Futher roll-backs on the Bushevik Stupidity Front

Kuvasz, we don't disagree about Bush's failure to address the NK problem. That doesn't make the Blackmail charge less valid. "If you don't give us this; we'll build Nukes to threaten our neighbors with" is straight blackmail. There's nothing shrill or illogical in recognizing the truth for what it is.

IMO, security guarantees to a tyrant who starves, rapes and murders those in his charge to maintain control is too high of price to pay. North Koreans are human too and shouldn't be written off summarily in hopes that Kim will actually adhere to an agreement for the first time in his life. We now know that even the Nobel Peace Prize winning Sunshine Policy was a sham. Great PR, briefly, but it was bought and paid for with South Korean money that in all likelihood contributed to additional weapons for Kim, which of course he uses to reduce South Korean security even further.

North Koreans themselves have bore the brunt of decades of failed U.S. policy. The only way to eliminate the nuclear threat of Kim Jong Il; is to remove Kim from power and eliminate the nukes. Though no good opportunity ever has or will present itself, 93 presented the best opportunity and Clinton let Carter screw that up with yet another doomed to failure agreement. That Bush did no better; neither transfers all of the blame to him nor absolves Clinton or Carter of their horrific mistake. The death toll in NK continues to build, though seemingly no one really cares.

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OCCOM BILL wrote:

Kuvasz, we don't disagree about Bush's failure to address the NK problem. That doesn't make the Blackmail charge less valid. "If you don't give us this; we'll build Nukes to threaten our neighbors with" is straight blackmail. There's nothing shrill or illogical in recognizing the truth for what it is.

IMO, security guarantees to a tyrant who starves, rapes and murders those in his charge to maintain control is too high of price to pay. North Koreans are human too and shouldn't be written off summarily in hopes that Kim will actually adhere to an agreement for the first time in his life. We now know that even the Nobel Peace Prize winning Sunshine Policy was a sham. Great PR, briefly, but it was bought and paid for with South Korean money that in all likelihood contributed to additional weapons for Kim, which of course he uses to reduce South Korean security even further.

North Koreans themselves have bore the brunt of decades of failed U.S. policy. The only way to eliminate the nuclear threat of Kim Jong Il; is to remove Kim from power and eliminate the nukes. Though no good opportunity ever has or will present itself, 93 presented the best opportunity and Clinton let Carter screw that up with yet another doomed to failure agreement. That Bush did no better; neither transfers all of the blame to him nor absolves Clinton or Carter of their horrific mistake. The death toll in NK continues to build, though seemingly no one really cares.

It isn't that noone cares (try Darfur for that one, sheesh) but that the question of armed intervention is a difficult one to tackle, especially when the other guy has the nukes to use and isn't afraid of popping them off over his own territory.

Basically the positioning of South Korea has more to do with our reluctance to attack than anything else, I think. We really don't want to see Seoul vanish anytime soon.

Containment is horrible for those who go through it, but does have a track record of success... we all know that the situations in which populaces rise up and overthrow their evil leaders tend to be far more stable in the long run than outside intervention.

Cycloptichorn

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Any kind of "containment" is not possible in this world - politically or otherwise. That's the reason why many of our so-called allies are not "real" democracies. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, China, Russia, and many other countries are not "democracies," but we negoatiate trade and politics with them.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

It isn't that noone cares (try Darfur for that one, sheesh) but that the question of armed intervention is a difficult one to tackle, especially when the other guy has the nukes to use and isn't afraid of popping them off over his own territory.

The horror of Darfur is no more or less compelling than the plight of the North Korean. Hell is Hell. Per capita, North Koreans are even poorer than the Sudanese... but receive enough aid to feed everyone. There is only one reason for the mass starvation in North Korea. His name is Kim Jong Il.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Basically the positioning of South Korea has more to do with our reluctance to attack than anything else, I think. We really don't want to see Seoul vanish anytime soon.

Yep... and water is wet.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Containment is horrible for those who go through it, but does have a track record of success... we all know that the situations in which populaces rise up and overthrow their evil leaders tend to be far more stable in the long run than outside intervention.

The mere voicing of such a thought by a North Korean results in his watching his family get tortured to death, in horrific fashion, before his eyes before he joins them in agonizing death. Kim is too ruthless for an internal uprising to gain steam. He makes the Chinese look like humanitarians.

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What O'Bill seems to ignore, and what many conservatives who advocate direct military action against states such as the DPRK or Iran is the plausibiilty of any success from a "military option." O'Bill has said earlier that Clinton should have taken out North Korean facilities in 1993. Of course, O'Bill neglects to suggest that Pappy Bush should have done so earlier, but i'll chalk that up to a disgust on O'Bill's part with Clinton, and a desire to make him the villain of the piece.

But in the midst of all the squabbling about what happened on whose watch, and sneers about "appeasement," and realistic notice taken of the bad faith which the North Koreans habitually display, no one is questioning just how likely it would ever have been, or would be now, to rely upon a military option.

Whether in 1993 (or earlier) or now, the notion of taking massive military action against North Korea is an absurdity. I don't know if anyone else here has ever been to Korea, but i have. It is one of the most rugged, mountainous nations you could ever hope to visit. There is only one substantially large area of relatively flat land in the peninsula which can be devoted to intensive agriculture, and that lies to the south of the Han River--which in large measure explains the 1950 invasion of the South by the North, apart from ideological reasons.

North Korea is a terrain in which the defender enjoys huge advantages. Additionally, it offers the opportunity to build underground facilities which are going to be virtually immune to thermo-nuclear attack. Suggesting that the United States in 1993 (or earlier) or today could perform any type of "surgical" strike which could take out North Korean facilities is grimly laughable. You could vaporize the mountain under which a facility was located, and not even induce radiation sickness in the people in the bunker--although the leadership of the DPRK wouldn't give rat's ass if anyone there did get radiation poisoning. Furthermore, the notion that the United States could take unilateral action to launch a thermo-nuclear attack on North Korea without dire consequences is the height of naive thinking. The Pacific rim of Asia is the sphere of influence of the PRC. The Chinese would not sit supinely by while the United States launched nuclear attacks on North Korea. Additionally, we do happen to have close and important relationships with other nations in the region. The great majority of our military facilities in the region are in South Korea and Japan, and anyone who thinks they would not object to such an attack is a fool. If attacked, and if the DPRK were able to retaliate, South Korea and Japan are the most logical targets--they can't hit us, but they can hit those boys easily. If the North Koreans were going down, even if they knew it, they could easily inflict tens of thousands of casualties on the South Koreans and the Japanese, and probably would be capable of inflicting hundreds of thousands of casualties, or even more than a million. I know that many American conservatives might care, but, believe or not, that's not how American administrations view foreign relations, whether Democratic or Republican administrations. There are a host of good reasons not to expose the South Koreans and the Japanese to such risks, and the most compelling is the profound damage we would be doing to our own economy to go off half-cocked in such a manner.

And that is because such a suggestion very stupidly ignores the Chinese reaction. We may get along with them now, but that doesn't mean that they'd turn a blind eye to an attack on North Korea. The only way to accomplish the desired end effective with military means would entail an invasion and occupation of North Korea, and that would make Iraq look like a stroll in a park. The Chinese not only would very likely interfere militarily in the peninsula, but they'd very likely take the opportunity to cross the narrow waters to attack Taiwan at the same time. The gloves would be off, and with a vengeance. I can think of few stupider ideas than that we have the military means to effectively put the current regime in North Korea out of business. Although some Americans may not like to admit it, there are just some things which we cannot accomplish, no matter how much we would like to think that our power is limitless. The short-term economic consequences for the United States would be severe. Although we could survive that, and probably come out smelling like a rose in the long term, there is no body of politicians comprising an administration, Democrat or Republican, who will be willing to pay the political price of such a disaster--and a disaster it would certainly be. You cannot separate political reality from the consequences of military adventurism, which ought to be obvious to anyone who has seen what has happened in Iraq.

People can sneer to their heart's content about "appeasement," it will not alter the fact that we cannot realistically achieve our desired end by military means, and that leaves the group of six nations negotiating the North Korean problem as the only effective means of achieving this end. That the North Koreans habitually negotiate in bad faith does not alter that there is no other realistic method for us to deal with this situation. There are just some things which we cannot achieve by military means, and disarming North Korea is one of them.

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Set, your conclusions ignore the fact that back in 93 Clinton was on the verge of doing what you claim couldn't be done... before Carter interfered (absent any authority to do so.) The risk at that time was a conventional attack on Seoul which could have been horrific (estimates of up to half a million dead); but no more horrific than the imminently predictable plight of the North Koreans since (way more than half a million dead). Japan at that time, like us, was pretty much out of reach.

We'll never know if Kim would really have turned Seoul into a sea of fire, and frankly, I tend to doubt it. His massive cache of conventional weaponry at the 38th parallel would have remained a credible enough threat for him to continue bargaining for survival. Such an attack; would surely have sealed his fate. Meanwhile, the facilities at Yongbyon would have surely been destroyed including used fuel rods and any chance of building more. Plutonium based nukes, like the one he recently tested, would have been out of reach.

While I would agree that China likely would have interfered in an all out ground attack (again), I seriously doubt they'd have overtly responded in any meaningful way to a surgical strike at Yongbyon. They knew very well how terribly overmatched they were (and are) in unconventional weapon systems and would have been in no hurry to usher in their own assured destruction. Theoretically; yes, they could hit us hard, but certain annihilation would surely have been the result... and they're not that stupid. No way would they sign on for that, for anyone's security but their own.

Scenario 1. Kim attacks Seoul: He would have been hit with the full Military might of the United States conventional weapon systems. This would have been suicide for Kim and he damn well knew it.

Scenario 2. Kim accepts the fact that his bluff was called as well as the fact that realistically there is absolutely nothing he can do about it that doesn't include dieing in vain.

Either scenario would have not only eliminated the Plutonium based Nuclear threat from NK... but would have had a profound and lasting effect on any and every other country who thought the giant that is the United States toothless. Pity the fool who assumes your crying wolf after a vicious wolf attack takes place.

Before this descends into a petty bickering (as it usually does), I'd like to point out that advocating Military action isn't the same as "desiring" or even "liking" Military action. This is a straw man of the first order. It is akin to a Pro-life advocate accusing Pro-choice advocates of being Pro-abortion. Aside from very few extremely pragmatic individuals; I don't believe anyone is Pro-abortion and aside from certain religious fanatics; I don't believe anyone is Pro-war. Sometimes you have to guesstimate the lesser of two evils and it is disingenuous to assume persons who reasonably disagree on said choice don't recognize the inherent evils implicit in their choice. Commenting in this respect is nothing more than thinly veiled baiting and usually leads to exchanges of Straw men and Ad Hominem over reasonable discussion.

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I sincerely doubt that Clinton ever gave serious consideration to an attack on North Korea--anyone who claims he did is talking through their hat, because Clinton is the only one who can say that he has such intentions. If he did, and he consulted military expertise in the matter, he would have been advised of the futility of the exercise. Had he consulted diplomatic expertise, he would have been advised of the overwhelming objections to such a course.

You state that his facilities and resources would have been destroyed--but you neither know that this would have been the case, nor do you know that those facilities were an example of having had "all of his eggs in one basket." You once again use the term "surgical strike." You can't take out facilities deep underground with putative "surgical" strikes. The Koreans are incredibly adept at using stone and concrete. When i was there in 1971, they had highways far superior to our own (South Korea), even though the most of the population lived in what we would call poverty--although everyone in the South had enough to eat. You place far to much reliance on the abilities of our military, and, i would suggest, without really having given careful thought to the degree of difficulty which would have been involved. Your claim about the who the Chinese would react to being "overmatched in unconventional weapons" assumes that the United States would have been prepared to launch a thermo-nuclear attack on China. The point of the exercise in ending the North Korean nuclear program is to make the world safer from such an event, not to make it more likely. In conventional terms, the Chinese could put up one hell of a fight--and especially in the Korean peninsula, where armored units are far less effective due to the terrain. As far as the Chinese are concerned, their own security would be at stake if the United States either nuked North Korea, or launched a conventional invasion. As i've already pointed out, the principle threat is to South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, not the United States. Attacking North Korea with a callous disregard for the price the South Koreans, Japanese and Taiwanese would pay would constitute the sort of brainless agenda which has lead us into disaster in the middle east. Due to Iraq, our "allies" in the middle east are now saying that we've destabilized the region, and made matters worse for them. The same would apply with an attack on North Korea.

You far too confidently lay out your scenarios. You assume that the Chinese would not react to a nuclear attack because of concerns for their own security. That ignores the extent to which the Chinese gerontocracy gives little heed to the miseries of their own people in attaining their policy goals. I have absolutely no idea what lead you to construct the scenarios you laid out for Kim Jong Il. There is no reason for him to attack the South, unless and until he is attacked--at which point the South would suffer. As for the Japanese being safe, that is foolish. Since the late 1980s, Korea has been selling medium-range ballistic missiles to anyone with the cash to pay. I read in 1988 of Korean sales of Scuds to Iraq (their version of the Russian Scuds), and they can easily hit Japan from there. On a clear day, you can stand in the mountains around Pusan and see Japan across the water. Sapporo is a target the North Koreans could easily hit. One of the reasons Hussein was able to launch at Saudi Arabia and Israel during the Gulf War, despite being under continuous, heavy air attack is because Scuds can be launched from mobile carriers, and can by constantly moved and hidden. The Koreans would have the same option. They don't ballistic missiles which can his the United States--but South Korean and Japan? No problem.

I haven't erected a strawman, because i haven't stated that you "desire" or "like" military action. And as for "petty bickering," don't holler until you're hurt--i've made no personal remarks about you. What i have said is that there are far too many people who are unwilling to accept the fact that we cannot militarily impose on others in all situations. North Korea is one of those situations in which our military ability is badly constrained by the terrain (deep bunkers in the mountains can be virtually "nuke-proof," and a conventional invasion would almost surely involve a Chinese reaction), and by diplomatic considerations (the threat to South Korean and Japan is too great--we ignore it at our economic peril). Once again, no smart politician (and people who reach high levels in political organizations are smart, or their handlers are smart, for whatever anyone may allege about their lack of morality or common sense) is going to be willing to pay the political price of the consequences of such military foolishness. The Shrub is currently paying the price of military adventurism in Iraq, and now the Republican party has paid that price as well.

Once again, despite the unwillingness of many Americans to accept it, there are some things (many things, in fact) which our military power cannot accomplish.

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To summarize my position with regard to a military attack, even a nuclear attack would not guarantee the destruction of North Korean facilities, and any attack would entail the dire consequences of making such an attack.

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Setanta wrote:

To summarize my position with regard to a military attack, even a nuclear attack would not guarantee the destruction of North Korean facilities, and any attack would entail the dire consequences of making such an attack.

Though I have yet to even address the possibility of a nuclear attack on NK myself, Douglas MacArthur had indeed asked for permission to drop 40 nuclear bombs on North Korea in 1953. Again, this is not what I have advocated.

In 93/94, Yongbyon could most certainly have been taken out with a surgical, conventional attack. We knew at that time precisely where the rods were located... and the 5 Megawatt facility was hardly out of reach. Clinton's military advisors assured him this could be done... but of course feared the counter attack on Seoul.

Until 1989, NK was essentially a client of the Soviet Union and pretty much untouchable as such. It wasn't until 1992 (Clinton's first year in office), that Hans Blix indicated they were attempting to build nukes, so blaming Bush Senior is a canard.

Your belief that no official would or would have considered an attack on NK is completely false. Clinton's 'Presidential Review Document #13' states that the United States will mount preemptive strikes on North Korea if it developed nuclear weapons or long-range missiles.

Specifically, "Op plan 5027" was the U.S.'s plan to defeat a North Korean attack should they choose to respond to an attack on Yongbyon.

These excerpts are from a source that basically agrees with your position:

Quote:

Bill Clinton, a president not known for hawkishness, nearly went to war against North Korea in the spring of 1994. Five years earlier, during the presidency of George Bush's father, the CIA had discovered the North Koreans were building a reprocessing facility near their nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. It was this reactor that, when finished, would allow them to convert the fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium. Now, barely a year into Clinton's first term in office, they were preparing to remove the fuel rods from their storage site, expel the international weapons inspectors, and withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (which North Korea had signed in 1985).
In response, Clinton pushed the United Nations Security Council to consider sanctions. North Korea's spokesmen proclaimed that sanctions would trigger war. Clinton's generals drew up plans to send 50,000 troops to South Korea--bolstering the 37,000 that had been there for decades--as well as over 400 combat jets, 50 ships, and additional battalions of Apache helicopters, Bradley fighting vehicles, multiple-launch rockets, and Patriot air-defense missiles. Beyond mere plans, Clinton ordered in an advance team of 250 soldiers to set up logistical headquarters that could manage this massive influx of firepower. These moves sent a signal to the North Koreans that the president was willing to go to war to keep the fuel rods under international control. And, several former officials insist, he would have. At the very least, they say, he was prepared to launch an air strike on the Yongbyon reactor, even though he knew that doing so could provoke war.

This is what needed to be done to neutralize North Korea, and allow us to negotiate from a position of strength. I couldn't agree more that Bush Junior's lack of response to the removal of fuel rods in 2002 was inexcusable. But again, that in no way absolves Clinton for crying wolf only to eventually pay black mail to no effect.

Quote:

Clinton's cabinet was divided over whether to let Carter go. Officials who had served under Carter--Clinton's secretary of state, Warren Christopher, and national security adviser, Anthony Lake--opposed the trip. Carter, they warned, was a loose cannon who would ignore his orders and free-lance a deal.

We now know, that is precisely what he did. Upwards of 2 million North Koreans have paid the ultimate price for this mistake.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0405.kaplan.html

Here it is from Carter's own mouth:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kim/interviews/carter.html

From Clinton's own mouth:

Quote:

We actually drew up plans to attack North Korea and to destroy their reactors and we told them we would attack unless they ended their nuclear program

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/12/15/nkorea.us/index.html

Set wrote:

I sincerely doubt that Clinton ever gave serious consideration to an attack on North Korea--anyone who claims he did is talking through their hat, because Clinton is the only one who can say that he has such intentions. If he did, and he consulted military expertise in the matter, he would have been advised of the futility of the exercise.

Put your doubts aside, because you are categorically wrong. While most opinions seem to coincide with yours about whether the Agreed Framework was a good thing... that doesn't mean no rational officials disagreed.

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Oh, and I didn't mean to suggest you had erected a straw man. I was launching a pre-emptive strike against any and all that would lower the level of discourse to bickering in hopes of keeping the discussion civil (and thereby infinitely more enjoyable).

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You mean the civil discourse like this OB?

Ticomaya wrote:

Clinton was more responsible for North Korea developing nuclear weapons, and only a dumbass would argue otherwise.

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It was actually Clinton's fault for the Hastert/Foley fiasco too.

Everything can be traced back to Clinton.
Get with the program.

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candidone, I believe you have answered the 64 million dollar q. Everything traces back to Clinton one way or another. Some takes a little more imagination, but conservatives don't lack in that department.

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BTW, have they blamed the Iraq and Afghanistan war on Clinton yet?

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parados wrote:

You mean the civil discourse like this OB?

Ticomaya wrote:
Clinton was more responsible for North Korea developing nuclear weapons, and only a dumbass would argue otherwise.

Does the shoe fit, parados?

Clearly your mentioning that post was not fostered by any attempt on your part to maintain the civility of this thread; rather, you are simply stirring the turd. That post was my response to kuvasz' crack about my "long line of retarded posts." Funny, you didn't see the need to highlight his diarrhea, now did you?

This thread has certainly been infinitely more civil since kuvasz has stopped posting in it.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

BTW, have they blamed the Iraq and Afghanistan war on Clinton yet?

No, I believe they have traced the origins of Afghanistan and Iraq to a relative of Slick.
Clinton, therefore, is responsible for their existence, and everything that happend from that point onward is his fault.

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One little factual problem with your post Tico. Clinton wasn't more responsible.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

BTW, have they blamed the Iraq and Afghanistan war on Clinton yet?

Iraq; yes. were Clinton not asleep at the wheel in 98, there never could have been a doubt about WMD which would have meant no war.

parados wrote:

One little factual problem with your post Tico. Clinton wasn't more responsible.

Here we see the result of failing to read the thread, or history. Clinton accepted the interference of a civilian with zero authority... resulting in millions of dead Koreans and eventually plutonium based nuclear weaponry. He most certainly was more responsible... unless by wasn't you're saying he was more irresponsible. In which case you'd be correct, but would have demonstrated no wrong on Tico's part. Btw, thanks for lowering the level of discourse to this childish B.S. We're glad you could contribute.

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millions of dead Koreans?

Wow.. Are you back to this canard again?

Please present some factual evidence that millions of Koreans have died in the last 12 years, let alone they died as a result of any action by Clinton.

You do know what cause and effect are, don't you?

I lowered it? WTF? Tico used the word "dumbass". You jumped in to argue on his side that it was Clinton's fault. Now you continue to say Clinton was more responsible but still haven't presented anything other than opinion.

Please present any evidence that Clinton in any way caused the North Koreans to create plutonium based nukes.

The argument that Clinton didn't bomb the reactor doesn't make him more responsible than any other President that didn't bomb it. They would all be EQUAL for not doing it.

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How the Bush Administration let North Korea get Nukes

Some interesting tidbits in this piece. One is that Carter didn't go as a private citizen.

Quote:

Yet at the same time, Clinton set up a diplomatic back-channel to end the crisis peacefully. The vehicle for this channel was former President Jimmy Carter, who in June 1994 was sent to Pyongyang to talk with Kim Il Sung, then the leader of North Korea. Carter's trip was widely portrayed at the time as a private venture, unapproved by President Clinton. However, a new book about the '94 North Korean crisis, Going Critical, written by three former officials who played key roles in the events' unfolding, reveals that Clinton recruited Carter to go.

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Futher roll-backs on the Bushevik Stupidity Front

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