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July 5, 2006
More Dishonesty At The Gray Lady

Today's editorial on the North Korean crisis at the New York Times sounds eminently reasonable, at least at first. The editors manage to place blame for the missile standoff where it belongs -- on Pyongyang and the Kim regime. However, the Times manages to blame the current cessation of talks on the Bush administration for what it sees as a technicality:

Everyone's long-term interest lies in reanimating the diplomacy that has sputtered to a halt over an unrelated banking dispute. The Bush administration should have moved many months ago to overcome that obstacle.

But now it is North Korea that has clearly put itself in the wrong. Washington should obviously not reward that bad faith by abruptly rushing back to the bargaining table. But reviving those talks in a more considered way would serve America's own best interests.

Notice that the Times doesn't bother to explain this "unrelated banking dispute". The little tiff that the Gray Lady references is no mere technical dispute over transfer fees or some other esoteric debate. North Korea has a grand-scale counterfeiting operation that may have put tens of millions of phony $100 bills into circulation. CNN reported on this tiny little misunderstanding two months ago:

"Banco Delta Asia provided a tolerant environment for illicit North Korean activities," said Daniel Glaser, from the U.S. Treasury Department.

The North Korean companies laundered money and attempted to pass it through the bank, he said.

The fake $100 bills are of such high quality it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the real thing. U.S. officials contend the regime of Kim Jong Il has manufactured and put into circulation tens of millions of these counterfeit bills, labeled supernotes, around the world.

These charges are backed up by the U.S. secret service, which says it has made a connection between the highly deceptive counterfeit notes and North Korea.

"Our investigation has revealed that the supernote continues to be produced and distributed from sources operating out of North Korea," said Michael Merritt, from the U.S. Secret Service.

In fact, supernote distribution channels involve terrorists and criminals in Pyongyang's complex strategy to get hard currency and attack the dollar's value. The US has indicted the IRA's Sean Garland for distributing the supernotes. North Korea also used organized crime "families" to pass the counterfeits inside the US; a Chinese gang linked to North Korea got stung by the FBI in an operation called Royal Charm. The climax came at a fake wedding, where instead of limos to carry the guests to the reception, vans took them to prison instead.

Pyongyang also used a front company called Zokwang, a trading company, to launder their counterfeits through Banco Delta Asia in Macau. When the US found out about it, we blacklisted it and had the assets for Zokwang frozen. The bank itself has barely remained in business, with its legitimate international business all but gone. Zokwang disappeared from Macau, but reportedly still operates from China. After watching its money-laundering operation frozen, Kim broke off cooperation from the six-party talks. He wants to have those assets unfrozen and the bank allowed to operate once more through legitimate international channels, and refuses to re-engage until that happens.

In other words, Kim wants the proceeds from his counterfeiting ring back, as well as his money-laundering operation so that he can continue to dump millions more of these fake $100 supernotes into the world economy. He wants his Macau connection back on line so that he can continue to damage the US economically through counterfeiting operations.

This is what the Times neglects to mention when it holds George Bush responsible for the breakdown in the six-party talks. The media pretends that this never happened when they push Bush to hold bilateral talks with Kim, rewarding him for his crimes rather than blocking them. The Times simply cannot be trusted to tell the truth even when our enemies commit such blatant actions against us, and instead continue to use their energy to serve their intensely partisan interests.

Sphere It Digg! View blog reactions
Posted by Ed Morrissey at July 5, 2006 2:56 PM

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