Need North Korea Chronology

[benburch]

Folks...

Which happened first? Shrub cutting off the oil we were giving North Korea, or the restarting of the NK nuclear program?

And can you point me towards an online citation on this data?

Thanks so much!

-Ben Burch
White Rose Society Webmaster

[Aidoneus]

1. that's a long subject

but sticking to recent times and this particular agreement.

The DPRK started it's nuclear program "late" (within the last 2-3 decades), long after the ROK--then under a military dictatorship, whose atrocities against dissidents was supported energetically by it's US boss--was forced to abandon it's own nuclear weapons programs from internal pressure (students who overthrew the US-backed military dictatorship). Most of the weapons-grade material was created in the time of Bush1's time in office, around '87-'91. The US forces occupying bases in the ROK had kept nuclear weapons stored on the Korean peninsula for many years, but apparently do not have them there any longer.

The Clinton people went over in the 90s and offered them an agreement:--if the DPRK would shut down their graphite-moderated reactor, the United States would build them two light-water moderated reactors (not capable of producing weapons-grade nuclear material for weapons) and oil supplies to make up for the electricity generated by the existing reactor. The DPRK shut down the reactor, but never received their end of the bargain. The Clinton (and later Bush) people reneged on the agreement because they believed that the DPRK would have fallen from power by this time and thus they wouldn't need to even try to live up to the agreement. When the Koreans noticed that the agreement was being broken from the other end, they saw no need to live up to it themselves.

[Aidoneus]

2. kick for benburch's benefit

in the event it was missed before sinking like a rock..
:kick:

[benburch]

5. Got it, thanks!

The "My Posts" button is quite a help!

[JasonBerry]

3. Puh....lease!

That was written in a very apologetic tone toward the most bizarre and paranoid government in the world. Poor North Korea, gets shafted by the United States.(!) Kim Jong Il and the whole Kim cult, with the late Papa Kim leading the way, is murderous to the inth degree. There are plenty of places oppressed by US policy ---- this ain't one of them. If we really needed to "liberate" a country, the "Democratic" People's Republic of Korea would have been a good place to start. (In jest. But the fantasy is appealing.)

[Aidoneus]

4. I did no such thing

There was no comment whatsoever about what I think of the DPRK, much less an "apologetic tone" in doing so. Note the title & opening line to denote what I was, in fact, specfically writing about. I did give a hint of my views on a few other subjects there, however.

Whatever you or I think of them (and if it'll make you feel any better what I do think isn't too terribly positive, but probably different enough from how you think for you to be shocked and appalled at me anyway--but that's ok, I'm used to it and rather like that kind of response sometimes), they were indeed shafted by the United States in the agreement. If you can disprove the course of events that I described, by all means do so.. you have not attempted to do as yet, merely sticking to shallow attacks and generalizations.

And I disagree about another thing--I'd say that the most bizarre government in the world is rather Niyazov's sandbox on the Caspian, but its tendencies are not as widely known.. as for paranoid, that mantle rests with the Pyongyang on the Potomac by far.

The clear endorsement of the policy of murderous aggression was in appealing jest, you say, but at least it's not advocating the complete nuclear genocide of the whole "north" Korean people as there was in some lounge thread about their music video. That's what passes for an improvement around here, I guess.. :shrug: