John McGlynn: North Korean Criminality Examined
This is the first article by John McGlynn in a series that meticulously dissects US charges of North Korean criminality, notably the forgery of US currency and money laundering, the significance of the legal instruments it has imposed on North Korea through Banco Delta Asia, and the significance of US actions for the resolution of the interrelated issues of North Korean nuclear weapons and the normalization of US-North Korean relations.
At the Beijing talks in February this year, the Bush administration reversed its North Korea policy, opting for a comprehensive deal – denuclearization and normalization, over confrontation and regime change. However, implementation of the new policy has proved difficult. The Administration remains divided. While the State Department pursues its normalization agenda, Treasury (and the Vice-President) cling to the former policy and appeal to the national security provisions of the Patriot Act. The campaign launched late in 2005 to insist that North Korea is unworthy and unreliable, in effect no more than a criminal gang, is not easily set aside.
Because North Korea has no friends and no advocates, least of all in the United States, the case against it as a “soprano” or criminal regime has rarely been scrutinized. (For a brief outline, see Gavan McCormack, “Criminal States: Soprano vs. Baritone – North Korea and the United States,”)
In the following multi-part series, Tokyo-based analyst John McGlynn scrutinizes the case so far as can be known from publicly available materials. In part one, below, he addresses the allegation of North Korean cooperation with Irish terrorism in the global distribution of US “Supernotes.” In subsequent parts, to follow, he deals with the US Treasury’s campaign to strangle North Korea financially based on allegations of counterfeiting and money-laundering against a small Macao Bank, Banco Delta Asia.
LINKS
Read entire article at Japan Focus
At the Beijing talks in February this year, the Bush administration reversed its North Korea policy, opting for a comprehensive deal – denuclearization and normalization, over confrontation and regime change. However, implementation of the new policy has proved difficult. The Administration remains divided. While the State Department pursues its normalization agenda, Treasury (and the Vice-President) cling to the former policy and appeal to the national security provisions of the Patriot Act. The campaign launched late in 2005 to insist that North Korea is unworthy and unreliable, in effect no more than a criminal gang, is not easily set aside.
Because North Korea has no friends and no advocates, least of all in the United States, the case against it as a “soprano” or criminal regime has rarely been scrutinized. (For a brief outline, see Gavan McCormack, “Criminal States: Soprano vs. Baritone – North Korea and the United States,”)
In the following multi-part series, Tokyo-based analyst John McGlynn scrutinizes the case so far as can be known from publicly available materials. In part one, below, he addresses the allegation of North Korean cooperation with Irish terrorism in the global distribution of US “Supernotes.” In subsequent parts, to follow, he deals with the US Treasury’s campaign to strangle North Korea financially based on allegations of counterfeiting and money-laundering against a small Macao Bank, Banco Delta Asia.
LINKS