Sanctions And North Korea

From CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. military and intelligence community have been tracking several shipments of material they believe have left North Korea and are destined for Syria or may have already landed there, a Pentagon official confirmed.

The monitoring has been taking place for the past several weeks, he said.

The official could not confirm several recent news reports that nuclear material from North Korea has arrived in Syria and was the potential target of a recent Israeli airstrike there.

In fact, he said none of the information he had reviewed as part of his job indicated any nuclear material was involved.

Some of the material is believed to have been high-grade metals that could be used in weapons such as missiles or solid-fuel rocket technology.

But "there is concern with shipments going into the region and with their eventual arrival in Syria," the official said.

The United States is also looking into the possibility material had been shipped from North Korea to Iran and traveled overland into Syria, he said, adding there were indications a ship had docked in Syria recently. [Emphasis added.]

Huh. So much for U.N. sanctions, then. As if sane minds didn't already understand the futility of the thing.

The thing that really strikes me about the CNN article is that boldface bit in the last paragraph. Take a look at this map of the Middle East:



So you tell me. How does something get from A) Iran to B) Syria overland?

Right. It would have to go through either Turkey or Iraq! (Actually, it could get there through Kuwait and Saudia Arabia, too, if it went through Basra.)

The point is, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia are all ostensible allies....

And United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718 is supposed to prevent North Korea from trading in weapons and nuclear materials, isn't it?

What a freakin' joke.

So here's a nifty little German video about how North Korea handles pesky little inconveniences such as U.N. sanctions:



Yes, indeedy.