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Bill Clinton & N. Korea Deal......Are You Proud?

Mike

Well-known member
Can senators save Clinton-Kim deal? - nuclear nonproliferation agreement between the US and North Korea - Column
Insight on the News, Nov 21, 1994 by Angelo M. Codevilla
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President Clinton's deal with North Korea is straightforward: Up front, the United States pays North Korea $4 billion and provides free oil, technology and diplomatic recognition that the world's nastiest regime could not otherwise obtain. In return, Kim Jong-il permits us to believe that North Korea has given up the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

To prevent a creeping catastrophe in the Pacific as a result of Clinton's deal, the Senate ought to force Clinton to submit it for ratification as a treaty, defeat it and lay out guidelines for a policy of solidarity with our traditional allies in the region.


The stakes are high. North Korea and its Chinese patrons are showing Japan and South Korea that America no longer is a reliable source of security against even the tiniest nuclear power. Hence these countries will seek security elsewhere, and the Pax Americana that has reigned over the Pacific Rim as a result of World War II will end. But because the Clinton-Kim deal is so full of opportunities to fudge and because the administration will have increasing incentives to put the best face on worsening events, the disaster will take some time to unfold.

Under the Clinton-Kim deal, no one will bother North Korea for an unspecified number of years as it does whatever it likes with its 8,000 reactor fuel rods. The United States will not even be able to ask for -- never mind get -- an intrusive inspection of its current nuclear facilities until the North Koreans take delivery of the final components for new ones (at least five years from now). Hence, North Korea's promise to put the rods in cooling ponds is unenforceable, and it can finish extracting the bomb-grade plutonium from the rods at leisure. Afterward, it can turn over the radioactive rods, and the United States will take care of disposing them. The massive amounts of oil and other aid that will flow into North Korea in the meantime will free up cash to allow it to buy the other components for atomic bombs.

The Clinton administration claims that under the agreement, the North will not restart the reactor that probably has produced fuel for a dozen bombs. But surely North Korea would not do so anyway until it had extracted the bomb materials from the latest batch of fuel rods. By the time inspection comes around, the first eight bombs should be ready to be brandished, either secretly or openly, as a livelier threat in the next round of negotiations.

What will the Clinton administration (assuming it is still in office) do then? Will it perform better in the next round of North Korea's patented stall-threaten-negotiate tactics than it did in the last? It will do worse. If, in the future, Clintonites denounce North Korea's treachery and call for military action, they first would have to acknowledge that they had made a big mistake in 1994. Because such a confession would be a devastating self-indictment, chances are, that it never will be made. Instead, the Clinton administration, having become a hostage to its own blunder, will find ways to excuse North Korea again and again. In each subsequent round of talks, Kim and his henchmen will be in a better position to blackmail Clinton into continuing the process under way.

Japan and South Korea, however, are too close to danger to indulge illusions. The Clinton plan saddles them with 80 percent of the ransom to be paid to Pyongyang. Worse, because the Clinton deal now commits the United States to the proposition that North Korea poses no nuclear threat, the Japanese and South Koreans know that they must face that threat without American help.

Japan and South Korea already are negotiating with Russia to buy the SA12B, which is a lot like what our Patriot defense system might have been if our arms controllers had not deliberately dumbed-down its technology. Both countries have approached Chine for protection. They know full well that China is North Korea's patron and that the United States betrayed them in part to avoid trouble with China. Both countries also are exploring security arrangements with Russia. Finally, because Japan and South Korea cannot afford to be the only countries in the region without nuclear protection, both will bolster their military power and build nuclear arsenals.

The northwest Pacific has been so peaceful and productive for so long that we are tempted to imagine that this is its natural state. Not so. Before we won World War II and submerged the locals' fears and ambitions by our military dominance, the region was a nursery of wars involving Japan, China, Russia, Korea and ourselves. In just a few years, it will revert to exporting bloody wars rather than low-cost, high-quality consumer goods -- unless the Senate repudiates Clinton's deal.

Angelo M. Codevilla is senior fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.

COPYRIGHT 1994 News World Communications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
 

Mike

Well-known member
backhoeboogie said:
Now you've done gone and done it Mike. The truth is going to really hurt on this one. Fur is probably going to fly.

Can I rub some salt in the wounds? :lol: :lol:

______________________________________________
Albright: North Korea 'Cheated' on Clinton Nuke Agreement

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright admitted for the first time on Sunday that under the Clinton administration's Agreed Framework arms control treaty with Kim Jong-il, North Korea "cheated."

Asked point-blank if North Korea developed nuclear weapons during the Clinton administration, Albright told NBC's "Meet the Press," "No, what they were doing, as it turns out, they were cheating."

"The worst part that has happened under the Agreed Framework," Albright said, was that "there [were] these fuel rods, and the nuclear program was frozen."

But because of North Korea's cheating, she explained, "those fuel rods have now been reprocessed, as far as we know, and North Korea has a capability, which at one time might have been two potential nuclear weapons, up to six to eight now, we're not really clear."

Albright's comments came less than 24 hours after reports surfaced that Pyongyang detonated what some said was its first above-ground nuclear test ¿ though experts later said the mushroom-cloud explosion witnessed by tens of thousands was a non-nuclear event.

In a February 2003 interview, Albright boasted to NBC, "When we had the Agreed Framework, we did freeze those fuel rods, and had we not, in the last years, we would have somewhere, people calculate, 50 to 100 nuclear weapons."

A congressional study determined that Pyongyang was cheating on the agreement, but Albright disregarded the warning and continued to claim that the Agreed Framework was a success." :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 

fff

Well-known member
Yawn. Yep, Bush has done sooooo much better. So well, in fact, that John Bolton is screaming bloody murder. Remember Bolton? He was so bad that even the Republican Sentate wouldn't confirm him as the UN Ambassador. So Bush gave him a recess appointment. One would expect that Bush thought Bolton was the man for the job, right? Well, Bolton apparently doesn't think Bush is the man for the job anymore.

Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton is urging GOP lawmakers to oppose the Bush administration’s recent agreement with North Korea to end its nuclear programs, according to House Republican sources.

While Bolton’s skepticism of North Korea is well-known, this is believed to be the first time a former top adviser to the president has taken the unusual step of lobbying against a pillar of the administration’s current foreign policy. It is particularly surprising given the value the administration has placed on loyalty.

More:
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/bolton-lobbies-on-n.k.-deal-2007-10-23.html

Bush's agreement, after seven years of bluster and threats, isn't much different from the Clinton agreement. One major difference is that N Korea is much further along on a nuclear program mainly because Bush refused to talk to them.....until he decided to talk to them. Sort of like Iran, don't you think. :lol:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0405.kaplan.html
 

Mike

Well-known member
Bush refuses to talk to rogue nations singularly. He put China, Japan, and South Korea at the table when negotiating with N. Korea.

He never said that there couldn't be any negotiations. It's just that there are other nations involved so they should share the burden.

Unlike "Blow Job" Bill.
 

fff

Well-known member
Mike said:
Bush refuses to talk to rogue nations singularly. He put China, Japan, and South Korea at the table when negotiating with N. Korea.

He never said that there couldn't be any negotiations. It's just that there are other nations involved so they should share the burden.

Unlike "Blow Job" Bill.

But he did talk to N Korea. He got basically the same agreement as Clinton did. But N Korea is much further along on a nuclear program than they were when Bush refused to honor Clinton's agreement. And now he's talking to Iran. IMO, it's much worse to bluster, threaten, demand and then give in and talk than it is to just talk. It makes us look weak for our president to make such public threats "all options are on the table" and then send one of our top diplomats to talk to Iran.
 

Mike

Well-known member
Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2003 9:48 a.m. EST

Ex-President Bill Clinton knew that North Korea had resumed its nuclear weapons program at least two years before he left the White House - long before he now claims - according to former Clinton White House insider Dick Morris.

Responding to Clinton's profession of ignorance on CNN's "Larry King Live" last Thursday, Morris told Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" last night that he was stunned to hear his old boss make the claim.

"When I hear Bill Clinton saying that he didn't know that North Korea was building bombs in these underground caverns - in 1998, when he was president, the Washington Post published a report that that was the case," Morris said.

"Clinton read the Washington Post," he continued. "If you were the president of the United States and read in the Washington Post that your CIA thought that, would you pick up the phone and call them? Would you ask them?"

In fact, the Post report to which Morris referred went even further, revealing that top administration officials had been briefed on North Korean nuclear weapons activity.

"U.S. intelligence analysts believe about 15,000 North Koreans are at work on a vast, secret underground nuclear facility, a development administration officials say may represent a decision by North Korea to abandon a four-year-old agreement to freeze its nuclear weapons program," the Post reported on Aug. 18, 1998.

"Administration officials who have been briefed on the intelligence data, which includes imagery collected by spy satellites, describe a large-scale tunneling and digging operation in a mountainside about 25 miles northeast of Yongbyon, a former nuclear research center where North Korea is said to have produced enough plutonium for two nuclear weapons."

After citing the Post report, Morris told O'Reilly: "For [Clinton] to take the position he didn't know North Korea was cheating is absolutely disingenuous. Not only did he know, but while he knew, he was pressing Congress to give them food and fuel to honor his '94 agreement [with Pyongyang].

On Thursday the ex-president told Larry King: "We had a tough time with [North Korea], but we got them to end that program and they kept it ended until apparently today they started again. They would have a hundred weapons if we hadn't done that. ... It turns out they had this smaller laboratory program to develop a nuclear bomb with enriched uranium."

Despite her husband's history of bungling the North Korean nuclear situation, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton recently accused President Bush of "mishandling" the crisis in a radio interview with WLIE Radio's Mike Siegel.

To hear Mrs. Clinton attempt to blame Bush for her husband's North Korean nuclear blunder, Click Here.
 

rookie

Well-known member
It be real simple dontcha see? China has a plan. The plan be right on schedule. China aint gonna be letting piss ant Jung Ill get in they way, nor interfere with what they got goin. Ill may rattle sabers and crow loud but if he got outa hand fer real, ya'd see China squash him double quick, and no one on tha planet would have a word ta say about it.!
 

TSR

Well-known member
" The Semate ought to force Clinton into submitting it for ratification"???? Why didn't they weren't the Republicans in Control of the Senate during his tenure?
 

Mike

Well-known member
TSR said:
" The Semate ought to force Clinton into submitting it for ratification"???? Why didn't they weren't the Republicans in Control of the Senate during his tenure?

103rd Congress 1993-1995
Democrats held the Senate majority by 57-43

102nd was also a Dem majority 56-44

Don't you remember all the bitching about Clinton doing nothing at all in his first years even with a Dem Senate majority? The Clinton legacy went downhill from there on out because in part of his oral escapades. :lol:

Liberals think that the Republicans have had a majority of Congress all along.

Even Bush's tenure has pretty much been split between Dems & Repubs.
 

TSR

Well-known member
Mike said:
TSR said:
" The Semate ought to force Clinton into submitting it for ratification"???? Why didn't they weren't the Republicans in Control of the Senate during his tenure?

103rd Congress 1993-1995
Democrats held the Senate majority by 57-43

102nd was also a Dem majority 56-44

Don't you remember all the bitching about Clinton doing nothing at all in his first years even with a Dem Senate majority? The Clinton legacy went downhill from there on out because in part of his oral escapades. :lol:

Liberals think that the Republicans have had a majority of Congress all along.

Even Bush's tenure has pretty much been split between Dems & Repubs.


Democrats or Republicans they had the authority to make this become a treaty issue and I blame both parties for not doing so. Neither had the balls to do what was right. They didn't want their votes being shown on such an issue provided it passed.
 
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