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Right on. That's what used to be so great about FreeRepublic. We were an archive of political comment, and could hold their feet to the fire when they tried to revise history.

E D I T O R I A L S Extortion, North Korea-Style Date: 9/20/99

When the White House announced it was easing trade sanctions against North Korea Friday, it reminded us of a shopkeeper paying protection money to some Mob enforcer. The problem with such extortion payoffs is that they never end.
The U.S. has maintained a trade embargo on North Korea the last five decades. The embargo has been the principle tool of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Korean War in 1953. By isolating the communist government, the U.S. made clear that North Korea's adventurism on the world stage had real economic consequences.
Even so, North Korea has been a bad actor. Like every other communist regime, it has deprived its people so it can build an army and weapons; North Koreans are starving because of leader Kim Jong Il's delusions of greatness.
These delusions have had disturbing consequences. North Korea has long sought to join the ranks of nations with nuclear weapons. U.S. intelligence agencies have discerned several sites where North Korea could make them.
North Korea is already a member of the ballistic missile club, having launched a missile across the bows of Japan last year. Most recently, it threatened to test-launch a missile with the range to hit Alaska.
The administration reaction to all these aggressive acts? Payola.
In 1994, after it seemed North Korea was ramping up its weapons research and development, the U.S. brokered a deal between North Korea and South Korea, Japan and the U.S. Under the $6 billion deal, the allies agreed to provide economic assistance and to build nuclear energy plants if North Korea ceased its nuclear weapons program.
It took less than four years for North Korea to start working on its weapons program again. In addition to nuclear warheads, the communist regime was improving its missile capability. And by the way, it was selling those missiles to Iran and Iraq.
The U.S. did everything it could to ensure that the aid package was still intact.
Now the U.S. says because the North Koreans pledged not to test-launch their new longer-range missile, we'll reward them by easing our trade sanctions. This latest accord doesn't even exact a promise to stop building, deploying or selling missiles - just that North Korea won't test its missile.
The U.S. and South Korea once condemned the North Koreans for their threats on missile testing. The two nations also said they would slow down the delivery of economic aid if the missile was launched.
That approach strikes us as more reasonable. As with all communist countries, North Korea needs Western help more than the West needs its markets. A cutoff of aid would seem to be more than enough of a prod to North Korea.
But the U.S. sweetened the deal in an agreement signed in Berlin. Under the accord, consumer goods can be sold to North Korea. Plus, funds can go back and forth between the U.S. and North Korea, as well as people and cargo.
Only goods that have no military use can be sold there. But what's left for the U.S. to bargain with? Exports of military goods and technology? Or perhaps the White House will encourage North Korean scientists to visit our national laboratories to see our nuclear weapons programs, just as it did with China. Of course, we can always pony up some more cash.
Congress may have something to say about Clinton's move to ease sanctions. The chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Rep. Benjamin Gilman, R-N.Y., issued this statement Friday blasting the move:
''If this decision is based on the Berlin Agreement, then it is premature. . . . The Berlin Agreement is far from comprehensive, and the lack of transparency regarding the North Korean missile program and our inability to verify their compliance are troubling issues. Ultimately, we have no assurances that North Korea has halted missile development or its program for weapons of mass destruction.''
Precisely. Given North Korea's pattern of threats and extortion, there is nothing to stop it from coming back to the West in the near future with more threats and more demands for aid.
A shopkeeper under the thumb of Mob ''protection'' has two options: keep paying or go to the police. As the world's only superpower, the U.S. has the power of the police. We should use it, not keep paying.

(C) Copyright 1999 Investors Business Daily, Inc.