Little Red Blog

Roh Moo-hyun, President of South Korea, is facing opposition to his policies of appeasement with North Korea. Finally! As noted before, I believe Roh’s policies have aided and strengthened the DPRK rather than "bridging the divide" or creating a mutual softening of relations from the North. Also, Roh's military has recently suggested they will participate in high-level military discussions with the North, as a means to avoid accidental clashes.

Japan continues to redefine its defense posture, now permitting the military to utilize its missile-defense system, currently being developed with the U.S., should Japan be under attack. Rather than a pacifist posture, the new defensive posture is well suited for the realities of the world.

U.S. missile-defense systems during testing failed to launch an interceptor rocket early Monday morning. Despite the nay-sayers outspoken opposition, it isn't that bad a thing. Just remember the number of failures during our initial attempts to develope rockets for orbital flight. Time is still on our side, and the effort, so long as we continue it, will be worthwhile.

Bashar al-Assad, Syrian President, condemned the killing of Rafik al-Hariri, yet the government press shifts the blame for the death of Rafik al-Hariri to Israel in a detestable, yet predictable, response.

"What happened was an attempt to shatter national unity in Lebanon, to sow anarchy and divisions which lead to a climate of civil war," said government newspaper Tishrin.

While the opposition to the pro-Syrian government in Beirut openly blamed Syria for the assassination, the official Damascus media in turn pointed a finger at Israel without even reporting the accusations against Syria.

Israel "continues to work to sabotage Lebanon's achievements to try to bring anarchy to the country and to be able to continue its occupation of the Shebaa Farms", a disputed strip of land along the Israeli border, said Tishrin.

Margaret Scobey, U.S. Ambassador to Syria, is being recalled to Washington in response to the terrorist killing of Rafik al-Hariri. Clearly there are those in the Bush administration who remain unconvinced that Syria wasn't involved. Added to the tensions between the U.S. and Syria over Syrian troops in Lebanon and influence in the government, and the concern over the Syrian border being used as a point of entry into Iraq, and well, perhaps the Ambassador should have been recalled previously.