EFL - Followup to yesterdays' post
The Bush administration yesterday rebuffed a call by South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to exempt North Korea from the U.S. military doctrine that allows for pre-emptive attacks on rogue states that develop weapons of mass destruction. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that the United States will keep "all options open" in the nuclear standoff with the communist North, effectively denying the request made by Mr. Roh in an interview with The Washington Times published yesterday.
Why would you take that option off the table when Kimmie's developing Nukes, Lasers, Bioweapons, Chem weapons? Wishful thinking? Jeebus!
Miss Rice said that the world "needs better tools to deal with a state like North Korea that appears to be determined to violate its international agreements, and I think we're going to work more aggressively with other states to see what other tools we can build."
Something Japanese, in the 10 Megaton yield range?
But President Bush remains open to multinational talks with the communist regime and is committed to diplomacy to stem the nuclear standoff, a White House spokesman said. "As we've said, we, of course, seek a peaceful diplomatic resolution to the issues involving North Korea," National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday. "While not taking any options off the table, we're working very hard toward that goal — a multilateral solution."
| Doing it diplomatically would be much cheaper and it would be easier on South Korea. But if the "aid" costs start nudging into the military operations range, and the SKors continue making faces and calling us names, then the military approach might become a little more cost effective. |
The standoff prompted Mr. Roh to offer his bluntest criticism of North Korea. "North Korea has two alternatives: It can go down a blind alley or it can open up," he said in a speech yesterday to the Korea Society in New York. "Pyongyang's nuclear program poses a serious threat to the peace and stability of Northeast Asia as well as the Korean Peninsula."
| "We just don't intend to do anything about it if we can avoid it..." |
Mr. Roh also held out the prospect of assistance were his neighbor to become "responsible" and renounce its nuclear ambitions.
| "We'll try and buy you off, like the Romans did the Vandals and Goths and the Avars and Huns..." |
In his New York visit yesterday, Mr. Roh also rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange and praised the courage of Americans as he laid a wreath at ground zero, the site of the World Trade Center towers destroyed in the September 11 attacks. For its part yesterday, the North Koreans heightened tension in the region by nullifying a 1992 deal with South Korea to keep the peninsula free of nuclear weapons, the last remaining international obligation for Pyongyang not to build nuclear weapons. North Korea's government-run news agency blamed the decision on "a sinister and hostile U.S. policy against North Korea."
Mr. Roh? That was North Korea pissing in your champagne - good luck, dreamer |
