Clinton and North Korea

[dennis4868]

My in-laws (they are loyal dems) told me this past weekend that Clinton messed up North Korea and it is his fault that North Korea is once again started up their Nuclear weapons program. I did not know how to answer that. This is one area where I am uninformed.

Can anyone help me out here and tell me what the truth is. Whst did Clinton do with regards to North Korea and what did Bush do and not do that has made North Korea a real threat to the world. I am sure Bush did not help things out by naming North Korea in his "I have an axis of evil Speech" to congress.

[Snow]

1. just a first quick take...

and I'll come up with some more, but it appears that north korea doesn't really have nukes or is even close. The Chinese, in particular, are fairly certain about this, and make no bones that they think bush et al are being taken for suckers.

There's some more about aid in return for stopping the supposed nuke program, the aid consisting of food and fuel. This was the Clinton deal, roughly. Bush stopped it. The north koreans are pissed in part because of that.

[dennis4868]

2. Did

Clinton allow North Korea to start up their program? Was North Korea cheating on the deal that we send them food and they stop their weapons program?

[Snow]

8. No. again, my as yet uninformed recollection was that

since Korea has very little in the way of internal power resources (although n. korea used to have a lot of hydroelectric power - maybe fell apart, russian parts?) - anyway, my recollection was that Clinton persuaded the north to trade their present reactors, which could produce bomb material, for another type of nuke reactor which could not, in exchange for the aid. North Korea started the sword-rattling after bush stopped fuel oil shipments.

[wuushew]

4. That is a dangerous admission from the left

because one of the valid rhetorical arguments that was made against the war with Iraq was that even if you believed in preemptive war, the threat ranking would place North Korea a more eminent threat than Iraq.

So did Bush too know that was a lie?

[Bucky]

6. You're forgetting the real threat from Iraq was that...

They had their sand on top of our oil. Those bums...

[Snow]

7. I don't think anyone in this country

thought Kim was bluffing at the time....it seemed a reasonable possibility.

[Taeger]

3. I thought is was ...

I thought it was Eisenhower. Clinton was pretty young then ;-)

[DrWeird]

5. Not at all.

Clinton was doing very well with N. Korea. We had made a lot of progress. Albright was about to visit.

Shortly after Bush took office somebody (Rumsfeld?) said something really stupid about N. Koreans that set the relationship back twenty years. Can't remember what it was.

Basically, N. Korea is entirely this administrations fault.

[ma4t]

14. You got it!!

DrWeird has offered a brilliant analysis.

During the Clinton administration the North Korean regime was one of the most benevolent in the world. Every North Korean was well-fed, engaged in a rewarding job with excellent benefits and worker rights and all the schools were bright and sunny with a low pupil to teacher ratio.

North Korea had world-wide respect and admiration for all the selfless acts of international aid its government did across the globe.

Then it all came crashing down because "somebody (Rumsfeld?)" made a really stupid remark that hurt their feelings. As a result they began herding their people into concentration camps, restricting food supplies to the point where large numbers of people were starving and publicly proclaimed that they were working on nuclear weapons. They even used a secret time machine so they could retroactively kidnap innocent Japanese and hold them prisoner for years on end and sell missile technology to rogue regimes elsewhere.



Sorry to burst your bubble but the North Korean regime is evil no matter whether Clinton or Bush is in the White House. The regime will be evil regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican wins this November. Trying to blame the evil of that regime on the current, former or future president is just stupid. The only thing that could approach that level of stupidity is to think that such a regime would negotiate in good faith and honor any agreement entered into.

[Snow]

15. Pretty uncomplicated, black-and-white world you live in there, dude...

[ma4t]

18. In this case, I agree

I think that a regime that intentionally withholds food supplies so as to starve whole "suspect" regions is evil. I think that condemns whole families to concentration camps for the political crimes of one member of a family is evil. I think a regime that views attempting to escape the country as a capital offense is evil.

Sorry I am not sophisticated enough to have a properly nuanced view on this. I'd be happy to hear you explain why you think otherwise. Perhaps I could learn something.

[Snow]

22. Learning something is always good....

However, your nasty sarcasm, to wit:
"DrWeird has offered a brilliant analysis.
During the Clinton administration the North Korean regime was one of the most benevolent in the world. Every North Korean was well-fed, engaged in a rewarding job with excellent benefits and worker rights and all the schools were bright and sunny with a low pupil to teacher ratio.
North Korea had world-wide respect and admiration for all the selfless acts of international aid its government did across the globe."

Re-read DrWeird's post with a little more care. You'll find he said nothing even remotely apologetic for North Korea.

He said, "Clinton was doing very well with N. Korea. We had made a lot of progress. Albright was about to visit.
Shortly after Bush took office somebody (Rumsfeld?) said something really stupid about N. Koreans that set the relationship back twenty years. Can't remember what it was.
Basically, N. Korea is entirely this administrations fault."

Okay?

Your repeated use of the term 'evil' is a problem as well, in that it says something about the essential nature of the country, or the regime, or Kim. It does not admit to any solution beyond destroying the evil. It would probably make diplomatic solutions, such as the south is working on, impossible.

Having said that, you did say, I think without sarcasm, that you willing to learn. OafofOffices' post covers the basic dynamics of the US's idiocy in the situation. The history however, is kinda long. Let's give it a try, though. In the mid-to-late 1800's, Asia was being divvied up by the European colonial powers, and the US was getting its thumbs in the pie both in China and Japan - the Perry expedition. Korea, which was of course unified at the time, heard about this and tried their best to keep Westerners out, leading to the "Hermit Kingdom" nickname. A couple of times American gunboats and marines threatened Korea, but didn't hang around very long, and Korea was surprisingly effective in beating them off. Japan, however, wanted to be a colonial power like the westerners, and thought they should rule Asia. This had happened before, notably under Hideyoshi (the shogun in the novel "Shogun"), and Korea was the usual bridge to conquer China.

In the mid 1800's Japan began moving to take over Korea, and the king and queen began moving to resist. Among other things, they pursued alliances with both China, their traditional protector, and with Russia. This was part of what led to the Russo-Japanese war, which you may recall Japan won, acquiring large chunks of territory but for the moment not getting all of Korea - the peace treaty specified Russia could keep Korea north of the 38th parallel! Sound familiar? That's where the post Korean War truce line came from. Well, in 1895 the japanese assassinated the queen who had been standing in the way, moved in, took over, and proceeded into china in the early 1900's, replacing the king with a puppet who may have been mentally retarded...he looks as though he may have down's. Anyway, the whole country fell, the queen's nephew became a resistance leader and a lot of the resistance moved to the manchurian town of Halbin, a long way north. There were many protests, etc., but it took WWII to free the country. One of the big-name resistance leaders was Kim Ilsung, the future north leader, especially after Prince Min, the queen's nephew, was killed. Because of the Russian connection, it wasn't unusual for the resistance leaders to call themselves 'communist'.

Anyway, WWII ended, US forces landed at Inchon, and promptly embraced the Japanese leadership, expressing the hope that they would stick around to run things, and ignored the resistance leaders. This led to a real mess. The country was partitioned at the 38th parallel again at that point as part of the end of WWII treaties, the US put in a puppet leader who turned out to be a nasty dictator who made belligerent threats to the north. While KimIlsung did precipitate the invasion that started the Korean War, he did so believing that Syngman Rhee fully intended to invade the north with US backing. He may have been right. I'll not recap the Korean War; that's recent enough that most people are familiar with it, and of course it ended at the 38th parallel again, with a US client state in the south and a USSR client state in the north. It left the country a disaster zone. It left families divided, it left the country with no rulers. The royal family, who had been pretty damn competent (this was a dynasty that had lasted 500 years, and you can't last that long if you're not good - brutality won't cut it), were disgraced by Japanese propaganda, and Queen Min, who was IMHO a hero and true patriot, was painted as a corrupt nespotic wastrel. The north is mountainous and had resources of iron, coal, and hydroelectric power, while the south had a solid agriculture. Together they worked well; separated they were dirt poor.

The south eventually dug its way out of the US dependency and dictatorships; they're no longer even considered a poor country. The north slammed the doors on the world and tried to balance Russia and China. Then the USSR fell. North Korea had, a lot like Cuba but more so, been very dependent upon the USSR's support. China's support was tenuous as well. KimIlsung died, and they went through a period of power struggles and consolidation. At this point, they were a like a lot of other countries that had really been leaning on the USSR - they were hungry!

SO KimJongil consolidated, and found himself with an extremely isolated economy and no ideological way out. The people had been fed this line of fear for so long, that rejoining the world has really become unthinkable. They're now rethinking that, but it's slow and delicate, and is best done with care by south Korea, not by fumble-fingered americans. KimJongil has starved people, has been cruel and repressive. He has also been in a very difficult economic situation, and is nowhere near competent enough to handle it. Part of his repressiveness stems from fear of overthrow following crop failures. It was the crop failures that killed the most people, not the repression. The power that the US reactors would have provided was sorely needed. The fuel oil that would have replaced the reactors that were shut down was sorely needed. This is a cruel situation, but think for a bit what would happen if instead of bombing the bejabbers out of the 'evil' man, we flood the place with aid, food, infrastructure help, and keep our hands totally off the politics. What do you think the result would be? Yes, KimJongil has done a lot of evil, yes, he is an incompetent screw-up, but I hope my very lengthy post helps you see the situation in more than monotone 'evil'.

[ma4t]

24. thanks for the reply

To address your first point, my sarcasm was directed at DrWeird's closing comment, "Basically, N. Korea is entirely this administrations fault."

As your own brief historical recap documents North Korea's problems, including its bellicosity, are long in the making and trying to pin the situation on any president is, at best, ignorance and more likely unthinking, willful stupidity.

That being said, I appreciate your effort to give some historical context to the discussion. Your review is pretty much in accordance with my own understanding of the history of the Korean peninsula although you were able to put it in a more clear and concise form than I could have done.

At the end of it though, it seems to me that you basically agree with my opinion of the Kim regime, just not with my being willing to state it categorecly. You acknowledge that Kim "has done a lot of evil" and "is an incompetent screw-up". It seems to me that someone who does a lot of evil over and extended period of time, fits the definition of evil. Why whould that not be so?

Finally, I don't think you will find anywhere in my posts where I advocate for or against any particular course of action on how to deal with North Korea. I did not argue for or aginst "bombing the bejabbers" out of North Korea or for or against massive aid. I only tried to point out that, contrary to the post by DrWeird, whatever North Korea is, it is much more the responsibility of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il than Messrs. Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, et. al. I do feel strongly that whatever policy we pursue should be grounded in an realistic understanding of what we are dealing with. The situation there is what it is, not what we would wish it to be. To pretend otherwise is to invite disaster.

[Snow]

26. Okay, fair enough.....

but a coupla semantic points. My reading of DrWeird's statement "Basically, N. Korea is entirely this administrations fault." was that the current bad relations, mutual belligerence and so on is this administration's fault. (If I'm mininterpreting, Dr, let me know). I agree whole-heartedly with that. That does not say that KimJongil and the mess he's made can be blamed on bush, even though that could be fun.

I'm having, as you may have gathered, a problem with the word 'evil', and again this may be a matter of semantics. To me it implies a monotonic view of the world, with very little room for compromise. Hence I think people who regard other people as 'evil' would be generally unwilling to allow them to continue in their evil, or to, heaven forfend, to help their country. The south right now, as much as they would like to reunify eventually, were very aware of the cost to Germany of the reunification. Korean reunification would be magnitudes more costly. So it must be done with care and slowly, even though the cost in northern lives and health is painful....imagine, for example, what would happen if Kim Jongil were assassinated - the country would fall into complete chaos, you'd see a lot worse than hunger and malnutrition; you'd see major famine and some serious epidemics - most likely tuberculosis, since that's been an old Korean problem.

I therefore probably misunderstood your position to be more belligerent than it actually is - but an understanding of what we're dealing with is exactly what the US government lacks - their historical memory doesn't go back beyond the Korean war, which they see as a US-USSR conflict. Finally, I would still argue against your placing quite so much responsibility on the Kim's. They ran the country into the ground, no question about it, but the reasons they did so had a lot to with the isolation they pursued, which in their world view makes a lot of sense. And for that the west bears a lot of blame. Did you know that in the late 60's the US had nuclear-tipped Nike Hercules missles in Korea? The Nike Hercules is supposedly an anti-aircraft missle, but they had those suckers set up to fly ballistic. With that kind of threat on your border, a little paranoia is healthy.

By the way, the poster below who brings up the oil issue is spot-on - that's another major complication to the mess, and I don't think the south is generally aware of this, but the north sure as shootin' is.

[ma4t]

27. fair enough right back atcha

Part of my problem is that I tend to "call em as I see em" so I have no problem at all describing the Kim regime as evil. To me that is nothing more or less than an accurate adjective. Basically if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck ........ its a duck. By every external indicator I can see, Kim is evil. I'd bet that deep down you agree. Why say so directly?

In my opinion, naming something accurately doesn't necessarily imply that any particular course of action is required, thus, we could all admit that the North Korean regime is evil and still all agree that in our collective wisdom we'll do nothing about it. The U.S. government has ignored all sort of regimes with varying degrees of evil-ness through out history. These have ranged from semi-client banana republics to our co-belligerant status with the USSR in WWII.

I think you touched on one aspect of this discussion that is important. I agree that many do feel that branding a regime as evil implies a requirement to do something about it. However; in my experience, that feeling engenders a reluctance to be honest in the branding rather than a desire to take action. For example, I don't think one has to be a fan of Reagan to agree that his characterization of the USSR as an "evil empire" was accurate. What you do about it is quite another matter, but objecting to the label is, quite frankly, reflects either historical ignorance or willful delusion.

To restate my point from an earlier post, situations are what they are. We should not shrink from accurate terminology. To start out arguing against calling something what it obviously is does nothing but undermine the credibility of any subsequent points.

Or as Mark Twain (I think) put it: If we call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? The answer is four, just because we call a tail a leg, doesn't make it so.

OK, after all that, it is crunch time. (drum roll) ...For the car, the vacation package and the chance to come back tomorrow for the championship round just answer this question: Is the North Korea regime evil or not?

[Snow]

28. Sorry, ma4t

I'm not gonna go for that bait. I do not like the word; to me it has religious overtones. I don't think it means the same thing to everyone. It's not like saying the sky is blue, and to my mind, it tends to shut off discourse. Further, I think it's more productive to say something like, here's a problem, here's the history of the problem, and here's some ways to address the problem - which is preferable. I doubt many people would choose a humanitarian approach, or even a hands-off approach, to someone who is 'evil'. To argue otherwise, that it's just an honest label, is disingenuous.

[ma4t]

29. OK, I can deal with that

But then I've got to ask how would you characterize Kim? How would you characterize Hitler? Stalin? Franco? The Penguin? The Joker? Auric Goldfinger? Blofield? Dr. Evil? Would any of them rate the "evil" label? How about "really, really bad"? Seriously, if the word is to have any meaning at all it must be able to accurately describe something or someone; so does it have meaning or not?

I understand that in polite society we all have a reluctance to hang "judgement labels" on people. However; with cases like Kim Jong Il such hesitance seems more like a reluctance to acknowledge reality that a desire to be polite.

[Snow]

31. Okay, good point, I'll have to be a little more forthcoming....

the word sounds not so much judgemental; I have no problem with judgement - it sounds absolutist. He's evil; there's nothing more to him. Confession time: I'm Quaker, and as a Quaker one of our ways of looking at the world includes "seeing or speaking to that of the light in everyone". For 'the light', a lot of quakers substitute 'god'; not being so inclined, I don't. But that says people are a mixture - and you can indeed speak to the best part of them. It may be a really really small part, but we believe it is there, and speaking to that can be much more effective than speaking to the evil. What I'm saying is that one-word characterizations are a trap, that shut off thinking and options. Granted, that comes in part out of my religious practice, but I think it's a useful way to view things. There're a lotta forks in the road - take them (I think I'm channeling Yogi Berra here).

[ma4t]

32. fairly stated

I don't necessarily disagree with your points. I too, will agree that characterizing anyone as "evil" or "ruthless" of, for that matter "altruistic" is one-dimensional. Further, I agree that all of us are multi-dimensional beings. That being said, I still contend that words are useful things, that they have meaning and that we should be willing to use the correct, accurate words to describe situations, events and people. If for no other reason this is important to force ourselves to realistically appraise the likely outcome of various approaches to a problem.

To take a simple case, how likely is it that a parent can help a child involved with drugs if the parent refuses to acknowledger that that is happening? If the parent insists that the child was just a victim of circumstance and makes excuses for the child I would expect any further action to be ineffective. The only way to make progress is to honestly confront the reality.

Likewise, to answer your hypothetical question from several posts back as to what would happen if we poured lots of aid and infrastructure development into North Korea I would have to say that I think Kim would ensure that it was diverted to those he favored and that many who need it would see nothing. I don't wish this were the case but experience tells me that it would be. People aren't starving in North Korea because of crop failures or transportation difficulties. They are starving because Kim wants them to starve. While I respect your beliefs and the tradition behind them I have a hard time understanding how anyone could stare that hard fact in the face and not call it by its name.

At any rate, we've probably hijacked this thread enough for one day and I've posted too much on company time.

Regards....

[Snow]

33. Now that I'm not at the office, a final go....

glad we're basically in agreement. I'm not arguing, though, that you don't acknowledge the wrong a person does, or his wrong-headedness in so doing. I would not argue for that in your hypothetical case, not would I argue that for Kim Jongil. But to simply call him 'evil' is first, not really descriptive, like calling the sky blue, but highly subjective and relative to one's perspective, and further, it reduces him to a single idea, which he is not.

I think you're setting up a straw man with your remarks about how aid would fail - you surely realize there are ways to ensure that high-jacking doesn't occur?

Your comments on why people are starving in North Korea over-simplify - there is some of Kim's evil in there, but there also have been documented crop failures, floods, typhoons, and the fall of the USSR - all those play into the situation, along with the Kims' incompetence. I don't know your sources - be careful if it's US media - but mine include some people who see North Korea regularly, and that's what they report.

[DrWeird]

19. Consider this.

A crazed man is wholed up in a house with his family and is threatening to shoot them all. The police negotiator has them on the phone and talking. Progress is being made. Then the new police negotiator come in dressed like a cowboy, gets the phone, hangs it up, and then goes on the local news and calls the guy a bitch, and we're going to get him, and we're about to send the police through the front door.


"Sorry to burst your bubble but the North Korean regime is evil no matter whether Clinton or Bush is in the White House. The regime will be evil regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican wins this November. Trying to blame the evil of that regime on the current, former or future president is just stupid. The only thing that could approach that level of stupidity is to think that such a regime would negotiate in good faith and honor any agreement entered into."

Blah, blah, blah. Axis of evil. Blah, blah. Gassed their own people. Blah blah. Restore honor and dignity. Blah, blah.

You sound a lot like Bush.

[ma4t]

20. OK, I considered it

All analogies are suspect but I'll use your own analogy in this case.

The "crazed man" was crazed before the new "police negotiator" arrived. Nothing the new negotiator can do will change that fact. That is my point. North Korea was an evil regime before Bush came on the scene, before Clinton came on the scene, before Bush-daddy did, Before Reagan did, before Carter did...... you get the picture. The problem in North Korea is Kim. The problem before that was his father. Nothing any U.S. official says is going to make Kim any less of a megalomaniacal nut than he currently is. To use your own analogy, someone who is "crazed" is unaffected by reason.

If being able to recognize evil makes me sound like Bush, I can live with that. Do you think the way the North Korean government treats its own people is not evil?

[DrWeird]

21. Ah, the mentally insane angle.

Yes, Kim Jung Il is nuts. Just look at that hair cut and those glasses.

[Snow]

23. I assume you're employing irony, but

Kim Jongil's hair looks odd because of a severe childhood illness, most likely typhoid fever.

[ma4t]

25. actually I am looking at his behavior

Based on his actions how would you characterize him?

[locustfist76]

30. Finally

I justed wanted to thank you for being an objective poster on this forum. Some people have partisan blinders on all the time. Both the left and the right have'em. Truth is much more important than political parties...and yes I would have to agree that Kim is evil.

[Aidoneus]

9. for once, that's right about Clinton

Stopped clock syndrome.. I wouldn't say it's his fault, as there are a great deal of other circumstances behind it, but there were some very underhanded moves in this respect that happened under his watch that were, of course, continued and made worse under the Bush regime.

Some background first.

The DPRK's nuclear program is, in fact, not the first on the peninsula--the US-backed ROK dictatorship had a nuclear weapons program decades before, but it was shut down when democratic students toppled the military regime. The DPRK's nuclear-weapons materials were mostly processed in the late 80s, that is under Reagan and Bush.

From what I understand, the main North Korean reactor is graphite moderated. The Clinton people offered a deal where this would be shut down in exchange for 2 light-water moderated reactors and oil/fuel supplies. The reason for the light-water reactors in exchange is that these are not weapons-producing capable.

From the standpoint of preventing the DPRK from producing nuclear weapons, up to now this was a good deal. The trouble was that the Clinton people, and later Bush people, had no intention of following up on it. The DPRK's reactor was shut down, but construction on the two they were supposed to receive in exchange for this never got off the ground floor. The Bush regime later cut off the oil supplies. The Clinton, and later Bush, people had hoped that the DPRK government would have fallen apart, thus saw no need to carry out their ends of the bargain.

[BillZBubb]

11. You are incorrect about Clinton's intentions

He absolutely wanted to meet the conditions of the deal. The Republicans in congress, however, made it absolutely clear that they would never permit Clinton to follow through with North Korea. They blocked it, not Clinton.

Clinton was doing the exactly correct thing. The Repugs stopped it. Bush* has totally screwed it up.

[Oilwellian]

10. North Korea was well on their way to developing nukes

long before Clinton took office. North Korea already had nuclear reactors, of a type (plutonium) that could be used to make atomic bombs -- that was the problem. The Clinton administration deal involved providing North Korea with a different kind of nuclear power (light water) that cannot be used to make a bomb.

This agreement also allowed inspectors, seals and cameras to monitor the plutonium. Due to Bush's "axis of evil" comment in his 2001 SOTU address, North Korea broke the seals, disconnected the cameras and stopped allowing the inspectors access.

Then, a few months later, in a stunning move I'll never forget, Bush did this:

"The White House announced Tuesday that it would make $95 million available to KEDO. Officials said the contribution served the United States' national security interests, waiving the requirement that North Korea first comply with all provisions its agreement to halt its nuclear missile program."
http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/04/03/us.nkorea/

To make the story even juicier, we learned Rumsfeld was on the Board of Directors of ABB, Ltd., a company who signed a contract w/NKorea to help build their new nuclear plants.
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/2002/04/09_Rumsfeld_North_Korea.html

Here's a good timeline:
http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/resources/koreatimeline.htm

[Snow]

12. Thanks, Oaf....

that was the little batch of details I was struggling to remember, besides the broad-bush outline I & a coupla others provided. So, Dennis, I think that probably covers the issue, except that question of whether Kim has been bluffing. Also, the one other complication is that bush state dept guy, Bolcom or some such, white mustache, really belligerent to the point that he must be doing it deliberately to provoke a fight. He's made the situation much more confrontational than it needs to be, and I'm sure that was the game plan.

[dennis4868]

13. Thanks....

for the links!

[ComerPerro]

16. Then why aren't we doing anything about them?

Doesn't Bush care about our security.

[radwriter0555]

17. North Korea has every right to defend their OIL from the BUSH REGIME...

until bush started rattling sabres at them, threatening, sanctioning and intimidating them, NK wasn't a threat in any way.

Google North Korea Oil, see what pops up.

Then you'll find the real reason the bush regime is pretending that NK is a threat.