Now you see it, now you don't: Syria's bombed nuclear facilityOne of the brainier conservatives to emerge from the Bush White House (and he's a Canadian Tory of all things) is David Frum, who famously gave us the much derided "axis of evil" coinage and in his spare time writes learned essays on George Eliot. Why much derided? Because an axis denotes a partnership or alliance, usually a nefarious one, and Daniel Koffler would sooner compliment Chelsea Clinton on her parentage at a dinner party at Leon Wieseltier's house than a Stalinist would collaborate with a mullah, or a Sunni help a Shia work the detonator on an IED. I read that on the Internet so it must be true.

Yes, well, I believe the relevant Latin is de te fabula narratur -- the joke's on you:

For years we have heard that it was impossible, inconceivable, that states such as Syria, North Korea, Iran or Saddam Hussein's Iraq could ever co-operate with each other. We were told that Shiite Iran could never possibly ally with Sunni terrorist groups such as Hamas or al-Qaeda. Yet again and again, over the past half dozen years, we have witnessed just that. North Korea did help Syria. Iran and North Korea did exchange technology. Iran did subsidize Hamas. Al-Qaeda leaders did find refuge in Iran.

You know, it's almost like they form an axis or something.

Syria wasn't even in the original Iran-NoKo-Iraq troika, so I guess it's an alternate if one of the regulars can't live up to its mustache-twirling malevolence on the designated day. Unfortunately, Barack Obama's go-to man on nukes, Joseph Cirincione, last September sounded more like Seymour Hersh when he dismissed the possibility that North Korean scientists could be helping Syria build a plutonium processing facility:

"This [early news of the Syrian facility] appears to be the work of a small group of officials leaking cherry-picked, unvetted 'intelligence' to key reporters in order to promote a pre-existing political agenda. If this sounds like the run-up to the war in Iraq, it should. This time it appears aimed at derailing the U.S.-North Korean agreement that administration hardliners think is appeasement. Some Israelis want to thwart any dialogue between the U.S. and Syria."

The leftist response to this, judging from how Talking Points Memo, et al. have alighted on Damascus's similarly themed "nothing to see here, folks" denials of wrongdoing, is to say that even if the Assad regime were guilty, it's all the fault of the Bushies for creating an atmosphere of plausible deniability after their Iraq caper. No one now believes the official intelligence -- except of course when it gives Iran a clean bill of health, or otherwise thwarts the "hard-liners" from arguing anything that could be used to make a case for military intervention.

What a shame, too. Had Israel not destroyed Syria's almost-completed reactor, we would have had another rogue state with WMD for the White House to confront in a cowboyish manner, demonstrating yet again its blatant disregard for negotiation and dialogue. Think of all the missed editorials and blog posts, then weep.

File under Oy: 

Israel believes that North Korea has been supplying Syria and Iran with nuclear materials, a Washington defense official told the New York Times. “The Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little they have left,” he said.

The official added that recent Israeli reconnaissance flights over Syria revealed possible nuclear installations that Israeli officials estimate might have been supplied with material from North Korea.

And in thirteen years, he'll turn off his nuclear weapons program again. Meanwhile, North Koreas will continue to starve.

You have to hand it to the New York Times. In the space of two paragraphs it can juggle a contradiction unbeknowst to its own writer. So, on the occasion of North Korea's readmission of nuclear weapons inspectators back into the country, come these juxtaposed statements: 

Though critical and long-awaited, the reactor shutdown may also be the easiest achievement. It essentially restores the status quo that existed in 2002 — except that now North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium fuel for eight or more weapons, in addition to the one or two it is believed to have manufactured when Mr. Bush’s father was in office.

The challenge now, which experts believe will be far more difficult, is to convince North Korea to reveal and disgorge its arsenal. Almost all of that was produced starting in 2003, while the United States was distracted by the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.

Now, the Bush administration has accomplished with its tentative agreement little more than Madeleine Albright did, even as she blithely ignored the totalitarian hell of the regime with which she negotiated. But how can it be said that Kim Jong-il was manufacuring nuclear weapons during the first Bush administration and all the through the Clinton and second Bush administrations when it is then asserted that he managed to get away with making the bulk of his arsenal while the U.S. was "distracted by the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath"?  Was the U.S. distracted by the first Gulf War, intervention in Haiti and the Balkans (Rwanda can't have occupied too much of our attention), and then Afghanistan to stop North Korea when it first began violating international law?
 

Because it's Friday and even this is better than Spider-Man 3:

Jimmy Stewart with dinner guestWhenever in doubt about the existence of evil, keep in mind not only the horrors but also the faith-shaking absurdities on offer in countries controlled by evil regimes. The historical examples are innumerable, but the present-day ones are often worse—proof that brutality and stupidity on a grand scale aren't a fluke but are here to stay. Here's the latest outrage, courtesy of Joshua Muravchik on Commentary's excellent "Contentions" blog:

Suddenly there is a ray of hope that North Koreans—even those who are not employed by the armed forces or the secret police—will have something more nutritious than grass and bark in their cooking pots. According to a report in the Washington Post of February 2, the North Korean embassy in Berlin recently sent a delegation to a German agricultural fair at which a retired chauffeur named Karl Szmolinsky showed off hugely oversized rabbits that he had bred—some reaching “the size of a full-grown beagle.” “Eureka!,” thought an embassy official, presumably the economic attaché. Your average rabbit might make a meal for two or three people. But according to Szmolinsky, a single one of his “gray giants” can, if properly butchered, yield fifteen pounds of meet, enough to feed, say, thirty. It is easy for even a Communist economist to see, therefore, that if you raise these monsters instead of regular rabbits you can increase one component of the food supply by a factor of ten.

What's so terrible about that? Am I opposed to Frankenfood? Do I care if starving Koreans dine on Fuzzy Bunny Jjigae? No, but as with all quick fixes (especially quick fixes ignorant of economics), it just doesn't work. Find out why here, and then get a little comic relief by way of another Jimmy and his giant rabbit. (If this hasn't killed your appetite for news from NoKo, here's another food-related nightmare.)

Kim Jong-il is famous for his love of film and his aspirations as a director, and I detect the Dear Leader's fingerprints all over this one. Who else could make "You are a country of murderers!" sound so much like a compliment?

I have to admit, the video's got a point. "Bloody massacres" are one thing, but the stolen Olympic medal was just uncalled for.

If you can get through this video without humming "Fucking USA!" to yourself, you win a free Comcast account.

Hat tip to user SimpleLiquid.

Well, you can make stuff like this up, but who'd want to?

 "The car carrying Vice Consul of North Korea collided with a tractor on the highway near the village of Razdolnoye in southern Primorye on Saturday. A stranger rushed to assist the injured official and robbed him of $23,000.

Kim In Sum, Vice Consul of N. Korean Consulate General located in Nakhodka, got into the car accident when the driver unexpectedly lost control of the consulate’s car and hit the wheel of the tractor which was moving ahead. The car overturned and the vice consul and the driver received minor injuries.

An unknown man rushed to the car crash victims and suggested assistance. Later the vice consul noticed that his handbag containing $24,300 and 450 yuan was stolen, Primorye’s regional police reported Monday.

The criminal case on robbery was launched. Police investigators said on Monday that they had already detained an unemployed local resident with part of the stolen money. Investigation is underway."