Institue and now as a fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance. His latest article in National Interest Online:

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has returned from the Republic of Korea (ROK), where he reaffirmed “the solid U.S. commitment to the defense of South Korea.” Troop levels will fall no lower than twenty-five thousand, to be reached after modest reductions this year. The goal, he adds, is to turn the relationship into a “twenty-first century strategic alliance.”

Actually, the right twenty-first century alliance is no alliance. More

"Spies for Hire"

Investigative journalist Tim Shorrock, known to Koreans for his writings that revealed the US's role in the violent 1980 military crackdown in South Korea that triggered the May 18 citizens’ uprising in the city of Kwangju, has written a new book, Spies for Hire.

"In Spies for Hire, investigative reporter Tim Shorrock lifts the
veil off a major story the government doesn't want us to know about -- the massive outsourcing of top secret intelligence activities to private-sector contractors.

Running spy networks overseas. Tracking down terrorists in the Middle East. Interrogating enemy prisoners. Analyzing data from spy satellites and intercepted phone calls. All of these are vital intelligence tasks that traditionally have been performed by government officials accountable to Congress and the American people. But that is no longer the case." See more information. See also his overview article in The NY Post.