North Korea destroys nuclear reactor tower

[hugh]

North Korea on Friday destroyed a water cooling tower at a facility where officials acknowledge they extracted plutonium to build nuclear weapons, CNN's Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour reported from the scene.

Some positive news!

[cm_soo]

Vindication of taking a tough stand with the regime instead of using kid gloves, now on to Iran!

[hugh]

Disagree. After reading up on the situation it is clear that North Korea was happy to do this six years ago right after 9/11 but George Bush opened his big mouth and called NK part of the "axis of evil" and we were left with six years of problems.

The Bush administration escalated this crisis through its inept diplomacy.

This problem should never have happened.

[NeilN]

Agree with hugh. There's no "tough stand" here. No ultimatums were made beyond the usual rhetoric.

[eljay]

Originally Posted by cm_soo

Vindication of taking a tough stand with the regime instead of using kid gloves, now on to Iran!

A tough stand? That's funny!

[runnin']

To fully appreciate the NK situation, one needs to look past Bush to Clinton and Carter, who signed an agreement with NK. NK would not pursue nuclear weapons and the US would pay a ransom for this. NK took the cash then developed nuclear weapons anyway.

This proves once again in our generation that you can't negotiate with some types of dictators. Bush didn't cause the problem, but by looking at the history you can understand why he was reluctant to sit at the negotiating table with NK again after they had so recently been fleeced.

[hugh]

runnin' you need to review the facts. Here is one article and the facts have been echoed in other articles from other journalists.

North Korea wanted to give up the bomb a long time ago but "hawks" in the Bush administration wanted "regime change" rather than a conciliatory approach and unnecessarily escalated the situation to crisis proportions.

Bush and his administration attitude has always been "your with us or against us" which is an exceedingly juvenile and simplistic approach to solving complex social and political problems.

His approach from 2002 until recently (nothing but the overthrow of the current NK administration would do) was so ludicrous that it was never going to work short of escalating to a nuclear war.

[Tom_Joad]

Originally Posted by runnin'

Bush didn't cause the problem, but by looking at the history you can understand why he was reluctant to sit at the negotiating table with NK again after they had so recently been fleeced.

I'm sure Bush had absolutely no idea about anything to do with North Korea. The man does not read newspapers, is bored by current events in general, and apparently does not even read the reports written for him by his own staff.

"I glance at the headlines just to get a kind of flavor for what's moving," he told Fox News.

"I'm not sure I've ever spoken to anyone at that level who seemed less inquisitive," said David Kay, CIA, chief weapons inspector for the Iraq Survey Group, on his meetings with Bush.

And Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill was told outright that the president would not be expected to read reports. It became obvious, as O'Neill observed, when "Bush did not ask any questions" during their meetings.

The man is a stump. I doubt he could even find NK on a map, let alone formulate a policy decision towards it.

[hugh]

Whoa Tom. It was more than just Bush. Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeldt and hawks within the administration probably had more to do with the formulation of policy than Bush himself.

The point is that anyone advocating diplomacy was shuttled out of the whitehouse. (can you say Colin Powell)

[runnin']

Here is some background of both the Clinton(Jimmy Carter) approach, and Bush's knowledge and opposition of the Clinton/Carter agreement.

It was a very poorly structured agreement that only worsened the situation. Bush inherited a mess:

Historians Paul Lauren, Gordon Craig and Alexander George point out that the agreement suffered from a number of weaknesses. There was no specific schedule made for reciprocal moves, and the United States was granted a very long time to fulfil its obligations to replace the dangerous graphite-moderated reactors with LWRs.[3] Furthermore, no organization was chosen "to monitor compliance, to supervise implementation...or to make mid-course adjustments that migh become necessary."[3] Finally, other interested nations, like South Korea, China, and Japan, were not included in the negotiations.[3]

Clinton and Carter were too trusting and then ignored the situation, and I now can see some cause for North Korea to be upset at this.

[Tom_Joad]

Granted -- Bush couldn't tie his shoes without help. I just didn't want him getting credit for making a decision regarding North Korea, or having anything close to the semblance of an informed opinion about it...even though he has declared himself the "Decider" .

I think everyone realizes at this point that the clueless bonehead has a complete cast and crew to keep the show moving around him.

And yes, Powell bailed after he realized that he'd allowed them to sacrifice his reputation and integrity.

[runnin']

The man is a stump. I doubt he could even find NK on a map, let alone formulate a policy decision towards it.

Actually Tom, Bush did formulate a policy and the 6 Party Talks was something that even Powell could like. I don't think you read my above link, but it shows an even handed new policy towards NK that did not include regime change.

[Tom_Joad]

I don't think Bush is capable of formulating a policy. He might've signed it, but I find it hard to believe that he could actively come up with anything on his own. Especially as he spends 1/3 of his time on vacation.

To observe his lightning quick synapse in action, I submit Bush attempting to explain what his concept of tribal sovereignty means:

[runnin']

Er... anyway as my link shows, despite the mess Bush inherited, relations with NK are now normalizing. Quite a feat for someone who spends half his time on vacation.

[Tom_Joad]

If Bush could fix just one of the myriad of messes he created, that would be impressive.