N. Korea Says It Is Making Nuclear Bombs ----

You 'guarantee' that we can negotiate with them in good faith? Oh boy, I feel a bet coming on... This is starting to get ridiculous.

And what exactly makes you think that they would sell? Why - oh why - if, by your logic since their nukes are merely to prevent our invading - would they sell them to us? Then by your own logic, they would have no way to stop us...

Do you see where this is going?

Ah yes, one of the more colorful myths of the American left - giving themselves credit for winning the Cold War, and trying to justify 40 years of defeat and retreat. (would you, like me to name all of the countries we retreated from during the Cold War? I will if you'd like...)

Ronald Reagon won the Cold War by challenging the Soviets, not containing them. We can defeat North Korea by challinging them - in the form of not giving in to their extortion. We will not win by containing - another word for 'appeasing' - them. That is a sure way to have them fu*k us in the ass again.

 

You also have to create an escalating agreement. For example, after year 5, aid goes up. After year 8, we agree to normalize relations, etc.

This type of escalating system was not included in the original agreement. It provides incentive to continue an agreement. There are a number of things that we can offer at no cost to us that have huge value to them - use them. (non-agression agreement, normalized relations, opened up trade, etc)

 

You 'guarantee' that we can negotiate with them in good faith? Oh boy, I feel a bet coming on... This is starting to get ridiculous.

Yes, let's bet on something that we have no control over, may never happen, and certainly won't be able to be evaluated for a decade.

And what exactly makes you think that they would sell? Why - oh why - if, by your logic since their nukes are merely to prevent our invading - would they sell them to us? Then by your own logic, they would have no way to stop us...

Do you see where this is going?


I never said you WOULD do it. I said, for the cost involved, you could. If you provide the non-agression part as a starting point, you solve the whole "fear of being attacked" problem. At that point, they don't need the nukes and could use a couple of hundred billion dollars...

I don't think you grasp just how much they want that non-agression pact.


Ronald Reagon won the Cold War by challenging the Soviets, not containing them.

Incredible. You'd think after a decade of the US knowing what really happened, people would finally stop repeating this bizarre statement.

The Cold War wasn't won by the US. It was won by the system - capitalism working, communism not. It just finally fell apart in the late 1980's - Reagan may have accelerated it a bit, but the wheels were already in motion either way. Its the definition of containment - you contain because you know that eventually your methods/philosophy/beliefs/etc will win out.

We will not win by containing - another word for 'appeasing' - them.

True containment and appeasement have absolutely no relation to each other.

 

Ummm, yes. You are absolutely incorrect here - the UN had quite a few monitors there, all of whom were monitoring the agreement, and all of whom were expelled when Kim deemed them too annoying.

Obviously, I agree that that would be the key. But as I just said, there were monitors there, and they were kicked out. Have you forgotten that whole fiasco about NK withdrawing from the NPT and kicking out the IAEA monitors? It wasn't that long ago.

Because the admin is understandably reluctant to take a hard line that could likely lead to war. They understand that negotiation with the regime is pointless, since they cannot be trusted, but they are also reluctant to take the hard line.

Personally, I would do something more along the lines of ignoring the NKs. Just ignore their threats and don't give them sh*t. Let them starve and crumble from within.

Do you have *any* idea how much a year's worth of aid means to them? They got virtually all of their food and all of their oil from us. Take away a years' worth of oil and food from any country in the world and see what happens to it.

Yes, they could. Why don't they? Uh, maybe because they're a bunch of fu*king lunatics? Communist, suicidal lunatics with nukes???

You're making the same mistake that they apparently have - they think they're still dealing with Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton would bow down to their threats and give them whatever they want. George Bush just might blow that friggen reactor to pieces before you can say "lickety-split".

All terrible wars have great miscalculations at their core.

And for some bewildering reason, I have yet to see the pro-negotiation people acknowledge the hard truth that the NKs cannot be trusted in any negotiations. THEY CANNOT BE TRUSTED. That is the bottom line.

No, if they run out of food, oil, gas, etc - they'll be a bunch of starving, walking ignoramuses without lights, telephones, and nuclear reactors to make nuclear bombs with. Or more likely, they'll just get a new government.

 

Do you know what appeasment was? Seriously? A lot of people seem to have a warped idea of what it involved re: Hitler. It wasn't not confronting him...it wasn't not going to war with him. It wasn't letting him do what he wanted with the jews in his own country...None of that was appeasment, and yet people keep bringing it up any time they want us to attack someone rather than do one of the above.


Appeasement was the practice of giving Hitler parts of other people's countries in exchange for his agreements to be satisfied with those and not to seek some of the territory belonging to or near to those countries appeasing him.


In this case it would mean us saying to the North koreans that they can have South Korea as long as they agree to not use their nukes. In Iraq;s case it would correlate to giving them Kuwait and part of Syria in exchange for his agreement not to use his WMDs on Israel, etc.


People who don't know what it meant keep waving it around like a flag for aggression, as though the only alternatives are attack or appease. Good thing that those who thought this way during the Cuban Missile Crisis were outranked...

 

I was kidding. I just meant that I was sensing the conversation moving into the realm of the ridiculous... Perhaps I should have just said "I guarantee that you can guarantee nothing at all".

Me? US? No, it is THEY that is the issue. THEY would never do it.

I'd buy their nukes and nuke facilities in a heartbeat if I thought they'd do it.

Really? You think so? Well then why didn't they jump on that several months ago when Powell offered it to them???

The non-agression treaty is already on the table, has been for months. They aren't interested.

Yes, one would think so. I mean, that's what a rational regime would do. But curiously, they appear to want to keep their nukes...

What is incredible is the liberals' propensity to rewrite history and remove any credit that Reagan rightfully claims in bringing down the USSR. If you think that the Soviet Union just fell of its own volition (or worse, because of our "containment" policies), then you truly know nothing of the Cold War.

I suppose in 10 years we will find that Saddam was about to fall internally, and Bush didn't really do anything to make it happen???

Oh really? It didn't have anything to do with a massive military buildup that put us finally on parity with the Soviets? Or a massive nuclear buildup, coupled with "SDI", that threatened to break MAD and actually allow us to win a nuclear war???

We all know that the economic factors were real, and our system did beat their system. But you fail to acknowledge that we had to actually stare them down and challenge them to finally make them fall. The Soviet economic system was *always* weak in copmparison to ours, it didn't just become so in its last 15 or so years. It was always so. What changed was that after 40 years, we finally challenged them - we really, truly threatened their existence. And they backed down.

Perhaps not - I would tend to agree. I would also say that "true" containment has never been tried. All we have ever seen is various degrees of appeasement.

What you are proposing is most certainly appeasement - you definitely do not buy your enemy off in 'containment'.

 

just because a country falls doesnt make it irrational. he was screwed either way and as far as we know, he's still alive. Ever hear of the Melian dialogue?

seems like you're having fun here, you in government or just a well informed conservative?

 

gosh. a real dilemma.

some of you guys say we must negotiate. some of you guys say we must not.

if we do negotiate and pay them, NK will PROBABLY keep making nukes and eventually sell them. if we don't negotiate, NK will CERTAINLY keep making nukes and eventually sell them. so we're screwed in either case.

so the alternative: invasion.

some of you guys say we must invade. some of you guys say we cannot invade.

if we do invade, NK will probaby use nukes, biological/chemical weapons, overrun SKorea, killing 100,000+ US troops in the process, and perhaps hit US West Coast with her WMD. China will probably take this opportunity to hit Taiwan. and WW3 is not far off after that.

if we don't invade, **** happens. NK will keep talking tough and keep extorting us for all we're worth in the above-mentioned negotiations.

so the other alternative: do nothing.

then NK keeps making nukes. proliferating nuke/missile technologies to other rogue states and terrorists (so someone else hits us with the WMD). and eventually if her economy is really really screwed up, she can always militarily overrun SKorea and seize her resources with the WMDs backing her up. so that's obviously not going to work long-term either.

instead of getting so riled up attacking each other's viewpoints here, i think what we're lacking is a constructive debate. but then again, on this NK issue, i see little room for any positive outcomes.

 

Appeasement doesn't just have to relate to letting the aggressor have the territory it wants. Appeasement can simply be letting the other person have what they want to make them happy and by making them happy you think the situation will be solved. In the NK case it would not be like letting them have SK. It would be more like saying ok NK you can develop nukes, but you have to agree not to use them or threaten people with them. Yes I know NK's ultimate goal is reunification with the South, but letting them run their nuke program to avert the possibility of war would also constitute appeasement. It just means you are bowing to their demands and hoping it will satisfy them, but we all know that doesn't work when you are dealing in situations in like this with the type of govt that NK has.

I honestly do not have any clue what to do with the NK situation, but I am hoping it turns out like China and the North Koreans will moderate.

 

Am I the only one that feels upset that the US is even in this awkward mess? It's half a world away, no valuable resources, and nothing to gain from a fight. NK is the spawn of the Soviet Union and China, let them lead the charge. And is SK just too afraid to even confront their crazy brother? We really have no dog in this fight, but somehow we're knee deep in their blackmail game.

 

They don't have a single nuclear weapon. Not one. But they will soon if we continue to thumb our noses at them.

I see where you're coming from, and understand the validity of your points. But North Korea isn't asking for anything unreasonable -- diplomatic ties, foreign aid and a non-aggression treaty. That's a very rational trade-off to keep nukes out of their hands.

 

I think in any future discissions we should not refer to North Korea as a country or the government of North Korea like there is some legitimate governmental structure.

North Korea is not a soverign country to be negotiated with, it is one man, Kim Il Jong. The people have no rights, no say in the course of North Korean events. There is no national interest to be served. This is strictly the meglomania of one individual. We don't need the State Department's input, we need FBI profilers to help us understand the criminal mind.

 

but if NK proliferates its nuke and missile technologies to Iran, Libya, and other anti-Israeli or anti-US nations/groups/terrorists, what then? it just so happens that the US has got a heck of a lot more enemies in the world who would potentially use what NK has to offer (many thanks to Israel here), and so by default, any nuke business becomes OUR business.

just life as an american i guess. gotta learn to live with it i say.

 

Where are you getting this info? It is fairly well established that N. Korea has 2-6 nukes ready for at least testing, whether or not they are battlefield ready is another subject.

 

An interesting article that answers my own question...

Is North Korea Bluffing?
More nuke gamesmanship from Kim Jong-il.
By Fred Kaplan
Friday, October 3, 2003

There's a puzzle in the North Korean officials' statement on Thursday that they have finished reprocessing all 8,000 of their nuclear fuel rods and will soon be churning the resulting plutonium into atom bombs. The boast could signal a stiffening of bargaining tactics for the next round of six-party disarmament talks—a message to President Bush and his negotiating partners (the heads of South Korea, Japan, China, and Russia) that they'd better give in to Kim Jong-il's conditions now, before it's too late. Or the statement could mean that it's too late already—that Bush has waited too long, and Kim's nuclear program has progressed too far, for any disarmament deal to be reached.

The strange thing is that there's nothing new in North Korea's claim, which was recited by Vice Foreign Minister Choe Su Hon at the country's U.N. mission, then repeated by its official news agency. Nor is there anything new about their postscript on Friday that they have solved "all the technological matters" involved in converting plutonium into bombs. North Korean diplomats made these same statements to U.S. officials at a widely reported meeting at the United Nations on June 30. In August, they said they would soon use some of its new plutonium to set off a nuclear test.

So, why are the North Koreans making such a big deal now over a threat they first issued three months ago? Could they be bluffing? Is it possible that they have no A-bombs in the works, that they're just pretending they do in order to shore up their bargaining leverage and to deter an attack by Bush, who did, after all, tag North Korea as a member of the "axis of evil" with Iran and Iraq (and look what happened to Iraq)?

It's a possibility worth considering for a moment. U.S. intelligence agencies are now speculating that, in the months leading up to Gulf War II, Saddam Hussein actively duped the American government into believing that he was continuing to build weapons of mass destruction—that some of the Iraqi defectors and other sources who made such claims were in fact Saddam's agents. Why would Saddam do such a thing? To deter Bush from invading Iraq. CIA Director George Tenet had testified the previous summer that Saddam would use biochemical weapons only if his regime were under attack. Many of Bush's critics cited this testimony as an argument against going to war. One can imagine Saddam fantasizing that Bush might come to the same conclusion. (Past dictators have made similar miscalculations. In the late '50s, Nikita Khrushchev boasted that Soviet factories were churning out ICBMs "like sausages." The claim, besides being false, only spurred American factories to start churning them out for real.)

Kim Jong-il, the dictator of North Korea, is famously a bit crazy. But if he were the sanest leader on Earth, he would have good reason to fear an American attack and to contrive an impression that he had a "nuclear deterrent force" (as his diplomats call it), even—perhaps especially—if he didn't. And North Korea is such a closed society—Kim holds a more totalitarian grip over the country than his hero, Stalin, ever held over the Soviet Union—that he could probably get away with the bluff.

Bush officials exaggerated and, in some cases, falsified claims of an Iraqi WMD program—a fact that, no doubt, fosters some suspicion that they might now be pulling the same trickery (or getting suckered into the same deceptions) about a North Korean A-bomb.

It could be that the North Koreans are exaggerating a little bit; they might not have finished reprocessing all 8,000 fuel rods (which would produce enough plutonium to build four or five atom bombs). But, alas, the evidence indicates that the prospect of a Pyongyang nuclear arsenal is all too real and all too imminent.

There are many crucial differences between the two cases. In Iraq, the main physical evidence of a WMD program was the absence of evidence that the Iraqis had destroyed all the biological and chemical weapons they once possessed; and there was no evidence, of any sort, that they were actively pursuing a nuclear-weapons program.

In North Korea, on the other hand, we know that nuclear fuel rods were stored at a reactor; they were kept under lock and key by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency. We know that the North Koreans broke the lock, sent the inspectors packing, loaded the fuel rods onto trucks, and drove them to a reprocessing plant.

We also know that, in the early 1990s, before President Clinton and Kim Il-Sung (Kim Jong-il's father) negotiated an "Agreed Framework" that placed those rods under inspection in exchange for energy and economic assistance, North Korea produced enough plutonium to make one or two atom bombs. Whether they actually made the bombs is unclear, but especially given the country's relationship with Pakistan, there is no reason to dismiss the possibility. (North Korea has exported missiles to Pakistan and may have received assistance on nuclear technology as part of the deal.)

Sensors monitoring North Korea's atmosphere have also reportedly detected Krypton-85, a chemical product of reprocessing fuel rods. And, unlike the disputes over Iraqi WMD, there seems to be no dispute over the matter among the various U.S. intelligence agencies. In short, there are plenty of reasons to believe that, if nothing is done to stop them, the North Koreans could build a dozen or so nuclear weapons over the next year and many more in the years to follow.

So, to come back to the original question: Why are the North Koreans going out of their way to repeat—three times now, in the last two days—what they've said several times already?

A likely answer is that Kim Jong-il is getting nervous. Since the summer, things have not been going well for the "dear leader" of Pyongyang. In August, Russia—one of his most reliable allies—joined Japan and South Korea for an unprecedented 10-day naval exercise that looked suspiciously like a rehearsal for a blockade of North Korea. At the first round of the six-party disarmament talks, a couple of weeks later, all the other five countries' negotiators—whom he usually manages to divide and splinter—remained remarkably unified in demanding that he dismantle his nuclear-weapons program. The five leaders have also seemed, from Kim's viewpoint, all too confident that he'll send his diplomats back to the tables for the next round of talks.

Jack Pritchard, for years the chief U.S. negotiator in talks with Pyongyang until he resigned last August, partly on grounds that the Bush administration wasn't letting him do his job, put it this way in a phone interview Friday: "The North Koreans are saying, 'Don't take us for granted.' " Pritchard, who now works at the Brookings Institution, added, "They want to emphasize that they're in control of the pace—not the United States—and that, if they decide the six-party talks are not going to result in a resolution of their concerns, they will move more quickly toward becoming a nuclear power."

In one sense, then, the North Koreans are engaging in their usual guerrilla-style negotiating tactics—"drama and catastrophe," as Scott Snyder, author of the best book about North Korea's bargaining behavior, described them. However, in another sense, the decisive moment is drawing near—the point when the threat turns from mere theatrics to a nightmare come true.

It may be the last call to settle this thing. For most of the past year, when the nuclear crisis of the mid-'90s began to replay itself, North Korea's ambitions could have been contained through serious negotiations. But Bush demurred, preferring to let Kim's regime crumble rather than rewarding it for bad behavior. ("They can't eat plutonium," Bush said, seemingly unaware that Kim doesn't care if his people starve.) Now Kim is still here, and he's on the verge of churning out A-bombs. Nobody outside North Korea has the slightest idea where Kim is storing the one or two nukes that he has (or, for that matter, whether he has them). For that reason alone, a pre-emptive strike on North Korea's reactors is seen, by even hawkish advisers, as too risky. Once Kim has amassed a half-dozen or so, the notion of effective military action—or even diplomatic pressure—becomes less plausible still. And so does a meaningful, verifiable disarmament accord.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2089257/

 

This is the real threat. Iraq is just tying us down, now that we've gone in. We're stuck there. (I know, I'm repeating myself) But we shouldn't let Iraq prevent us from dealing with North Korea.

I found the SK/Japanese/Russian naval exercises intriguing. Maybe it's time to start taking some action... move assets to the region that aren't already there, make plain we are preparing for a blockade and have the muscle to back it up.

Kim is already starving his people, the b******. It's time to take some meaningful, concrete action and prepare for the worst. We can't allow this pychopath to open a store with nukes on the shelf.

 

An interesting tidbit from the BBC:


India, US hold naval exercises
India and the United States are beginning what is believed to be their biggest-ever joint naval exercise.
Known as Malabar 2003, it involves warships and thousands of naval personnel in manoeuvres expected to last five days off India's southern coast.

Similar exercises were conducted on three occasions in the 1990s but were suspended by the Americans after India tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

However, Washington renewed military contacts following the 11 September attacks when India joined President George W Bush's campaign against international terrorism.


From the newsroom of the BBC World Service

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/3165228.stm

Published: 2003/10/05 04:20:43 GMT

© BBC MMIII

 

Here's some further news regarding North Korea. Much of it is repeating what we've heard, but some of this sounds new:


Alarm at N Korea nuclear claim
North Korea's neighbours have expressed deep concern at Pyongyang's claim it is ready and able to produce nuclear bombs.
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun said that the North's statement on Thursday was "a bombshell announcement".

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said it was regrettable that Pyongyang had broken a promise it made after six-party talks on the issue last month not to escalate tensions.


If we react too sensitively, it could only aggravate the already tense situation
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun
Pyongyang said on Thursday it had reprocessed 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods and added on Friday that it had overcome "technical difficulties" in using the plutonium extracted from the rods for weapons purposes.
But despite his concern, Mr Roh stressed it was important for the international community to remain calm.

"If we react too sensitively, it could only aggravate the already tense situation," he said.

Mr Roh repeated his qualms about complying with the US request that South Korea send troops to Iraq while the Korean peninsula was so tense.

"What is of most concern is that unexpected things might break out once we decide to send troops (to Iraq) such as a failure to hold a second round of six-way talks or North Korea taking a tough stand with nuclear arms and missile issues," he told reporters.

North Korea's neighbours are trying to bring about fresh multilateral talks with Pyongyang on the nuclear crisis after a six-party dialogue ended without substantive progress in August.

Pyongyang said this week that it had no interest in further talks.

The Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, one of the nations that took part in the August negotiations, urged North Korea on Friday not to rule out more diplomacy.

"Any talks are better than war," Mr Losyukov said, according to the Interfax news agency.


All the technological matters have been solved fully in the process of making switchover in the use of plutonium
North Korean statement

Both South Korea and the US have said they are unable to verify North Korea's claims on its nuclear progress.

Washington stressed the matter was of "serious concern", but Secretary of State Colin Powell said North Korea had made the same claim twice before and the US would "not react to each and every one of their statements, which seems to be a repeat of the previous statement".

Mr Powell said Washington would continue to work with South Korea, Japan and China to try to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Earlier this week, South Korea and the US said they expected follow-up talks to the inconclusive discussions held with the North in August, although Pyongyang says it has not agreed to hold a second round.

'New purpose'

"All the technological matters have been solved fully in the process of making switchover in the use of plutonium", the North Korean news agency KCNA said in a statement on Friday.

The statement also said the country "will reprocess, without delay when necessary, more spent fuel rods to be produced in an unbroken chain from the five-megawatt nuclear reactor in Yongbyon".

Thursday's foreign ministry statement said that the fuel rods had been reprocessed as part of the reactivation of its nuclear facilities for "peaceful purposes".

But, the ministry added that since relations with the US deteriorated, it had "changed the purpose" of the rods.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/3160570.stm

 

What does holding excercises with India have anything to do with NK? Those guys and the coalition of the willing were all talk. When the time came to send troops to Iraq like we asked, they balked. Thanks for the moral support though.