NORTH KOREA CONDUCTS NUCLEAR TEST

well , secretary albright said : ...We talked to Stalin, we talked to Mao, we talked to Khrushchev, and Brezhnev. We made agreements. "

and good old henry kissinger was another person who was rather good at negotiating in tough situations - was that wrong of henry ?
would it have been better to use a fist rather than have henry negotiating with the enemy ?
making agreements , isn't that what diplomacy is all about ?
perhaps not always neat and clean , but a lot less bloody than waging war imo .
hbg

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Brandon, I don't recall that Bush ever tried negotiation. And no one said that negotiation is easy. Interestingly, Bush is now talking about negotiations at this late date.

Snake, your psychological assertions about Clinton are baseless. He was a superb president, producing peace, prosperity, surpluses, etc. I will never understand the hatred harbored by the right.

The Dems had no illusions about NK, but negotiations served us well. On the other hand, Bush's name-calling and threats ended any hope of improved relations and behavior.

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Asherman wrote:

Now, Gungasnake, thats just the sort of hysterical over-the-top rant that we hear from the left and liberal Democrats. It has, and will continue to hurt their cause as long as they continue demonizing a President of the opposition Party. For us Republicans, Clinton wasn't a good President for the nation, but he wasn't a "lunatic", nor did he knowingly put the nation in danger. ....

You got about half of that right. Psychopaths and lunatics are separate categories of things. Being a psychopath has never been a defense for anything in courtrooms since it does not involve any sort of an impaired perception of reality.

What IS impaired in psychos like Slick is a kind of a modeling facility which the rest of us have, and that includes both the ability to model or form facsimiles of other people in our minds (empathy) and the ability to model sequences of events, which is the sort of thing which Hare refers to in noting that psychos have limited abilities to compute consequences or at least to act on such computations, and which Julian Jaynes refers to as an ability to NARRATE, which he claimed the human race only became capable of doing about 4000 years ago.

In other words, a guy like Slick is basically a throwback to neanderthal times.

As far as knowingly putting our country into harm's way, the list would take hours if not days to try to write out. You'd have to start with what slick did to our military.

Nobody ever got attacked for being too powerful and resolute. Things like 9/11 happen to people when they start to look weak and feckless.

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Sometimes negotiation, even when you know the other side is lying and unreliable is the right thing to do. Sometimes, its best to bring the mlitary to bear. Which is the best alternative varies according to circumstances, and ultimately is decided without full understanding of all the ramifications of the decision. The sort of judgement calls necessary to effectively govern any country can't be spread around, but must be the primary responsibility of one person. In our system the Constitution lays that decision on the President.

In another thread (I think) someone asserted that the Constitution makes the Congress responsible for the decision to go to war. Even though the Congress has the power to declare war, it is has always been the Executive who requests Congress's declaration of war. This course of action pretty much prevents Congress from later exercising its REAL power to determine what conflicts the U.S. military are involved in ... the power of the purse. Pursuant to various treaties and agreemest made since the middle of the 20th century, it is now almost impossible for Congress to declare war without violating international agreements. That's just another of the lesser known drawbacks of surrendering some of our soveriegnty to the U.N.

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Advocate wrote:

Tico, so you feel that Walter speaks for the world. Wow!!!

No, I don't think Walter speaks for the world. What gave you that idea?

I asked you whether you agree with Walter's statement.

Quote:

I gave you facts regarding Clinton's accomplishments with respect to NK, which you didn't refute.

What "facts" do you think you provided about Clinton's accomplishments with respect to NK? That he did a "great job"? That NK's "facilities were padlocked." That NK's "research was slowed"? That NK "gave up rods"?

Clinton helped build two nuclear plants for NK, in exchange for their promise to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions (but without providing for any verification that they were abiding by their promises). NK began ignoring its promises "as the ink was drying" on the Agreed Framework. It immediately established a secret uranium enrichment program, they kept their spent ruel rods, obstructed the IAEA, and developed nuclear weapons.

Do you honestly think -- hindsight being as clear as it is -- that was a "great" plan?

Clinton's appeasement policy with NK was a complete failure, whether you are ever willing to believe it or not.

Quote:

You still haven't given your opinion on what to do about Iran. BTW, I don't read every post inserted in A2K. Do you?

The point I was making was more to your annoying habit of responding to direct questions with questions of your own, rather than just answering the question asked of you, then asking your questions.

If you are interested in my response, type "iran bomb nuclear" in posts written by me into the A2K search engine. Of particular interest to you might be the hits on the threads "Iran Air Strikes Growing in Probability," and "America... Spying on Americans."

Quote:

I gather that you find Coulter's views on history, etc., very astute. This says a lot about you.

I normally find her views on leftists to be entertaining. I also find her to be pretty accurate in her take in this article as it regards your hero Clinton.

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Steve 41oo wrote:

Ticomaya wrote:

But the course that was taken, and the course you seem happily content with, was to try diplomacy, and take DPRK at it's word that it would not pursue its nuclear program. The result of that course is that North Korea has nukes.
much to American embarrassment as I was saying before.

I suppose the embarrassment might come from those silly enough to think Clinton's appeasement policy with North Korea was actually working, or that North Korea could be trusted. I suppose those folks could be embarrassed.

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Advocate wrote:

Brandon, I don't recall that Bush ever tried negotiation. And no one said that negotiation is easy. Interestingly, Bush is now talking about negotiations at this late date.

The US has been pursuing negotiations all along.

Quote:

The Dems had no illusions about NK, ...

Then they were simply fools.

Quote:

... but negotiations served us well.

No, the negotiations served Pyongyang well. Was that our goal?

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hamburger wrote:

well , secretary albright said : ...We talked to Stalin, we talked to Mao, we talked to Khrushchev, and Brezhnev. We made agreements. "

and good old henry kissinger was another person who was rather good at negotiating in tough situations - was that wrong of henry ?
would it have been better to use a fist rather than have henry negotiating with the enemy ?
making agreements , isn't that what diplomacy is all about ?
perhaps not always neat and clean , but a lot less bloody than waging war imo .
hbg

Secretary Albright?? I assume you mean the fat, ugly, stupid, evil-minded little troll who bombed a totally innocent Christian nation into the stone age for 80 days and nights including Easter Sunday for the benefit of a bunch of white trash, narco-terrorists, and savages and a political organization (KLA) which is basically a branch of AlQuaeda, and also to take the Juanita Broaddrick story off the front pages of American journals.

Believe it or not, a new movie about her has been released; you might want to take a look:

http://drudgereport.com/ma.jpg

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O.K., Gunga, Albright isn't a favorite of Republicans, but personal vilification only works to the advantage of the folks we would like to defeat (repeatedly) at the polls. There are Democrats who don't share our dislike of a whole slew of Clinton administration figures, and we want to win their votes. The left drives them away from the Democrats, and your rant discourages them from coming over to the Republicans.

Be kind, patient, rational and all those things that the opposition are not. You can't win many votes by insulting the opposition, the American People don't like "hot" campaigning, even though it sometimes works. The Democrats have a lunatic fringe, the GOP must avoid stooping to that level.

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Quote:

Clinton helped build two nuclear plants for NK, in exchange for their promise to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions (but without providing for any verification that they were abiding by their promises). NK began ignoring its promises "as the ink was drying" on the Agreed Framework. It immediately established a secret uranium enrichment program, they kept their spent ruel rods, obstructed the IAEA, and developed nuclear weapons.

Clinton did not help build any nuclear plants in NK. The 2 plants were never completed. After being delayed, Bush stopped them completely.

Let me repeat a question... What has Bush done that worked better than Clinton did?

Unless you consider NK testing a nuke to be better, I see no reasonable answer.

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Bush insists on six-party negotiations that clearly are not in the cards. I don't see what is so wrong with bilateral talks.

You should review what happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis. The GOP, as well as many Dems, were essentially demanding that JFK attack Cuba, which would have killed many from the USSR who were manning the missile facilities. Most historians think that this would have brought on retaliation by the USSR, which might have killed 90 million of our citizens. Luckily, JFK and his brother concluded that bilateral negotiations with Kruchev were in order, and this averted an incredible disaster. I am certain that, had Bush been the president, we would have suffered a nuclear conflagration.

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Ticomaya wrote:

Advocate wrote:
Brandon, I don't recall that Bush ever tried negotiation. And no one said that negotiation is easy. Interestingly, Bush is now talking about negotiations at this late date.

The US has been pursuing negotiations all along.

Quote:
The Dems had no illusions about NK, ...

Then they were simply fools.

Quote:
... but negotiations served us well.

No, the negotiations served Pyongyang well. Was that our goal?

Was our goal for NK to test a nuke? That is the result of Bush's 6 years.

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Asherman wrote:

O.K., Gunga, Albright isn't a favorite of Republicans... ...The Democrats have a lunatic fringe,.....

Far as I can tell, the dems ARE a lunatic fringe.

As to Albright, any normal person should have been able to take one look and tell that you were dealing with pathology and that the stinking Albanians were basically not mistaken in taking her for hotel staff and telling her how they wanted their beds made; the mistake was KKKlintler's in hiring her to do anything OTHER than make beds and clean toilets.

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Steve 41oo wrote:

Ticomaya wrote:

But the course that was taken, and the course you seem happily content with, was to try diplomacy, and take DPRK at it's word that it would not pursue its nuclear program. The result of that course is that North Korea has nukes.
much to American embarrassment as I was saying before.

Embarrassment, consternation, annoyance, fear, anger...So what?

What a strange bit of gloating.

When these nukes are either sold to terrorists or are used on South Korea or Japan, is the observation of which you are going to want to remind everyone "How embarrassing for America!"

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Steve 41oo wrote:

Quote:
psy·cho·path
n. A person with an antisocial personality disorder, manifested in aggressive, perverted, criminal, or amoral behavior without empathy or remorse.
takes one to know one snake

Why does anyone (other than a child) use the expression "takes one to know one?"

Obviously your insinuating that Gunga is a psychopath becauses he claims to recognize one in someone else. If the saying holds true:

1) You too are a psychopath for recognizing Gunga as one.

2) The sane are unable to recognize psychopaths.

Not defending Gunga as he is perfectly capable of doing so for himself. The use of such a childish statement as some sort of rhetorical coup de grace, though, just struck me as funny.

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Advocate wrote:

Bush insists on six-party negotiations that clearly are not in the cards. I don't see what is so wrong with bilateral talks.

You should review what happened in the Cuban Missile Crisis. The GOP, as well as many Dems, were essentially demanding that JFK attack Cuba, which would have killed many from the USSR who were manning the missile facilities. Most historians think that this would have brought on retaliation by the USSR, which might have killed 90 million of our citizens. Luckily, JFK and his brother concluded that bilateral negotiations with Kruchev were in order, and this averted an incredible disaster. I am certain that, had Bush been the president, we would have suffered a nuclear conflagration.

Why because he might have insisted on multi-lateral negotiations?

Here is what is so wrong with bilateral talks between the US and NK (note I am not suggesting any bilateral talks between any two nations is "so wrong."

The US has essentially two hammers to use in bilateral talks with NK

1) War
2) Continued bad mouthing.

Obviously, war is not going to happen unless and until NK actually launches a conventional or nuclear attack someone, or is found to have sold a nuclear weapon to someone who uses it on the US. It is not going to happen to make NK stop making or testing NK weapons. This has been made crystal clear to NK.

Kim Jong Il thrives on US bad mouthing. It gives him stature. He doesn't want it to stop. As soon has gets too focused on Iran, he pulls a stunt to get refocused on him.

On the other hand, the US has many carrots to offer. This was the route the Clinton administration followed and we know that it did not work. The people who are making the decisions in NK are not subject to the suffering of the NK people, and they are, obviously not concerned about these people from a humanitarian aspect or as a revolutionary threat. The US would have to promise NK the Moon to get them to agree to stop making nukes, and still they would cheat.

What is "so bad" about bilateral talks between NK and the US is that they will never work. We can give them the Moon and they would eventually renege in order to get the Sun. Clearly they are not worried about our hammers.

It is, by no means, certain that multi-lateral talks will work either. So far they haven't, but "mutli-lateral talks" is merely a cover for bilateral talks between China and NK. Only China has the capability of reigning in NK,without military intervention, and they are not going to engage in bilateral talks with NK because:

1) It serves their geo-political strategy to have NK be a problem for the US
2) They do not want to risk suffering a loss of prestige if even they cannot reign in the inscruitable Kim.
3) They want rewards from the US (and to a lesser extent Japan and SK) for enabling the multi-lateral talks that serve as a construct for bilateral talks.

It is somewhat ironic that those who believe Bush is an arrogant SOB who believes in American Exceptionalism and global dominion criticize him for pushing multi-lateral talks. It is not surprising, because he could announce tomorrow that he was opening up the treasury of the US to feed the poor of the world and his diehard detractors would find some way for such an action to reflect his war mongering. It is ironic because by insisting on multi-lateral talks, the US is acknowledging that it does not have the power and ability to solve this problem.

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Advocate wrote:

I don't see what is so wrong with bilateral talks.

But then you also think Clinton did a "great job" the last time they were tried.

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parados wrote:

Let me repeat a question... What has Bush done that worked better than Clinton did?

I'm not suggesting Bush's approach has been all that much better, aside from the fact that he's wised up to the fact that bilateral talks with NK are useless.

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There are no perfect solutions to the problem of NK.

Military intervention, while perhaps viscerally appealing, would be a huge disaster.

Talks between the US and NK have and will go nowhere.

The multi-lateral talks are not going anywhere because while their intent is to bring China into the picture, the political burden of addressing the problem remains with the US. If China doesn't "do something" about NK, who is criticizing them?

In my opinion the US should pull its troops out of SK. Their real purpose there is as hostages. The US is limited in what it might do with NK because the lives of our servicemen and women are at risk, and we hope that NK will be limited in what they do to SK, because they are afraid they might harm our troops and bring down our wrath.

We have vital interests throughout the world. We cannot militarily protect all of them if for no other reason than we do not have the national will to do so when they are actually threatened.

South Korea is a big boy now, big enough to criticize and, at times, work against the country without whom they would not have survived to become a big boy. Fine. These people are not our vassals, and they are more than entitled to make their own decisions without any pressure from us. We should be proud that we made them a big boy and now let them go off into the world.

We should then impose a shipping blockade on NK. Requiring that all incoming and outgoing vessels be inspected by our Navy. Any weaponry or drugs that are found will be seized. Ships that refuse will be sunk. Undoubtedly SK will be against such a move. OK, they can stop selling cars in the US. Our troops will no longer be there and so NK will gain nothing from us by attacking SK as a reaction to the blockade.

There will be no way for us to prevent NK from shipping nukes across China, and we will have to count on the Chinese recognizing that they can't allow this to happen for so many reasons. However we should be clear to NK that if a nuclear weapon is used on the US or its allies that be remotely tracked back to NK, we will nuke them in turn.

The rest of the world can provide whatever economic aid it wishes to NK, heck, even we will from a humanitarian standpoint. SK can pursue its Sunshine Policy and do whatever it take to unify. What do we care?

At the same time we should encourage SK and Japan to go nuclear. Let the deterrent be from NK's neighbors, not us. China can hardly throw a fit since they have not done all they could to stop NK from going nuclear.

Yes more nuclear powers in the world increases the risk of a nuclear exchange, but right now the only ones joining the club are the rouges, and since we can't seem to stop them, why not encourage their good guy neighbors to have the means to deter them?

Except to the extent that they might arm our true enemies -Islamo-fascists, NK is not a significant threat to us. If they should overrun SK it will not harm our economy. It they should attack Japan, let the Japanese anilihate them, with our help. If they should get too cute with China, well we know what will happen then. The Korean War and all that it encompassed at the time is long over. Our military presence in SK is of no real strategic value to us because SK is of no real strategic value to us. Let the nations to whom NK truly poses a threat (SK, Japan, and China) deal with them.

It is a sad footnote that despite the uproars over the plight of the black Sudanese in Darfaur, and of the Iraqis during the Saddam regime, no one (not the UN, not Europe, not the American Left or Right) seems to care a fig for the plight of the poor bastards who are living and dying in NK. If and when the truth comes out about that dark place it will easily eclipse the horrors we currently concern ourselves with.

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Ticomaya wrote:

parados wrote:
Let me repeat a question... What has Bush done that worked better than Clinton did?

I'm not suggesting Bush's approach has been all that much better, aside from the fact that he's wised up to the fact that bilateral talks with NK are useless.

Instead Bush has pushed for 6 nation talks which NK pulled out of and tested a nuclear device. Yeah.. That is really wising up because he still wants 6 nation talks.

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NORTH KOREA CONDUCTS NUCLEAR TEST

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