Is N Korea fooling Bush?

[cutthemdown]

Is N Korea playing fair? Or have they fooled another American President?

This deal with N Korea has me wondering if it's a good thing or bad thing for the Bush White House. On the one hand them blowing up the reactors and scrapping the manufacturing of plutonium is a great thing. The problem is they could still be enriching uranium. How many people think 2-3 yrs into the next Presidents terms we find out Kim Jong fooled Bush just like he did Clinton.

I just don't trust this regime but hopefully this is a good deal and at least one positive Bush can point to when he leaves office.

[Hotrod]

Yes

[theAPAOps5]

Dude a where's Waldo book fools Bush......

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by Hotrod

Yes

I sort of feel they are also. It's KIM JONGS MO to make a deal and break it. Clinton found that out and probably so will Bush.

[alkemical]

'There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.' - "W"

[BroncoBuff]

U.S. President George W. Bush, in an address to the Israeli Knesset May 14, 2008:

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. ... We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Okay. Have it your way George:

. Appeaser

[BroncoBuff]

. Appeaser . . Appeased

[Dudeskey]

wow, a madman with nukes gets let off the hook... aaaaaaaaannnywho
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27665

N. Korea Wondering What It Has To Do To Attract U.S. Military Attention

February 12, 2003

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA—As the U.S. continues to inch toward war with Iraq, a jealous and frustrated North Korea is wondering what it has to do to attract American military attention.

"What does it take to get a few F-16s or naval warships deployed to the Yellow Sea?" North Korean president Kim Jong Il asked Monday. "In the past month and a half, we've expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors, withdrawn from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, restarted a mothballed nuclear complex capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, and threatened to resume missile tests. You'd think that would be enough to get a measly Marine division or two on standby in the Pacific, but apparently not."

Kim said his nation is "way more deserving" of B-52 deployment than Iraq.

"Bush says his number one priority is eliminating weapons of mass destruction, but he sure doesn't act that way," Kim said. "Iraq may have weapons of mass destruction and may be developing more. The DPRK, on the other hand, does have weapons of mass destruction and isn't about to stop making them any time soon."


"Can I be any more clear?" Kim continued. "We have nuclear bombs and delivery methods. Kablooey! There goes Anchorage! But does Bush care? Nope—he just goes on about how we're 'a diplomatic issue, not a military one.' If he even mentions us at all, that is."

"It's like I don't even exist," Kim added.

In the nine years since coming to power, Kim has earned a reputation as a megalomaniac and tyrant, interring dissenters in camps, living in opulence while his citizens starve, and calling members of the North Korean navy "human bombs." In spite of such actions, he has failed to provoke the ire of the U.S.


After years spent trying to antagonize the U.S., relations between North Korea and America finally showed signs of deterioration in 2002, when, during his State of the Union address, President Bush accused the Asian nation of being part of an international "Axis of Evil." The provocative words, Kim said, sent his hopes of a military standoff with the U.S. skyrocketing.


"When Bush named us as part of his Axis of Evil, I was so happy," Kim said. "I thought to myself, 'This is it. We are finally going to have a military conflict with this two-faced hyena.' He'd been ignoring me so long, I really didn't think he cared."

Still, Kim's hopes for a U.S.-North Korea crisis quickly faded as Bush began to focus all of his energies on Axis of Evil member Iraq. In October 2002, Kim made yet another attempt to anger the U.S., admitting to enriching uranium in violation of a 1994 accord. The admission, however, did not produce the desired escalation in hostility.

Kim said he has not given up on attracting U.S. military attention, vowing to invade South Korea if necessary.


"I am by no means ready to quit, but this is very frustrating," Kim said. "I guess if your name's not Saddam, you're not worthy of America's hatred."

"Everyone in my country refers to me as 'Dear Leader.' Is that not disturbingly cultish?"Kim continued. "I do not understand why President Bush is so much more interested in Saddam than me. I'm a strange, despotic, unpredictable madman, too, you know."

[BroncoBuff]

Mmmmm ... I smell Onion rings.

[kappys]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

Is N Korea playing fair? Or have they fooled another American President?

This deal with N Korea has me wondering if it's a good thing or bad thing for the Bush White House. On the one hand them blowing up the reactors and scrapping the manufacturing of plutonium is a great thing. The problem is they could still be enriching uranium. How many people think 2-3 yrs into the next Presidents terms we find out Kim Jong fooled Bush just like he did Clinton.

I just don't trust this regime but hopefully this is a good deal and at least one positive Bush can point to when he leaves office.

That alone is huge. Uranium at least decays at a reasonable rate. Plutonium lasts for ever for all practical purposes.

[cutthemdown]

Hopefully N Korea comes clean on the Uranium enrichment.

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

Is N Korea playing fair? Or have they fooled another American President?

This deal with N Korea has me wondering if it's a good thing or bad thing for the Bush White House. On the one hand them blowing up the reactors and scrapping the manufacturing of plutonium is a great thing. The problem is they could still be enriching uranium. How many people think 2-3 yrs into the next Presidents terms we find out Kim Jong fooled Bush just like he did Clinton.

I just don't trust this regime but hopefully this is a good deal and at least one positive Bush can point to when he leaves office.

I haven't seen anything that shows they are doing this.

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by Bronco_Beerslug

I haven't seen anything that shows they are doing this.

As I understood it they came clean on the plutonium but not on the uranium. They also symbolically imploded the reactors cooling tower. I'm not saying it's not for show, I'm just saying that's what supposedly is happening. Are you saying you don't even believe the plutonium is being ceased?

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

As I understood it they came clean on the plutonium but not on the uranium. They also symbolically imploded the reactors cooling tower. I'm not saying it's not for show, I'm just saying that's what supposedly is happening. Are you saying you don't even believe the plutonium is being ceased?

Big difference between destroying a cooling tower and a reactor.

[BroncoBuff]

Just to be clear on where I stand ... I think it's GOOD to sit down and talk with even your arch-enemies, it's not a sign of weakness. Reagan proved that time and again. Obama's openness to sitting down and talking with even enemy dictators is a PLUS for him in my book. And based on what the chimp just did with North Korea, he basically agrees.

Me calling Bush an "APPEASER" was just making fun of yet another chimp-like, childish double-standard (not that Bush even understands what a double standard is).

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Here's a foreign affairs quiz:

(1) How many nuclear weapons did North Korea produce in Bill Clinton's eight years of office?

(2) How many nuclear weapons has it produced so far in President Bush's (first) four years in office?

The answer to the first question, by all accounts, is zero. The answer to the second is fuzzier, but about six.

The total will probably rise in coming months, for North Korea has shut down its Yongbyon reactor and says that it plans to extract the fuel rods from it. That will give it enough plutonium for two or three more weapons.

The single greatest failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy concerns North Korea. Mr. Bush's policies toward North Korea have backfired and led the North to churn out nuclear weapons, and they have also antagonized our allies and diminished America's stature in Asia.

The upshot is that there's a significantly greater risk of another Korean War, a greater likelihood that other Asian countries, like Japan, will eventually go nuclear as well, and a greater risk that terrorists will acquire plutonium or uranium.

In fairness, all this is more Kim Jong Il's fault than Mr. Bush's. Right now some administration officials are glaring at this page and muttering expletives about smarty-pants journalists who don't appreciate how wretched all the options are.

But if the Bush administration had just adopted the policies that Colin Powell initially pushed for - and that Mr. Bush largely came to accept several years later - then this mess could probably have been averted.

You don't have to take it from me. Charles Pritchard, the ambassador and special envoy who was the point man for North Korea in the first Bush administration, says of this administration's decision-makers: "They blew it." Another expert still involved in North Korea policy puts it this way: "Their A.B.C. approach - 'Anything but Clinton' - led to these problems."

A bit of background: North Korea made one or two nuclear weapons around 1989, during the first Bush administration, but froze its plutonium program under the 1994 "Agreed Framework" with the Clinton administration. North Korea adhered to the freeze on plutonium production, but about 1999, it secretly started on a second nuclear route involving uranium.

That was much less worrisome than the plutonium program (it still seems to be years from producing a single uranium weapon), and it probably could have been resolved through negotiation, as past crises had been.

Instead, Mr. Bush refused to negotiate bilaterally, so now we have the worst of both worlds: that uranium program is still in place, and the plutonium program is churning out weapons material as well.

Now the administration talks about asking the Security Council for some kind of limited quarantine for North Korea. That won't fly, because China and South Korea won't enforce it.

It's more likely that North Korea will continue to churn out plutonium as well as uranium, and perhaps conduct an underground nuclear test. And administration hawks will again consider a military strike on Yongbyon, even though that would risk another Korean War.

North Korea is the most odious country in the world today. It has been caught counterfeiting U.S. dollars and smuggling drugs, and prisoners have been led along with wire threaded through their collarbones so they can't run away. While some two million North Koreans were starving to death in the late 1990's, Mr. Kim spent $2.6 million on Swiss watches. He's the kind of man who, when he didn't like a haircut once, executed the barber.

But Mr. Bush seems frozen in the headlights, unable to take any action at all toward North Korea. American policy now is to hope that Mr. Kim has a heart attack.

Selig Harrison, an American scholar just back from Pyongyang, says North Korean officials told him that in direct negotiations with the U.S., they would be willing to discuss a return to their plutonium freeze. Everything would depend on the details, including verification, but why are we refusing so adamantly even to explore this possibility?

The irony is that Mr. Bush's policies toward North Korea have steadily become more reasonable over time. Perhaps by the time he leaves office, he'll finally be willing to negotiate seriously with the North Koreans.

But by then North Korea will have well over a dozen nuclear weapons, the risks of a terrorist nuclear explosion at Grand Central Terminal will be increased, and our influence in Asia will be in tatters.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/26/op...erland&emc=rss

[BroncoBuff]

Originally Posted by L.A. BRONCOS FAN

Here's a foreign affairs quiz:

(1) How many nuclear weapons did North Korea produce in Bill Clinton's eight years of office?

(2) How many nuclear weapons has it produced so far in President Bush's (first) four years in office?

The answer to the first question, by all accounts, is zero. The answer to the second is fuzzier, but about six.

Because of Seattle's geography, I think our local media was more reactive to the problem than the national media, but every American should have rightly been appalled that North Korea was allowed to test their Taepodong II ICBM a couple years ago ... where was the outrage? Imagine had it been Iran.

And sure, "Taepodong" is a puchline NOW, very funny. But the truth is nobody knew what that thing was gonna do until they fired it.

Originally Posted by LABF

The single greatest failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy concerns North Korea. Mr. Bush's policies toward North Korea have backfired and led the North to churn out nuclear weapons, and they have also antagonized our allies and diminished America's stature in Asia.

Yup. Every single argument they made for invading Iraq goes double, triple, 10x for North Korea. So I guess that means every argument for Iraq was bullcrap then, right? I mean, that's just cold logic.

[Spider]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

Is N Korea playing fair? Or have they fooled another American President?

This deal with N Korea has me wondering if it's a good thing or bad thing for the Bush White House. On the one hand them blowing up the reactors and scrapping the manufacturing of plutonium is a great thing. The problem is they could still be enriching uranium. How many people think 2-3 yrs into the next Presidents terms we find out Kim Jong fooled Bush just like he did Clinton.

I just don't trust this regime but hopefully this is a good deal and at least one positive Bush can point to when he leaves office.

they didnt blow up a reactor .. you dont blow up reactors on purpose , he blew up a cooling tower

[Dudeskey]

Originally Posted by BroncoBuff

Just to be clear on where I stand ... I think it's GOOD to sit down and talk with even your arch-enemies, it's not a sign of weakness. Reagan proved that time and again. Obama's openness to sitting down and talking with even enemy dictators is a PLUS for him in my book. And based on what the chimp just did with North Korea, he basically agrees.

Me calling Bush an "APPEASER" was just making fun of yet another chimp-like, childish double-standard (not that Bush even understands what a double standard is).

My favorite in history is Nixon going to China & Russia

[cutthemdown]

Originally Posted by Spider

they didnt blow up a reactor .. you dont blow up reactors on purpose , he blew up a cooling tower

yeah my bad. They did supposedly dismantle the reactor though right?

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by BroncoBuff

Because of Seattle's geography, I think our local media was more reactive to the problem than the national media, but every American should have rightly been appalled that North Korea was allowed to test their Taepodong II ICBM a couple years ago ... where was the outrage? Imagine had it been Iran.

Exactly.

This sort of glaring double standard exposes Bush's foreign policy for the sham it really is.

[cutthemdown]

It's not like Bush didn't try to engage N Korea. It's also not Bush Jr fault Korea got Nukes. They had that program going long before Bush Jr got in office. Once a country has tested a nuke it really ties a Presidents hands. I think Bush did a decent job in how approached N Korea. I'm not sure any of the future Presidents will have much more luck with Kim Jong then Clinton and Bush had.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

It's not like Bush didn't try to engage N Korea.

Like how?

"Axis of evil?"

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

It's also not Bush Jr fault Korea got Nukes. They had that program going long before Bush Jr got in office.

NK was able to build ~6 nuclear weapons during Bush's first term - zero during Clinton's 8 year watch.

The program that was in place before Dim Son took office was the one that was brokered by Carter and was only capable of generating nuclear power - not weapons.

[Spider]

Originally Posted by cutthemdown

yeah my bad. They did supposedly dismantle the reactor though right?

I dont know if they did or didnt ,I sure in th hell wont trust our media on this ........

[alkemical]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003...ear.northkorea


The two faces of Rumsfeld

2000: director of a company which wins $200m contract to sell nuclear reactors to North Korea
2002: declares North Korea a terrorist state, part of the axis of evil and a target for regime change