if ture, what more could have been accomplished to stop it? clinton and albright gave in to his every demand. there wasn't much left to give the little guy with glasses.
I am with you rimrocker. I have never really cared about Iran, Pakistan, India, etc. But something about North Korea and that crazy ass leader of theirs just bothers me.
They didn't really give into his everydemand, they just established a diplomatic relationship. Bush cut those diplomatic ties when he came into office.
It's because he's a communist. People who believe in false economic beliefs(anything other than free market capitalism) usually are people who belong chained in a crazy asylum.
I never said I believed the North Korean leaders. I don't know, yet, if this is even true. Talk, talk, talk... you just gave a good example of just that. You would throw the UN in a dumpster. Oh, what a brilliant idea. You would go to war with North Korea. I used to think that was a good idea, and then I realized it would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not more, South Korean civilians. Oh yes, that would be brilliant. Don't worry. My feelings are far from being hurt, lol. I will ask you this... how does talking one on one with North Korea hurt the United States? How does it hurt? Really, I'd like to know. Would it produce results? In all likelihood, given the madness of the North Korean regime, it wouldn't, but guess what... we'll never know. Why? Because Bush said he won't talk to them one on one. Considering the stakes, what did we have to lose? Bush's pride, because he would have publically changed his mind about something? That in his mind, it would somehow be admitting a mistake on his part? You tell me. How would it harm the United States to hold one on one talks with North Korea? OK, Jackie, it's rediculous to say that Bush's stubborness prevented one on one talks with North Korea about arguably the most important foreign policy objective of the United States, which is to prevent rogue states from getting atomic weapons? Can you explain how it would have hurt the United States to have one on one talks with North Korea? And can you give me a good explanation why the US shouldn't attempt that, if it might have forestalled North Korea testing atomic weapons? What did the US have to lose? Tell me. What did the United States have to lose? Is that decision George W. Bush's, or not? Is someone else responsible for US foreign policy? If some of you would bother thinking, instead of having your knee-jerk Bush defender jollies, you might consider the ramifications of what you want to do, what you're thinking regarding this, and what Bush hasn't done. Again, how does talking to North Korea harm the United States? Would it do any good? I certainly don't know. What I do know is that by refusing to have one on one talks with North Korea, we won't find out, will we. Keep D&D Civil.
Do most people feel the irony that Iraq, a country that didn't have nukes got invaded, but n. korea, one that has been clearly developing them and has not tested them, will never be attacked?
I agree with Josh... Bush supporters can find all kinds of ways to argue that it isn't his fault... they just can't find ways to explain why the administration didn't try something else when what they were doing clearly wasn't working. Incompetence at its highest order and a foreign policy trainwreck. It's also hard for me not to lay this down as another cost of the Iraq War. ____________ http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ We'll need to wait a few more hours for confirmation. But initial signs suggest that the US picked up the seismic signature of the underground nuclear test the North Koreans are claiming to have carried out. We've been pretty sure for some time that the North Koreans had developed a nuclear capacity. This would not only confirm that assumption, but the decision to conduct the test will be interpreted as a sign of belligerence that will send ripples throughout the region, probably first through Japanese rearmament. For the US this is a strategic failure of the first order. The origins of the failure are ones anyone familiar with the last six years in this country will readily recognize: chest-thumping followed by failure followed by cover-up and denial. The same story as Iraq. Even the same story as Foley. North Korea's nuclear program has been a problem for US presidents going back to Reagan, and the conflict between North and South has been a key issue for US presidents going back to Truman. As recently as 1994, the US came far closer to war with North Korea than most Americans realize. President Clinton eventually concluded a complicated and multipart agreement in which the North Koreans would suspend their production of plutonium in exchange for fuel oil, help building light water nuclear reactors (the kind that don't help making bombs) and a vague promise of diplomatic normalization. President Bush came to office believing that Clinton's policy amounted to appeasement. Force and strength were the way to deal with North Korea, not a mix of force, diplomacy and aide. And with that premise, President Bush went about scuttling the 1994 agreement, using evidence that the North Koreans were pursuing uranium enrichment (another path to the bomb) as the final straw. Remember the guiding policy of the early Bush years: Clinton did it=Bad, Bush=Not whatever Clinton did. All diplomatic niceties aside, President Bush's idea was that the North Koreans would respond better to threats than Clinton's mix of carrots and sticks. Then in the winter of 2002-3, the US prepared the invade Iraq, the North called Bush's bluff. And the president folded. Abjectly, utterly, even hilariously if the consequences weren't so grave and vast. Threats are a potent force if you're willing to follow through on them. But he wasn't. The plutonium production plant, which had been shuttered since 1994, got unshuttered. And the bomb that exploded tonight was, if I understand this correctly, almost certainly the product of that plutonium uncorked almost four years ago. So the President talked a good game, the North Koreans called his bluff and he folded. And since then, for all intents and purposes, and all the atmospherics to the contrary, he and his administration have done essentially nothing. Indeed, from the moment of the initial cave, the White House began acting as though North Korea was already a nuclear power (something that was then not at all clear) to obscure the fact that the White House had chosen to twiddle its thumbs and look the other way as North Korea became a nuclear power. Like in Bush in Iraq and Hastert and Foley, the problem was left to smolder in cover-up and denial. Until now. Hawks and Bush sycophants will claim that North Korea is an outlaw regime. And no one should romanticize or ignore the fact that it is one of the most repressive regimes in the world with a history of belligerence, terrorist bombing, missile proliferation and a lot else. They'll also claim that the North Koreans were breaking the spirit if not the letter of the 1994 agreement by pursuing a covert uranium enrichment program. And that's probably true too. But facts are stubborn things. The bomb-grade plutonium that was on ice from 1994 to 2002 is now actual bombs. Try as you might it is difficult to imagine a policy -- any policy -- which would have yielded a worse result than the one we will face Monday morning. Talking tough is great if you can make it stick and back it up; it is always and necessarily cleaner and less compromising than sitting down and dealing with bad actors. Talking tough and then folding your cards doesn't just show weakness it invites contempt. And that is what we have here. The Bush-Cheney policy on North Korea was always what Fareed Zakaria once aptly called "a policy of cheap rhetoric and cheap shots." It failed. And after it failed President Bush couldn't come to grips with that failure and change course. He bounced irresolutely between the Powell and Cheney lines and basically ignored the whole problem hoping either that the problem would go away, that China would solve it for us and most of all that no one would notice. Do you notice now? _________ And then there's this article... Cheney mesing around... sane people vs. those that wanted "regime change." ____________ North Korea: A Nuclear Threat Is Kim Jong Il ready to provoke a regional crisis? An exclusive account of what Pyongyang really wants. By Selig S. Harrison Newsweek International Oct. 16, 2006 issue - On Sept. 19, 2005, North Korea signed a widely heralded denuclearization agreement with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Pyongyang pledged to "abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs." In return, Washington agreed that the United States and North Korea would "respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations." Four days later, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea designed to cut off the country's access to the international banking system, branding it a "criminal state" guilty of counterfeiting, money laundering and trafficking in weapons of mass destruction. The Bush administration says that this sequence of events was a coincidence. Whatever the truth, I found on a recent trip to Pyongyang that North Korean leaders view the financial sanctions as the cutting edge of a calculated effort by dominant elements in the administration to undercut the Sept. 19 accord, squeeze the Kim Jong Il regime and eventually force its collapse. My conversations made clear that North Korea's missile tests in July and its threat last week to conduct a nuclear test explosion at an unspecified date "in the future" were directly provoked by the U.S. sanctions. In North Korean eyes, pressure must be met with pressure to maintain national honor and, hopefully, to jump-start new bilateral negotiations with Washington that could ease the financial squeeze. When I warned against a nuclear test, saying that it would only strengthen opponents of negotiations in Washington, several top officials replied that "soft" tactics had not worked and they had nothing to lose. It was no secret to journalists covering the September 2005 negotiations, or to the North Koreans, that the agreement was bitterly controversial within the administration and represented a victory for State Department advocates of a conciliatory approach to North Korea over proponents of "regime change" in Pyongyang. The chief U.S. negotiator, Christopher Hill, faced strong opposition from key members of his own delegation at every step of the way. It was particularly galling to Victor Cha, director for Asian Affairs in the National Security Council and to Richard Lawless, assistant secretary of Defense, that Hill agreed to conduct intensive bilateral negotiations with North Korea in Beijing prior to the six-party talks. In their eyes, bilateral talks amount to implicit diplomatic recognition, and the "steps to normalize relations" envisaged in the agreement would legitimize a rogue regime. When Hill hosted a dinner in Beijing for the chief North Korean negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan, Cha and Lawless refused to attend. When a draft agreement was finalized, they held up final agreement for three days, unsuccessfully attempting to get the White House to insist on tougher terms. The issue was finally resolved only when China insisted on sticking to the draft agreement. During six hours of intensive give-and-take with Kim Gye Gwan, both in his office and in two one-on-one dinners with only an interpreter present, he said over and over to me, "How can you expect us to return to negotiations when it's clear your administration is paralyzed by divisions between those who hate us and those who want to negotiate seriously? At the very time when we were engaged in such a long dialogue last year, your side was planning for sanctions. Cheney did this to prevent further dialogue that would lead to peaceful coexistence. So many of your leaders, even the president, have talked about regime change. We have concluded that your administration is dysfunctional." At one point in our farewell dinner on Sept. 22, Kim leaned forward and made a pointed comment that clearly foreshadowed the Foreign Ministry's threat to conduct a nuclear test. "We really want to coexist with the United States peacefully," he said, "but you must learn to coexist with a North Korea that has nuclear weapons. You have learned to live with other nuclear powers, so why not us?" I replied, "That doesn't sound like you are really committed to denuclearization." "You misunderstand me," he said. "We are definitely prepared to carry out the Sept. 19 agreement, step by step, but we won't completely and finally dismantle our nuclear weapons program until our relations with the United States are fully normalized. That will take some time, and until we reach the final target, we should find a way to coexist." North Korea is divided between hawks who favor nuclear weapons and pragmatists who are pushing for economic reforms and a denuclearization deal with the United States. Just as the engagement policy pursued by the Clinton administration strengthened the pragmatists, so the Bush shift to a regime-change policy has given the initiative to the hawks. The financial sanctions are very severe. The United States has in effect asked all banks in the world not to deal with North Korea or to handle any transactions involving the country. The Bush administration says that it is enforcing laws against money laundering and counterfeiting, and seeking to stop transactions relating to weapons of mass destruction. But statements by Treasury Department officials have made clear that the goal is to cut off all North Korean financial intercourse with the rest of the world. Undersecretary of the Treasury Stuart Levey told The Wall Street Journal on Aug. 23: "The U.S. continues to encourage financial institutions to carefully assess the risk of holding any North Korea-related accounts." I found instances in North Korea—confirmed by foreign businessmen and foreign embassies—in which legitimate imports of equipment for light industries making consumer goods have been blocked because banks would not handle the transactions. "If the U.S. is not ready to lift all of the financial sanctions, all at once," Foreign Minister Paik Nam Soon said, "then it should show us in other ways that it is ready to give up the regime-change policy." Kim Gye Gwan spelled out what Pyongyang has in mind, calling for bilateral negotiations without preconditions leading to a package deal that would be followed by the resumption of the six-party talks. For example, he indicated, the U.S. would lift some or all of the sanctions in return for North Korean concessions such as a cessation of plutonium production at the Yongbyon reactor; a missile-test moratorium, or a commitment not to transfer nuclear weapons or fissile materials to third parties. Or Washington would offer incentives—such as energy aid and removal of North Korea from the State Department list of terrorist states—in return for a North Korean compromise on aspects of the financial sanctions, to be negotiated. How much are the sanctions hurting? In Pyongyang's view, they are seriously impeding North Korean efforts to carry out economic reforms, because they are blocking foreign investment and trade. They are slowing down economic growth. But there is no sign whatsoever that the sanctions are undermining the Kim Jong Il regime. North Korea is stable and there is more economic activity in Pyongyang than I have ever seen—more cars and bicycles, better-dressed people, more restaurants, more small mom and pop stores, and above all more interest in making money. That's the result of reform policies that give more autonomy and profit incentives to economic enterprises. Everything is still formally owned by the state, but enterprises are leased to managers who pay less to the state than they used to and can keep much more if they make a profit. In contrast to Pyongyang, the countryside is stagnant and impoverished in many areas. But this has not affected the political stability of the regime. The belief that regime change is possible is rooted in the assumption that North Korea is an economic basket case. But the country does have significant natural resources like gold, iron ore and potential seabed oil and gas reserves. China is a hot-button subject in Pyongyang. All of the seven officials I met, including Foreign Minister Paik Nam Soon and Vice President Kim Yong Dae, changed the subject when I asked about trade and investment relations with China or Beijing's pressure not to conduct a nuclear test. Significantly, however, several of them, speaking off the record, pointed to North Korea's "strategic geopolitical location" and emphasized that Pyongyang wanted close ties with the United States, a faraway power, to offset pressures from its neighbors. "It would be good for the United States," one of them said, "to have us as a neutral buffer state in this dangerous area. Who knows, perhaps there are ways in which the United States could benefit from our ports and our intelligence if we become friends." South Korea, like North Korea, sees the United States as a counterweight to its powerful neighbors. In my view, long-term U.S. strategic interests would be served by an end to the sanctions policy, coexistence with the Kim Jong Il regime in return for its denuclearization and support for Seoul's conciliatory approach to Pyongyang as the prelude to a North-South confederation and, in time, a unified Korea. Selig S. Harrison, who just returned from his 10th visit to North Korea, is director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy in Washington. © 2006 Newsweek, Inc. URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15175633/site/newsweek/
rimrocker and lil pun, my previous post was in no way a defense of W for allowing this to occur. he did as little or as much to help advance this as clinton did. the past 10 years have been a complete failure (both with and without negotiations). the lesson i learn from this? you can't negotiate with him but you can't simply ignore him either. i sadly think this is what is going to happen with iran as well. and we have exhausted our troop levels to the point where it would be very difficult to fight either country. hear the draft calling? i'd like to throw this point out there as well... kid b is the cool kid, kid a want's to be like kid b if kid a sees kid b wearing blue jeans, kid a is probably going to want to wear blue jeans too. where is that analogy leading? iraq doesn't have a nuke and gets invaded n. korea gets a nuke and is left alone iran then will do what needs to be done to ensure they get their nuke too.
Bush supporters will tell you.... It's not Bush's fault 9/11 happened It's not Bush's fault Bin Laden has not been captured It's not Bush's fault about the deficit It's not Bush's fault the world hates us It's not Bush's fault there were no WMD's in iraq It's not Bush's fault regarding prision abuses It's not Bush's fault Americans in the middle are getting squeezed It's not Bush's fault about N. Korea It's not Bush's fault the middle east is a mess It's not Bush's fault if a civil war happens in Iraq It's not Bush's fault if the country goes down the toilet It's not Bush's fault. Why should people blame Bush? Or Fault him? Since when does one blame a leader for bad things? No...you never blame the leader. Coaches should never be fired. CEO's are infallible Nothing is Bush's fault. Poor Bush. Why do people Blame him?
and they won't tell you the buck stops here. when did we stop electing leaders that will take responsibility for their actions or inactions?
maybe its just best if America stays out of this one! every time Bush tries to play "Incredible Hulk" on other marginalised countires - things just deteriorate even more rapidly...
We have relied heavily on Chinese and Russian "diplomacy" with regard to NK and I would expect that will continue,but it's almost time to stop the gibber jabber and loose the hounds.You can't and shouldn't negotiate with a madman.Economic sanctions and all the talk in the world aren't going to do jack.Intelligence agencies around the world knew this was coming and it will be handled.There is absolutely NO WAY that the powers that be will allow this to go much farther.In the interest of world safety and spice flow it's time for action. That little dog has been barking for a long time straining against his choker collar,now that he's foaming at the mouth and threatening to pull a "Dokken"....The sun's coming up,the Rooster's doing his thing, and Farmer Brown is headed out to the woodshed with his shotgun. Whether it's the US,the Russians,or the Chinese........or a combo,forget about it.
I'm not sure why some of you are overreacting so much to a 1-kiloton undeliverable nuclear explosion. We've known that NK has had nukes for years now -- this doesn't signal the beginning of armageddon.
The lines Kim cross to deliver his points are getting more and more disturbing. We won't see the immediate effects, but having a crazy dictator who has no qualms giving away the technology and openly admits to having it is a BFD.
It is bad that NK has developed nuclear capability, very bad. But what did people expect. After Bush started blathering about the Axis of Evil and then invaded one of the countries, it would be irrational if the other countries on the list didn't take steps to prevent an invasion. There are no good options in this. There are just bad and worse options. Worse options = provoking or initiating a military confrontation with NK, that would guarantee at least hundreds of thousands dead in SK and NK and global destabilisation with severe economic consequences. Bad = Talk, talk, talk. Negotiation with a repressive paranoid regime and hoping like hell that we can contain NK and manage the transition to a less horrible regime. This process will play out over decades, not years.
New images of test starting to come out: Roll out of the device Precursor detonation Main sequence detonation Much bigger than I was expecting.
My 2 cents: 1 Because of the time line, IF you insist on blaming Clinton or Bush, Clinton gets more blame because it was too late for Bush to do anything about North Korea's nukes. That is a fact. I doubt very much Bush would have done any better if he had been president from 1992-2000, but by 2000 it was too late. Once North Korea got within sniffing distance, nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, would have stopped them from the finish line. Bush's tactics the last 6 years can be considered a failure, but he couldn't have done anything to stop this. NK would have stalled and made excuses indefinitely, with or without one on one talks. 2 Please realize that attacking NK will result in millions of deaths in South Korea. Forget nukes. NK has so much weaponry aimed across the DMZ it isn't funny. Japan would be hit also. 3 New Yorker: The whole point was to prevent Iraq from crossing the line that NK did. The fact that NK is located next to South Korea and has so many missiles is what prevents invasion. However, the irony is amazing and your point is well taken. Just remember who our president is. 4 KingCheetah, nobody is overreacting. This is a very very big deal. NK's detonation will reverberate around the world diplomatically, not just in Asia.
so has there been any confirmation? it just seems like an awfully long time to go without official confirmation.
NK having nukes is nobody in the US's fault. If you want to blame someone blame the former USSR and China for supplying them with the technology. There is absolutely nothing the US can do about it. NK has a standing 1 million man army that, though under fed, is well armed and dug in to bunkers they have been building for 50 years. NK can't use their nukes for anything but blackmail, what whould they acheive by using them on their neighbors? The best policy for dealing with NK is to ignor them. That being said, they certainly could try to sell weapons for hard currency but I would guess the best way to deal with that would be with intelligence assets and a ready naval response. I would think the US keeps submarines on station off the North Korean ports 24/7/365 already. I don't know what legal pretext we might use to board and search vessels leaving NK in international waters, but I'd bet if the intelligence were strong we'd do it. North Korea is not communist. Communism implies that the government serves some purposes for the people. If you read the literature on the websites that were in last weeks NK thread, their philosophy is that the purpose of the people is to serve the state and Kim Il Jong is the state. It's a very creepy concept; if I were going to a halloween party this year I would go an Kim Il. This is really China's problem to deal with. Welcome to the World Power's Club.
