Before leaving office, then President George W. Bush allowed his State Department to take North Korea off the department’s list of “State Sponsors of Terror.” Earlier this year, an international panel concluded that North Korea was responsible for firing on and sinking a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors. Today, President Barack Obama’s State Department said this:
State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said during a regular news conference that the sinking was the act of one state’s military against another’s and not an act of terrorism. Thus, it is not ground to put North Korea back on the U.S. terror blacklist.
“It is our judgment that the sinking of the Cheonan is not an act of international terrorism and by itself would not trigger placing North Korea on the U.S. state (sponsors) of terrorism list,” he said.
But Crowley assured head-scratching journalists that if North Korea complies better with “sponsoring” terrorism, the regime will be rewarded.
“We will not hesitate to take action if we have information that North Korea has repeatedly provided support for acts of terrorism,” Crowley added.
So, it sounds like there are two reasons for no relisting North Korea on the “Sponsors of Terror” list. Both require quibbling with definitions. First, when a sovereign nation’s military kills members of another sovereign nation’s military, it is not an act of terrorism. Okay, but it is most certainly an act of war. Is the Obama State Department implying that North Korea engaged in an act of war? If so, it seems like there should be consequences for such an act above and beyond concluding that it doesn’t meet an overly technical definition of terrorism. (Anyone think the South Korean sailors weren’t terrorized as they died?)
The second reason is that “sponsoring” terrorism apparently requires a sovereign nation to have “repeatedly provided support” for acts of terrorism. But when did sponsoring something require “repeated” support? Is the local car dealership not a sponsor of a Little League team unless it “repeatedly” sponsors them? At this point, does “repeated” mean twice, or more than twice? And is North Korea staying off the list because they did an act directly instead of just “sponsoring” it? Just tell the North Korean government what it has to do to get back on that list, Mr. Crowley!
People are dying to know.
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