XDA

I am sorry. Do I remmeber correctly that the president in his October 9, 2006 news conference advocated a diplomatic solution to the current situation in North Korea?

Nice photograph. If I searched the internet, do you think I might find one showing some Republican appointee toasting Our Dear Leader?

Please explain how the current administration's policy toward North Korea has been a success rendering the region safe from a head of state who, by comparison, makes Mahmoud Ahmandinejad seem the soul of reason. Heck, let's also consider the world. North Korean can't feed its populace; can't produce enough energy for its needs; and has no export that any nation would want except one--weapons technology. I am quite sure in the near future, unless China does some serious woodshedding, we can expect Our Dear Leader and the Iranian Whacko to take a train ride togther in which there will be an agreement to exchange oil for werapons technology.

Let's see: North Korea has WMDs and we are doing squat; Saddam Hussein had no WMDs and we are spening billions of dollars every week to support a soon to be failed state that will be a breding goround for terrorists. Yep. I sure am glad the Republicans have thingfs well in hand.
 

I doubt you will find Republicans toasting an agreement. As soon as the Republicans found out the NKs had cheated on the Democrat agreement nearly from the start, we had no contact with them for over a year, I believe. The contact that followed was in the 6 party talks.

The current administrations' policy towards the NK has not yet succeded but we started off in the hole due to NK treachery and Democrat foolishness. If China finally decides that forcing Japan to arm with nuke weapons is a bad thing for China, things will get better fast, I believe, which is why the 6 party talks (with China) were so important. And yes nations in the Axis of Evil might well ally. We fought against NK and completely whipped them, then China entered the war and it became a bloody stalemate and although a cease fire was signed, the war never ended (like with Gulf War 1) It will be tough to start again without really hurting SK so there were no good options militarily (again unless China would agree to step in (like Viet Nam stepped in with Cambodia a couple of decades ago)). We Republicans are attempting to do something without attacking NK, the 6 party talks. You can call that squat, but it's something and if it woos China into helpfulness something important.
Mary, I think you can see it had a dig at Bush as well. I can't imagine it was too subtle. OK, for the future. We need to woo China into being helpful here. There is no good military option.
 

Oh Roger, I've been away too long. You're still batshit crazy and just plain wrong. I'll bet you a Grave's Mountain funnel-cake that the bomb that went off was a PLUTONIUM bomb, made from the stuff that was off limits in the '94 Agreed Framework. You know, the agreement that Bush was against from the start.

Now sure, Uranium is baaad stuff, but a completely different, and more difficult, route to the bomb. But again 1994-2002 - no bomb. 2002-2006 - BOMB!

So our scorecard reads:

Clinton = does something
Bush = does nothing = failure

So how are things going with those "Axes of Evil" anyway?
 

Yea, blame Clinton.

You guys need a new M.O. After 6 years, we would expect something more from Y'all.

Bi-lateral talks wouldn't hurt anyone except GWB's pride and that is all Kim really wants.

No military solution means that Bush & Co. are stumped. Once again the limits and general futility of strait power politics is clear to see.
 

Andy and Mike, quit being like Charlie Brown and the fotball. We can't trust the NK no matter what they say. The only chance to get a resolution to the nuke problem in NK is to have China lay down the law to NK and the Chinese won't do it if we bypass them in negotiations. I think grade school children could see that. Andy, you can tell whether an atomic bomb was plutonium or uranium? Wow, what other super powers do you have? And when you say Bush was against the '94 agreement from the first, do you mean when he was Texas governor, he was against it? The Axis of Evil is still evil, but Iraq is attending anger management classes.
 

Itsamarycle. Thank you for the kind inference. I have been away and catching up after that. Please see Diomedes posting re Robert Kaplan and my response to it. I just finished Mr. Kaplan's article and recommend it. It's in the Atlantic but can be accessed through NPR.org.

Duk. "Wacko" not "whacko."

PT. I have the advantage of being married to a sinologist and I have read Mr. Kaplan's article.

The U.S., largely through this administration's policy toward N. Korea-- although I agree w/ Roger that the N. Korean regime cannot be trusted any farther than you can throw a cheesecake underwater--has no leverage w/ N. Korea whereas China and to a lesser degree S. Korean do. W/o aid from Beijing, the N. Korean regime would collapse almost overnight.

Mr. Kaplan is correct in that the N. Korean regime fears China, not the U.S. Bilateral talks will only bolster ODL's status as his regime has already begun its death spiral. The only question is how long will it take to crash and how do we best buffer that crash.

I believe it best to avoid bilateral talks and continue the 6 party talks, letting China walk point on the implementation of sanctions.
 

Thanks Tony. That I am right on this one is proof that even a blind hog finds an acorn from time to time, as my football coach used to say whenever I made a good play.