U.S. official says N.Korea ''hellish nightmare''

[LauraK]

Top U.S. arms negotiator John Bolton described North Korea on Thursday as a ''hellish nightmare'' and said the communist state had accelerated its arms proliferation programmes in the past year.

''The days of DPRK (North Korean) blackmail are over,'' he said. ''Kim Jong-il is dead wrong to think that developing nuclear weapons will improve his security. Indeed, the opposite is true.''

Bolton, widely seen as a Bush administration ''hawk'' on North Korea, also painted a bleak picture of life for the average North Korean with Kim at the helm.

More here

[jamesinca]

1. Well I read the article

I think they are setting up the U.S. to start another war, unilaterlly. The ground work has been laid that the U.N. is ineffective on the N.Korea matter. that N.Korea is accelerating its nuclear weapons programme etc. The last part ofthe axis of evil to be dealt with. I say the last because of the U.S. involvement in trying to incite the students in Iran, it was moderately successful.

[pw]

2. Bolton is a loon

But I don't think the US will start a war against north korea for quite some time, if ever. There is enough conventional artillery pointed at south korea to kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people, plus any possible nukes, and north korea also potentially has hardware capable of delivering nukes to Japan.

[KeepItReal]

3. Precisely!

Anyone talking about military action in Korea is only sabre-rattling.

Wolfowitz et. al. are saying now that we cannot intervene in Liberia because we are "spread thin". This is the same crew that said we could fight 2 major conflicts at once and hold the line on a 3rd conflict as well (if I am not misstaken). We only have 1 major conflict... now called a Low Intensity Conflict in Iraq. In Afghanistan, I believe we have less troops than in South Korea right now.

[jamesinca]

4. They are not guided by common sense

You are right though, Rumsfeld said we could wage a multi-front war. It worries me because they have pulled a lot out of Afghanastan, have not gone into Iran yet. As far as they are concerned they have one front they are working on here. The only thing holding them to Iraq is the tag of being an occupation force. They don't have that in Afghanastan. I think they are laying the ground work here for something. The U.S. troops are supposed to be pulled back from the DMZ in stages. Wolfowitz was saying this during his Asia tour back in May.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ze_dscherman]

5. And the U.S. is to kindle the fire

by denying fuel and food. Worked very well in Iraq, anyone remember?

[Muddleoftheroad]

6. Kindling

North Korea has no right to anything from the U.S. If they didn't spend so much money on their military, they might be able to feed their people. They can't and that is their choice.

[ze_dscherman]

7. So you are willing to punish the people for their opressors wrongdoing?

Always eager to punish?

[Muddleoftheroad]

8. No punishment needed

North Korea remains a sovereign nation. We lack the ability to take care of all of the ills of the world and must pick and choose who to help. There is no reason to waste that energy on a nation that threatens America with nuclear fire. There are plenty of starving people in Africa or America to aid.

[ze_dscherman]

9. U.S. is pushing other countries for sanctions

So, if NK is a sovereing nation, and other nations are as well, why does the U.S. need to mess around with them? Why not just leave them alone?

As well, please remember that the conflict started when the U.S. were cutting the aid they had given in exchange for N.K. not continuing their reactor program - a deal started under Clinton, but stopped by Bush*.

BTW, don't tell me the 230,000 tons of food shipments last year were all eaten by NK's beloved leader. And don't tell me the withdrawal of help is not an intentional punishment?

[Turley]

10. By that reasoning

We should have just let the Soviet Union alone (in which case you'd still have Erich Honecker and beefy female swimmers).

[libtexan]

11. Did anyone else see the 60 minutes

on North Korea a while back? Conditions there are far worse than any in the world. Everyone outside the regime is starving,
kids eating bugs along the side of a road, no medicine for the sick, torture camps similar to Iraq's.
But how much oil do they supply. Hmmmm.... Not interested.

[Turley]

14. I don't understand your post

What do you mean by not interested?

[NNN0LHI]

23. Which torture camps in Iraq are you speaking of libtexan?

Google search for "torture camps in Iraq": Results) 1 - 3 of 3.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22torture+camps+in+Iraq%22&btnG=Google+Search

Google search for "torture camp in Iraq": Results) 1 - 8 of about 31

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22torture+camp+in+Iraq%22&btnG=Google+Search

Google search for "iraqi torture camps": Results) 1 - 1 of about 3

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22iraqi+torture+camps%22&btnG=Google+Search

Google search for "iraqi torture camp": Results) Your search - "iraqi torture camp" - did not match any documents.

[Turley]

30. Are you suggesting

Saddam did not engage in wholesale torture? Let's not play with words here. I'm sure if you Google Iraq and Torture you'll get several thousand responses. What difference does it make if it took place in a "camp" or a "chamber"?

[NNN0LHI]

31. I will tell you what I am suggesting so you don't have to guess

I am not denying that people were tortured in Iraq. Are you suggesting that officials in our government have not tortured its citizens? To try and dramatize the situation of what was going on in Iraq or here in America beyond the truth helps no one.

The word "camp" has a completely different connotation from "chamber". One could easily call our holding cells at the Chicago police department that were used to hold plastic typewriter covers over an accused persons face until they signed a confession for a crime they did not commit torture "chambers" if one was so inclined. Same could be said of the prisons in Iraq if one were inclined. But to begin using the word torture "camp" is a complete different image and really does not give an accurate picture of either situation. Unless of course we are going to continue believing Bush and his minions who have all been caught in too many lies for me to believe anything they say any more.

Don

[Romulus Quirinus]

39. NK torture camps

Do a search on Chongjin camp. Chongjin is the site of one of the larger and more notorious prison camps in North Korea. If we were to stage a suprise Inchon-like move, this might be a good place to do it, since it is right on the coast and we would have tens of thousands of victims to show the cameras.

[nolabels]

40. A good place to start, but is worth many lives of others to overturn

Any thing could be said, an a few pictures could bolster it. Fifty years of isolation any thing could be going on, I take this report with a big grain of salt, You can load it up even though its in another language, the text is english here is a snip

http://monthly.chosun.com/html/200201/200201280001_8.html
(snip)
SHOCKING REPORT ] Political Prisoners' Camps in North Korea (8/10)

Even a Corpse Cannot Escape From the Camps

Mr. An says the application of the yonjwa family punishment system to North Korean political prisoners originated from a directive issued by Kim Il-sung to "exterminate three generatios" of political criminals.Mr. An says Kim issued this directive to the MSS in 1958 when he purged members of the Yonan, Soviet, and Domestic Factions.
An Myong-chol says Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il issued a number of directives about political criminals while he served in the Camp Guard Force. Guards are required to memorize these directives during a monthly "Know the Directives Hour." Various Kim directives are posted in the offices, and bulletin boards.
A revies of two of the Kims' directives makes it abundantly clear what Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il think of political prisoners. "Inmates are class enemies and must be actively exterminated to three generations." Other directivers suggest that escapes and riots continue to be problems. "Prevent excapes. Surveil perfectly."
When North korea condemns an entire family to the Gulag, it sends the offender to one camp and his family forever. Those who commit offenses are incarcerated at Camps 15 and 25, while their family members are sent to Camps 14, 15, 16, and 22. Camp 15 acc,,pdates both offenders and family members, but they are kept completely separate. Offenders go to the camp's ideological Indoctrination Area. Thus, by any objective measure, only Camps 15 and 25 contain political prisoners. The remaining camps are filled with innocent relatives. It is not accurate to refer to these inmates as criminals or even political criminals.
(snip)
Does sound like propaganda to me though

[Romulus Quirinus]

41. If only it were propaganda

Refugees' stories seem to mesh together too well, unfortunately. I was shocked at the variety of stuff that came up in a search, in age, quality, quantity, and detail.

Here is a good link to the Center to Prevent Genocide that I spoke

[nolabels]

42. Still asking the question is it worth many other people lives

The amount of troops the US has over there is miniscule compared to the amount of lives that might be lost between the north and south. Surly the loss of 5 or 10 thousand by the US would also be bad. This so much a saber rattle that’s it is almost funny.

They are not going to do squat. If there was a concern for Human lives by the * and posse they would be trying to give China hell right now for the atrocities that are happening in Tibet. Like I said NK is just a favorite whipping boy, nothing more. As the SK is seeing this they become more apprehensive over US bases there ever more.

[Romulus Quirinus]

44. I couldn't say one way or the other

It just sucks all the way around :(

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ZenLefty]

32. I did see that 60 minutes show

I never knew things were that bad in North Korea. It was a real eye opener.

What stood out to me is that despite the deplorable living conditions, the doctors (who worked in that country for some time) said that people are still very loyal to their leader, simply because they don't know any better. All the TV and news is government controlled, there's no internet, and no way for these people to know any different.

[nolabels]

37. Sounds like the USA

When 60 minutes did that crap piece on how Iraq had WMD and such in the build up to invasion of Iraq, I knew for fact they would whore their selves for ulterior motives(advertisers, getting in good with inside sources, etc.).

I am not saying that NK is not in a bad way, it is just you cannot believe much about rumor mill puts out about it, because so few people are allowed to travel in or out of the place. Also there is quite bias that levied against it just for fact it's everybody in the area's whipping boy for one reason or another. The US goes to great lengths to keep it that way

If we were missing the places that have been made mysterious by the spooks that work for big brother, the world would be a much safer place. Can't anybody see how these people work? Dang, give me a break already

[Wonder]

61. Just curious can you imagine

that a country wherein most of the people are starving would lob nukes preemptively?

[Wonder]

60. Not sure how much oil they SUPPLY will have to check into that BUT

Southeast Asia is the second highest consumer of oil behind America and Canada who is the first. The ME consumes almost the least.

[ze_dscherman]

12. Don't misunderstand me

I just tried to contradict Muddleoftheroad's argument, that cutting aid to NK would not be any punishment.

As well, I'm convinced the East Bloc mostly broke apart due to inherent sytem failure, and much less due to pressure from outside. Pressure on the Soviet block was much less intense in the seventies and eighties than during the height of the cold war.

It's pretty well possible that the U.S. will self-destroy just like the S.U. if it continues its impossible dream of dominance by military means.

On edit, in addition: I do not think that insulting N.K. like Mr. Bolton just did will help with negotiations. Not that I would like the "Beloved Leader" to be pampered, but this is a most stupid game. It just looks like the U.S. is intentionally provocating N.K. to act even more agressively, stepping closer to a "military solution" that will become a blood bath.

[StandWatie]

20. oh bullshit

The Soviet Union just collapsed under it's own weight, I'm so sick of WWIII and the heroic Cold Warrior history, it's a bunch of self serving nonsense.

[Turley]

26. Oh really?

You know it doesn't make much sense for us to complain about Shrub's outrageous military spending and then turn around and say the Soviets' military spending (monstrous compared to our own) had absolutely no bearing on their collapse.

If that is the case then Republicans will simply argue that U.S. military spending could rise to the level of Soviet spending back then with no ill effects on our economy.

I think anyone who looks at the Soviet collapse logically has to admit that the weight of their mil spending was a major, major factor if not the straw that broke the camel's back.

It's Econ 101

[Muddleoftheroad]

16. No messing needed

Either. We should simply refuse to deal with them and tell our allies to do the same. No trade. No aid. Nada.

Until they are ready to deal with the rest of the world.

As for the reactor deal, I don't think either side has handled that correctly. And I don't think there are any guarantees that North Korea will ever be trustworthy. So why try?

Whether you want to consider it punishment or not, they have NO right to that aid. Send it somewhere where it will do some good -- like Africa.

[ze_dscherman]

17. Giving up to explain

Stopping aid == breaking agreements == messing
"Telling" others to do the same == messing

Besides, that aid will do some good. Maybe only feed hungry North Koreans, maybe stop a dangerous escalation.

[Muddleoftheroad]

54. Aid

The aid will do good elsewhere and we aren't at odds with some other nations. Screw North Korea.

[NNN0LHI]

18. I agree that North Korea has no right to anything from the U.S.

But with that line of thinking one has to be willing to make trade offs. I am sure that North Korea's cost of keeping a huge standing army as their only defense to deter the U.S. and others from invading them is a staggering amount of money. I would have laughed at someone two and a half years ago who suggested that North Korea needed their military to defend their country from America. That was before Bush, his Axis of Evil speech, and seeing what Bush just did to Iraq.

So now it would make complete sense to me for North Korea to covet nuclear weapons, and the means to deliver them as well. It would be much cheaper for them to just keep an inexpensive nuclear arsenal to prevent the U.S. from invading them, and they could then spend what they are spending for a million man army elswhere. Maybe they could even make a few bucks selling nukes on the open market too if we can live with that?

But you are right. North Korea has no right to anything from the U.S.

Don

[molok555]

28. Nothing like actually SEEING the Bogey Man

in action to set the paranoia into overdrive, eh?

Simply put, unless Kim Jong Il wants to go the way of Hussein, he must maintain his current course.

[teryang]

29. Under the Agreed Framework

...and international law N.Korea has the right to quite a bit but the neocons chose to breach the agreement and create a unnecessary conflict. Just another international agreement that dim son threw out the window.

[chenGOD]

36. International Law?

I thought the UN or international law didn't matter anymore? </sarcasm>


What's even more amazing is when you look at what North Korea was willing to give up (and had started to give) under the terms of the Agreed Framework.

[Snow]

45. I do not agree with that....

An excellent case can be made for the North Korea's invasion of the south being a result of repeated and direct provocation and threats by South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee, a US puppet.

Another excellent case for the length of the war can be made for McArthur's pushing up to the Yalu River and triggering the Chinese reaction. Some time before that, the North would've been willing to accept a truce at the 38th parallel.

An excellent case can be made for so many of Korea's leaders turning to the Soviet Union for help against the Japanese occupation being a result of repeated pleas and emissaries ignored by the US from 1908 to the late 1930's. One of my wife's great-uncles was one of those emissaries, and he eventually killed himself because of the discouragement.

I will grant you that the North is isolated and disfunctional. I present to you the case that they have very good reasons for that isolation. The outcome is sad, and they are indeed in desperate straits, but be very careful about accepting demonization from the US media. I trust we're all more sophisticated than that, though.....

[Character Assassin]

51. So then make the case

An excellent case can be made for the North Korea's invasion of the south being a result of repeated and direct provocation and threats by South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee, a US puppet.

I don't think so. Please detail exactly which provocations you are referring to. The intent of the north since even before the April 1948 Chengdu 'uprising' was to fully communize the south, and they never acted in any way contrary to this contention.

I will grant you that the North is isolated and disfunctional.

"Isolated and disfunctional"? And Idi Amin just wasn't a very 'nice' guy, either.

I present to you the case that they have very good reasons for that isolation. The outcome is sad, and they are indeed in desperate straits, but be very careful about accepting demonization from the US media. I trust we're all more sophisticated than that, though.....

I submit you have not yet made that case. If you don't trust the US Media, how about some former N. Koreans? "The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag", by Kand Chol-Hwan is a fine place to start.

The reasons for their isolation aren't that complicated, and they certainly aren't 'good'. They are basically the equivalent of an ultra-paranoid criminal syndicate wrapped up nicely in a personality cult.

[Snow]

57. Okay, here's a shot at it....

<I>An excellent case can be made for the North Korea's invasion of the south being a result of repeated and direct provocation and threats by South Korean dictator Syngman Rhee, a US puppet. </I>

>I don't think so. Please detail exactly which provocations you are >referring to. The intent of the north since even before the April >1948 Chengdu 'uprising' was to fully communize the south, and they >never acted in any way contrary to this contention.

On the first question, this
http://myhome.shinbiro.com/~mss1/origins.html
and this
http://www.asiasource.org/society/syngmanrhee.cfm

both allude to Rhee's provocations.
This, from the 'other side'
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1950-gromyko-korea.html
is rather more direct. Mind you, Kim Chongil was making the same sort of noise, reunification by force, but Rhee certainly sounded as if he were coming north with the the whole US army behind - or maybe in front - of him.

The uprising you refer to, and I assume you mean this one:
http://www.kimsoft.com/1997/yosu.htm
was as much about nationalism and an alternative to the Japanese/US hegemony as much as anything. WOuld you call Queen Min communist because she curried favor and relations with Russia? There's a lot of history here of Korea trying to play off balance amomg Russia, China, Japan and the European/Western players.

Here's a little more on the pre-war period:
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:q0utDvT97CIJ:ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~korea/consolidation.html+%22syngman+rhee%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

little tricky to get at, sorry. The point I was after making is that the picture we're getting of North Korea, and that I'm seeing here, is very much black, no gray at all let alone any white, and it's all the fault of the evil tyrant. We should be very suspicious of anything presented in terms like that - there's no sense of history, and matters are vastly oversimplified.

Also, my choice of words is deliberately restrained - I could call Kim Jongil the nearest thing on earth to satan incarnate, a fitting successor to Pol Pot, and on and on, but it does nothing to clarify the situation. A great deal of what we often attribute to 'evil' can often be better explained by stupidity and carelessness.

Having said all that, all indications are that this is a society which is suffering and suffering greatly. A lot of that is the incompetence of its leaders, but a lot of that is its dependence on the Soviet Union - now gone - and its fear of the world around it, leading them to spend more than they really have on defense. This is not a bogeyman, this is a tragedy.

[Character Assassin]

63. That comes up just a wee bit sparse....

On the first question, this
http://myhome.shinbiro.com/~mss1/origins.html
and this
http://www.asiasource.org/society/syngmanrhee.cfm
both allude to Rhee's provocations.

Well, not really, and nothing there goes into detail about what the North was doing.

This, from the 'other side'
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1950-gromyko-korea.html
is rather more direct. Mind you, Kim Chongil was making the same sort of noise, reunification by force, but Rhee certainly sounded as if he were coming north with the the whole US army behind - or maybe in front - of him.

He was without doubt a big talker, but the North knew that at the time that wasn't going to happen. The US only had 500 troops in S. Korea at that time.

For a good overview of who was provoking whom, you might find http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/korea.htm interesting.


The uprising you refer to, and I assume you mean this one:
http://www.kimsoft.com/1997/yosu.htm
was as much about nationalism and an alternative to the Japanese/US hegemony as much as anything. WOuld you call Queen Min communist because she curried favor and relations with Russia? There's a lot of history here of Korea trying to play off balance amomg Russia, China, Japan and the European/Western players.

What is strangely absent from that page is the fact that the uprising was led by the communist South Korean Workers'Party.

The point I was after making is that the picture we're getting of North Korea, and that I'm seeing here, is very much black, no gray at all let alone any white, and it's all the fault of the evil tyrant. We should be very suspicious of anything presented in terms like that - there's no sense of history, and matters are vastly oversimplified.

Generally speaking, yes. From what is known of N. Korea and those who run it, it is fairly safe to say that in this case it's black. There is virtually no white.

Also, my choice of words is deliberately restrained - I could call Kim Jongil the nearest thing on earth to satan incarnate, a fitting successor to Pol Pot, and on and on, but it does nothing to clarify the situation. A great deal of what we often attribute to 'evil' can often be better explained by stupidity and carelessness.

The situation, in my opinion, doesn't need clarifying, and although I almost never use the word, N. Korea's gov't, its policies and its history are, frankly, evil.

Having said all that, all indications are that this is a society which is suffering and suffering greatly. A lot of that is the incompetence of its leaders, but a lot of that is its dependence on the Soviet Union - now gone - and its fear of the world around it, leading them to spend more than they really have on defense. This is not a bogeyman, this is a tragedy.

We disagree.

[Snow]

64. Fair enough that we disagree,

sheds more light on the topic for those reading, even if we're too ornery to change our minds. What concerns me more is the outcome of thinking of North Korea, or its leaders, as 'evil'. Even if one chooses to think of them that way, try a mind experiment - disregarding for the moment all the horror that would arise from the chickenhawk types, suppose you lavished gifts on North Korea - large amounts of food, fuel, and other helpful aid. How large? Well, something on the order of the amount we're spending in Iraq, for example. What would happen to the evil leader? I'm not trying to imply this would be his downfall, but certainly it would be interesting and morally much preferable to anything the PNAC bunch might come up with.

[Eloriel]

52. I think every country and its leader(s) are entitled to

basic respect (yes, even the evil ones, so many of whom were once "our" evil ones), and that basic respect includes us keeping our word in treaties and agreements.

Clinton had done a lot to draw NKorea in. The N and S were actually talking about reunifying, tho that was a long time off.

And then Bush came to power and had to play Mr. Macho Man, and it all fell apart.

It's very clever for people to say, well, we'll just punish them for not keeping THEIR word. But it was OUR word that was broken first. The MESS that represents our relationship with NKorea falls completely at Bush's feet.

Not only did he ignore Kim Il Jong (which is disrespectful and IMO unworthy of the U.S.), he stopped heating oil shipments which were part of our agreement with them -- and we were already behind in our promise to build those water reactors. After that, every bit of passive-aggressive provocation from Kim Il Jong who, it was painfully clear, was just trying to get our attention again (albeit inartfully and painfully clumsily), was met with huffing and puffing and blustering and bullying.

What a shame. It just didn't have to be this way. This conflict IS goig to blow up, in all probability. The stoopid people in the administration don't have the smarts OR the grace to pull back and be humane and decent. You know, use diplomacy. You can actually do that without coddling and without appearing weak. Just ask Bill Clinton. But that's not good enough for these guys, they have to be seen as all-freaking-powerful, and be bowed down to as the high mucky-mucks they are (or fancy themselves).

Arrogance, thy name is Bush&Co.

Eloriel

[NNN0LHI]

55. And the ironic thing is Kim Il Jong would sell us his whole country. Lock,

...stock, and nuclear weapons systems, for the same 4 billion dollars we are spending every month in Iraq acting like Christian Crusaders.

Don

[Bandit]

24. Has nothing to do with our sanctions against them I guess??

:crazy:

[DeathvadeR]

35. sounds an awful like the US?

Huge amounts of money and recources are poured into arms manufacturing, while schools & social services go into the gutter.

[Romulus Quirinus]

38. Food

The Organization for the Prevention of Genocide (I think this is the correct title) issued a report a few years back that said that the public ration system hasn't worked right for years. People below the status of party cadre haven't gotten rations since the death of Kim il-Sung, except for on holidays.

Maybe a google will turn it up.

[oneighty]

13. Dear Mr. Bolton

Korea was a "Hellish nightmare" from 50 to 53. Wish you had been there with us. With your great military skills we may have won that war.

180. Korean Vet.

[ILeft]

19. Bolton had other priorities. ..defended Yale during 60's & 70's.

He has impeccable Chickenhawk credentials.

[TacticalPeek]

34. Amen, 180...

Maybe the crackheads at OSP can find a spot for him in what I imagine is their current "planning" for NK: an elite, special commando force and super-precise munitions on exactingly selected targets. Maybe a "light, highly mobile" cavalry force on stand-by. Don't even need the 20-30 thousand troops that they could have done Iraq with if the dumb, "old Army" crowd hadn't stopped them.

John, you walk point tonight.

[shanti]

47. yes....

my father is a korean war vet (marines) and he refuses to even talk about it.

[teryang]

15. Neocons violating international law- again

<Why shouldn't the United States and North Korea hold one-on-one talks? There is no reason not to.> Charlie Reese

There is a reason not to. We breached the agreed framework. We didn't perform our obligations under the agreement. We are once again in violation of international law. This weakens our position at the bargaining table. In order to restore the status quo ante, we would have to pick up where we last breached and honor our obligations, to furnish them reactors and fuel oil. By raising the condition precedent multilateral issue, the neocon regime tries to strengthen a poor hand. This is a diplomatic crisis they created. The nuclear proliferation problem had already been contained. The neocons expected N.Korea to collapse before 2003, that is why the neocons stalled and then failed to deliver the reactors as promised. Then America breached the fuel oil promise and then began "tightening the noose" by cutting off food aid and threatening a blockade on the high seas.

The demogogue Bolton should read the common sense of Charlie Reese:

http://reese.king-online.com/Reese_20030730/index.php

Bush could make a Deadly Blunder- Charlie Reese

<The irony is that the North Korean regime is clearly doomed in the long run because of its economic failures. Sound diplomacy on our part can make sure it goes out with a whimper and not with a nuclear bang.>

<What worries me most about the Bush administration is that it seems unable to recognize reality.>

[govegan]

21. Like the pot calling the kettle black, eh?

If any regime on this planet deserves the designation of "hellish nightmare," that is the chimp and his simian gang. If a responsible and reasonable government existed in Washington DC, perhaps we could have some real progress on some of the more difficult problems confronting this planet and its inhabitants.

And, no, I don't think civilized folks consider the savage murder of foreign leaders and power brokers to be legitimate problem solving. The government in DC is most interested in enslaving the cheap labor of the world, undermining popular democracy and spreading lying, fascist ideology.

"Because there is no one to bestow the bread or wine,
or make grass grow in the mouths of the dead,
or spread the linen of rest and peace,
or weep for the wounded elephants.
There are only a million blacksmiths
who forge chains for tomorrow's children."

-- Federico Garcia Lorca

[Bandit]

25. Fear Mongering ~ Must keep Americans terrified

Maybe their(Americans) six shooters will protect them from the horible nasty Koreans who are going to attack them in their beds. Americans are the biggest cowards on the planet. IMO

[nolabels]

33. Did someone stick a quarter in the mighty Wurlitzer?

The artificial divisions of the north and south was instigated by the US before the alleged UN intervention. These people have been fighting off foreign invaders for over 5,000 years. They will have to take the Korean out of the Koreans before they ever conquer them.

Now that it has been shown what a hoax all this Nuclear B.S. in Iraq was, how much creditability do these clowns have anyway? My analogy would be of a man hunting for houseflies in his own home with a sledge hammer.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/08/1041989999525.html
US changes stance and agrees to discuss nuclear weapons
By Steven Weisman in Washington
January 9 2003
(snip)
But just hours after Washington's offer to hold talks, North Korea accused the US of increasing the danger of a nuclear war on the peninsula.

"There is an increasing danger of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula due to the US criminal policy toward the DPRK ," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

"The US is deliberately spreading a false rumour about the DPRK's 'nuclear issue', in particular, in a bid to vitiate the atmosphere of inter-Korean reconciliation and unity and foster confrontation among Koreans."

The US offer of talks was being seen as a diplomatic coup for the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, whose regime was labelled part of an "axis of evil" by President George Bush last year.

In the past few days, the Bush Administration has sought to lower the temperature on a number of fronts. At a cabinet meeting on Monday, Mr Bush repeated several times his statement of America's peaceful intentions. The US also decided to delay taking the issue to the UN Security Council.
(snip)

[ElementaryPenguin]

27. You think N.K.'s a hellish nightmare - you oughta see "liberated" Iraq!!!!

Not to mention "liberated" Afghanistan!! Now THOSE are what you call total fucking nightmares!!

[drewb]

43. U.S. official says N.Korea ''hellish nightmare''

Same official should see Jersey City at night...

[slackmaster]

48. Has anyone here actually been to North Korea?

I'll be surprised if anyone has.

On edit: Just to be clear, I have never been there.

[Snow]

53. No - but have numerous friends and relations who have...

none within the last two years or so. Had a friend (Korean) a few years or so, an elderly physician, who was enough of a friend of Kim Ilsung that he was invited to the funeral, from the US, and had numerous quiet visits before then. Another friend from Peace Corps days who presents a good, well-researched alternative view is Bruce Cummings. Look him up, he's a scholar and prominent in the field.

[WoodrowFan]

59. Bruce Cummings

Also denied that the famine was occuring and denied that North Korea had a nuclear program. He's a good writer but with concrete blinders on when it comes to the sins of other countries and uses a microscope to find the US's sins. And yes, I've met him and listened to him present papers at conferences, and read some of his books. He's what the freepers have in mind when they refer to "Hate America First Liberals."

[slackmaster]

62. He said NK lied about their own nuclear program?

Rather odd position to take when the NK government itself has publicly announced that it does have one.

Thanks for the information. I always try to treat stories about the sins of other nations with a heavy dose of salt.

[teryang]

56. No, just the DMZ

I used to watch Hermit Kingdom regularly which was produced in N.Korea when I lived in Seoul. I used to listen to the N.Korean shortwave propaganda broadcasts but found them hard to understand. At the observatory near the Sea of Japan, got the S. Korean briefing on the battle for Gumkangsan just north of the DMZ. Twentyfive thousand Chinese and Korean troops died there in the last days of the war. The Chinese won that battle and the treasured landmark remained on the Communist side. The S.Koreans were able to hold onto Saraksan national monument, which we also visited. This is a spectacular and popular tourist spot.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

49. Notice How Bush is ignoring this?

.

[TacticalPeek]

50. maybe Cheney's bunker connects with Kim Il's?

They'll tell shrub when they're ready.

[Wonder]

58. And What PNAC/GOA is a friggin Dream?

:eyes: