Friday, July 07, 2006

Revisionist History

Reprinted From IBD

The Rotten Fruit Of Appeasement
Posted 7/6/2006

Diplomacy: Asked by TV interviewer Larry King about North Korea's launch of seven missiles, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had a ready answer: It's President Bush's fault. Gee, we remember it differently.

'Frankly, Larry, I think the problem here is that we are watching the failure of five years' worth of American diplomacy," Albright said Wednesday night. "I'm very worried about it, and I hope very much that we do have a review of our North Korean policy."

This is nothing new for Albright. Two weeks ago, she blamed North Korea's recent misbehavior and nuclear program on Bush's decision to go into Iraq — a patently absurd contention. But Albright's latest comment represents an outrageous distortion of reality and history. For it was the administration of President Clinton — and his secretary of state, Albright — that was in fact responsible for North Korea's acquisition of nuclear weapons, and its continued defiance of international law.
Indeed, a pattern of appeasement and blindness to the growing threats around us by the Clinton administration led us directly to where we are today. So, in light of Albright's comments, this would be a good time for a little review.

• 1993: North Korea threatens to leave the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. After conducting U.N. inspections there for a year and a half, former International Atomic Energy Agency chief Hans Blix warns he can't provide "any meaningful assurances" North Korea isn't making nuclear weapons.
• 1994: Under the "Agreed Framework" negotiated by the Clinton administration with help of ex-President Carter, North Korea agrees to stop building nuclear weapons. In exchange, it gets billions in aid, including food, oil and modern nuclear reactors.
By 2000, according to a congressional report, North Korea would become the "largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid" in Asia. North Korea immediately starts cheating on the deal, acquiring nuclear know-how and material from Pakistan and China.
• 1998: A U.S. government report finds at least 1 million North Koreans have died of starvation as aid is used to kick-start the nuclear weapons program.
• 1998: Clinton's military chief of staff tells Congress North Korea has no active ballistic missile program. A week later, North Korea shoots a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan and toward Alaska.
• 1999: Clinton eases sanctions against North Korea. U.S. signs a $5 billion deal to build two nuclear reactors. North Korea diverts aid to speed WMD program. Mass starvation reportedly continues.
• 2000: Despite continued breaches of the "agreed framework," Albright travels to Pyongyang, where she cheerfully clinks glasses with Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il. Media hail the meeting as a diplomatic masterstroke by Clinton.
• 2002: New York Times headline: "North Korea Says It Has A Program On Nuclear Arms."
That, essentially, brings us to where we are today. North Korea was conditioned in the '90s to believe that no matter how bad its behavior, or how egregious its human rights abuses, it would be rewarded and appeased. Any wonder it's acting as it is now?

Looking at this record, maybe Albright actually had it right. North Korea's acquisition of nuclear weapons and ever-more sophisticated ballistic missiles — including the Taepodong-2C launched this week — were indeed the result of five years of failed diplomacy.
It's just that the five failed years lasted from 1994 to 1999.

1 comment:

Mr Accountable said...

Tae Po Dong.

Tae is the same as the Thai of Thailand.

Po is like defense.

Dong is lying awake, the same as doing so in America, late late thinking or worrying and sort of sleeping, 2 3 4 am.

Kind of like getting anger power in a reasonable way, worrying about Thailand's response to the 6 million tourists per year, and especially to however many percent are sex tourism people. It's really difficult to deal with it.

So now the reader knows exactly what is going on with Taepodong. On the slack side, it also means "Free Used Cars" indicating that the North Koreans are making stuff out of used cars or something. They have deep ambitions to sell Hwipharams here in America. And when will the first Chinese car be on sale in North America. I say within a year from now. Should do some research on this, I guess. It seems important to the American economy.

And all we have to do to get this money back is let the avalanche of Asian students into our universities. One would not believe how popular this is. One year, two years, four years. Money money money.