Now Is No Time to Downplay North Korea

WSJ ^ | 01/31/09 | JOHN R. BOLTON

[TigerLikesRooster]

Now Is No Time to Downplay North Korea

By JOHN R. BOLTON

Yesterday, North Korea declared all its political and military agreements with the South "dead" -- the latest in a string of confrontational moves taken by Pyongyang against Seoul and the U.S. In the past few weeks, the North confirmed it possessed enough plutonium for four to five nuclear warheads; threatened to retain its nuclear weapons until America withdraws its nuclear protection from the South; denounced the appointment of Seoul's new unification minister as "an open provocation"; and proclaimed that a routine South Korean military exercise had so inflamed tensions that "a war may break out any time."

The Associated Press concluded from all this that North Korea "sounded open to new ideas to defuse nuclear-tinged tensions." Some State Department quarters will warmly receive that analysis; a senior careerist at State once called earlier North Korean provocations "a desperate cry for help." Others will say Kim Jong Il just wants attention, that these moves are simply a "coming out" exercise after his recent illness.

[TigerLikesRooster]

With Odacity in power, there is less chance of N. Korea issue becoming a higher priority than in Bush's 2nd term.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[2ndDivisionVet]

Palin/Bolton 2012!!

[Bon mots]

Chia pet knows that Obama will be on his knees shining his shoes if he makes enough noise.
It must be great for America's enemies to know that they have a clueless halfwit for an adversary.

[libertylover]

Let’s see, Putin gave Obama a take-home test the day after the election over missiles and now NK is giving him another test.

[JohnLongIsland]

No problem, we’ll just take it up with the United Nations.
They’re the ones that are now running the foreign policy of this country.

[musicman]

"Now Is No Time to Downplay North Korea"

[lt.america]

Go for the trifector. Put a 24oz bottle of orion in the picture.

[musicman]

[CodeMasterPhilzar]

You know, if North Korea wasn't starving its own citizens through screwed up priorities and policies, this would be about the funniest thing in the news. I mean, they are like a caricature of the old Soviet Union. How can anyone take them seriously or believe a single word they say? Reach any agreement with them, and next month they'll likely just blow it off in some ego-centric attempt to inflate their position and stay on the world stage.

I feel sorry for the North Koreans suffering under their "leadership." There's a lesson there I think, for the US, about letting immoral people get into power and retain that power...

[Woebama]

Well, if we don’t end up in a war eventually over our guarantees to S. Korea, there are always our commitments to: Taiwan, Israel, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Pakistan, Japan, all of Latin America, Canada, etc.

[Jet Jaguar]

BTTT

[tanuki]

Earlier provocations were “a desperate cry for help.”? Is shochu on the menu at the State Department cantina?

[TigerLikesRooster]

No, that would be Poktanju(bomb liquor.)
It comes in two versions.

A-bomb: a shot of sochu inside a glass of beer.

H-bomb: a shot of beer inside a glass of sochu.

People use the former most of the time.
Some people even love to set up a dozen of them lined up in such a way that soju shot glasses fall in domino fashion into beer glasses. It is really fun. But don't drink it more than once. It would really get to you.:-)

[TigerLikesRooster]

I suspect Foggy Bottoms guys regularly indulge in H-bomb.:-)

[tanuki]

Wow! One of either of those would change my reality matrix. A dozen, and I’d treat KCNA as gospel truth!

[nw_arizona_granny]

Thank you for pinging me.