Russia says N.Korea doesn't want nuclear weapons-Xinhua

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/PEK281795.htm

It doesn't sound like Pootie Poot wants to cooperate with Bush on starting another war in NKorea? Junior had better take another peek into Putins eyes and see his soul again. Just to see if he is as nice a guy as he thought he was?

Don

[berry]

1. Whatever Russia's motives are in all this,

we really need to remember that the same guys who brought us war in Iraq are pushing the hard line vs. North Korea. Over the years of Bush* in power, N Korea HAS behaved badly, but they have been pushed and baited and terrorized by the hawks in DC into acting against their own best interests. These creeps (Bolton at State, and all the neo-cons at Defense, + Cheney) WANT N Korea to be a "rogue state" so they can use it to manipulate events and behavior in that part of the world. Eg., they want Japan to give up its aversion to nuclear weapons (article 9 in the Japanese Constitution), and acquire nuclear weapons (or at least let the US place them in Japan). Also, in ways I'm not entirely clear about, this is about China and the view the neo-cons have that China is our next big enemy down the road. Remember, these are the same people who brought us to the brink of war with China in the spring of 2001 with the spyplane incident and the bellicose way Bush* initially reacted.

I don't know what PNAC's whole agenda is in East Asia, but when they tell me some country is a dangerous enemy, all my antennae go up, and I am very careful not to swallow whole the propaganda they spew. Sure, N Korea is a weird country, but a lot of what BushCo* tell us is lies--just as with Iraq. These same people lied about the strength of the Soviet Union in the 1980s--and actually still seem to believe that they brought it down, never seeing its weaknesses. They can be trusted on NOTHING, IMO.

edited for stupid typo

[MaverickX]

2. oh please..

Yes of course, America forced North Korea to do bad things and oppress their people.

[chenGOD]

5. This is not about North Korea's oppression of it's people...

it's about PNAC goals in the far east, and the nuclear situation on the Korean peninsula.

[MaverickX]

13. PNAC theories are simply a recourse..

For people who can't debate foreign policy.

[tom_paine]

15. Oh, that's a bunch of bullshit, isn't it?

You had me until you said that.

PNAC is tinfoil? PNAC is just a harmelss organization who's member have ZERO POWER in the Imperial Operations?

Have you read any PNAC or it's ideological father, Leo Strauss?

It sounds like smearing PNAC "theories" which are strangely enough laid right out in the open, are just an excuse for people who can't debate foreign policy

(and PNAC policy, which is increasingly becoming indistiguishable for Bushevik Foreign Policy)

Perhaps some reading straight from the Imperial Mouth is in order.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

Although, since you have it all figured out, Maverick, maybe you don't need to read.

[chenGOD]

20. I meant that this issue was not about North Korean oppression.

This particular article. And I believe that the parent poster was talking about North Korea behaving badly on the international scene (trying to develop nukes, smuggling drugs etc etc., although; America hasn't had the best track record with smuggling drugs courtesy of the CIA, and the have developed nukes). Do you thik America is pursuing this discussion correctly? If so, why?

[jayfish]

3. Dispite My Feelings Against The Bushinistas...

I tend to agree with their handling of the situation in NK. I think we need to call their bluff and move on with some real negotiations. To capitulate would, really, send a message that nuclear blackmail is the way to approach American power. Dubya will not be king forever. The south however is an entirely different matter.

Flame away.

Jay

[chenGOD]

4. Please.

the party responsible for breaking the Agreed Framework was KEDO. If they'd actually delivered the light-water reactors on schedule, this whole fucking mess wouldn't be happening.

North Korea had the IAEA monitors in place, they shut down the reactors, they had UN seals place. Waiting for the LWRs to be delivered. No go. Before you talk about giving them reactors of any kind as being a bad move, you should know that LWRs are extremely difficult to produce weapons grade plutonium form. Even countries like England and France had considerable difficulty, and they weren't under IAEA monitoring.


http://www.isis-online.org/publications/dprk/final_cox.html

[berry]

6. Thank you, chenGOD!!

This point needs to be made over and over. So many otherwise sane people seem not to see that the Bush* crowd has not even bothered to write a new script--they're using the same one they used against Saddam. And it's really a lie to claim they can't be trusted because they backed away from the 1994 framework (with at least the justification that the US reneged first!)--the hardliners are even getting a two-fer by labelling the N Koreans as "untrustworthy" and Clinton as a "fool" for trusting them enough to even negotiate with them. It's pure propaganda. Thanks for your link on the Agreed Framework and KEDO (I knew about this, but didn't have this link.)

Sure, there are human rights issues in N Korea. But I believe they are thrown up very cynically to support a policy of global hegemony that has nothing to do with worries about the people of Korea--North or South. War would NOT improve anyone's lot.

Anyway--I agree with you 100%, and couldn't have answered poster #2 better.

edited to clarify

[jayfish]

8. History Lessons Aside,...

the genie appears to be out of the bottle here. I agree with you 100% about the LWR's but as soon as NK claimed that they were in possession of atomic weapons then all bets were off. BTW, aren't LWR's fueled by uranium and didn't NK claim they were pursuing a uranium based program that ran parallel to their mothballed plutonium program?

Jay

[PATRICK]

7. Two comments

Namely, following the Bush gang anywhere because the "cause" in the real world seems just we should support it has proven we get very few results and long term probbaly the exact reverse. On top ofthat we forget with those blinders on that NOTHING, ZERO, ZILCH, NADA in the current administration has ANY bearing on truth, justice and the "American" way.

The second comment is what scares everyone here. Namely that most of our Presidential contenders, supposedly our most viable ones think exactly the way you do. And are led into the trap with all idealist and pragmatist lights flashing. Noble, reasonable- suckers.

And what will happen when we are left with the PNAC legacy? It will be hard to separate the mess and get away from the ultimate PNAC agenda. I am very afraid Presidents who really grant Bush points on important issues will find themselves drawn into the corruption and the baseline evil. Suckers, dupes and compromised weaklings with no Congressional or media cheering gallery.

Not that they are, but that is the drift and it has claimed our best Presidents who have not seized charge of American afffairs as FDR was able to do by virtue of the mad challenge of other right wing empires.

Ordinary Ammericans by the millions justly hold reasonable and idealistic sentiments(backed up by facts!)the way you do. Whta is horrifying is howq few of our best, our leaders "get it" how easily the more responsible and intelligent(I'm being generous here)movers and shakers don't get it.

The enemy sititng on the greatest economic and military power of world history IS the problem. Therre are slow grinding ways to deal with obsolete dictatorships. They would have better results and quicker in the long term than instigation and war. That determination is not so easy as war? Look at morale now. Look at the stretch over non-strategic territory. Look at the impatience and lack of plannning.
Look at the people who would be alive today and nothing for the worse. The world's enemy is not NK even if NK is a bad neighbor, bad for its own people. The world's enemy is the democracy abdicated and suppressed by our homebred rogue usurpers. Our political candidates are still clinging to the sucker bait and that is the myth that keeps America blind. And not just because they dare not tell the American people the truth. I am sure, unfortunately, the teeth of the moral trap has closed over their anesthnitized judgment.

They don't need my approval or support to tie their shopes, seemingly perform their jobs. As if they care. I'm not calling accidental values or good coming from these criminals anything but a distraction from the ultimate evils that will result.

[jayfish]

10. I'm Not Following Bushit Anywhere.

However under the circumstances (NK's acquisition of nuclear weaponry) I don't think we have much of a choice to stand firm. The slow grind approach was tried for decades and was working. Unfortunately it worked so well that it may play against us in the end. NK, by their own admission has nuclear weapons and their backs are against the wall economically. The sale of that technology to anyone who ponies up the dough to buy it would be a nice money maker for NK (although very short sited), and should not be allowed. During the Clinton Administration a trip wire was set at the processing of weapons grade plutonium. That wire has been tripped.

Jay

[berry]

16. Tripwires can be dangerous things--even to the ones setting them.

Even if N Korean HAS stepped over a line, it is doing so in very slow, careful steps, announcing every move. If the US says OK, you went too far, then what? Do you mean that at some point the decision of whether or not the US gets into a MAJOR WAR in Korea is not the US's decision but N Korea's? We have ceded them that kind of power?

Actually, at every point in this seeming escalation, there are lots of options, lots of possible actions, and war shouldn't even be on the table in my opinion. N Korea needs to be tied by vested interests to peace and cooperation in the region and the world. Give them a reason to give up their defensiveness (take away the fear). If we're so worried that they will sell arms to terrorists, why not figure out what WE can buy from them so as to make their economic situation less dire?

N Korea is armed to the teeth--not just potential nukes. Why? It has no enemies anywhere around it. China and Russia are friendly. S Korea absolutely doesn't need/want another war on the peninsula. Yes, there has been hostility to N Korea in S Korea, but this has changed in recent years. And Japan is largely neutral, but would be interested in economic investment. The only country N Korea fears, and has reason to fear, is the US. Why on earth CAN'T the US sign a non-agression treaty? Or a peace treaty to finally end the Korean War?

Some people are arguing that even if N Korea gets lots of carrots, they will still want nukes. Maybe so. They may be just as deluded as people in America who want to have guns just in case someone attacks them. I don't want a gun myself--and don't understand the gun-lobby's mentality, but I recognize the fear that makes many people feel they need a gun to feel safe. The N Koreans are behaving in a perfectly understandable way--I don't like it, but I don't think they are demons. Just very scared, I think. And, there is a hardline faction in the military there too. But Kim Jong-il has been able to overrule them on other things--as the Sunshine Policy progressed. So why are we now so willing to give power to the N Korean hardliners by proving them right, that the US is N Korea's implacable enemy?

[berry]

17. Tripwires can be dangerous things--even to the ones setting them.

Even if N Korean HAS stepped over a line, it is doing so in very slow, careful steps, announcing every move. If the US says OK, you went too far, then what? Do you mean that at some point the decision of whether or not the US gets into a MAJOR WAR in Korea is not the US's decision but N Korea's? We have ceded them that kind of power?

Actually, at every point in this seeming escalation, there are lots of options, lots of possible actions, and war shouldn't even be on the table in my opinion. N Korea needs to be tied by vested interests to peace and cooperation in the region and the world. Give them a reason to give up their defensiveness (take away the fear). If we're so worried that they will sell arms to terrorists, why not figure out what WE can buy from them so as to make their economic situation less dire?

N Korea is armed to the teeth--not just potential nukes. Why? It has no enemies anywhere around it. China and Russia are friendly. S Korea absolutely doesn't need/want another war on the peninsula. Yes, there has been hostility to N Korea in S Korea, but this has changed in recent years. And Japan is largely neutral, but would be interested in economic investment. The only country N Korea fears, and has reason to fear, is the US. Why on earth CAN'T the US sign a non-agression treaty? Or a peace treaty to finally end the Korean War?

Some people are arguing that even if N Korea gets lots of carrots, they will still want nukes. Maybe so. They may be just as deluded as people in America who want to have guns just in case someone attacks them. I don't want a gun myself--and don't understand the gun-lobby's mentality, but I recognize the fear that makes many people feel they need a gun to feel safe. The N Koreans are behaving in a perfectly understandable way--I don't like it, but I don't think they are demons. Just very scared, I think. And, there is a hardline faction in the military there too. But Kim Jong-il has been able to overrule them on other things--as the Sunshine Policy progressed. So why are we now so willing to give power to the N Korean hardliners by proving them right, that the US is N Korea's implacable enemy?

[Muddleoftheroad]

18. The country North Korea fears

Is North Korea. Creating external fear is used to manipulate internal power.

[chenGOD]

19. No, the country North Korea fears is America.

And, the country South Korean people fear is America. Others might think "What!!! South Korea is our ally!!". However, in the past 5 years of living in South Korea, I can honestly say that more people in South Korea have expressed fear of America escalating the war they refuse to end, than they have expressed fear of North Korea attacking.

I don't know how many times I've posted the exact same rebuttal to your blathering idiocy. North Korea would like to get back to a state similar to what they had under the Agreed Framework. The people responsible for the collapse of the Agreed Framework are KEDO, with their refusal to provide the LWR's agreed to. Shrubco refuse to even negotiate. They cut off heavy oil supplies (in the middle of winter during a drought, there's some compassionate conservatism for you), they place bombers in Guam, they prepare to move troops out of Seoul (where they would stand a good chance of getting shelled into oblivion). What does that look like to anyone? Preparations for attack? Maybe? Just maybe?

[0007]

11. Thank you Patrick

It appears that these low posters have a way of pissing the troops off!

[Pompitous_Of_Love]

9. Embarrasment

Well, the Russians made complete fools out of themselves over this one.

[Rex]

12. Bullshit

If I was Lil Kim I'd be stocking up on as many nukes as I could possibly make. It seems to be the only thing that stops Commander Insano's PNAC policy.

Pootie is just stalling for NK.

[tom_paine]

14. Well, I have to say that the Russians are neither more or less trustworthy

than our own Lyin' King and His Imperial Minions.

Whooo! If you would have come to me a mere 3 years ago and told me that Imperial Amerika would fall so low that I would ever say such a thing , I would have laughed in your face.

But of course, before 2000 I was also damned near 100% certain thaty "it could never happen here".

What conceit! Of course it could. It very likely IS happening.

[0007]

21. bbt

*