Back                                                             North Korea                                                            Oct. 2006

Will you please explain to me why I'm hearing so many Republicans blaming the Clinton Administration for the testing of an atomic weapon by North Korea. People let's face it George Bush has been in office for the past six years and has done nothing but make idle threats. Oh! I'm sorry he did call them a part of an evil empire, publicly call for régime change and attack one member of the Evil Empire.

Now let me ask you something. If you were the head of a government and heard the head of the most powerful nation on earth saying those things about your country would you trust that government. Don't take me wrong I think George Bush was right in what he said about Kim Jong ll. He is an evil man running an evil country but you can't expect to say that to the world and still expect the man or country to sit down and talk with you.

Now let's say that that country attacked one of the countries that they had placed you with. Wouldn't you do everything possible to deter them from coming after you next?

Bill Clinton negotiated a treaty with North Korea, granted it wasn't the best deal and granted they were cheating, but they weren't building a bomb, they weren't testing missiles and they surely didn't test a bomb they didn't have. They had U.N. Inspectors in the country and were a part of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The agreement would shut down North Korea's graphite-moderated nuclear power plants which can easily produce plutonium and replace them with light water reactors.

The spent fuel rods would be stored under inspection by the Nuclear Non-proliferation union to be disposed of without reprocessing in the DPRK. (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea).

The DPRK would remain a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Here is the agreement.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreed_Framework

Korea, when the Bush administration started it's rhetoric, pulled out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and threw the inspectors out of the country. The fuel rods which till that time had been in storage disappeared and serious work on weapons began.

People a bad agreement is better then no agreement at all. You can work from a bad agreement, you can improve on what you already have. You can't do anything without talking. Negotiations aren't meant to be easy, both parties want something the other doesn't want to give up. Negotiations are hard work and neither party is ever satisfied but agreements can and must be reached.

Let's look at where we are after six years of Republican control.

1. al-Qaida is still operational, maybe not as powerful as it was but still operational.

2. Ben laden is still alive and at large.

3. Iraq has, as I said it would, been the best recruiting tool we could have given the terrorists.

4. There have been more world wide terrorists attacks then at any time in history.

5. Afghanistan is in trouble. (The NATO forces are begging for more troops.)

6. Afghanistan is again producing the largest amount of the worlds supply of opium. (A large amount of the money going to the terrorists.)

7. We are bogged down in a civil war in Iraq.

8. Iran is still heading full speed ahead toward becoming a member of the nuclear nations.

9. North Korea is a nuclear nation that has tested a nuclear devise.

10. We are at an all time low in the eyes of most of the nations of the world.

11. We haven't fully implemented any of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations. Oh, we have started on some but the Commission recently gave us mostly a B a couple of C s but mostly f s

12. The only freedoms we gave up so far have been our own.

13. We have the largest national debt in our history

14. We also have the largest trade deficit in our history.

15. We have more illegal immigrants inside of our borders then anytime in our history.

16. We have the highest health insurance rates, the highest education costs, The least Americans covered by health Insurance, the most people living below the poverty line and the most secretive government in our history.

People It's time for a change.

Carrots and sticks

I've also been hearing that all Clinton offered was carrots. The Republicans are telling us he never used the threat of a stick. What do they think we are stupid? What about Bosnia? What about when he warned Saddam Hussein about shooting at our planes guarding the no fly zones and when they didn't listen he fired cruise missiles at Iraqi military installations?

The U.S. stick this time were the plans to bomb the active Yongbyon nuclear reactor and Bill Clinton had shown that he used the sticks he carried, so the North Koreans had reason to believe he would. George Bush has shown a lot of sticks to both Korea and Iran and has yet to use any of them. Oh, he did use his stick on Iraq and look where that has led us.

Carrots and sticks works but you have to back up what you say. When you say you'll help with reconstruction you have to help with reconstruction and when you make a threat you have to back up that threat. George Bush has done neither.