Posted on 01/04/2008 9:20:53 PM PST by AmericanInTokyo
LONDON - The failure of North Korea to meet the "deadline" for "fessing up" to everything in its nuclear inventory should have come as no shock to anyone.
The only surprise is that US diplomats and (Bush Administration) spokespeople persisted in saying North Korean disablement of its nuclear program was "on track" and all that was needed to complete this "phase" of the deal was for the North to produce that list.
Now the all-patient US State Department is saying all is fine, "They should not sacrifice completeness and accuracy for speed," said nuclear envoy Christopher Hill as he prepared for another round of talks about getting North Korea to live up to its word.
(Excerpt) Read more at atimes.com ...
He is good.
Can anyone imagine back in the old days of the Bush Administration that he would so foolishly allow his State Department to push this agenda with North Korea and sign on to this abject cr*p??
Ping
But, he’s having the dialog that the Rats demanded.
“They should not sacrifice completeness and accuracy for speed,...”
OMG
They are going to get us in a war with this appeasement.
I swear, they are just as bad as and NO DIFFERENT than the Clintonites and Madeline Albright.
This MUST be brought up in the GOP debates and ATTACKED!!!
We have come full circle in 8 short years. Yes.
BTTT
If true I don’t think President Bush is going to be like being lied to. I think the payback is going to be a bit$h.
At any rate, this was the best part of the article:
"An incredible irony is that, while the Bush administration reversed course on North Korea and turned toward moderation, South Korean voters have become ever more dubious about what all the talking is accomplishing. (Newly elected S. Korean President) Lee, a conservative whose primary focus is on the economy, has been using much the same language as American conservatives in wanting to know all North Korea's been up to, including its HEU program, and demanding "verification" of compliance with the six-party agreements. "
Make smiley faces at them and use weasel words and you can keep them talking for years and decades. NK knows this and Iran knows this.
The chances are practically nil that any western power, meaning the US WILL go to war over this and they're even less that the EU/UN CAN go to war over this so all the bad guys gotta do is keep us flappin our lips and carry on with business.
Someone's gonna get nuked or at a minimum, blackmailed with being nuked.
All this power and no way to use it makes it worthless.
BAH! We're not going to do anything or we'd have done it 15 years ago. The UN/EU isn't gonna do anything, and nobody else can.
I don't know what you expect Bush to do that he should have done a LONG time ago so kindly enlighten me.
The sad thing is that N. Korea doesn’t fear us anymore. We have never reacted in an aggressive fashion (since ‘53), are busy in the middle east, have a president on his way out, and inexplicably tiptoe around China. I think we should threaten to boycott the summer olympics unless China forces N. Korea to play ball.
Judging from remarks by those Lee supporters who deal with N. Korea-related affairs, they will raise rhetoric. However, Lee's camp is already talking about creating $40 billion international fund for developing N. Korean economy in return for denuclearization.
They are dangling giant carrot for sure, but I don't see them mentioning sticks when N. Korea still balks. There are people in Lee's camp who launched their political career by criticizing N. Korean regime and advocating human right for N. Koreans. However, their tune softened lately, probably in accordance to Lee's stance.
I do not see anybody in their camp demanding true accountability to N. Korean regime. What Lee's and his supporters' stance now is to follow the lead of Bush/Rice/Hill. They are happy with that.
Those in Lee's camp avoid anything remotely resembling ideological confrontation like a plague. These guys are former left-wing underground activists. They profess to ditch their left-wing ideology and be reborn as the people of the right. The truth is that they are neither left nor right. They hate those who have in right-wing camp all along. They do not want to be in a position to unequivocally and irreversibly denounce and confront the old ideological masters in the North.
They are in essence colorless apostate who exonerate themselves by touting market economy only. The shade of Clintonistas. They still use Modus Operandi of the left. Their propaganda, subversion, agitation formulas. That is what got Lee Myung-bak elected.
Look at Lee's right-hand man, Lee Jae-oh. He is a former member of "S. Korean Liberation Front." This was not an ordinary left-wing organization. This is the organization created by a N. Korean agent which specifically worked for the overthrow of S. Korean government. They funded their activity by robbing the home of wealth businessmen, the enemy of the working class. If S. Korea was not under military government, I am really sure that they become the terrorist organization such as Baader-Meinhoff gang of W. Germany, Red Army Faction of Japan, and Red Brigade of Italy.
To this day, Lee Jae-oh insists that his organization fought for democracy. Right. Lenin and Stalin are also democracy fighters, if we follow his logic.
There are quite a lot of people like that. They constitute the core of so-called "New Right" in S. Korea. This may sound like S. Korean version of American Neocon. However, it is not exactly right. As I said, they are closer to "New Labor" in Britain or Democratic Leadership Council in U.S. They just talk like Neocon from time to time.
Ther is another important figure, Kim Jin-hong, a Protestant pastor, who basically says "social movement for the weak" is what Christianity is basically all about. He is a quintessential left-wing clergy.
These lefties were not able to catch a ride to political success under Roh Moo-hyun. They are part of the faction which lost out at the time. Now they repackage themselves as people of the right, and rode the anti-Roh(and anti-Left!!) sentiment to power.
So it is pretty likely that they would not go farther than Bush and Condi with regard to N. Korea.
If U.S. change its attitude and get tough, it is possible that Lee's crowd may be a little more receptive than Roh's.
Lee Myung-bak's political gameplan is to make the whole S. Korean wallow in real-estate bubble and easy money. He does not care for much else. All others are really secondary and marginal. Lee's government will be in real trouble if his bubble policy fails due to global recession and financial disruption. He can print S. Korean money at will and spread loose credit all he wants domestically. He cannot control the international economy, though.
His government is being launched at the tail end of global bubble economy. As a result, his government is facing incredible risk, whether he realizes it or not. If he cannot inflate the realstate value of a majority of S. Koreans, he will be done. These days pretty much everybody in S. Korea is living on the hope that someday his housing value will take off and make him feel rich. Everybody wants to emulate those is plushy part of Seoul, whose property value skyrocketed for last several years. By working hard and make money daily, they cannot come even close to what they can earn by rising real estate price.
Lee Myung-bak exploited such sentiment to the maximum. We are in pretty serious situation economically. I don't see how this will end in a positive note.
First, avowed left-wing activists took power with Roh as their leader, and ruined the economy. Now, another army of left-wing activists in disguise came in with Lee Myung-bak at the top, and promise bubble utopia to everybody. One two punch by left-wing activists, so-called 386 Juche left (I have to note that some are not Juche left, but your typical Marxists.)
Left-wing fantasy replaced by bubble fantasy.
Look like they are in love glance
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