NYT op-ed on North Korea's nuclear reacters

[karynnj]

This is a great op-ed, tracing the spread of nuclear technology from Nazi Germany to the former USSR and Pakistan. Looking at today's problems, it is really too bad that no one in the early 1990s followed Kerry's recommendation to investigate how Pakistan subverted the non-proliferation laws. It's amazing that both the mainstream Democrats and the Republicans have vested interests in keeping the fact that Kerry strongly advocated for investigating this. (An investigation could have missed A. Q. Khan's network, but it wasn't even initiated.)

"This is not the place to go into the details of Dr. Khan’s activities, which in the end involved a variety of countries from Libya to China — to say nothing of Iran, whose centrifuges also have a Pakistani origin.

By the 1990s Dr. Khan was exchanging weapons information with the North Koreans for similar information about their long-range rockets. We know he gave them plans for the centrifuge and probably sample centrifuges. We do not know whether he gave them plans for a nuclear weapon, as he had done for the Libyans.

We also do not know to what extent the government of Pakistan was complicit in this. The army certainly was, and military aircraft were used to transport material. Pakistan has denied any involvement; Dr. Khan is under house arrest and no foreign intelligence representatives have been allowed to interview him."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/opinion/10bernstein.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1

[pretzel4gore]

1. bathrub calling the sink white...

screw this propaganda bs. the real threat to world peace is US/Brit etc, greed and plain ole stupidity. The US spends more money on its military then rest of planet COMBINED. The US has criminally used nukes (against defenseless Japan) and we allow unelected frauds to bankrupt us and destroy countless innocents hiding behind our flags. N Korea is a damn fool not to secure wmd's, as is Iran...even Canada outta discreetly point a few 'bush busters' at wherever that pipsqueak is hiding out!
notice that NKorea and Iran, and even throw in Iraq, combined spend barely more then Canada, or Australia, each seperately. This kind of selective edited story selling is called the BIG LIE...it was US/Brit that utilized nazi scientists after WW2, NKorea and Iran were basically conquered countries then! And bush's granny was a nazi collaborator, to boot!
The NY Times is a criminally run organization, otherwise they'd report the news, and not push bad dope....
-------------------
Defense Spending
Experts once argued whether Americans would finally grasp the enormity of the
military budget when spending reached $100 billion. Now $416 billion, and
candidates still arguing over who will spend the most, it would appear people still
haven't grasped a budget beyond comprehension.
Here's how political leaders are
spending the discretionary budget.
World's Largest
Military Budgets:
($U.S. Billions)
United States 416.0
Russia* 65.0
China* 47.0
Japan 42.6
U.K. 38.4
France 29.5
Germany 24.9
Saudi Arabia 21.3
Italy 19.4
India 15.6
South Korea 14.1
Brazil* 10.7
Taiwan* 10.7
Israel 10.6
Spain 8.4
Australia 7.6
Canada 7.6
Netherlands 6.6
Turkey 5.8
Mexico 5.9
Kuwait* 3.9
Ukraine 5.0
Iran 4.8
Singapore 4.8
Sweden 4.5
Egypt* 4.4
Norway 3.8
Greece 3.5
Poland 3.5
Argentina* 3.3
U.A.E.* 3.1
Colombia* 2.9
Belgium 2.7
Pakistan* 2.6
Denmark 2.4
Vietnam 2.4
North Korea 2.1
Czech Republic 1.6
Iraq 1.4
Philippines 1.4
Portugal 1.3
Libya 1.2
Hungary 1.1
Syria 1.0
Cuba 0.8
Sudan 0.6
Yugoslavia 0.7
Luxembourg 0.2
Source: www.cdi.org.

[karynnj]

2. Nothing in this op-ed whitewashs the US and Britain

Nuclear proliferation is a problem whether you see it so or not.

[pretzel4gore]

3. agreed. just nytimes is a pusher, and their dope is bad

we surely not getting closer to nuke free world if nytimes is pushing bad dope on every corner of the land. the nytimes ed board, like all pigmedia managers, need to be put in jail (in asia, somewhere) before we can restore integrity to newsmedia, and we need a free press in order for society to work....and honestly, i do not see n korea or iran or pakistan as big a threat, in comparison