Too Close For Comfort
John Gorenfeld has new developments on the Moonie WMD proliferation front:
The Korea Times is reporting that President Bush's executive order, aimed at freezing the assets of companies that spread WMD, has struck at a business venture, affiliated with Reverend Moon, that I just wrote about in The American Prospect. One of the companies named is the other half of the Washington Times owner's joint car venture, which manufactures cars at a plant 25 miles down the road from the North Korean capital. . . .Coincidentally, Bush just nominated to a State Department post the woman who helped open the door to a relationship between North Korea and Sun Myung Moon. That's longtime follower Josette Shiner, a former Washington Times editor whose softball interviews with Kim Il Sung in 1992 and 1994 helped cement the North Korean dictator's trust.
Fascinating stuff, and entirely typical in its weirdness. We're clamping down on the North Korean company, but not on the Moon-owned company that it partners with. We're adopting a hardline policy to North Korea, and putting friends of the DPRK into State Department jobs. I won't even try to speculate as to what's really going on here. Near as I can it's another one of those "I don't see any method at all, sir" moments.
June 30, 2005 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not surprised or shocked at all. In the 90's, when Cheney ran the company, off-shore subsidiaries of Halliburton were very actively doing business with Iran. Business leaders, especially ones who support the GOP, always put business before national interests. And of course part of what they make gets channeled right back to their party in donations (Which in this case is a nice way to say "kickbacks").
June 30, 2005 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Matthew Yglesias:
I will: Since the Moonies are a religion, they are ok. There is an anti-science, pro-religion thread running through almost all of Bush's decisions.
June 30, 2005 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink