Current New Mexico governor and former Clinton administration official Bill Richardson has been on tour, bragging about the groundbreaking Clinton administration negotiations with North Korea -- keeping his fingers crossed that no one has access to news from 1994.It's also worth pointing out that North Korea continues to exist thanks to aid from China. If China cut off the oil pipelines, North Korea would collapse. If they really didn't want Korea to get nukes, all they would nave to do is but off aid. Given this, should we really believe that this is something that China didn't want?
In 1994, the Clinton administration got a call from Jimmy Carter -- probably collect -- who was with the then-leader of North Korea, saying: "Hey, Kim Il Sung is a total stud, and I've worked out a terrific deal. I'll give you the details later."
Clinton promptly signed the deal, so he could forget about North Korea and get back to cheating on Hillary. Mission accomplished.
Under the terms of the "agreed framework," we gave North Korea all sorts of bribes -- more than $5 billion worth of oil, two nuclear reactors and lots of high technology. In return, they took the bribes and kept building nukes. This wasn't difficult, inasmuch as the 1994 deal permitted the North Koreans to evade weapons inspectors for the next five years.
Yes, you read that right: North Korea promised not to develop nukes, and we showed how much we trusted them by agreeing to no weapons inspections for five years.
The famed "allies," whom liberals claim they are so interested in pleasing, went ballistic at this cave-in to North Korea. Japan and South Korea -- actual allies, unlike France and Germany -- were furious. Even Hans Blix thought we were being patsies.
If you need any more evidence that it was a rotten deal, The New York Times hailed it as "a resounding triumph."
At the time, people like William Safire were screaming from the rooftops that allowing North Korea to escape weapons inspections for five years would "preclude a pre-emptive strike by us if North Korea, in the next U.S. president's administration, breaks its agreement to freeze additional bomb-making."
And then on Oct. 17, 2002 -- under a new administration, you'll note -- The New York Times reported on the front page, so you couldn't have missed it: "Confronted by new American intelligence, North Korea has admitted that it has been conducting a major clandestine nuclear weapons development program for the past several years."
So when it comes to North Korea, I believe the Democrats might want to maintain a discreet silence, lest anyone ask, "Hey, did you guys do anything with North Korea?"
Why might China want such a regime to have nuclear weapons?
1 comment:
The Western GOP’s ranting about North Korea suffers from some predictable fallacies and Allen's argument about China not wanting to do anything completely ignores some very pragmatic issues. Let's take the last up front shall we? To accuse China of not really wanting to punish the North Korean regime for its nuclear ambitions entirely misses the point that China shares a boarder with the DPRK. Hence any destabilization is likely to result in a refugee flow, which China is not prepared to handle. Scoff at that do you? Think about how the most advanced nation in the world botched its recent relief efforts. Alternatively, consider perhaps a situation where Mexico was building nuclear weapons and China was calling for the US (who in this example would play the role China plays for the DPRK) to cut off all aid. Can you say with a straight face that you would be willing to accept the flood of Mexican migrants who would be fleeing the chaos south of the border? Now let us turn to the arguments of that most authoritative of sources, Ms. Coulter. In all her lamenting about President Bill Clinton (whom she likely despises because the former President cheated on his wife while she cannot get any self respecting man to even want to marry her), Ms. Coulter conveniently ignores the fact that control of Congress changed hands soon after the deal was signed. Thus, it was up to the GOP to implement a deal they did not agree with. One can only assume they would not have been too keen on doing so. Indeed this was the case. Various aid shipments were delayed, construction on the nuclear reactors was put off, and the bilateral economic sanctions were clearly not going to be phased out. With the US not honoring its end of the bargain, is it any wonder the North would have sought to undermine the deal? Let me remind you once more just in case you missed that, the Republicans were in control of Congress thus they must bear responsibility here too. Let us also look at some other historical evidence. When did the DPRK announce it would reprocess its spent plutonium fuel rods? Why it was in 2003. And when did they announce they were withdrawing from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? Why that was also in 2003. I will leave it to you to say who was in the White House given that I have already said who was in control of Congress. In conclusion, the DPRK’s most aggressive moves towards obtaining nuclear weapons came during the Bush administration. Here was a country open about its desire to acquire nuclear weapons yet we chose to invade Iraq? Before your reactor melts down over that one, let me remind you also of Vice President Cheney’s assertions that the United States "knew beyond the shadow of a doubt" that Saddam possessed chemical and biological weapons and was building a nuclear weapon. Iraq was a war about WMD (not spreading democracy) and about keeping America safe. Now, I do not have the wisdom of someone such as Ms. Coulter but it certainly seems like the Bush administration, in allowing North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, creating a "cause celebre" for terrorists in Iraq, and not defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan, has failed in the most basic responsibility of any government; that of protecting its citizens. I suppose I could have also mentioned the issue on which conservatives clearly agree; namely protecting our southern border but I figure I better not give you too much to chew on. I would not want you to choke after all.
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