North Korea: reaping a decade of coddling
North Korea reportedly detonated a nuclear device, proving once and for all that they do, indeed posses nuclear weapons.
This is a direct result of a decade of coddling the North Korean dictatorship by both the international community and the United States.
Ever since the Clinton administration made a foolish decision to reward North Korea for its misbehavior that nation has been on a one-way express to acquiring nuclear weapons.
If Iraq's nuclear policy in the 1990s constituted a "decade of defiance," Bill Clinton's negotiations with North Korea represented a "decade of delusion." Evidence that North Korea was violating the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty surfaced within weeks of Clinton's first inauguration. After a year of inaction allowed Pyongyang to create at least one nuclear weapon, the emboldened Stalinists announced their formal withdrawal from the treaty. It seemed North Korean officials were angling for a payoff. They must have realized they struck the jackpot when Clinton named tough-as-nails Jimmy Carter as his principal negotiator.
Under the final terms of the Agreed Framework approved in October of 1994, Clinton agreed to provide the "Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea" (DPRK) with two light water nuclear reactors and a massive allotment of oil. The U.S. agreed to ship 500,000 metric tons of oil annually in response to the North's pretense that the energy-starved backwater had developed the nuclear facility to generate power. These shipments have cost taxpayers more than $800 million to date - a bargain compared with the $6 billion spent on constructing the nuclear reactors, which now empower North Korea to produce 100 nuclear bombs each year.
As with all appeasements, this only convinced North Korea that the United States would do little to stop them. And, as all nations know, the United Nations is not going to stop anyone from doing anything.
Can you imagine the outcry from the left if President Bush had responded to al Qaeda by building them weapons factories and aircraft assembly plants after 9-11? Yet this is precisely what President Clinton did with North Korea.
It is no wonder, then, that North Korea prefers unilateral talks with the United States. They have the left pegged as appeasers and are looking for a second round of tasty appeasement morsels. Perhaps some rocket technology of the kind sold (and stolen) to the Chinese?
President Bush has wisely eschewed the unilateral talk route and puts pressure on the North Koreans with a regional alliance of likely victims of North Korean aggression: Japan and South Korea, along with two potential enablers: China and Russia. Altogether these six nations represent all sides of the situation and allow the United States to apply pressure backed up by the cooperation of China and Russia: the only two countries that might back North Korea in any conflict with the United States or its allies.
From this point on the United States needs to be tough with not only North Korea, but also South Korea. President Bush should work with the other nations involved on a joint military strike if North Korea does not give up its nuclear weapons and also tell South Korea that the continued presence of US troops is dependent upon full support of the United States from South Korea. We have too many obligations elsewhere to keep troops in danger on the Korean peninsula if the South Koreans are going to undermine our efforts there.
The time has long since come and gone for the law to be laid down to North Korea. Our air force, aided with some ground contingents from China and Russia, should put an end to Kim Jong-Ils despotic regime once and for all.
The list of failures with regard to North Korea under President Clinton is long. There is no need to continue such failed policies while we have the means to take out North Korea quickly and before they can deploy their weapons of mass destruction.
A plan should be developed along with the other six-party talk participants for military action and control of North Korea followed by reunification with the south under a democratic process. It should be easy to persuade China and Russia that a peaceful, democratic Korea is both a stabilizing influence in the region and a much bigger market for their export goods than the current situation. In an era of free trade between capitalist democracies money can be the ultimate catalyst.
This is a direct result of a decade of coddling the North Korean dictatorship by both the international community and the United States.
Ever since the Clinton administration made a foolish decision to reward North Korea for its misbehavior that nation has been on a one-way express to acquiring nuclear weapons.
If Iraq's nuclear policy in the 1990s constituted a "decade of defiance," Bill Clinton's negotiations with North Korea represented a "decade of delusion." Evidence that North Korea was violating the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty surfaced within weeks of Clinton's first inauguration. After a year of inaction allowed Pyongyang to create at least one nuclear weapon, the emboldened Stalinists announced their formal withdrawal from the treaty. It seemed North Korean officials were angling for a payoff. They must have realized they struck the jackpot when Clinton named tough-as-nails Jimmy Carter as his principal negotiator.
Under the final terms of the Agreed Framework approved in October of 1994, Clinton agreed to provide the "Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea" (DPRK) with two light water nuclear reactors and a massive allotment of oil. The U.S. agreed to ship 500,000 metric tons of oil annually in response to the North's pretense that the energy-starved backwater had developed the nuclear facility to generate power. These shipments have cost taxpayers more than $800 million to date - a bargain compared with the $6 billion spent on constructing the nuclear reactors, which now empower North Korea to produce 100 nuclear bombs each year.
As with all appeasements, this only convinced North Korea that the United States would do little to stop them. And, as all nations know, the United Nations is not going to stop anyone from doing anything.
Can you imagine the outcry from the left if President Bush had responded to al Qaeda by building them weapons factories and aircraft assembly plants after 9-11? Yet this is precisely what President Clinton did with North Korea.
It is no wonder, then, that North Korea prefers unilateral talks with the United States. They have the left pegged as appeasers and are looking for a second round of tasty appeasement morsels. Perhaps some rocket technology of the kind sold (and stolen) to the Chinese?
President Bush has wisely eschewed the unilateral talk route and puts pressure on the North Koreans with a regional alliance of likely victims of North Korean aggression: Japan and South Korea, along with two potential enablers: China and Russia. Altogether these six nations represent all sides of the situation and allow the United States to apply pressure backed up by the cooperation of China and Russia: the only two countries that might back North Korea in any conflict with the United States or its allies.
From this point on the United States needs to be tough with not only North Korea, but also South Korea. President Bush should work with the other nations involved on a joint military strike if North Korea does not give up its nuclear weapons and also tell South Korea that the continued presence of US troops is dependent upon full support of the United States from South Korea. We have too many obligations elsewhere to keep troops in danger on the Korean peninsula if the South Koreans are going to undermine our efforts there.
The time has long since come and gone for the law to be laid down to North Korea. Our air force, aided with some ground contingents from China and Russia, should put an end to Kim Jong-Ils despotic regime once and for all.
The list of failures with regard to North Korea under President Clinton is long. There is no need to continue such failed policies while we have the means to take out North Korea quickly and before they can deploy their weapons of mass destruction.
A plan should be developed along with the other six-party talk participants for military action and control of North Korea followed by reunification with the south under a democratic process. It should be easy to persuade China and Russia that a peaceful, democratic Korea is both a stabilizing influence in the region and a much bigger market for their export goods than the current situation. In an era of free trade between capitalist democracies money can be the ultimate catalyst.