Posted on 10/17/2002 11:04:15 AM PDT by seamus
THE FOLLOWING NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL WAS PUBLISHED 8 YEARS AGO THIS SATURDAY:
Diplomacy with North Korea has scored a resounding triumph. Monday's draft agreement freezing and then dismantling North Korea's nuclear program should bring to an end two years of international anxiety and put to rest widespread fears that an unpredictable nation might provoke nuclear disaster.
The U.S. negotiator Robert Gallucci and his North Korean interlocutors have drawn up a detailed road map of reciprocal steps that both sides accepted despite deep mutual suspicion. In so doing they have defied impatient hawks and other skeptics who accused the Clinton Administration of gullibility and urged swifter, stronger action. The North has agreed first to freeze its nuclear program in return for U.S. diplomatic recognition and oil from Japan and other countries to meet its energy needs. Pyongyang will then begin to roll back that program as an American-led consortium replaces the North's nuclear reactors with two new ones that are much less able to be used for bomb-making. At that time, the North will also allow special inspections of its nuclear waste sites, which could help determine how much plutonium it had extracted from spent fuel in the past.
A last-minute snag, North Korea's refusal to resume its suspended talks with neighboring South Korea, was resolved to Seoul's satisfaction. If Washington and Pyongyang approve the agreement, and if the North fulfills its commitments, this negotiation could become a textbook case on how to curb the spread of nuclear arms.
Hawks, arguing that the North was simply stalling while it built more bombs, had called for economic sanctions or attacks on the North's nuclear installations. The Administration muted the war talk and pursued determined diplomacy.
Reassuring the North paid off in the end. Given the residual mistrust between the two sides, the U.S. will now sensibly provide more tangible reassurance. It is moving toward diplomatic recognition, in the form of an exchange of liaison offices, and economic cooperation, in the form of heavy fuel oil from others in the U.S.-led consortium and the start of construction of new nuclear reactors.
In return, the North will put its nuclear program in a deep freeze by not refueling its nuclear reactor, arranging temporary safe storage of the spent fuel rods removed from that reactor and sealing its reprocessing facility to prevent the extraction of plutonium from those fuel rods. Implementing the freeze and allowing it to be verified are important tests of the North's good faith.
Then, in elaborately choreographed stages detailed in a confidential note, nuclear dismantling will proceed step-by-step with reactor replacement. That gives both sides leverage against reneging. At the end of stage one, with construction of the first reactor well under way but before key nuclear components have been supplied, the North will allow special inspections of its nuclear waste sites.
In stage two, as construction proceeds on the two reactors, the North will gradually ship its 8,000 spent fuel rods abroad for reprocessing. In stage three, as the second replacement reactor nears completion, the North will dismantle all its bomb-making facilities, including its old graphite reactors and reprocessing plant.
Critics say the U.S. is in effect bribing North Korea to comply with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Yet Washington has previously provided inducements to others, including South Korea, to refrain from bomb-making. It has gotten the North to do a lot more than the treaty requires, like dismantle its nuclear installations.
From the start, the hawks' alternative to diplomacy was full of danger. Their solution -- economic sanctions and bombing runs -- might have disarmed North Korea, but only at the risk of war. President Clinton, former President Carter and Mr. Gallucci deserve warm praise for charting a less costly and more successful course.
Drives me nuts. And if news of North Korea's nuclear program weren't so troubling and dangerous, the claims in this editorial would be laugh-out-loud funny.
Mmmmmmmmm. More successful. Perhaps. But more successful for whom?
Yeh - the sophisticates at the Times sure know what's best, don't they?
Yep, it's the same Neville Chamberlain diplomacy for success program that saw us avoid World War II (LOL), and try to avoid confronting Saddam Husseing because "he ain't done anything wrong yet."
Evil must be confronted! Hey Jimma! Is that Nobel prize burning a hole in your pocket yet? Sucker...
I DEMAND A RETRACTION !!!!!! (pfffffffftttttt)
Commie scumsucker alert
With Iraq, the Clinton Administration leaned on inspectors not to look where they might find anything, so as to make it look like Iraq was behaving, and not a real problem.
With Al Queda, the Clinton administration constantly downplayed its significance so it could pretend we didn't have a problem that needed to be addressed.
For example, lets take our inept ex-secretary of state Madelaine Albright. In 1991 she was against war with Iraq and fervently against US forces going into Baghdad and deposing Saddam. Her statements are recorded in print and on video. In 1998, she was for attacking and deposing Saddam, but better yet, she criticized the previous adminstration for not taking Saddam out, while they had the chance, contradicting her earlier statements. Presently, in 2002, she is once again against military action in Iraq, once again contradicting herself.
The Korea Society Annual Dinner 2000
President Jimmy Carter
Van Fleet Award Honoree
Acceptance Remarks
It may be hard for any of you to assess the depth of feeling that I am presently experiencing. In following on the platform a man who was a human
rights hero of mine beginning twenty-five years ago, and to receive this award directly from his hands is a personal and overwhelming honor for me.
I would wager that everyone here has an interest in Korea; otherwise you wouldn’t be present. My first interest in Korea was as a young submarine
officer in the Pacific Ocean during the Korean War. I viewed the loss of thirty-five or forty thousand of my fellow military companions as a blight on
Korea, and I despised the memory and image of Kim Il Sung.
When I was president, I recognized the vital alliance between the United States and South Korea, which has been eloquently described by the
president in the last few moments. But my relationships with the two presidents who served in that time were quite unpleasant. With Presidents
Park and Chun there was always a barrier between us when I met with them personally or communicated with them, because of a difference in our
concepts of human rights. With the full resources of the intelligence forces of my country, we had monitored the attempts to destroy the life of one
of my most cherished heroes. Even in the last few months of my term as president, I saw my friend under threat of being executed. And as Don
Gregg has pointed out, he and Harold Brown went to Seoul to present our views in the strongest military terms.
I accept this award not for myself, but on behalf of the Carter Center, where my wife and I have devoted our lives for the last twenty years. At the
Carter Center, we monitor everyday, every conflict on earth. There are one hundred ten conflicts on our present list, about seventy of which erupt
into violence every year (last year seventy-one). About thirty of them are very serious wars, major wars. Korea has always been on our list because
the differences have not yet been resolved.
In some way unknown to me, Kim Il Sung heard about our work at the Carter Center, and for three years beginning late in 1990, he repeatedly
asked me to come to P’yongyang so that he could explain his positions and his proposals to the U.S. government by indirect means. Because of
opposition in Washington, I did not go for awhile. Finally to test his sincerity, I told him that I would only come if we could go directly from Seoul
across the DMZ to P’yongyang and back down, without going through China. He said at first that this was impossible because even the secretary
general of the United Nations had to go through China. I said, "I won’t come." Later he sent word that he wanted us to come so badly that he
would approve. So my wife and I, in June of 1994, as you may know, made this trip: the first human beings who did so in forty-three years.
My background was in nuclear engineering, and when we got there we had many talks about this subject. He was surprisingly conversant about
the nature of graphite moderated reactors that were producing the spent fuel that was in danger of being converted into nuclear explosives, but we
resolved that difficulty after long talks. Later we learned to, I think, respect each other, if I can be so bold as to say so. We proposed to him that
there be direct negotiations, a summit meeting between North and South Korea, and he agreed. Preparations were being made for this summit,
and he was inspecting the summit site. Not long afterwards, he died on the site.
Subsequently, his son, Kim Jong Il, sent me a letter pledging that he would honor all the commitments his father had made, but six years passed.
It was only because of the sunshine policy promulgated by President Kim Dae-jung and publicly announced and believed in P’yongyang that the
dreams of Koreans, Americans and people around the world were to be partially realized. At last some rapprochement was reached between the
people on the Korean peninsula.
Where do we go from here? I think with the repeatedly demonstrated personal courage of my hero, Kim Dae-jung, and with the sound judgment, I
hope, of Kim Jong Il, we’ll see that progress continues until the people of North and South Korea can once again realize their common destiny.
I hope as an American citizen, as a leader of only the Carter Center–a private citizen–that my country will give its fullest support to both sides.
We should be accommodating and understanding about the paranoia and the strangeness that we think exists in North Korea. I hope that the
courage and commitment that is demonstrated in Seoul will harness the enormous economic potential of the Japanese and the Europeans and the
great influence of China in North Korea. Then we can see once again, peace come to all the people of Korea, which will be a blessing not only to
them, but to the entire world.
The he!! you say! They deserve a keel-hauling!
More hugs, dangit, more hugs!
Exibit # 345 proving how gullible Clinton was and why he should never have been President and why Algore would be a national security risk.
To paraphrase "Love Story" - Love means never having to say you're sorry - Being Liberal means never having to say you're wrong.
Besides, liberalism is all about feelings and intentions, not facts and results. Who's to say that someone else's "feelings" are wrong?
Carter did his magic with Korea. He fixed it. No more need to worry about nukes and North Korea. Well, he didn't fix it. He simply blew off the US' efforts to reign in the North Korean leadership.
Carter and others have been trying to get restraints on Castro lifted. For the record, when Castro had access to funds, he didn't spend it on his people. But these people think he would today. LOL Fidel would have his troups back in Africa and all over Central and South American.
These actions of the "useful idiots" are clearly defined. That's why the Nobel committee honors people like Carter. The Nobel committee loves people like Castro and the North Korean leadership. They have the same goals. Frankly, so does Carter.
2. It's all Bush's fault because we had a mutual agreement with the NK-Coms to pretend they didn't have nukes.
3. This is nothing but the final proof that Bush only wants Iraqui oil.
You must be kidding. Is this really what's being said over at DU? It is becoming increasingly difficult to paordy those people.
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