With Bush denouncing "the price of indifference" and then ignoring
North Korea for four years right up until the moment they tested an
atomic bomb, there can only be one person to blame for this mess.
That's right! It's Bill Clinton's fault.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/10/mccain.clinton.ap/
Republican Sen. John McCain on Tuesday accused former President
Clinton, the husband of his potential 2008 White House rival, of
failing to act in the 1990s to stop North Korea from developing
nuclear weapons.
"I would remind Senator (Hillary) Clinton and other Democrats critical
of the Bush administration's policies that the framework agreement her
husband's administration negotiated was a failure," McCain said at a
news conference after a campaign appearance for Republican Senate
candidate Mike Bouchard.
"The Koreans received millions and millions in energy assistance.
They've diverted millions of dollars of food assistance to their
military," he said.
Hmm.
According to that same article, "In U.S.-North Korea relations, the
initial breakthrough occurred in October 1994, when U.S. negotiators
persuaded North Korea to freeze its nuclear program, with onsite
monitoring by U.N. inspectors. In exchange, the United States, with
input from South Korea and Japan, promised major steps to ease North
Korea's acute energy shortage."
So Bill Clinton was responsible for freezing North Korea's nuclear
program.
I see.
And according to a study by the National Security Advisory Group,
here's the amount of plutonium that North Korea produced under the
last three presidents:
http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=258410&
George H. W. Bush: one to two bombs' worth
Bill Clinton: none
George W. Bush: four to six bombs' worth
According to the Associated Press:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/world/89305,cst-nws-nknuke09.article
Some experts estimate that at least 80 percent of the country's
stockpile of 44 to 116 pounds of refined plutonium was processed since
the end of the freeze in 2002.
Of course, Our Great Leader had the chance to continue Bill Clinton's
successful policy when he came into office, but obviously that would
have been unacceptable.
After all, Clinton's penis might have been near it.
Here's what happened instead:
http://www.time.com/time/columnist/printout/0,8816,102313,00.html
Asked to explain his rejection of South Korean president Kim Dae
Jung's recommendation that Washington urgently pursue President
Clinton's efforts to negotiate an end to North Korea's missile
program, Bush told reporters, "We're not certain as to whether or not
they're keeping all terms of all agreements."
That, of course, was a potentially catastrophic gaffe by a president
whose problems in choosing the words that best convey his ideas can
prove to be a killer liability in international diplomacy, where a
leader's every word is parsed for nuance by friend and foe.
For the record, the U.S. has only one agreement with North Korea - the
1994 accord to stop the production of weapons-grade nuclear fuel in
exchange for assistance by Japan, South Korea and the U.S. in
developing alternative energy sources (including a series of
lower-grade nuclear reactors).
And as U.S. officials hurried to emphasize immediately after Bush's
statement, Washington has no evidence that North Korea is not
complying with the terms of that agreement.
Given the epic paranoia and unpredictability of the regime in
Pyongyang, the last thing you want to do is accuse them of cheating -
unless you're consciously setting out to take it to the next level.
(snip)
Bush's response to Kim raised eyebrows all over Washington and beyond
because Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared to be leaning in the
opposite direction the previous day.
Powell had implied that the Bush administration would continue the
Clinton administration's search for agreements with North Korea to
curb its missile program and other dangers.
Even though the secretary of state dutifully fell in line the
following day, the tenor of Bush's comments suggested that more
hawkish elements in the administration may have been making their
presence felt.
After all, Bush could quite simply have done the "we wholeheartedly
support South Korea's peace efforts and are studying ways to take it
forward" routine - the diplomatic equivalent of "no comment" - instead
of pointedly questioning the wisdom of negotiating with Pyongyang,
which was a sharp slapdown to President Kim's "sunshine" policy of
reconciliation with the North.
So it seems that John "Straight Talk" McCain is "talking straight" out
of his *****.
By EarlG
Democratic Underground
http://www.democraticunderground.com/
Harry
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