S. Korean Gov. Withdraws Financial Support frm Am. Enterprise Inst!!

[Gloria]

From the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com


I didn't know they even funnelled money to this outfit, did you??


3//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong Jul 15, 2005

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/GG15Dg01.html



SEOUL’S WARNING TO THE US ON PYONGYANG

By Todd Crowell

The South Korean government has withdrawn its financial support for an influential Washington DC-based policy institute to show its displeasure over a series of articles about the North Korean nuclear weapons situation that the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) published in the summer issue of its magazine, The American Enterprise.

"Nip it Now," reads the cover line of the July-August issue, with a picture of a huge nuclear explosion. The sub-heading reads, "Averting a Nightmare in North Korea." Inside, the authors lay out the case for dissolving the alliance with South Korea, stifling China if it doesn't pressure the North into giving up its nuclear weapons program, and waging a preemptive war.

The American Enterprise is a publication of the AEI, which has provided many of the senior figures of the current Republican administration. Part of its US$30 million annual budget has been underwritten for years by the Korea Foundation, a government institution under the Foreign Ministry in Seoul.

Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon recently told a committee of the National Assembly that the Korea Foundation had ended is support for the AEI because of the articles. He said that South Korea had contributed about $1.4 million to the institute's activities since 1992. President Roh Moo-hyun fired back himself: under no circumstances will South Korea allow the US to attack North Korea.

The authors of the controversial articles are Daniel Kennelly, managing editor of The American Interest, conservative writers Gordon Cucullu and Victor Davis Hanson, James Lilley, a former ambassador to South Korea and China, and Nicholas Eberstadt, author of The End of North Korea.

That a major publication aimed at conservatives should raise the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and advocate preemptive war and regime change, is fairly standard neo-conservative fare. What is unusual is the amount of venom that was directed at America's presumed ally in any such endeavor, South Korea.

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[GreenPartyVoter]

1. This is news to me

[kestrel91316]

2. Isn''t AEI a "right-wing think tank"??