September 19, 2005
Right Back Where We Started
The Six-Party forum dealing with North Korea’s nuclear programs just reached an agreement. I’m extremely happy North Korea decided to disarm, but I’m extremely pissed that President Bush is giving North Korea the exact same deal they had before he triggered the crisis. It was a stupid and dangerous waste allowing North Korea to develop 8+ nuclear weapons in the four years that could have been spent reconciling both Koreas.
In 2000, North and South Korea were on the verge of reunification until President Bush brought the process to a screeching halt in 2001. In 2002, President Bush declared North Korea part of the "Axis of Evil", and then accused them of having a secret uranium enrichment program. In response, North Korea hastily converted spent fuel rods from the reactor President Clinton shut down a decade earlier into eight or more nuclear weapons. For more detail, see Fred Kaplan's "Rolling Blunder: How the Bush administration let North Korea get nukes".
At first, President Bush insisted he would not negotiate with nor offer inducements to North Korea until they disarmed and dismantled the alleged uranium enrichment program, leading to a stalemate that lasted until Condoleezza Rice became Secretary of State. At that point, Bush administration policy flip-flopped and real negotiations -- not just one-sided demands -- led to today's agreement. An agreement that looks exactly the same as the agreement in place when President Bush first became President -- right down to the light water nuclear reactor North Korea is being promised. Crazy.
When I think of what could have been accomplished had President Bush just continued President Clinton's and Kim Dae Jung's policy of opening up North Korea... Damn, it pisses me off. What a stupid, dangerous waste of four years. Well, at least good sense finally prevailed, and hopefully things are back on track.
Posted by American Pundit at September 19, 2005 09:49 AMWhat do you expect from this administration?
Name one thing that this administration can consider a success.
Domestic policy?
Foreign policy?
Education?
Homeland Security?
Iraq?
Social Security Privatization?
The Economy?
The Environment?
World opinion?
Morality?
This administration is failing at everything.
OOPS!
I thought of one thing they have accomplished. They have eliminated the seperation between church and state.
Hey - come on… it’s about the ONLY thing this administration has accomplished so quickly. 8+ nukes at no cost to our taxpayers… what’s not to like about that?
Posted by: tony at September 19, 2005 10:57 AMOr better yet:
If you can’t do anything right, at least you can serve as a bad example.
Posted by: tony at September 19, 2005 11:00 AMAP, thanks for the links, Kaplan’s was really good to read.
BTW, is it me only or since last decade the nuclear energy access is now a strategic issue around the world?
Anyway. “Axes of Evil” name calling could backfire some policy it seems. I really dunno how US foreign policy credibility could be lower. Alas, I’m worried that your administration could find yet again a way to reach new level :-(
Like stopping funding an UN agency because of domestic pro-life ideology.
Great move, guys.
From Euroland.
I’m sorry, but the post is utter nonsense.
Further, it’s malicious nonsense.
And further still, it’s simply bizzarre how the links provided bear no relevance to the points they’re used to support.
North Korea and South Korea “were on the very verge of reunification in 2000?” What utter bull. The so called “sunshine policy” meant that they were trying to increase diplomatic ties—that’s a far cry from reunification.
Bush is gving the North Korean’s the same deal that existed before he triggered the crisis? Before he triggered it? North Korea’s cheating on nuclear agreements was Bush’s doing?
Too bad Bush didn’t continue Clinton’s policy? Of what? Striking deals that North Korea didn’t follow?
The fact is that like Libyan disarmament, and elections in Afghanistan, Iraq and Egypt, the Bush administration has achieved yet another foreign policy triumph and the whacky internet Kos-Kids who can’t even keep their facts straight are spinning as fast they can.
Posted by: sanger at September 19, 2005 11:50 AMI have to agree with Sanger.
The problem is that the North Koreans are completely untrustworthy. I don’t have much confidence in this agreement either.
Paul
I know people object to the use of the term evil and I agree that it is problem bad manners from the diplomatic standpoint, but North Korea is essentially a very large concentration camp. We could do the old thing and compare them to the Nazis, but the North Koreans have managed to outdo them, at least on a per-capita basis. The term evil really does fit here. Children are dying, people are starving, the government is building bombs and it is all part of the official policy.
Reunification in 2000? This is a great slogan for the uniformed nationalists, but South Korea couldn’t afford reunification at this time. Think of what happen with the Germans and East Germany, despite its horrible system, was still better than North Korea.
This problem can be managed, but not solved until there is a fundamental change in the North and the only people who can make that happen are the Chinese. It is America’s problem in that we will suffer when the N. Koreans do something stupid, but it is not ours to solve, unfortunately.
American Pundit-
Have you ever raised (and had control of) or taught (and had control of) children?
Since President Bush took office, he has taken 365 days vacation. It would’ve been 367 but that damn Katrina forced him back to work:-(
Can anyone name another U.S. President who took vacations while the country was actively at war? Would the citizens have been so eager to stand up for Wilson if he was on vacation, riding his bike and fishing during WWI? Hell no- he would’ve been lynched! No other U.S. President has made so many mistakes as George W. He can’t even read what other people write for him- yet he was re-elected! Now we have these right wing, anti-choice, let the poor, starving children of our country pull themselves up by their bootstraps while we spend billions of dollars on liberating other countries that don’t want us there, standing up for Mr. Bush and regularily picking fights with those of us that don’t agree with his politics. Why is that? Do they think that he can’t stand up for himself? Do they see that his track record is so awful, that he’s alienated the U.S. from just about every other country in the world and therefore he needs their constant support? I will freely admit that I was once proud to be a Republican but now I am even more proud to be a Democrat!
Pundit
You always brighten up my day.
Every time I am on the verge of getting bored with the other posts here on the left,you post a doozie.
Must be that Singapore shrimp your eating.
Suffice to say that I disagree with every noun,verb,and adjective of this post.
If this pans out(and that is a big IF),this is terrific news for everyone.
For once….just once….be positive about one internationial occurrance without being so partisian….please.
NEWSFLASH —-
North Korea AGREES to STOP making nuclear weapons and will let inspectors in.
Posted by: bugcrazy at September 19, 2005 03:33 PMoh - forgot.
Bush didn’t take Kerry’s advice soon enough or this would have already happened - right.
Posted by: bugcrazy at September 19, 2005 03:34 PMHey kids!
Wanna learn a new fun game? It’s easy. It’s called “right wing debate tactics”. Here’s how to play. When someone has a point that you can’t refute using logic or facts, just follow these four simple rules:
Rule 1: Characterize their argument like this:
“utter nonsense”
“malicious nonsense”
“simply bizarre”
“utter bull”
You can think up other bad words, too, kids. If that doesn’t work, use rule 2: Try a distraction that has little or nothing to do with the point of the argument, but make the argument sound bad:
the links provided bear no relevance to the points they’re used to support
Did that work? No? Well, go on to rule 3: Blame someone else:
Clinton’s policy [of]Striking deals that North Korea didn’t followThis rule works really good, because it blames the Clinton administration for North Korea’s failure to follow the deal. See? It’s really easy! And fun, too!
Did that work? No? Well, we’ve save the best for last. This one’s guaranteed to work. Rule (4) name-calling and other verbal abuse:
the whacky internet Kos-Kids who can’t even keep their facts straight are spinning as fast they can
See? Now you kids can debate just like a real conservative! Want more information? Just mail $5,000,000 in a plain brown wrapper to:
KARL ROVE DEBATE SCHOOL
PO BOX 123
WASHINGTON, DC
If you’d like to be the head of FEMA, mail an additional $400,000.
Posted by: Elliottbay at September 19, 2005 03:53 PM… you forgot how ‘said argument’ is anti-American and undermines the troops.
Posted by: tony at September 19, 2005 04:00 PMAP — yeah, finally got around to something. Yee-haw!!!
Andre — spot on, as usual.
Elliotbay — so funny, and so damn true!
KARL ROVE DEBATE SCHOOL
PO BOX 123
WASHINGTON, DC
what’s the website? Can I learn all this on line?
Or better yet, books on tape that I can listen to in my gas-guzzling SUV while I’m stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic? I need something to do as a engage in my God-given (the one things Republicans have done) right to commute 60-miles to work each day!
Posted by: bobo at September 19, 2005 05:05 PMElliotbay, you get points for the humor.
But it wasn’t me (and it sure wasn’t Karl Rove) who put a post on Watchblog saying that North and South Korea almost “reunified” in 2000 and 2001. That they would have done so if it they weren’t stopped by George Bush.
And further, it wasn’t me who attempted to lend support to such a hilarious fantasy by linking to completely irrelevant articles. American Pundit might as well have linked to the baseball scores or Roger Ebert’s review of Legally Blonde 2 to support his contentions about North Korea.
If the ability to point out facts (and I notice that you make no effort to defend the post on factual grounds) is what they teach at Karl Rove’s Debate School, then perhaps you should enroll.
The curriculum sure beats what they’re serving up across the street at Michael Moore’s Skool of Elemetary Leftist Logik.
sanger:
Nice of you not to mention that the Deal is the EXACT same one 4 years ago. BushCo started this crises by including North Korea in his “Axis of Evil” Speech. You remember that? How about Colin Powell with the “White Powder”? Thanks for wasting Taxpayer money and putting a dozen nukes into exitence.
Posted by: Aldous at September 19, 2005 05:21 PMWhy is it that so many leftist commentators have such trouble marshalling pertinent evidence to support their anti-Bush positions?
Some may believe that this is the reason.
Can they prove that it’s not? Is it really, as some allege, that they lack patriotism and true American values?
Or is it a more deeply seated problem?
As a conservative, I’m able to identify the problem, but so far the solution on how to debate according to the terms and logic of the left eludes me.
sanger,
But it wasn’t me (and it sure wasn’t Karl Rove) who put a post on Watchblog saying that North and South Korea almost ‘reunified’ in 2000 and 2001.Excellent! You used rules 2 (attack an irrelevant point) and 4 (blame someone else) in one sentence. You get extra points. Obviously, you are a skilled conservative debater.
AP’s point, which has been completely ignored, is that we could have had EXACTLY the same deal that was announced today, all the way back in 2000. The only difference is that now North Korea has nuclear weapons.
jack,
I agree with you that North Korea is basically a concentration camp. But name-calling (“the axis of evil”) by the Bush administration placed a roadblock on potential diplomatic solutions. It seems to me that diplomacy ought to be conducted behind closed doors, instead of in public speeches. You don’t publicly call someone evil if you have ANY hopes of acheiving a diplomatic solution. Teddy Roosevelt got it right, “speak softly and carry a big stick”, but it seems that the Bush administration believes in threatening people with the stick first.
Posted by: ElliottBay at September 19, 2005 06:19 PMOops, sorry. Blaming someone else is rule 3, not rule 4. My bad.
Posted by: ElliottBay at September 19, 2005 06:23 PMHa—I get it now. It’s a clever trap you liberals have set for we unsuspecting conservative debaters!
If we attack an irrelevant point, we have committed a foul. So you string arguments together which consist entirely of irrelevant points to prevent any response! The more irrelevant points you raise, the more impossible it is to challenge you. Brilliant!
Perhaps, though, the left has done it’s job too well, founding an entire political philosophy on irrelevant ideas and becoming increasingly irrelevant in Washington as well.
Posted by: sanger at September 19, 2005 06:30 PMDid anyone else notice that sanger STILL makes no comment on the Deal itself and its similarity to the previous Deal 4 years ago? I suppose we should all be grateful sanger did not call us unpatriotic and anti-American again.
Posted by: Aldous at September 19, 2005 08:38 PMsanger -
You do remember that N & S Korea were towards the end of talks when Bush made his ‘axis of evil’ speech. N. Korea immediately dropped out of the talks and started making noise about their nuclear weapons programs - namely, reprocessing the fuel rods. While N. Korea did this, they continually stated that they would halt the programs if America would agree not to attack/invade them as we were in the process of going into Iraq.
So - same issues and solutions we face now… but N. Korea may have up to 8 nuclear weapons.
Please tell me how this is all ‘irrelevant’? How is it ‘someone else’s fault?”
http://www.atomicarchive.com/Reports/Northkorea/Timeline.shtml
It’s interesting how all of the Democratic posters here have adopted North Korea’s version of events— blaming Bush for each and every one of their failures to hold to their agreements.
Tony, the timeline you link to does not support your version of events. I won’t accuse you of intentionaly making this error, because you’ll notice if you look closely that that timeline has serious problems. For one, it places the events of August 14, 2002 before the events of January 29, 2002—making it look like North and South Korea were holding negotions before but not after Bush’s speech.
Bush made his axis of evil speech in January of 2002. North Korea did not immediatly start “making noises” about their nuclear weapons programs as a result of his speech.
It was not until October of 2002, when they were confronted with intelligence of a clandestine nuclear program, that they admitted what they were up to. Then, in December of the same year, they began reprocessing the rods—almost 11 months after Bush’s speech, and as result of getting caught and trying to strengthen their hand in negotiations.
If you look closely at that faulty timeline, you see that in August of 2002, North Korea held talks with South Korea (again, this was after Bush’s speech).
If you need to say whose fault this is, you have to say it’s North Korea’s.
As for the deal being the same as the one North Korea broke four years ago, so what? That’s what we wanted them to honor all along. The administration has made it very clear that implementation of this deal must include—as it didn’t before—very strict monitoring and dismantling of all North Korean nuclear weapons and programs. If that occurs, then we’ll get what we want, and they’ll get what they want—a light water reactor.
This time it won’t be, as it was before, a question of “Trust but verify.” It will be one of mistrust AND verify. Otherwise, no deal.
Posted by: sanger at September 19, 2005 10:16 PMJack,
The problem is that the North Koreans are completely untrustworthy. I don�t have much confidence in this agreement either.
Then why US just agreed this new 1994-like framework? There’s no point in signing a pact/agreement/contract or whatever you call it if your country have *ZERO* confidence in it, don’t trust parties on the agreed points.
No trust, no deal.
But it seems your country just AGREED, so he’s engaged not breaking the deal first, right?
That (will) needs a little bit of trust.
To be fair, I’ve not much confidence in this agreement myself. I really think many if not all signing parties will soon break it again, as before.
Mostly because nobody are ready to give NK what they are really after: (nuclear) energy independency. Someones may think it’s better just waiting NK dictatorship collapse itself, even if it mean keeping NK *PEOPLE* energy-less for years…
If you read the financial annual reports of KEDO, the US-led international body setup to implement 1994’ Framework Agreement by funding and building 2 Light Water Reactors in NK, you will see that, except Japan, South Korea (ROK) and European Atomic Energy Community, nobody funded the LWR construction costs, by far the hugest. Instead, US big funds were (they stopped in 2002) restricted only on KEDO administration cost and the Heavy Fuel Oil supplies cost.
I understand that US is not the best country to provide nuclear energy skills these days, but you do have the economic power to help more than a little bit funding a LWR construction, right?
You don’t want to for foreign doctrine, that’s your choice. Great. 5 years after this new doctrine, 8+ nukes were created by one of the cruelest and mad dictator to counter (with some success it seems) US agressive policy, his dictatorship is still there and North Koreans are still starving for energy and… well, pretty much everything else.
Great doctrine, indeed. Ineffective, but still great, strong, agressive one. That’s the important point after all, your country can’t be seen as weak or wrong. Noway!
Sanger,
Yet another foreign policy triumph
Definitively.
Mission accomplished!
… elections in Afghanistan, Iraq and Egypt…
Care to elaborate on which way Egypt elections is “yet another foreign policy triumph” for US?
- From Euroland.
Sanger -
Nice catch - however those are simple typos… not intentional misdirections.
April 6, 2002
North Korea agrees to revive stalled dialogue with Washington and South Korea and is willing to hold talks with an American envoy.
August 14, 2002
South and North Korea agree to hold family reunions and resume contacts on a range of issues, signaling the resumption of their reconciliation process after months of tension.
(These should read 2001.)
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/02/19/southkorea.reunion/
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/09/16/korea.talks/
Posted by: tony at September 20, 2005 06:54 AMI like how sanger completely dismisses every fact I stated without providing any information as to why they’re “utter nonsense”.
But thanks for finally responding to the main point of the article:
The administration has made it very clear that implementation of this deal must include?as it didn?t before?very strict monitoring and dismantling of all North Korean nuclear weapons and programs.
The 1994 deal did include strict monitoring and dismantlement of all North Korean nuclear weapons and programs.
But here’s the really important part: Jack and Philippe are right that we have no reason to trust North Korea, but that’s not the point. The strategy that won the Cold War — opening up the USSR and China to cultural and information exchange — will also topple or liberalize Kim Jong-Il’s repressive dictatorship.
It looks like the Bush administration is finally back on the right track, but at the cost of 8 nukes in the hands of a wacko and four wasted years that could have been spent continuing the process of opening up North Korea.
NEWSBREAK!
mypang changed his mind!!
Must be something Bush did.
It looks like the Bush administration is finally back on the right track, but at the cost of 8 nukes in the hands of a wacko and four wasted years that could have been spent continuing the process of opening up North Korea
Wasted four years doing what? While this so-called “opening up” of North Korea was going on, they were running a secret nuclear program for crying out loud. Should we have just ignored that fact?
Do you really believe that the “sunshine policy” and giving in to every demand for money and resources was going to thwart Kim Jong Il’s nuclear ambitions?
Since the North Koreans were determined to work on aquiring nuclear weapons, what could have been done short of invading North Korea? Blackmail wasn’t working, “sunshine” wasn’t working. As you said yourself, Kim Jong Il is a whacko.
Would you have supported an invasion?
We have reason to think that there is a nuclear weapon program in North Korea, but we don’t know it’s capabilities as a verifiable fact. If an invasion had taken place just because we had every reason to believe in the existence of this program, what if we found out it wasn’t there and North Korea had been bluffing?
Then the American left would totally forget their prior belief in the existence of those weapons, just as they did with Iraq, and accuse Bush of lying. Bush took the route of using diplomatic pressure, and now its bearing fruit. But it’s just too obvious what the liberal position is here—to cast blame even when there are no better alternatives.
—-
But it’s just too obvious what the liberal position is here—to cast blame even when there are no better alternatives.
—-
How about allowing North & South Korea to continue their talks rather than threatening them/labeling the North “Axis of Evil.”? Bush pissed them off, scared the hell out of them, so they dug in and manufactured 8 nuclear weapons… in the hands of ‘a wacko.’
Invading North Korea would be a really bad idea, especially if you happen to live in South Korea. Why did Bush feel the need to kick sand in their faces?
Posted by: tony at September 20, 2005 02:13 PMTony, I’m amazed at how you keep overlooking the fact that North Korea had a clandestine nuclear program running BEFORE Bush said anything and DURING these talks with South Korea—talks which included such gems as calling the South Koreans “blood-sucking dogs and imperial slaves.” These talks were meaningless because South Korea has little standing to bargain with NK, except to give them money in answer to threats.
I’m amazed too at how you can totally overlook North Korea’s entire foreign policy history, which consists of trying to threaten and intimidate its neighbors in exchange for money and technology. You seem to swallowed North Korean propaganda in its entirety.
Poor Kim Jong Il, distracted from starving millions of his citizens to death, was “frightened” by George Bush. I guess it makes sense to you then why he should then threaten Japan and North Korea with nukes? Or has it occured to you that claiming to be frightended was part of a ruse in order to scare the international community into propping up their failing regime once again?
Sanger -
You keep pointing out what everyone is ‘totally overlooking or missing’ when you can’t seem to see what’s in front of your nose. It wasn’t until they were part of the ‘axis of evil’ that they publicly said - “Hey, unless you agree to not to attack us, we will be pushing our nuclear program full speed ahead.” Yea - the was a whole lot of posturing… to GET THE US TO THE TABLE. We didn’t go, we didn’t stop them from producing nuclear weapons.
It’s not all Bush’s fault that for North Korea being who they are… but they developed the nukes while on Bush’s watch, in direct response to his threats… and that’s what he is responsible for.
Posted by: tony at September 20, 2005 03:34 PMActually they said “Unless you give us millions of dollars in goodies and promise not to attack us (meaning defend anyone we choose to attack) then we are going to keep doing exactly what we are already doing.”
They got caught breaking their agreements, and instead of backing down, they saw an opportunity for even more blackmail and extortion. After all, giving in to their bluster is what previous administrations had done.
Calling them part of an axis of evil? Sounds pretty accurate to me for a regime that murders and starves millions of its own people. What the left doesn’t understand is that talking tough WORKS, especially when you demonstrate a willingness to back up your words with action.
If North Korea now disarms, the ONLY reason will be that Bush challenged them and called them on the behavior they’d already exhibited before Bush was even in office (including their illicit nuclear program).
And perhaps more importantly, because the example of Iraq let’s them know that they’re not dealing with yet another creampuff in the Oval Office.
Do you think that if Bush would have said “Cute and cuddly pussycats” instead of “axis of evil” that North Korea would be driven to potentially give up their nukes? I know that’s the liberal position on all foreign policy matters, but I simply disagree.
Posted by: sanger at September 20, 2005 04:12 PMWhat the left doesn’t understand is that talking tough WORKSWhat the right doesn’t understand is that diplomacy WORKS…but only if you avoid insulting the very country you are trying to negotiate with in front of the entire world…and only if you avoid insulting some of the other countries in the six-party talks in front of the entire world.
If it makes you feel better to call liberals “creampuffs” that do nothing but talk of “cuddly pussycats” then so be it… but it doesn’t change the fact that Bush’s skills at diplomacy are deplorable.
Posted by: Charles Wager at September 20, 2005 04:59 PMsanger -
can you provide links to your assertions? Right now it sounds like a lot of conjecture and projected opinion…
Posted by: tony at September 20, 2005 05:03 PMCharles, Bush’s “deplorable” diplomatic skills have raised the real possibility of disarming North Korea, an area where previous administrations (with there refusal to insult even blood-soaked dictators) failed. And failed miserably.
Do you ever wonder why Sweden or Jaimaca aren’t the ones called on to negotiate with the North Koreans? All that’s necessary is to project a sunny disposition and avoid insulting Kim Jong Il, right? After all, he’s a very pleasant man and if you’ll just say sweet things to him he’ll listen to reason and sing Kumbaya around the campfire.
If you don’t see the link between successful diplomacy and force (which includes forceful language), you must… well, you must be a Democrat.
Posted by: sanger at September 20, 2005 05:21 PMsanger,
Bush’s “deplorable” diplomatic skills have raised the real possibility of disarming North KoreaBush’s deplorable diplomatic skills have made it a reality that North Korea has nuclear arms in the first place.
Do you ever wonder why Sweden or Jaimaca aren’t the ones called on to negotiate with the North Koreans? All that’s necessary is to project a sunny disposition and avoid insulting Kim Jong Il, right?Actually no, sanger, you are putting words in my mouth. I never claimed that having the force to back up one’s position isn’t necessary. I am claiming that Bush’s deplorable diplomatic skills mean that he is likely to squander our resources by destroying diplomatic ties that have taken years to build, or in the worse case scenario he will squander even more of our resources by getting us into another conflict that could have been avoided.
If you don’t see the link between successful diplomacy and force (which includes forceful language), you must… well, you must be a Democrat.I’m not a Democrat, but if you think this is what the Democrats believe you must… well, you must be blinded by the Republican talking points.
Posted by: Charles Wager at September 20, 2005 06:18 PM
Bush was the only President in charge when N. Korea manufactured nuclear weapons.
His pathetic deplomacy created this situation, and at best, we might get to where relations were 4 years ago… with less trust on both sides, and 8 more nuclear weapons.
Bush might be able to get N. Korea to dismantle their nuclear programs, but they will still have the weapons.
btw - only a blinded REP could come up with an argument like this one…
—-
Do you ever wonder why Sweden or Jaimaca aren’t the ones called on to negotiate with the North Koreans? All that’s necessary is to project a sunny disposition and avoid insulting Kim Jong Il, right? After all, he’s a very pleasant man and if you’ll just say sweet things to him he’ll listen to reason and sing Kumbaya around the campfire.
If you don’t see the link between successful diplomacy and force (which includes forceful language), you must… well, you must be a Democrat.
—-
Wasted four years doing what? While this so-called “opening up” of North Korea was going on, they were running a secret nuclear program for crying out loud. Should we have just ignored that fact?
sanger, if you’ve got proof that NK had a clandestine nuclear program, the Bush administration sure would like to see it. So far, all they’ve got is a couple bits of circumstantial evidence they’re casting in the worst possible light, and a cock & bull story by Kim’s ex-sushi chef (codename: Curveball, no doubt).
The evidence is so thin, President Bush recently had to lie (“U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export”) about North Korea supplying uranium hexaflouride to Libya just to keep the six-party allies together. The CIA itself shot down that tall tale.
Here are a couple interesting analyses by people who have access to the administration’s intelligence data: “The United States, North Korea, And The End Of The Agreed Framework” and “Did North Korea Cheat?”. Those should get you up to speed on the tenuousness of the Bush administration’s “evidence” of a NK uranium enrichment program.
After Iraq, the fact that none of our allies in the six party talks find US “evidence” credible should be setting off alarm bells. It sure did among Republicans in Congress.
Sometimes I wonder if the whole world will not be safer, what a paradox, if every nations had nukes…
As everyone can see, if you have them or a nuclear program to have some ASAP, even the most power nations are trying to negociate with you instead of planning attack/invasion/blocus.
No wonder why every nations are after nukes these days. When one confuse diplomacy with insulting, threating, name-calling, muscle showing, I guess it’s indeed “Yet another foreign policy triumph” for the planet.
Sigh.
From Euroland.
Sanger:
What point are you trying to make here? That’s why I haven’t commented earlier in this thread, You reply to your own replies, always taking the most extreme positions possible, I am taking a vacation(something I learned From Emporer George II) from blogging. It is only a vacation sadly, I’ll Feel the need to express my humble opinions again soon.
As Always,
Wayne
My apologies to Sanger and the readers and posters at Watchblog.com, For attacking the messenger and not the message.
In the future while reading I will sit on my hands and refrain from this dispicable act.
Wayne, no apologies necessary (to me at least).
My posts only look “extreme” because they’re the only ones here that do more than recite the propaganda of Kim Jong Il.
You see, I don’t buy the arguments of blood-soaked dictators who murder and starve millions of their own people when they claim that it’s George Bush’s fault that they’ve broken their treaties, threatened their neigbors with nucluear weapons and tried to use blackmail as a way of propping up their repulsive and failing tyrannical regime.
You see, I don’t take Kim Jong Il’s word over Bill Clinton’s, George Bush’s and Madeliene Albright’s—all people who’ve advanced the very same version of events that I have.
Posted by: sanger at September 21, 2005 09:56 PMsanger,
My posts only look “extreme” because they’re the only ones here that do more than recite the propaganda of Kim Jong Il.
I see a lot of non-“sanger” posts above that provide links to sources other than Kim Jong Il—in fact some of them are from our own government. You haven’t yet explained why any source that doesn’t support your viewpoint is automatically “Kim Jong Il” propaganda. In addition, you haven’t yet provided any sources of your own to demonstrate that the claims you are making are not propaganda.
Posted by: Charles Wager at September 21, 2005 11:08 PM
Charles, as I’ve already pointed out, the links provided in the post bear no relevance to what they supposdely prove. Linking to just anything is not how you prove a point. Read American Pundit’s claims. Then follow his links. Do they relate? I’m afraid not.
But one shouldn’t need a link to know that North and Korea were not on the “verge of reunification” before Bush. If people think that South Korea’s “sunshine policy” almost brought about reunification and that North Korea is just an innocent victim of Goeorge Bush, I’ll leave them to that belief and not waste my time trolling through Google to prove facts already in the public record.
By the same token, if people want to say that the earth is flat instead of round, I don’t see it as my god-given duty to educate them. Sorry.
Posted by: sanger at September 22, 2005 12:31 AMsanger -
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Charles, as I’ve already pointed out, the links provided in the post bear no relevance to what they supposdely prove. Linking to just anything is not how you prove a point. Read American Pundit’s claims. Then follow his links. Do they relate? I’m afraid not.
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I think you should spend more time reading and following the links, and generally thinking through the events…
It was the reaction to Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ comments that spurred North Korea to go into seclusion and rev up their nuclear programs. they didn’t start enriching the spent fuel rods until after several attempts to get the US to the table (and agree not to attack/invade North Korea.) Bush ignored these requests and generally pushed onto the backburner while pushing ahead with Iraq.
North Korea potentially had nuclear programs in place, but they were activated and came to fruition on Bush’s watch.
How does Bush elude responsibility for this? I’m not talking about history, I’m talking 8 nuclear weapons in the hands on a very unstable person.
Posted by: tony at September 22, 2005 09:03 AMCharles, as I?ve already pointed out, the links provided in the post bear no relevance to what they supposdely prove.
And you still haven’t given me a single example of how the links have no relevance, sanger.
BTW, I know a lot of people just don’t bother to read the links they comment on. This is from the “on the verge of reunification” link:
The June summit, bringing the two Koreas closer than they have been in 50 years, raised the hopes of Koreans on either side of the divided peninsula that a lasting peace between the last two Cold War foes could, finally, be achieved.In the months that followed the pace of events set in train by the historic meeting has, if anything, accelerated.
In August, the first of a planned series of reunions took place, as 200 families divided for more than half a century were reunited with relatives many had thought lost for ever.
Moves have also been made to restore transport links between the two countries - bridging the barbed wire, tank traps and landmines that line one of the most heavily fortified border zones in the world.
For its part the secretive North Korean state has begun reaching out to the rest of the world, building new diplomatic ties and developing its relationship with its one-time arch enemy, the United States.
That was from October 2000. Oh, and Kim Dai-Jung got the Nobel Peace Prize for his “sunshine policy” that year.
Posted by: American Pundit at September 22, 2005 10:44 AM
