2007.10.09: October 9, 2007: Headlines: COS - Korea: Speaking Out: Le Monde Diplomatique: Korea RPCV Bruce Cumings, writes: North Korea: neutral instead of nuclear

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Korea: Peace Corps Korea : Peace Corps Korea: Newest Stories: 2007.10.09: October 9, 2007: Headlines: COS - Korea: Speaking Out: Le Monde Diplomatique: Korea RPCV Bruce Cumings, writes: North Korea: neutral instead of nuclear

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-232-73.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.232.73) on Sunday, October 14, 2007 - 1:22 pm: Edit Post

Korea RPCV Bruce Cumings, writes: North Korea: neutral instead of nuclear

Korea RPCV Bruce Cumings, writes: North Korea: neutral instead of nuclear

Things are so bad that it now requires a major effort to restore trust and confidence. What the US could do to start afresh would be finally to normalise relations with the North (as it pledged to do in 1994 and again in 2005); guarantee Seoul that it will have a veto over the use of military force against Pyongyang; assure Seoul that the US will not use its forces in Korea in a conflict over Taiwan; and reduce the anachronistic US troop presence in Korea. These steps are not impossible to imagine: the ROK, China and Russia have all urged the US to normalise relations with North Korea. North Korea has won and got what it wanted, and what it had suggested in the 1990s: to trade its nuclear programme for aid and normalised ties with the US, a proposition denied and derided in official Washington. The successful diplomacy of the late 1990s was led by Kim Dae Jung, who finally convinced Clinton that Pyongyang would give up its nuclear programme and its missiles in return for a new relationship. The US could have its cake and eat it too, Kim Dae Jung thought, because Pyongyang would not object to the continued stationing of US troops in the South if relations were normalised. He judged that Kim Jong Il was almost as worried about the strength of China and Japan (simultaneously strong for the first time in modern history) as he was about the US, and could be coaxed into new security arrangements within the international system that the US had built in northeast Asia since 1945. Washington could lose an enemy and gain a neutral North Korea – if not a friend or an ally – as a counterbalance against China and a revived Russia, and as a check on Japan’s future course. It is likely that Pyongyang hopes to play the US off against China, much as it did Moscow and Beijing during the cold war. There is no way to know if this new thinking has had an impact on Bush, but it is a logical US strategy for the region in the 21st-century. Bizarre events may well place Bush and “evildoer” Kim Jong Il side by side as peacemakers. If so, all well and good, and better late than never.

Korea RPCV Bruce Cumings, writes: North Korea: neutral instead of nuclear

North Korea: neutral instead of nuclear
The leaders of South and North Korea have met. The meeting had been formally delayed since the summer because of serious flooding in the North – but in fact both sides had to wait six years for this opportunity

By Bruce Cumings

The two Korean heads of state met for the first time in June 2000 in Pyongyang. Kim Jong Il, leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), was supposed to reciprocate by visiting Seoul, but he never did. Now he has succeeded in having a South Korean president visit his capital again.

Roh Moo Hyun, president of the Republic of Korea (ROK), agreed because he and his predecessor, Kim Dae Jung, ended decades of tit-for-tat protocol in which both sides sought advantage with endless threats and posturing, and began the so-called “sunshine policy”. South Korea, as the 10th-ranking industrial power in the world, has a clear advantage over the North; letting Kim Jong Il think he is in charge is a small price to pay for trying to open up the North. There is political advantage in the summit; Roh, whose popularity is low, can’t win in elections in December and wants to boost the chances of his successor.

The DPRK has long fancied itself capable of manipulating the ROK’s politics, and perhaps it has some influence for there is a change in Southern opinion about the North that is part of the policy of reconciliation since 1998. Southerners, used to propaganda depicting the communists as evil sadists, now see them as long-lost cousins ruled by errant (and perhaps nutty) uncles. The summit capped that extraordinary achievement. Roh has also promoted the idea of the Korean peninsula as the hub of a vibrant northeast Asian economy and wants “the era of the Northern economy” as his legacy.

But the real reason for the summit is the entirely unexpected warming of relations between President George W Bush and Kim Jong Il, manifest in the 13 February agreement on denuclearisation, the origins of which remain murky. Pyongyang celebrated United States Independence Day last year by firing seven missiles, including a long-range Taepodong 2 and several medium-range rockets, and followed that up in October with its first nuclear test. This led to UN sanctions supported for the first time by the DPRK’s old allies, Russia and China (1).

Bush does not “reward bad behaviour”. He had always rejected direct talks with North Korea and had included the North in his “axis of evil”. Vice-President Dick Cheney said in 2004: “We don’t negotiate with evil, we defeat it.” Yet the February agreement was hammered out in secret direct talks between Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill and Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan in Beijing and Berlin, and was then presented to the multilateral Six Party Talks (the two Koreas, China, the US, Japan and Russia) on North Korea’s nuclear programme set up two years ago.
Back to the future

The “back to the future” quality of this agreement can be appreciated in the list of achievements: mothballing and dismantling the North’s plutonium reactors, relaxing sanctions and embargoes Washington has had against the North for decades, taking it off the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, readmitting UN nuclear inspectors, getting a peace agreement to end the Korean war, and moving toward normalisation of relations.

All of these were accomplished or being negotiated when Bush came into office. But the Clinton administration had also worked out a plan to buy out, indirectly, the North’s medium and long-range missiles; it was ready to be signed in 2000 but Bush let it fall by the wayside and today the North retains all its formidable missile capability. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was amazed in her memoirs that Bush let this deal slide into oblivion, since Pyongyang has no other reliable delivery capability for nuclear weapons. Hardly any influential Americans seem to remember these negotiations, although they were major news at the time.

Also inexplicable is how Bush, or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, short-circuited the squabbling inside their administration over how to handle evildoers. On 19 September 2005 the US and the DPRK came to an agreement at the fourth session of the Six Party Talks on principles that paved the way toward denuclearisation (including a US pledge not to attack or invade the North). Yet three days later the Treasury Department, operating under the disputed USA Patriot Act, sanctioned North Korea for its allegedly illegal dealings with the Banco Delta Asia in Macao, cutting it off from the international financial system. It is now clear that the evidence was skimpy and that the sanctions were specifically designed to destroy the September pledges (2).

The only illegal activity that the Treasury Department uncovered dated to 1994 and the amounts were tiny, $250m in counterfeit notes that DPRK operatives allegedly deposited in Banco Delta. (Insiders said it was really the North’s entirely legal gold bullion transactions with this obscure bank that were at issue.) Years passed with almost no critical reporting on the matter, and then administration insiders finally admitted that all this was not about law enforcement: dissident officials had gone after North Korea to head off an accommodation between Washington and Pyongyang (3). The Banco Delta problem quietly disappeared when the US agreed to return all the DPRK’s seized deposits with no questions asked and no penalty.

A prominent expert, Leon V Sigal, has argued that it takes a while for new administrations, Republican or Democratic, to realise that they have to deal with North Korea, and that with the February agreement, Bush “put the United States firmly back on the road to reconciliation with North Korea”. The key US negotiator, Hill, was similarly optimistic; in August he said that he expects a full declaration of all nuclear weapons and programmes from the North by the end of this year, and full dismantlement of all facilities in 2008. He hinted that Rice might visit Pyongyang soon, and Washington gossip hints at a summit between Bush and Kim Jong Il. If so, it is all to the good. But no administration ever took longer to arrive at such a conclusion.
A failed policy

Until the February agreement, Bush had presided over the most asinine Korea policy in history. He sent James Kelly to Pyongyang in October 2002 to accuse the North Koreans of harbouring a second nuclear programme utilising highly-enriched uranium (HEU). Immediately after, Bush broke the precious 1994 Framework Agreement, which had kept the North’s Yongbyun plutonium complex frozen for eight years (4). The North reacted by leaving the Non-Proliferation Treaty, taking back the plutonium complex complete with 8,000 fuel rods that had been neutered in concrete casks, manufacturing an unknown number of nuclear weapons – and facing no penalties other than a slap on the wrist.

Washington’s inaction in 2002-03 was partly caused by internal conflict over what to do about the DPRK’s provocative steps. Like the current crisis over Iran’s HEU facilities, some officials (especially those in Cheney’s entourage) urged a bombing campaign. Others argued that this would start another Korean war. Bush was focused on making war against Iraq, not the DPRK. So nothing was done except to complain to Seoul that the Bush administration didn’t understand its sunshine policy, thus creating problems with both Koreas.

The 1994 agreement said nothing about HEU but most experts thought the North had indeed cheated by dealing with Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. This wasn’t news: the Clinton administration had told the Bush transition team about it in 2000 and suggested that it should be no obstacle to keeping Yongbyun frozen and finishing the missile deal, because HEU is a hard technology to master and would require many years of experimentation before a bomb could be built (5). No one is surprised if North Korea cheats. But the 1994 agreement and the missile deal were based on painstaking verification measures that assured no plutonium bombs and no missile delivery vehicles.

The Bush administration sat on the intelligence information that Clinton provided from 2000 to 2002, and then sent Kelly to Pyongyang to confront the North Koreans with it. Yet if US negotiators had learned anything in the 1990s, it was that you do not confront the North Koreans. Kelly returned to Washington empty-handed. His timing was absurdly provocative: he delivered his message just after Bush’s September 2002 announcement of the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against the axis of evil. A few months later the US invaded Iraq. Pyongyang reasoned that the US would not have invaded if Saddam had had nukes, concluding:“This is not going to happen to us.” The Koreans soon found many ways of talking about their nuclear deterrent.

We now know that US intelligence on the North’s HEU was no better than it was on Saddam Hussein’s WMDs. Like Iraq, Pyongyang had also purchased thousands of aluminium tubes: but it turned out that these weren’t strong enough to use in the high-speed rotors necessary for centrifuges. Evidence of these modest purchases had been transformed by Washington analysts into a significant production capability in 2002. Since then the US had turned up no evidence of the large-scale procurements that would be necessary for an HEU bomb programme.
A-bomb mysteries

The bomb that the DPRK detonated last year was made of plutonium, not HEU – it is Bush’s bomb, not Clinton’s. Still, it isn’t easy to say why North Korea chose to test a weapon. It has been 15 years since the North achieved the goal of making the world think that it had atomic weapons. In 1992 the CIA estimated that Pyongyang probably had one or two bombs, and it stuck to that estimate for a decade. The ambiguity about whether they did or didn’t have the bomb strengthened the North’s hand: as with Israel, probable possession of nukes, but no test and no announcement, creates a credible deterrent without putting overwhelming political pressure on other states in the region to follow suit.

Why did North Korea end that ambiguity for no obvious gain? It may be that the test was directed more against China, which shut off petroleum exports to the North last September in response to the July missile tests. In that case Pyongyang would have tested to show that it could not be intimidated, and only afterwards agreed to return to the Six Party talks.

Nor is it easy to say why Bush decided to make a deal with the North. Clearly the congressional elections last year ended Bush’s hopes of a long-term Republican ascendancy, and turned him into the lamest of lame ducks. His core of support has evaporated at home and abroad: most of the neo-conservatives (Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton) are gone, as are Tony Blair and Abe Shinzo.

Yet these explanations are not entirely convincing. In 2003-04 the North Koreans seemed genuinely afraid that the US would attack them. But the US military was soon stretched so thin around the world that the Pentagon could barely spare a handful of combat brigades for the Korean theatre (extant war plans call for half a million US troops there before a victory can be assured). Pyongyang’s strategy was to become a declared nuclear power, suffer through sanctions for the next two years, and then hope to deal with the next US president.

Something happened in Washington, as Christopher Hill got a free hand to deal with Pyongyang. The most likely explanation is that the White House decided that Iran was the greater threat: if a deal could be struck with North Korea, that would put pressure on Tehran to negotiate away its nuclear programme. If Bush decided to use force against Iran, North Korea would have to be neutralised or forgotten.

These last years, relations between Washington and Seoul have deteriorated drastically. By commission and omission, Bush trampled on the norms of the historic US relationship with Seoul while creating a dangerous situation with Pyongyang. Perhaps the “back to the future” somersault will begin to repair this damage; when the Bush administration returned to Bill Clinton’s strategy of engaging the North, South Korean public opinion against the US began to soften.

In South Korea anti-Americanism was never anything like the Middle East’s broad rejection of US power, culture, and values. But since 2001 the US image has deteriorated, especially among the young. Koreans, like many others around the world, were angry about Bush. From being overwhelmingly in favour of the US before Bush, public opinion is now divided: according to the polls 43% do not favour the US, and among Koreans in their 20s only 22% have any kind of favourable opinion (6).
Consternation in the South

This is the result of Washington’s policies toward the North, and fears for South Korea’s sunshine policy and reconciliation with the North (from which Washington under Bush disassociated itself). The acute danger, which South Korean leaders immediately grasped, was that the Bush doctrine – under which the US may pre-emptively attack regimes it does not like – meant that Seoul would be dragged into a war it didn’t want. Soon after the doctrine became public, a close adviser to Roh told Bush administration officials that if the US attacked the North over South Korean objections, it would destroy the alliance with the South. Leaders in Seoul repeatedly sought assurances from Washington that the North would not be attacked without close consultations or over Seoul’s veto. The Roh administration has not won these assurances. Since the North can destroy Seoul in a matter of hours with 10,000 guns buried in the mountains north of the capital, one can imagine the extreme consternation that the Bush doctrine caused in Seoul.

Things are so bad that it now requires a major effort to restore trust and confidence. What the US could do to start afresh would be finally to normalise relations with the North (as it pledged to do in 1994 and again in 2005); guarantee Seoul that it will have a veto over the use of military force against Pyongyang; assure Seoul that the US will not use its forces in Korea in a conflict over Taiwan; and reduce the anachronistic US troop presence in Korea. These steps are not impossible to imagine: the ROK, China and Russia have all urged the US to normalise relations with North Korea.

North Korea has won and got what it wanted, and what it had suggested in the 1990s: to trade its nuclear programme for aid and normalised ties with the US, a proposition denied and derided in official Washington.

The successful diplomacy of the late 1990s was led by Kim Dae Jung, who finally convinced Clinton that Pyongyang would give up its nuclear programme and its missiles in return for a new relationship. The US could have its cake and eat it too, Kim Dae Jung thought, because Pyongyang would not object to the continued stationing of US troops in the South if relations were normalised. He judged that Kim Jong Il was almost as worried about the strength of China and Japan (simultaneously strong for the first time in modern history) as he was about the US, and could be coaxed into new security arrangements within the international system that the US had built in northeast Asia since 1945. Washington could lose an enemy and gain a neutral North Korea – if not a friend or an ally – as a counterbalance against China and a revived Russia, and as a check on Japan’s future course.

It is likely that Pyongyang hopes to play the US off against China, much as it did Moscow and Beijing during the cold war. There is no way to know if this new thinking has had an impact on Bush, but it is a logical US strategy for the region in the 21st-century.

Bizarre events may well place Bush and “evildoer” Kim Jong Il side by side as peacemakers. If so, all well and good, and better late than never.




Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: October, 2007; Peace Corps Korea; Directory of Korea RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Korea RPCVs; Speaking Out





When this story was posted in October 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:


Contact PCOLBulletin BoardRegisterSearch PCOLWhat's New?

Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers RSS Feed
Senator Dodd's Peace Corps Hearings Date: July 25 2007 No: 1178 Senator Dodd's Peace Corps Hearings
Read PCOL's executive summary of Senator Chris Dodd's hearings on July 25 on the Peace Corps Volunteer Empowerment Act and why Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter does not believe the bill would contribute to an improved Peace Corps while four other RPCV witnesses do. Highlights of the hearings included Dodd's questioning of Tschetter on political meetings at Peace Corps Headquarters and the Inspector General's testimony on the re-opening of the Walter Poirier III investigation.

Peace Corps News Peace Corps Library Peace corps History RPCV Directory Sign Up

What is the greatest threat facing us now?  Date: September 12 2007 No: 1195 What is the greatest threat facing us now?
"People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing? I would approach this differently, in almost Marshall-like terms. What are the great opportunities out there - ones that we can take advantage of?" Read more.

September 2, 2007: This Month's Top Stories Date: September 6 2007 No: 1193 September 2, 2007: This Month's Top Stories
Blackwill has contract to undermine Iraqi government 29 Aug
Frank Delano returns to Ghana 31 Aug
Mike Honda's comfort woman resolution passes 28 Aug
Margaret Pratley at 81 is oldest PCV 23 Aug
"Pepo" Saavedra Iguina sings with heart of poet 23 Aug
Campbell's mother recalls her daughter in testimony 22 Aug
Ex-Americorps head appointed Associate Director 20 Aug
Tschetter in Paraguay for 40th anniversary of program 20 Aug
Niki Tsongas is front-runner for Congressional seat 19 Aug
Mike Sheppard announces Peace Corps Wiki 16 Aug
Mark Schneider writes: Getting answers on Pakistan 15 Aug
Al Kamen writes: A Little Iraq Nostalgia 15 Aug
Victor DeMasi studies butterflies 14 Aug
Obituary for Morocco Country Director Everett Woodman 13 Aug
Carol Miles helps increase African seed production 13 Aug
Bruce Anderson back at Anderson Valley Advertiser 13 Aug
Joe Keefe writes: Dodd deserves the Oval Office 13 Aug
Malaysia RPCVs find each other after 35 years 10 Aug
Molly Brown monitors farms from space 10 Aug
Colin Gallagher writes: Surveillance of US Citizens 8 Aug
Scott Lacy starts African Sky 6 Aug
Charles Murray to address Centre for Independent Studies 6 Aug

Paul Theroux: Peace Corps Writer Date: August 15 2007 No: 1185 Paul Theroux: Peace Corps Writer
Paul Theroux began by writing about the life he knew in Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer. His first first three novels are set in Africa and two of his later novels recast his Peace Corps tour as fiction. Read about how Theroux involved himself with rebel politicians, was expelled from Malawi, and how the Peace Corps tried to ruin him financially in John Coyne's analysis and appreciation of one of the greatest American writers of his generation (who also happens to be an RPCV).

August 4, 2007: This Month's Top Stories Date: August 5 2007 No: 1182 August 4, 2007: This Month's Top Stories
Peace Corps reopens Guinea Program 19 Jul
China beating US in public diplomacy 4 Aug
Shalala continues fight for wounded soldiers 4 Aug
Sue Hilderbrand's goal is stopping funding for Iraq war 3 Aug
Matthew Barison went from Uzbekistan to Romania 2 Aug
Peter Chilson writes "Disturbance-Loving Species" 31 Jul
An RPCV remembers Texas Tower Tragedy 29 Jul
Daniel Balluff films documentaries on Niger 28 Jul
Renewing the Bond of Trust with PCVs 27 Jul
Carol Bellamy to chair Fair Labor Foundation 25 Jul
Delay in Julia Campbell trial 24 Jul
PCV Brian writes: Secondary Projects - First Priority 23 Jul
Dodd says no easy election for Democrats in 2008 22 Jul
John Smart writes: Bush's palace in Iraq 20 Jul
Bill Moyers eulogizes Lady Bird Johnson 15 Jul
Social Justice ranks high on Dan Weinberg’s agenda 15 Jul
PCV Tait writes: Good-bye to my village 14 Jul
Amy Smith organizes Development Design Summit 13 Jul
Cameron Quinn to head PC Third Goal Office 11 Jul
Josh Yardley brought Red Sox to Burkina Faso 11 Jul
James Rupert writes: Islamabad's Red Mosque 11 Jul
Sarah Chayes writes: NATO didn't lose Afghanistan 10 Jul

Dodd issues call for National Service Date: June 26 2007 No: 1164 Dodd issues call for National Service
Standing on the steps of the Nashua City Hall where JFK kicked off his campaign in 1960, Presidential Candidate Chris Dodd issued a call for National Service. "Like thousands of others, I heard President Kennedy's words and a short time later joined the Peace Corps." Dodd said his goal is to see 40 million people volunteering in some form or another by 2020. "We have an appetite for service. We like to be asked to roll up our sleeves and make a contribution," he said. "We haven't been asked in a long time."

July 9, 2007: This Month's Top Stories Date: July 10 2007 No: 1172 July 9, 2007: This Month's Top Stories
O'Hanlon says "soft partition" occurring in Iraq 9 Jul
Eric R. Green writes on coming oil crisis 8 Jul
Why Dodd joined the Peace Corps 5 Jul
Jim Doyle positioned for third term 5 Jul
Michael Adlerstein to direct UN Master Plan 3 Jul
Shalala says Veterans report will be solution driven 1 Jul
Blackwill says: No process will make up for stupidity 30 Jun
Allan Reed creates a Diaspora Skills Transfer Program 29 Jun
State Dept apology ends hold on Green nomination 28 Jun
Call for stories to celebrate PC 50th Anniversary 25 Jun
Michael Shereikis is singer and guitarist for Chopteeth 25 Jun
Christopher R. Hill Visits North Korea 22 Jun
Tschetter at JFK Bust Unveiling Ceremony 21 Jun
Kiribati too risky for PCVs 17 Jun
James Rupert writes: US calls for free Pakistani elections 17 Jun
Colin Cowherd says PCVs are losers 7 Jun
Tony Hall Warns of Food Shortages in North Korea 7 Jun
Youth Theatre performs Spencer Smith's "Voices from Chernobyl" 7 Jun
Ifugao names forest park after Julia Campbell 6 Jun
Anissa Paulsen assembles "The Many Colors of Islam" 5 Jun
Obituary for Nepal RPCV Loret Miller Ruppe 2 Jun
Forty PCVS to arrive in Ethiopia 2 Jun

Public diplomacy rests on sound public policy Date: June 10 2007 No: 1153 Public diplomacy rests on sound public policy
When President Kennedy spoke of "a long twilight struggle," and challenged the country to "ask not," he signaled that the Cold War was the challenge and framework defining US foreign policy. The current challenge is not a struggle against a totalitarian foe. It is not a battle against an enemy called "Islamofascism." From these false assumptions flow false choices, including the false choice between law enforcement and war. Instead, law enforcement and military force both must be essential instruments, along with diplomacy, including public diplomacy. But public diplomacy rests on policy, and to begin with, the policy must be sound. Read more.

Ambassador revokes clearance for PC Director Date: June 27 2007 No: 1166 Ambassador revokes clearance for PC Director
A post made on PCOL from volunteers in Tanzania alleges that Ambassador Retzer has acted improperly in revoking the country clearance of Country Director Christine Djondo. A statement from Peace Corps' Press Office says that the Peace Corps strongly disagrees with the ambassador’s decision. On June 8 the White House announced that Retzer is being replaced as Ambassador. Latest: Senator Dodd has placed a hold on Mark Green's nomination to be Ambassador to Tanzania.


Peace Corps Funnies Date: May 25 2007 No: 1135 Peace Corps Funnies
A PCV writing home? Our editor hard at work? Take a look at our Peace Corps Funnies and Peace Corps Cartoons and see why Peace Corps Volunteers say that sometimes a touch of levity can be one of the best ways of dealing with frustrations in the field. Read what RPCVs say about the lighter side of life in the Peace Corps and see why irreverent observations can often contain more than a grain of truth. We'll supply the photos. You supply the captions.

PCOL serves half million Date: May 1 2007 No: 1120 PCOL serves half million
PCOL's readership for April exceeded 525,000 visitors - a 50% increase over last year. This year also saw the advent of a new web site: Peace Corps News that together with the Peace Corps Library and History of the Peace Corps serve 17,000 RPCVs, Staff, and Friends of the Peace Corps every day. Thanks for making PCOL your source of news for the Peace Corps community. Read more.

Suspect confesses in murder of PCV Date: April 27 2007 No: 1109 Suspect confesses in murder of PCV
Search parties in the Philippines discovered the body of Peace Corps Volunteer Julia Campbell near Barangay Batad, Banaue town on April 17. Director Tschetter expressed his sorrow at learning the news. “Julia was a proud member of the Peace Corps family, and she contributed greatly to the lives of Filipino citizens in Donsol, Sorsogon, where she served,” he said. Latest: Suspect Juan Duntugan admits to killing Campbell. Leave your thoughts and condolences .

The Peace Corps Library Date: July 11 2006 No: 923 The Peace Corps Library
The Peace Corps Library is now available online with over 40,000 index entries in 500 categories. Looking for a Returned Volunteer? Check our RPCV Directory or leave a message on our Bulletin Board. New: Sign up to receive our free Monthly Magazine by email, research the History of the Peace Corps, or sign up for a daily news summary of Peace Corps stories. FAQ: Visit our FAQ for more information about PCOL.

He served with honor Date: September 12 2006 No: 983 He served with honor
One year ago, Staff Sgt. Robert J. Paul (RPCV Kenya) carried on an ongoing dialog on this website on the military and the peace corps and his role as a member of a Civil Affairs Team in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have just received a report that Sargeant Paul has been killed by a car bomb in Kabul. Words cannot express our feeling of loss for this tremendous injury to the entire RPCV community. Most of us didn't know him personally but we knew him from his words. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. He was one of ours and he served with honor.


Read the stories and leave your comments.






Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

Story Source: Le Monde Diplomatique

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Korea; Speaking Out

PCOL39354
72


Add a Message


This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Username:  
Password:
E-mail: