North Korea said Monday it has performed its first-ever nuclear weapons test, setting off an underground blast in defiance of international warnings and intense diplomatic activity aimed at heading off such a move.
Well I am actually kind of glad N. Korea became a member of the nuclear club.
Don't look so shocked...
it was the best thing to guarantee their sovreignty. Also, if you take a peek at the Bush foreign diplomacy in this matter it really makes this country look like a doube-crossing, backstabbing, liar of a nation...
quote:
Oct. 16, 2006 issue - On Sept. 19, 2005, North Korea signed a widely heralded denuclearization agreement with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Pyongyang pledged to "abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs." In return, Washington agreed that the United States and North Korea would "respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations." Four days later, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea designed to cut off the country's access to the international banking system, branding it a "criminal state" guilty of counterfeiting, money laundering and trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.
The Bush administration says that this sequence of events was a coincidence.
The leaders of this country actually had the nerve to say that?
Four days later!
I wonder who was in charge of that SNAFU, or did we sign the agreement with our fingers crossed behind our back?
Welcome to the club N.Korea!
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
North Korea announced last week it would test a nuclear device saying its hand was forced by what it called U.S. threats of nuclear war and economic sanctions. But it said it would not be the first to use a nuclear weapon.
South Korea's Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources had detected a tremor of a magnitude 3.58 to 3.7 at 0135 GMT.
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
I'm not shocked. I knew you had a soft spot in your heart for communist dictators.
My ex brother in law has a doctorate in political science and is studying the famine in North Korea. He has to study it from their Chinese border because he can't actually go into the country. Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are starving because of the policies of Kim Jong Il yet he sits in his palace and has his servants sort his rice kernels to make sure they are exactly the same size before they are cooked.
I'm not surprised at all.
I don't see this as a failure of the Bush administration. Fact of the matter is that the effort to get North Korea to stop it's nuclear proliferation should have been fronted by it's neighbors, primarily China and Japan. I'm really tired of everyone around the world pointing to the US and thinking we have some responsibility to fix the worlds problems. It's time for someone else to step up.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
I knew you had a soft spot in your heart for communist dictators.
hmmmm..
Ad Hominem?
--------------------------------------------------------------- "if you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got." ---------------------------------------------------------------
Posts: 6804 | Location: usa | Registered: 09 February 2006
Kate you should learn the difference between ad hominem, a joke and an insult.
Ad hominem is a logical fallacy used in debate, Meaning attacking the man instead of the topic.
A joke is something I can't explain to you because you have no sense of humor.
An insult is my comment above about the joke.
Now that I have that off my chest I hope we can go back to loving each other.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
A joke is something I can't explain to you because you have no sense of humor.
lol!
Seems more in line with civilized debate:
quote:
I don't see this as a failure of the Bush administration. Fact of the matter is that the effort to get North Korea to stop it's nuclear proliferation should have been fronted by it's neighbors, primarily China and Japan. I'm really tired of everyone around the world pointing to the US and thinking we have some responsibility to fix the worlds problems. It's time for someone else to step up.
--------------------------------------------------------------- "if you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got." ---------------------------------------------------------------
Posts: 6804 | Location: usa | Registered: 09 February 2006
Bush's policy is to wait out his enemies in the naive hope they all will collapse under their own weight.
This is because Bush does not want to reach any agreement that would allow the current regimes to stay in power.
However, this is foolhardy approach.
As we now see, NK has quadrupled its nuclear materials since 2000 and has formally become a nuclear power. This could have been prevented by a wiser President and true leader who understands that regime-change in itself is not always the best goal.
Once again, Bush's idealism does not match real world circumstances, and we are less safe for it.
Posts: 1741 | Location: Florida | Registered: 19 March 2006
Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans are starving because of the policies of Kim Jong Il
Ok, is it possible they are starving because of...
quote:
the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea
and in a brazen attempt to be listed in hipocrites-r-us...
quote:
yet he sits in his palace and has his servants sort his rice kernels to make sure they are exactly the same size before they are cooked.
what did you have to eat today while thousands in this country(which certainly is more capable of providing for its citizens than N Korea) starve?
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
Just another thing (the nuclear device detonation), that never would have happened under a Gore administration. This should be a Democratic talking point, but alas the Dems would need a spine to use it as such.
"The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." — Henry Kissinger
Posts: 731 | Location: Upstate, NY | Registered: 10 September 2006
N. Korea has not broken any international law or treaty with this detonation. It removed from the non-proliferation treaty in 1993.
Maybe this is obvious, but I really can't take this outrage at a test when the U.S. has detonated thousands of devices, seeks a new class of nuclear weapons, and is the only country to have used them on people.
And, BTW, Iran (and the kingdoms there that preceded the modern state) have not initiated war against any other country for over 200 years. There a dozens and dozens of U.S. unprovoked military action against other countries during that time.
Bill, do you feel it's incumbant on us to feed North Korea? Do you think that the monitary aid we've given them in the past got to the peasants or could it have been spent on weaponry? Kim Jong Il is a crazy despot and an evil man.
I'll tell you one thing. I would never want our foot soldiers in the middle of a conflict between the North and South. Their armies are the most brutal in the world.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
Just another thing (the nuclear device detonation), that never would have happened under a Gore administration.
It was the Clinton / Gore administration that gave them the bomb in the first place.
I'm researching your claim at the moment Astaroth, but from what I can uncover it looks as if Clinton made a deal with them to stop nuclear development, a deal which North Korea reneged on. I believe Clinton was out of office by the time this was found out about, and last I knew Bush was trying to have five-party talks or somesuch with the North Koreans, and they seemed to have been busily working away on their nuclear program since the time we found out they broke the deal that Clinton had agreed to with them.
Anyway, my point about Al Gore was that the only reason North Korea has these outbursts of missile tests, over the top rhetoric etc... is to get international attention. They did this same kind of stuff when they were a Soviet satellite. All they really want is more weapons or food to feed their starving people depending on what mood their dictator is in on a given day. Now, we don't want to prop up their ruthless, diabolical leader, but short of going to war with them we may be forced to negotiate and give into some of their demands. Bush has refused to negotiate with them bilaterally, and thus is culpable for this escalation of their nuclear program.
Joseph Cirincione made a great point on Thom's show today, that these neo-conservative crazies that Bush is so impressed by, don't negotiate. If you don't negotiate with nations who you already have troubled relations with chances are those relations will only get worse, probably why we are seeing North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs progress the way we have during the failed Bush presidency.
"The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." — Henry Kissinger
Posts: 731 | Location: Upstate, NY | Registered: 10 September 2006
Bush has refused to negotiate with them bilaterally, and thus is culpable for this escalation of their nuclear program.
My memory of the situation is that Bush wanted multi latteral talks with North Korea but Kim Jong Il wanted bi-latteral talks because he wasn't in position to play hardball with China. He wanted bi-latteral talks with the US because he was able to intimidate us into an excessive amount of aid priviously.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
Bush has refused to negotiate with them bilaterally, and thus is culpable for this escalation of their nuclear program.
My memory of the situation is that Bush wanted multi latteral talks with North Korea but Kim Jong Il wanted bi-latteral talks because he wasn't in position to play hardball with China. He wanted bi-latteral talks with the US because he was able to intimidate us into an excessive amount of aid priviously.
Well, we're getting into a lot of hypotheticals here, so I don't think I'm going to be able to debate this to death. Let's say I don't know with 100% certainty that Gore would have been able to stop the escalation of N. Korea's nuclear program, but I have all the confidence in him that he would have been able to do so. If we think through every scenario we can get the same result that we have now, but I don't think under a Gore administration this would have been one of the most likely outcomes.
By the way, Sawdust, I'm not sure you're point refutes my argument, but ok I must concede Bush possibly had some valid reasons to not take part in bilateral talks with North Korea.
"The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." — Henry Kissinger
Posts: 731 | Location: Upstate, NY | Registered: 10 September 2006
I'm not a Gore fan and won't speculate about the Korean situation as it relates to him. He did have a special relationship with Buddhists as I recall. Maybe he could have used his connections.
I'm pretty sure that Bush had called for multilateral talks however. I'm not argueing, just trying to remember.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
Originally posted by Sawdust: I'm not a Gore fan and won't speculate about the Korean situation as it relates to him. He did have a special relationship with Buddhists as I recall. Maybe he could have used his connections.
I would think they are marxist/atheist there, but who knows perhaps he could have gotten lucky. But alas, we're mired again in hypotheticals, ah what good a few less hanging chads could have accomplished.
"The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." — Henry Kissinger
Posts: 731 | Location: Upstate, NY | Registered: 10 September 2006
I'm not sure about the North. I was in South Korea for a year. They have plenty of Buddhists.
quote:
"The five of us -- Russia, South Korea, Japan, China, and the United States -- spoke with one voice about the rocket launches, and we will work together to continue to remind the leader of North Korea that there is a better way forward for his people," he said. "I also strongly believe that it is much more effective to have more than one nation dealing with North Korea. It's more effective for them to hear from a group of nations rather than one nation."
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
It was the Clinton / Gore administration that gave them the bomb in the first place.
All this talk about N Korea as if it was a naughty child. Who gave Russia France China India Packistan UK and Israel nukes?
It is the responsibility of all soveriegn nations to defend itself as best it can aginst outside threats. In today's world that means having nuclear capability. Why are we calling N Korea an evil empire and its leader a madman? Why impose sacntions? Why not just do business with each other as if our nations were friendly? What possible threat is N Korea to the USA?
None whatsoever.
All this sabre-rattling is doing nothing but making the world a more volitile mixture of cultures and weaponry.
Right now we need someone like Gore leading the country, the man is peaceful and understands and respects other cultures. Bush and the rest of the warmongers are the madmen if you ask me.
Even Kerry called Pyongyang a madman. that's just plain stupid and unnecessarily inflammatory.
Thanks to Bush, the whole world is on edge and ready to fight at a drop of a hat. Maybe we should all just have nuclear free-for-all and whoever or whatever is left can start over again from scratch...
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
WASHINGTON -- It was a catchy phrase. Perhaps too catchy.
A year after President Bush used the State of the Union address to declare Iraq, Iran and North Korea an "axis of evil," the phrase has taken on a life of its own. With this year's address scheduled for Jan. 28 and the U.S. on the cusp of war with Iraq, the legacy of the "axis of evil" weighs heavily on the speechwriters and policy-makers hard at work on Bush's speech.
Even critics agree that the "axis of evil" was a clever piece of rhetoric in explaining the president's policies to the American people. But as foreign policy, there is wide consensus that it exacerbated the dangers it attempted to contain.
"It was a speechwriter's dream and a policy-maker's nightmare," said Warren Christopher, secretary of State under President Clinton.
The phrase caused immediate controversy. A year later, many experts say it's clear it also has caused real damage.
"It was harmful both conceptually and operationally," said Graham Allison, government professor and former dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. "Conceptually, the 'axis' suggested a relationship among the entities that doesn't exist. More important, operationally, the reaction of the world and the North Korea debacle demonstrates that it was a mistake."
The "axis of evil" language upped the rhetorical ante significantly. Some believe it played a role in undermining Iran's moderate leaders and squelching the country's nascent democracy movement. Many believe it helped provoke North Korea into nuclear confrontation.
eley
"Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground"--Sweet Baby James
Posts: 1979 | Location: Texas | Registered: 21 August 2004
Nuclear weapons can't be controlled by saying, in effect, "Do as we say, not as we do." By developing their own nuclear weaponry, one nation after another has replied to the nuclear-armed states: Whatever you say, we'll do as you've done.
How the hell can we be so technologically advanced while being so emotionally immature and diplomatically naive?
quote:
The invasion of Iraq, on the pretext of non-existent WMDs, sent a powerful message. If the U.S. government was inclined to launch an attack before a country had the capability to generate a mushroom cloud, then the country would be protected from such attack by developing nuclear weapons as soon as possible.
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
South Korea's Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources had detected a tremor of a magnitude 3.58 to 3.7 at 0135 GMT.
For what it's worth, the earthquake corrosponded to 250-300 tons of TNT. Two semesters of physics leads me to the conclusion that the exposion was 500 tons to 2.5 kilotons, although that's just an educated guess. The bomb we dropped on Hiroshima was 13 kT. It most likely was a dud, although the US built a 600 ton nonnuclear bomb to film what a nuke exploding would look like above ground. The timing is interesting, seems like Kim wants to embarrass Bush before the elections, with a possibly nonnuclear bomb, or it was a dud, that Kim sped thr
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