North Korea: saying so don't make it so

[tongodeon]

Six years after Bill Clinton left office they're still blaming him for the current administration's failures.

Q Okay, just one quick follow-up. When you hear from your allies on Capitol Hill and elsewhere who were in favor of the preemptive doctrine, and they are critical of the administration, they think the administration is not doing enough in

Comments

[arian1]

Nice to see Snowjob hitting his stride as the next Babyhands

[ikkyu2]

Among the more troubling aspects of the current administration is their constant carping about Clinton. Clinton was a good president; can't we just accept that and focus on the current business of good government?

[tongodeon]

Unfortunately no. They held Clinton in such disdain that the fact that Clinton engaged in a certain policy is proof that the policy is flawed. "We can't do that - that's what Clinton was doing." You can STILL hear this rationale floated around conservative circles. "That's Clinton policy - you're not the next Slick Willie are you?"

Unfortunately, when what Clinton is doing WORKS and you abandon what he's doing you're left with what DOESN'T WORK. And that's how you trade negotiation for WMD buildups in North Korea, trade containment for clusterfucks in Iraq, or lose focus on Al Qaeda and get three smoking holes.

[ikkyu2]

Unfortunately, when what Clinton is doing WORKS and you abandon what he's doing you're left with what DOESN'T WORK.

Hey now - I agree with your point, but you're too clever and skillful a debater to try and pull a schlock argument like this. If what Bill is doing works, and you abandon what Bill is doing, there could still be other things that work.

[tongodeon]

I'd really like to think so, but apparently not. Seriously, fill in the blank. "Thank god George Bush is ______ instead of ________ like Clinton did."

[wisn]

The US's stance is their long-range missles have to be defended against even though they are unlikely to cross Japan any time soon, nevermind the Pacific; Jane's Defense Weekly reports their short-range missles from yesterday's launch all landed harmlessly in the water (assuming no fishing boats were in the way, which has happened) and their Taepo Dong 2 long-range missle failed to travel more than 12 km. The show of intent is important for international relations even though they serve no practical purpose, and N.Korea, to the extent their own intelligence network is able to establish, is probably getting exactly what they want whether their missles succeed or fail.

What I'm curious about is what is the purely financial cost to the U.S. of appeasing N.Korea compared with arming against them. I'm not considering this in terms of establishing a cash value of buying off Pyongyang. That's a fantasy anyway.

what is the appeasing???

[drieuxster]

granted that is a loaded term - so it would help to clarify what you mean by it before we move on down the road to working out the options and the costs

Re: what is the appeasing???

[wisn]

> it would help to clarify what you meanThe conditional exchange of food and fuel for suspending weapons development. It is appeasement after the fashion of offering a child candy if he'll stop throwing tantrums, even if the scale and consequences are different

Re: what is the appeasing???

[drieuxster]

Why not try "constructive engagement" - a term first coined by the Kapitulationist Appeaser Richard M. Nixon, who, after stabbing our valiant fighting forces in the Back, and abandoning our South Vietnamese Allies to the Ravages of the Mongol Hordes, sought to translate 'detente' from the cheese eating surrenderist language of the FreedomLanders. Since it goes beyond merely 'appeasement' - even in the context of the child with candy concern - and into the space where one can start working on the internal dialectical tensions of the opposite sides ideological fiasco.

So while the disctinctions may well be nuanced, there is a clear and compelling distinction! Chamberlain was never interested in Exporting Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll, and Blue Jeans to germany. Whereas, as I am sure you will recall from the intelligence briefing of the seventies - the Komsomol, the young communist league, inside of Russia, was rebranding the McCarthyIte Rhetoric of the fifties, and trying to STOP the onslaught of Blue Jeans lead Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll

[mister_borogove]

Thanks for this. I occasionally see Clinton-Korea-Policy trolls on politicalblogs, it's nice to have a summary of why they're idiots.

You are missing the Guilt Angle

[drieuxster]

Think about it for a moment. Most of the wankers who are whining about Clinton are the same folks who have not been able to resolve their guilt for having supporting an impeachment of a seated Commander In Chief while congress had offered said CIC the emergency powers to take such actions against Iraq as were deemed required. Hence these folks are still emotionally traumatized that they openly offered aid and comfort to Saddam Hussein, and in the current moral climate, that means they openly supported Al-Qaeda, and hence that they are still morally responsible for the whole 9/11 thing....

So the better solution is to go after the Evil Clinton as IF this were still the ninties - and that we were still in need to an impeachment trial....

The alternative would be to deal with the actual flow of american history, and that would oblige them to deal with their emotional issues, and the grotesque self loathing that they have forced themselves into....

I mean, do you think they really want to deal with the GitMo/GenevaAccord U-turn???