posted October 08, 2006 11:59 PM              

Report: N. Korea Performs Nuclear Test

POSTED: 10:55 pm EDT October 8, 2006

SEOUL, South Korea -- The Yonhap news agency reports South Korean government officials say the North has performed its first-ever nuclear weapons test.

But South Korean officials couldn't immediately confirm the report.

Yonhap reports that South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has convened a meeting of security advisers over the issue. And the agency said intelligence about the test has been exchanged between concerned countries.

The North said last week it would conduct a nuclear test as part of its deterrent against a possible U.S. invasion.

The director of South Korea's monitoring center that is watching for a test with sound and seismic detectors has declined to immediately comment on the reported test.

posted October 09, 2006 01:42 PM              

***********

quote:

---

Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond--bush

---

quote:

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Threats will not lead to a brighter future for the North Korean people, nor weaken the resolve of the United States and our allies to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula--bush

---

posted October 09, 2006 06:04 PM            

Thanks to Commander Corruption, the incompetent bungling boob Jimmy Carter and Madam NonBright, the little insane bast@rd Kim Jong il was able to develop nuclear weapons...while America was building North Korea 2 light water nuclear power plants, shipping them fuel oil and hundreds of thousands of tons of food.

All Kim Jong il had to do was agree to not process the spent fuel rods from a shut down nuclear reactor to develop nuclear weapons. Just agree! He agreed but did exactly what he intended all along, which is the hallmark of communists, they're liars to their core.

Not only that, but Commander Corruption's administration knew Kim Jong il was cheating on their agreement and were in the process of an alternative nuclear weapons program. Commander Corruption did nothing.

Today we hear the insufferable biiatch Hillary blaming Bush for the nuclear weapon North Korea apparently set off.

posted October 09, 2006 06:13 PM            

Asian Arms Race Result of Appeasement Policy

The leftist media spin is that the current crisis in North Asia is the result of George W. Bush calling Pyongyang a member of the 'axis of evil.' In reality, the soft-line appeasement policy taken by Clinton against North Korea and China is what has led us to this point.

For example, former Clinton adviser Paul Begala, now serving as a talking head on CNN, claimed that the Clinton administration contained the threat from North Korea. Clearly, Mr. Begala missed the 1990s.

Of course, Mr. Begala simply forgot that Clinton's military chief of staff testified in 1998 that North Korea did not have an active ballistic missile program. One week later the North Koreans launched a missile over Japan that landed off the Alaska coast.

During the early Clinton years, hard-liners and so-called conservative hawks advocated a pre-emptive strike to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons development before it could field an atomic bomb. Instead of taking the hard line, President Clinton elected to rely on former President Jimmy Carter and decided to appease the Marxist-Stalinist dictatorship.

Carter met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang and returned to America waving a piece of paper and declaring peace in our time. Kim, according to Carter, had agreed to stop his nuclear weapons development.

The Clinton appeasement program for North Korea included hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, food, oil and even a nuclear reactor. However, the agreement was flawed and lacked even the most informal means of verification.

In return, Kim elected to starve his people while using the American aid to build uranium bombs. The lowest estimate is that Kim starved to death over 1 million of his own people, even with the U.S. aid program.

Axis of Evil and Friends

North Korea was not left all alone in its effort to obtain nuclear weapons. North Korea relied heavily on China, its closest ally, to assist in its all-out effort to obtain the atomic bomb.

Beijing elected to covertly aid its North Asian ally by proliferation. China allowed Pakistan to send nuclear technology purchased from Beijing to North Korea in exchange for No Dong missile technology.

Beijing provided Pakistan with its nuclear weapons technology, including an operational atomic bomb design. Pakistan is now providing North Korea with equipment and engineering to assist in its bomb-making efforts.

The fact remains that North Korea acquired some key equipment for its nuclear weapons program from Pakistan in 1998. The key equipment, including a working gas centrifuge used to enrich uranium, was shipped to Pyongyang in the coffin of the murdered wife of a North Korean diplomat.

Beijing's indirect assistance includes allowing Pakistani C-130 cargo flights over China to Pyongyang that carry key equipment for nuclear weapons production. The flights return to Pakistan with North Korean No Dong missile parts.

Missiles for Nukes

Pakistan also benefited from the trade in weaponry. The missiles-for-nukes trade gave Pakistan an operational means to deliver its atomic bombs.

Pakistan has since successfully test-fired and deployed its own version of the No Dong missile, called the Ghauri. The North Korean-designed missile has a range of nearly 900 miles and can cover virtually all of India, Pakistan's rival in Southwest Asia.

The ultimate irony here is that the North Korean No Dong and Tae Po Dong missiles are based on technology given to Pyongyang by China. In 1994, the Wall Street Journal revealed that Chinese-made CSS-2 missile technology had found its way into North Korean hands.

China has also allowed North Korea to ship SCUD missiles through its territory for Middle Eastern customers. According to a Canadian undercover operative, North Korean agents moved dismantled SCUD missiles through China into Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

The allegations proved to be correct because U.S. satellites were able to follow Chinese-made M-11 missiles bound for Pakistan over the same land route in 2000. The illegal export of M-11 missiles brought swift sanctions against Beijing by the Bush administration.

In recent months China has been much more overt about assisting Pyongyang with its nuclear weapons program. In 2002, China sold Pyongyang a large shipment of tributyl phosphate, a key chemical used to extract plutonium and uranium from spent fuel rods for atomic bombs.

U.S. Pressure on Asian Allies

In contrast, the U.S. repeatedly told India, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan that they should not develop nuclear weapons. The U.S. position was that the no one had the right to bring a new arms race to Asia.

The U.S. also backed up this policy by placing severe restrictions on the export of nuclear and ballistic missile technology to India, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. The trade agreements also had teeth built into them in case U.S. technology was abused.

For example, when India developed and tested its nuclear bomb, the U.S. responded with hefty sanctions and a diplomatic freeze that is just now beginning to thaw.

Compared to the strict U.S. policy, China did not discourage its client states, North Korea and Pakistan, from developing nuclear weapons. Instead, China has overtly and covertly assisted both nations to develop and deploy active weapons upon working delivery systems.

Nature abhors a vacuum, especially in the case of nuclear weapons. The whole equation of Asian defense has changed overnight. As a result of China's nuclear proliferation, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan may now have to follow Pyongyang's lead and begin their own atomic weapons programs. That decision will be made in Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei, not in Washington.

It should shock no one, including the China lobby and DNC apologists, that Beijing will continue to support North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

However, some fools continue to be suckered by Beijing's obvious ploy to dominate Asia. The fools' hope that China will restrain Pyongyang continues to echo off the lips of the leftist media, as if by simply wishing it were true will make it so.

posted October 09, 2006 06:24 PM            

The Left's Diplomacy Pays Off
By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 9, 2006

SCORE ONE FOR BILL CLINTON and Jimmy Carter.

As of this writing in the early morning hours of October 9, President Bush is expected to announce that North Korea has conducted an underground nuclear test. Unlike the abortive launch in July, last night’s explosion netted the Stalinist gulag valuable information and packed a lethal impact. At 9:35 p.m. EST, the U.S. Geological Survey measured a 4.2 magnitude disturbance approximately 240 miles northeast of Pyongyang.

The Left quickly attempted the shopworn tactic of pinning the blame on the Bush administration’s rhetoric or unwillingness to bribe Kim Jong-il. Early this morning, Joseph Cirincione of the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress told CNN, “They had numerous opportunities to negotiate a deal…They did not.” He concluded, “I think the North Koreans came to that conclusion: that there is no deal to be had with this administration, and they decided they had nothing to lose.”

By way of commentary, the popular left-wing blog The Daily Kos quoted Selig S. Harrison from the international edition of Newsweek:

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.

The Kos feels no need to explain which U.S. provocation justified the birth of the North Korean nuclear program in 1994 – during Bill Clinton’s presidency – nor that the DPRK’s “‘soft’ tactics” entailed firing a missile over the Japanese mainland and threatening to strike the United States.

Worse yet, Kim Jong-il’s methods have paid off handsomely. Each act of brinksmanship has brought cash, supplies, oil, nuclear reactors, or additional concessions from the West. Within two months of the Taepo Dong missile scraping across Nippon in August 1998, President Clinton sent North Korea a multi-million dollar aid package and reopened bilateral negotiations.

The Dear Leader’s nuclear test could not have occurred without Bill Clinton’s decade of dalliance. Clinton could have obliterated the Yongbyong reactor with one strike when he first learned of North Korea’s covert nuclear program in 1994. Instead, he allowed Jimmy Carter’s private foreign policy to preempt him. Upon completing the “Agreed Framework” in 1994, Clinton stated, “This agreement will help achieve a vital and long-standing American objective: an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula.” We now know the $4.6 billion bribe gave the Communists the two nuclear reactors they used to create their current arsenal......

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=24826

posted October 09, 2006 09:22 PM            

Rumsfeld had nothing whatsoever to do with the details...nothing. His sin seems to be that he was on the board of the company chosen to build the power plants.

Leftist appeasers struck again and the result is that a little communist madman now has nuclear weapons. Not only that but the Clinton administration knew Kim Jong il was working on nuclear weapons during his administration and did nothing whatsoever to stop him. Didn't even bother to let Bush know. Bush found out..no thanks to Commander Corruption, confronted the North Koreans with the proof and put a stop to the fringe benefits..food and oil shipments and the nuclear power plants.

posted October 09, 2006 09:49 PM              

..it wasnt until commander idiot reneged on the agreed framework that kim il jong expelled u.n. inspectors, withdrew from the non proliferation treaty, fired up the mothballed plutonium reactor, reprocessed his plutonium rods and produced a weapon which he has now tested....

all that was done in the last five years while junior was president and did nothing but invade and occupy iraq........

posted October 09, 2006 09:51 PM              

there is big trouble ahead..We must stand United..We are the Under Dog of this Earth..
whether you like it or not..

America..Must have Respect..all..every person..
Do not turn your backs on Unity..and what is right..we will fix our problems..

but not like this!!!!!

LOve and Respect for ALL..

posted October 09, 2006 11:24 PM            

The North Korean Deception
James Hirsen, NewsMax.com
Sunday, Oct. 20, 2002

President Bush has been severely criticized by the Europeans and leftist sympathizers in the U.S. for using terms such as "evildoers" and "axis of evil" in describing our adversaries. But after a French tanker is struck by an explosive-laden boat in a Yemen harbor, a Marine is slain in Kuwait, hundreds of young civilians are murdered in Bali and a bus is bombed out in Manila, the president's words are truly haunting.

Just as the world is waking up to the realities of evil, along comes North Korea to affirm its membership in the circle of dangerous nations. North Korea's shameless admission of a willful breach of an international agreement bolsters other assertions made by the president. And it sheds some light on the relationship between inspections and disarmament.

The recent debate over what to do about Iraq involved questions about whether Iraq's compliance with the required disarmament could actually be assured with inspections. Much like Iraq, North Korea lied to the world about the very existence of the weapons it promised to avoid. The bottom line is that certain regimes cannot be trusted to keep their promises, and any diplomacy with them must look at this premise as fact.

It also appears as though satellite and electronic eavesdropping was incapable of conclusively determining North Korea's treachery. Yet virtually all of those who were well-informed knew that the North Koreans were likely to breach their promises almost immediately after making them.

After all, the country has a reputation for marketing weapons to rogue nations of the world, including Iran, Syria and Libya. Condoleezza Rice rightly labeled the repressive regime as an "arms bazaar." It could now conceivably add nuclear devices to its export catalogue.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter had lent a left hand to then-president Bill Clinton, when he assisted him in 1994 to complete a sham bargain with North Korea. How this occurred is an object lesson in what happens when appeasement and ineffectiveness are fused with international diplomacy.

In 1993, Kim Sung-il suddenly withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But in July 1994, the elder Kim died of a heart attack. His son took over and seemed to adopt a more moderated stance with the West.

After U.S. intelligence exposed North Korea's redirection of nuclear technology from peaceful civilian use to nuclear weaponry, the Clinton administration began negotiations to convince the Stalinist nation to dismantle its nuclear plans.

In October of 1994, U.S. and North Korean representatives concluded a deal. North Korea's nuclear weapons program would stop and, in exchange, the U.S. would subsidize an ailing economy unable to feed its own people. North Korea's prizes in the agreement were two contemporary nuclear reactors designed for non-weapons-grade radioactive materials.

Almost immediately, there were indications that the North Koreans were breaking the agreement. U.S. intelligence agencies began to trace North Korea's purchases and military maneuvers. In July of 2002, documentary evidence was found in the form of purchase orders for the materials necessary to enrich uranium.

In October 2002, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly met with his North Korean counterpart for scheduled talks. Kelly confronted North Korea with the tangible evidence of its duplicity. After a day of outright denial, North Korea abruptly reversed its position and defiantly acknowledged a secret nuclear program.

The combination of the evidence and President Bush's firm stance may be the reason the North Koreans confessed to the existence of a secret program. But North Korea would not have unleashed this information on the world without the go-ahead from its longtime sponsor in destructive weaponry – China.

During the last round of talks that Clinton, Carter and Company had with North Korea, the poverty-stricken nation appeared to be worried about sanctions and the cessation of economic aid.

It is hoped that the Bush administration will look directly at the depraved nature of the government of North Korea and put Ronald Reagan's maxim to full use. Any discourse that takes place between the U.S. and North Korea must be done from a firm position of strength.

posted October 09, 2006 11:41 PM            

As Western powers race to confirm that North Korea did in fact explode a nuclear device in Gilju, a remote region in the Hamgyong province, some see it as a culmination of weak U.S. action during the 1990s that led to this fateful day.

Fateful Beginnings

After entering into an agreement with the United States in 1994, the Clinton administration ignored evidence the North Koreans were violating the agreement and continuing to build a nuclear weapon. "In July of 2002, documentary evidence was found in the form of purchase orders for the materials necessary to enrich uranium," NewsMax's James Hirsen previously reported.

"In October 2002, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly met with his North Korean counterpart for scheduled talks. Kelly confronted North Korea with the tangible evidence of its duplicity. After a day of outright denial, North Korea abruptly reversed its position and defiantly acknowledged a secret nuclear program."

Timeline of a Nuclear Bomb

A review of recent history shows that that the Clinton administration gave up a clear and perhaps last best chance to nip the North Korean bomb in the bud:

1985: North Korea signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

1989: The Central Intelligence Agency discovers the North Koreans are building a reprocessing facility — a reactor capable of converting fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium. The fuel rods were extracted 10 years before from that nation's Yongbyon reactor.

The rods represent a shortcut to enriched plutonium and an atomic bomb.

Spring, 1994: A year into President Clinton's first term, North Korea prepares to remove the Yongbyon fuel rods from their storage site. North Korea expels international weapons inspectors and withdraws from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Clinton asks the United Nations Security Council to consider sanctions. North Korean spokesmen proclaim such sanctions would cause war.

The Pentagon draws up plans to send 50,000 troops to South Korea — along with 400 war planes, 50 ships, Apache helicopters, Bradley fighting vehicles, and Patriot missiles. An advance force of 250 soldiers is sent in to set up headquarters for the expanded force.

Clinton balks and sets up a diplomatic back-channel to end the crisis — former President Jimmy Carter. Exceeding instructions, Carter negotiates the outlines of a treaty and announces the terms live on CNN.

Oct. 21, 1994: The United States and North Korea sign a formal accord based on those outlines, called the Agreed Framework. Under its terms:

North Korea promises to renew its commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, lock up the fuel rods, and let inspectors back in to monitor the facility.

The United States agrees — with financial backing from South Korea and Japan — that it will provide two light-water nuclear reactors for electricity, send a large supply of fuel oil, and that it will not invade North Korea.

Upon delivery of the first light-water reactor, inspections of suspected North Korean nuclear sites were supposed to start. After the second reactor arrived, North Korea was supposed to ship its fuel rods out of the country.

The two countries also agreed to lower trade barriers and install ambassadors in each other's capitals — with the United States providing full assurances that it would never use nuclear weapons against North Korea.

(None of the above came to pass. Congress did not make the financial commitment — neither did South Korea. The light-water reactors were never funded. The enumerated steps toward normalization were never taken.)

Jan. 2002: In President Bush's State of the Union Address, he famously labels North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as an "axis of evil."

Oct., 2002: Officials from the U.S. State Department fly to Pyongyang, where that government admits it had acquired centrifuges for processing highly enriched uranium, which could be used for building nuclear weapons.

It is now clear to all parties that the promised reactors are never going to be built. Normalization of relations fizzles.

The CIA learns that North Korea may have been acquiring centrifuges for enriching uranium since the late 1990s — probably from Pakistan.

Oct. 20, 2002: Bush announces that the United States is formally withdrawing from the Carter-brokered 1994 agreement.

The United States. halts oil supplies to North Korea and urges other countries to cut off all economic relations with Pyongyang.

Dec., 2002: North Korea expels the international weapons inspectors, restarts the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, and unlocks the container holding the fuel rods.

Jan. 10, 2003: North Korea withdraws from the Non-Proliferation Treaty — noting, however, that there would be a change of position if the U.S. resumed its obligations under the Agreed Framework and signed a non-aggression pledge.

March, 2003: President Bush orders several B-1 and B-52 bombers to the U.S. Air Force base in Guam — within range of North Korea.

April, 2003: North Korea's deputy foreign minister announces that his country now has "deterrent" nuclear weapons.

May, 2003: Bush orders the Guam-based aircraft back to their home bases.

October, 2003: The North Koreans announce they have reprocessed all 8,000 of their fuel rods and solved the technical problems of converting the plutonium into nuclear bombs.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/10/9/132140.shtml?s=lh

In other words, during this entire period of the so called agreement, Kim Jong il never ceased, never so much as paused in developing nuclear weapons or acquiring the equipment and technical knowledge to do so.

posted October 10, 2006 12:32 AM              

the agreed framework of 1994 was about the plutonium reactor at pyonyang......this is the reactor that was restarted after bush reneged on the agreed framework.....this is the reactor which north korea restarted, reprocessed plutonium, and has now created a bomb......

there was no such admission of a secret nuclear program either, thats just more propaganda by the bush administration......

*******

The delegation, which also included John Lewis, a professor at Stanford University, and Charles “Jack” Pritchard, former special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, visited North Korea’s nuclear facilities Jan. 8. During a Jan. 21 appearance on PBS’s Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Pritchard speculated that North Korea invited the delegation to view its nuclear facilities in order to resolve ambiguities concerning its nuclear capabilities following its withdrawal from the NPT.

In addition, Pritchard said Jan. 15 that Kim clarified North Korea’s previous denials that it has a uranium-enrichment program by providing new details. Kim told the delegation that North Korea does not have any relevant equipment or scientists trained to run such a program. The recent crisis began in October 2002, when a U.S. delegation accused North Korea of pursuing a clandestine uranium-enrichment program—an alternate method for obtaining fissile material for nuclear weapons.

The United States continues to maintain that North Korea admitted to having such a program during that meeting, but North Korea has argued that it never made such a stark admission. Journalist Don Oberdorfer stated in November 2002 that North Korean officials informed him that an October 2002 KCNA statement contains the exact words used during the U.S.-North Korean meeting. The relevant portion of that statement reads, “The [Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea] made itself very clear…that the D.P.R.K. was entitled to possess not only nuclear weapon[s] but any type of weapon more powerful than that so as to defend its sovereignty and right to existence.” (See ACT, December 2002.)

posted October 10, 2006 12:48 AM              

BEIJING - The United States manipulated intelligence on North Korea's nuclear program in a similar fashion to its use of weapons of mass destruction to justify the war on Iraq, a US foreign policy expert said in an article.

"Relying on sketchy data, the Bush administration presented a worst-case scenario as an incontrovertible truth and distorted its intelligence on North Korea (much as it did in Iraq), seriously exaggerating the danger that Pyongyang is secretly making uranium-based nuclear weapons," Selig Harrison said in Foreign Affairs magazine.

Harrison, from the Washington-based Center for International Policy, chairs the Task Force on Korean Policy, a grouping of former senior US military officials, diplomats and Korean specialists.

The Task Force, which includes a former joint chiefs of staff head and ex-US ambassadors, on Friday issued a report calling on the US immediately to back down on its insistence that North Korea come clean on its alleged uranium program.

Instead, they should first negotiate the dismantling of Pyongyang's plutonium facilities, it said.

Harrison said his claims were based on South Korean and Japanese intelligence sources who participated with the Central Intelligence Agency on the issue.

He blames the US insistence on a uranium program for the stalling of six-party talks while Pyongyang moves closer to producing an atomic bomb with its plutonium program.

The intelligence was manipulated for "political purposes," he said in the magazine's December 17 issue.

This was largely to waylay South Korean and Japanese efforts at reconciliation with the North and ostensibly to keep open the option of "regime change" as in the case of Iraq, Harrison claimed.

In late 2002 the Bush administration cited North Korea's alleged uranium program to pull out of the Agreed Framework. That deal had frozen Pyongyang's nuclear program since 1994 in exchange for energy aid and the construction of two billion dollar semi-proliferation-proof light water nuclear reactors.

No concrete evidence of a uranium program has been presented publicly.

In retaliation, Pyongyang kicked out international nuclear inspectors and resumed plutonium reprocessing at its Yongbyon facility.

It is now believed to have reprocessed enough plutonium for four to six nuclear bombs, experts say.

"The danger posed by North Korea's extant plutonium program has grown since the United States announced it was no longer bound by the Agreed Framework, and it is much greater than the hypothetical threat posed by a suspected uranium enrichment program about which little is known," said Harrison.

Harrison said the claim of a uranium capability was largely based on several failed attempts by Pyongyang to buy enrichment technology, including electrical-frequency converters and aluminum tubing to make centrifuges.

The US also cites a 2002 conversation in Pyongyang between US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly and North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun, in which Washington maintains Paek admitted his country had a uranium enrichment program.

Pyongyang, however, insists Paek only said North Korea was "entitled" to have such a program, possibly referring to the processing of low-enriched uranium for nuclear energy.

This is allowed by the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Pyongyang also pulled out of in late 2002.

"Unless conclusive new evidence comes to light, the entire uranium issue should be deferred so that the parties can focus on the more immediate threat: North Korea's known plutonium reprocessing capabilities," said Harrison.

posted October 10, 2006 12:56 AM              

bushs' handlers are doing this just like big business......you dont go after the greater threat first......first you absorb your weakest opponents.....

************

posted October 10, 2006 09:47 AM            

Ann Coulter

I knew the events in the Middle East were big when The New York Times devoted nearly as much space to them as it did to a New York court ruling last week rejecting gay marriage.

Some have argued that Israel's response is disproportionate, which is actually correct: It wasn't nearly strong enough. I know this because there are parts of South Lebanon still standing.

Most Americans have been glued to their TV sets, transfixed by Israel's show of power, wondering, "Gee, why can't we do that?"

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says that "what's going on in the Middle East today" wouldn't be happening if the Democrats were in power. Yes, if the Democrats were running things, our cities would be ash heaps and the state of Israel would have been wiped off the map by now.

But according to Dean, the Democrats would have the "moral authority that Bill Clinton had" — no wait! keep reading — "when he brought together the Israelis and Palestinians." Clinton really brokered a Peace in Our Time with that deal — "our time" being a reference to that five-minute span during which he announced it. Yasser Arafat immediately backed out on all his promises and launched the second intifada.

The fact that Israel is able to launch an attack on Hezbollah today without instantly inciting a multination conflagration in the Middle East is proof of what Bush has accomplished. He has begun to create a moderate block of Arab leaders who are apparently not interested in becoming the next Saddam Hussein.

There's been no stock market crash, showing that the markets have confidence that Israel will deal appropriately with the problem and that it won't expand into World War III.

But liberals can never abandon the idea that we must soothe savage beasts with appeasement — whether they're dealing with murderers like Willie Horton or Islamic terrorists. Then the beast eats you.

There are only two choices with savages: Fight or run. Democrats always want to run, but they dress it up in meaningless catchphrases like "diplomacy," "detente," "engagement," "multilateral engagement," "multilateral diplomacy," "containment" and "going to the U.N."

I guess they figure, "Hey, appeasement worked pretty well with ... uh ... wait, I know this one ... ummm ... tip of my tongue ..."

Democrats like to talk tough, but you can never trap them into fighting. There is always an obscure objection to be raised in this particular instance — but in some future war they would be intrepid! One simply can't imagine what that war would be.

Democrats have never found a fight they couldn't run from.

On "Meet the Press" last month, Sen. Joe Biden was asked whether he would support military action against Iran if the Iranians were to go "full-speed-ahead with their program to build a nuclear bomb."

No, of course not. There is, Biden said, "no imminent threat at this point."

According to the Democrats, we can't attack Iran until we have signed affidavits establishing that it has nuclear weapons, but we also can't attack North Korea because it may already have nuclear weapons. The pattern that seems to be emerging is: "Don't ever attack anyone, ever, for any reason. Ever."

The Democrats are in a snit about North Korea having nukes, with Howard Dean saying Democrats are tougher on defense than the Republicans because since Bush has been president, North Korea has "quadrupled their nuclear weapons stash."

It wasn't that difficult. Clinton gave the North Koreans $4 billion to construct nuclear reactors in return for the savages promising not to use the reactors to build bombs. But oddly, despite this masterful triumph of "diplomacy," the savages did not respond with good behavior. Instead, they immediately set to work feverishly building nuclear weapons.

But that's another threat the Democrats do not think is yet ripe for action.

On "Meet the Press" last Sunday, Sen. Biden lightly dismissed the North Koreans, saying their "government's like an eighth-grader with a small bomb looking for attention" and that we "don't even have the intelligence community saying they're certain they have a nuclear weapon."

Is that the test? We need to have absolute certainty that the North Koreans have a nuclear weapon capable of hitting California with Kim Jong Il making a solemn promise to bomb the U.S. (and really giving us his word this time, no funny business) before we — we what? If they have a nuclear weapon, what do we do then? Is a worldwide thermonuclear war the one war Democrats would finally be willing to fight?

Democrats won't acknowledge the existence of "an imminent threat" anyplace in the world until a nuclear missile is 12 minutes from New York. And then we'll never have the satisfaction of saying "I told you so" because we'll all be dead.
http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/article.cgi?article=139

posted October 10, 2006 02:06 PM            

"I would remind Senator (Hillary) Clinton and other Democrats critical of the Bush administration's policies that the framework agreement her husband's administration negotiated was a failure," McCain said at a news conference after a campaign appearance for Republican Senate candidate Mike Bouchard.

"The Koreans received millions and millions in energy assistance. They've diverted millions of dollars of food assistance to their military," he said.

Democrats have argued President Clinton presented his successor with a framework for dealing with North Korea and the Republican fumbled the opportunity. In October 2000, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made a groundbreaking visit to Pyongyang to explore a missile deal with Chairman Kim Jong Il. There was even talk of a visit by President Clinton.

The initial breakthrough occurred in October 1994 when U.S. negotiators persuaded North Korea to freeze its nuclear program, with onsite monitoring by U.N. inspectors. In exchange, the United States, with input from South Korea and Japan, promised major steps to ease North Korea's acute energy shortage.

These commitments were inherited by the Bush administration, which made clear almost from the outset that it believed the Clinton policy ignored key elements of North Korea's activities, especially the threat posed by the hundreds of thousands of troops on permanent duty along the Demilitarized Zone with South Korea.

Reports suggesting North Korea tested a nuclear device prompted a number of Democrats to criticize Bush, arguing that he focused on Iraq, a country without weapons of mass destruction, while ignoring legitimate threats from Pyongyang.

McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he backed tough U.N. sanctions against North Korea in response to the reported test. The measures, he said, should include a military embargo, financial and trade sanctions and the right to inspect all cargo in and out of North Korea.

The Arizona senator and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., are considered their party's front-runners for 2008.

McCain also called on China to "step up to the plate" and vote for sanctions and rejected calls for one-on-one talks between the United States and North Korea.

posted October 10, 2006 04:50 PM              

quote:

---

U.S. negotiators persuaded North Korea to freeze its nuclear program, with onsite monitoring by U.N. inspectors.

---

posted October 14, 2006 02:48 PM              

Oct. 14, 2006. 11:13 AM
THOMAS WALKOM

The world is in a tizzy because North Korea exploded a small nuclear device. The world should relax. Even Prime Minister Stephen Harper concedes that Pyongyang is not about to send nuclear-tipped missiles screaming toward Toronto.

There's something about North Korea that drives otherwise sensible people batty. Perhaps it's the inflated language associated with this communist state. But, as those familiar with the delightful phrase "axis of evil" will know, North Korea does not have a monopoly on over-the-top rhetoric.

Whatever the reason, the prevailing wisdom holds that North Korea is uniquely dangerous; hence, the alarm when Pyongyang announced it tested a nuclear device this week. The United States wants a full-scale blockade. Japan is beside itself. Even the Chinese are said to be miffed.

In fact, North Korea has behaved quite rationally for a state in its unenviable position. If it is paranoid, it has its reasons.

First, recall that in spite of the 1953 armistice that brought an end to fighting on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea is still technically at war — not only with its cousins in the south but with the United States and other United Nations countries (including Canada) that participated in that conflict.

Both North and South Korea were devastated by that war. But by all accounts, North Korea got it worse. UN bombers devastated not only cities and towns in the North but the dams and rice fields that guaranteed its food supply.

At war's end, both Koreas found recovery difficult. By the mid-'80s, it had become clear that the South's formula (military-backed dictatorship plus Western money) was proving more effective than the North's (military-backed dictatorship plus no Western money).

Already treated as a pariah in the West, North Korea's response was to revel in its status as an international bad boy. If the West wouldn't do business openly with North Korea, Pyongyang reasoned, it would get what it wanted through other means.

To build up a local film industry, the regime kidnapped a South Korean actress and her producer husband. When it couldn't hire Japanese citizens to train its spies in that country's language and culture, it simply kidnapped some.

Desperate for foreign currency, it exports the one commodity it has perfected — cheap, short-range missiles. When missiles aren't in demand, it pays its bills by printing counterfeit U.S. money. It is not squeamish about its methods.

For a long time, North Korea relied on the Soviet Union for nuclear protection. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Pyongyang turned to China.

But in North Korea's eyes, China has become unreliable. It is now a proto-capitalist state anxious to be on good terms with the U.S. From Pyongyang's perspective, this is dangerous because the U.S. is dangerous. The North has long wanted nuclear weapons. But George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq, along with his designation of North Korea as part of the "axis of evil," transformed them into a strategic necessity.

To Pyongyang, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's biggest mistake was abandoning his quest for weapons of mass destruction. If Saddam had possessed an atomic bomb, the North Koreans calculate, Bush would have never dared to invade his country.

In real terms, Monday's nuclear test changed little. Before the test, most analysts assumed North Korea had some working atomic bombs. Now, we know.

Alarmists talk of Pyongyang attacking North America. Perhaps. But this would happen only if North Korea were convinced that the U.S. were about to attack it. Pyongyang has never had territorial ambitions outside of the Korean Peninsula. It does not want to annex Vancouver.

The UN Security Council threatens sanctions. But, ironically, it is the allegedly irrational regime of North Korea that has reason on its side. Its tests do not break any international treaties. If Israel, Pakistan, India, China, France, Britain, Russia and the U.S. can possess atomic weapons, why can't North Korea?

What it wants, it says, is what it has always wanted — a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War, treatment by the rest of the world as a normal state and — most importantly — a signed agreement from the U.S. that it will not attempt to overthrow Kim Jong-il's regime.

"The nuclear test is an expression of our intent to face the United States across the negotiating table," a senior Pyongyang official told South Korea's Yonhap News Agency. "What we want is security of the (North) including guaranteeing our system."

More nukes never make for good news. But in a post-Cold War world where a growing number of nations fear being targeted by the one remaining superpower, they make a great deal of strategic sense. North Korea is just the latest to join the club. There will be more.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1160689837230&call_pageid=970599119419

posted October 14, 2006 03:43 PM              

I came across this article today on that very topic...good read...

Sanctions seem a hollow threat
Oct. 14, 2006. 01:00 AM
OLIVIA WARD
FEATURE WRITER

North Korea has blasted off the Big Bang. Iran is punching up its uranium stocks.

As two countries the West fears most appear to be edging closer to nuclear weapons production, what, if anything, can persuade them to shelve their plans?

President George W. Bush, the leading opponent of nuclear development in Iran and North Korea, has called for sanctions on both, and threatened "serious repercussions" if they fail to obey orders to halt any efforts to produce atomic weapons.

This week, the United Nations Security Council moved toward punishing North Korea for its nuclear test, and the council's five permanent members framed a tough new resolution against Tehran, for defying an earlier deadline to end uranium enrichment that could lead to fuel for nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Israel were rumoured to be planning bombing raids on Iran's nuclear processing plants, which its leaders say are contributing only to peaceful nuclear energy.

But if the hard men of Tehran and Pyongyang are set on stocking their arsenals with nuclear bombs, could any harsh measures deter them? Or is the world doomed to watch a double bill of nuclear horror play out on its television screens?

Sanctions, the most predictable punishment, are not likely to succeed if used alone, the lessons of history show.

"The key issue in both cases is how the governments view the cost of sanctions vs. what is being asked of them," says Kimberley Ann Elliott, a senior fellow of the Institute for International Economics in Washington, and an expert on the effects of sanctions programs.

"If they view nuclear weapons as essential for national security, or their own political survival, sanctions may slow them down and buy time. But they won't end the problem."

Both Iran and North Korea say they're threatened by the West's nuclear arsenals. And they insist the U.S. and other nuclear weapons states are applying double standards by slapping them with sanctions while maintaining large nuclear stockpiles of their own and developing new generations of deadly weapons.

But in a 1990 study of 200 cases, titled Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, Elliott's institute found sanctions helped to reach the stated goals only one-third of the time. Since then, 80 new cases have been reviewed, with similar results.

"In those that succeeded, almost none relied on sanctions as the main factor," she points out. "Diplomacy or the military were used, too."

So far, threats of sanctions have fallen on deaf ears in Tehran and Pyongyang.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told supporters he would declare "a day of national celebration" if sanctions were imposed on his country, and added that Iran had already produced nuclear technology in spite of them.

North Korean President Kim Jong-il called any embargo "an act of war" threatening to destabilize northeast Asia. He has talked of retaliation against Japan, which imposed a six-month embargo on North Korean shipping after the nuclear test.

Analysts say the Japanese move and other international sanctions will have little effect on the isolated country, however, unless its biggest aid and trade partners, China and South Korea, clamp down, too — unlikely because they fear the unstable north could implode.

If sanctions applied alone are prone to fail, backing them up with military force could be catastrophic in the case of Iran or North Korea, experts believe.

"We can still destroy North Korea's army," said ex-U.S. president Jimmy Carter in a recent New York Times essay. "But if we do it is likely to result in many more than a million South Korean and American casualties."

Attacking Iran, others say, could be worse than the war in Iraq, with sectarian violence added to uncontrollable regional conflict.

That leaves only one viable option: talks between Washington and the two states it has labelled members of the Axis of Evil. To the Bush administration, that is thinking the unthinkable.

But after years of "wrong choices" there is little choice left, says non-proliferation expert Joseph Cirincione, vice-president of the Center for American Progress.

"When we talk to them we can contain them," he said. "When we threaten them we accelerate their programs. We must realize that when a country feels threatened, it will build up its defences."

"Direct negotiations work," he said. They recently persuaded Libya to abandon its nuclear program in return for diplomatic ties and economic aid.

President Bill Clinton's administration negotiated a 1994 deal with North Korea to let the UN's atomic watchdog, the IAEA, lock up its stock of plutonium in exchange for help with the destitute country's energy program, including construction of monitored nuclear reactors, Cirincione points out.

But under the Bush administration, contacts had been cut, and Kim sped up his nuclear weapons plans. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to negotiations through six-party talks, and won an agreement in September 2005 to end North Korea's weapons program in exchange for aid and diplomatic recognition.

But the deal was undercut when tensions escalated a year ago. Washington outlawed one of North Korea's main partner banks in Macao for money laundering, leading to the bank's closure and a more widespread and damaging freeze of several North Korean accounts worldwide. The move followed interception of a made-in-Pyongyang American currency counterfeiting operation.

But it came at a price: North Korea abandoned talks on curtailing its nuclear program, then launched missile tests last July.

"Both Iran and North Korea have made more progress toward nuclear weapons in the past five years than they did in all the previous 10," says Cirincione. "There is a direct correlation between American policy and the nuclear policies of both those countries."

The Bush administration has taken a hard line on corralling North Korea's illicit cash cows, which include drugs and weapons as well as counterfeiting. But critics say a thaw in relations could lead to a decline in smuggling and slow the nuclear program.

"It's never a bad idea to talk," says international relations professor Arthur Waldron of University of Pennsylvania.

Severing diplomatic ties with Tehran and Pyongyang has proved a failure, he says. "We've painted ourselves into a corner by using diplomatic recognition as a reward for countries we approve of. Yet we do have relations with China and other countries that are in some ways in the same league as North Korea. We should have embassies in Tehran and Pyongyang and Havana."

Ultimately, says Cirincione, North Korea "should know the U.S. is willing to make a deal, as it was with Libya. It's still not too late. But the longer we wait, the more difficult and dangerous it will be."