In which a South Korean journalist calls for South Korea to develop nuclear weapons. For some strange reason he doesn't think the US will protect his country in a war against the North and China. Wonder why he thinks that?
By Chosun Ilbo columnist Kim Dae-joong
After shelling Yeonpyeong Island and sinking the Navy corvette Cheonan, North Korea has now shifted its attitude and is calling for inter-Korean dialogue. China has long urged dialogue and the resumption of six-party nuclear talks, so it will naturally press for talks, and even the United States appears to be leaning toward dialogue. The Barack Obama administration, though still reluctant to go back to the six-party talks, will eventually opt for dialogue lest it should be dragged into a major war over a small island in the West Sea.
The South is once again being tricked by the North. In the past 20 years, the North has repeated the pattern of making gestures toward dialogue and reconciliation, rupturing negotiations by presenting unreasonable demands, creating tension with nuclear tests, shooting and terrorism, and making charm offensives to ease the tension. Now the financial and rice aid it enjoyed from the leftwing governments in the South over the last decade has been cut off by the Lee Myung-bak administration, Pyongyang wants to talk, perhaps because it feels that it has shaken the South to some extent with its military provocations and nuclear threats.
The North's most powerful weapon on such occasions is the nuclear threat. After displaying its uranium enrichment facility, the North is now trying to scare by threatening "nuclear strikes" in its New Year editorial. Be it six-party talks or inter-Korean dialogue, the key words have always been nuclear arms. The South promised "mutual prosperity" if the North denuclearizes, and the U.S. has pursued denuclearization on the peninsula as the goal of the six-party talks.
But few experts or politicians believe the North will actually abandon its nuclear program. They know that the North Korean regime believes the country would have no future if it gives up its nuclear weapons. In other words, the parties to the nuclear talks are operating on false premises, trotting out their goals out of habit without any belief that they can achieve them. Fully aware that the North won't denuclearize, they clamor for its denuclearization at every available occasion. It is the ultimate in hypocrisy and bad faith.
The way out of the hypocrisy trap is for South Korea to acquire nuclear weapons too. Only when Seoul develops a nuclear bomb will the way for substantive negotiations between the two Koreas open. Paradoxically, denuclearization is possible on the Korean Peninsula only when both Koreas have nuclear arms, exercise mutual restraint and conduct nuclear disarmament talks. We can no longer entrust our lives and territorial security to the incompetence of world powers that have failed to settle the North Korean nuclear issue for over two decades. We have to take charge, and to do that we need to develop nuclear weapons.
The regions most exposed to the threat of war are the Korean Peninsula, the Middle East and Africa. Nuclear balance is maintained in the Mideast and Africa. But on the Korean Peninsula the North can make nuclear threats and the South trembles. Some say the U.S. nuclear umbrella plays its role, but having nuclear arms and relying on someone elseÂ’s nuclear protection are two very different things.
The chances are nil that Washington, which trembled at the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, would risk a war with China by deploying its nuclear umbrella when the North launches a nuclear attack. That is the limitation of the nuclear umbrella, and there lies the reason why Pyongyang will not give up its nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons can be subject to negotiations, but a nuclear umbrella cannot.
The South's nuclear arms would, strictly speaking, be neither offensive nor defensive. They would be there to enforce restraint, establish balance between the two Koreas, and ensure negotiations. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were able to negotiate about their nuclear weapons precisely because of what was called "mutually assured destruction." Without it, the negotiations would have failed.
Certain conditions should be set for South Korea's development of nuclear arms. First a deadline should be set for the six-party talks to achieve North Korea's denuclearization or establish at least a failsafe control mechanism. If they fail to meet it, the South will go ahead and develop its own nuclear weapons. And Seoul must proclaim to the world that it will voluntarily discard its nuclear development program when tensions on the peninsula end for good or reunification is achieved. It must make clear that it has no interest in acquiring nuclear arms for their own sake.
At a time when the whole world is helpless in the face of North Korea's nuclear weapons, South Korean leaders need the courage and wisdom to persuade the public and the world that the North will negotiate properly only when the South, too, develop nuclear weapons. Vigorous debate about acquiring our own nuclear arms is needed. They are the key to denuclearization of the peninsula.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/13/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
This article needs that old "Americans Not Welcome Here" sign from the Rantburg archives.
Wel-l-l, ION WAFF > PLA GENERAL LIANG [essentially = effec]TOLD US SECDEF GATES TO F *** OFF | CHINA SNUBS US DEFENSE PITCH, GATES VISIT IS OFF TO S *** START | GENERAL LIANG RULES OUT TIES WID US AS LONG AS TAIWAN ARMS SALES CONTINUES. US Arms Sales to Taiwan seen as SERIOUSLY DAMAGING TO CHINA'S "CORE INTERESTS".
* TOPIX > [English Dong-A] NORTH KOREA THREATENS NUCLEAR ATTACK/WAR [agz South Korea] FOR FIRST TIME IN EDITORIAL.
Second Korean War will be a NUKULAAR WAR.
* BHARAT RAKSHAK > MAURITIUS SUES BRITAIN FOR CONTROL OF CHAGOS ISLANDS [read, DIEGO GARCIA + US, UK Milbases on same].
* CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > RUSSIAN EXPERT'S OPINION | MASS PRODUCTION OF 5TH-GENERATION FIGHTER BY CHIN IS UNLIKELY, as Pert believes that China's new J-20 is a copy or composite for MAINLY NON-CHINESE FOREIGN TECHS,SYSTEMS + SUBSYS, that China will find difficult to unilater reverse-engineer + copy unto mass production.
IOW, THE J-20 WILL ALL BUT OBSOLETE? BY THE TIME CHINA GETS AROUND TO INDIGENOUS MASS PRODUCTION, circa 2020???
* SAME > US DEFENSE SECRETARY WARNS CHINA NOT TO UNDERESTIMATE US MILITARY POWER | US ECONOMIC DECLINE IS ONLY LIKE THE 1970's, SAYS SECDEF GATES IN VISIT TO CHINA.
[1970's DISCO + Fashions = DO THE DISCO DUCK AT THE CARWASH ON SATURDAY NIGHT/SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER here].
Gates says he personally went through a few economic periods like now, + US always pulled through stronger + better.
* SAME > MILITARY VS CLIMATE CHANGE: US + CHINA ARE WORLD APART [ China spends 2X the US in enviro-related CLEAN TECHS but only 1/6th of the US on defense].
ARTIC > SOURCE argues that even iff the US made deep cuts in its DOD Spending, its more likely than not ANY = MOST OF SUMS-CERTAIN will NOT go to ENVIRO = CLEAN TECHS, as ELECTION,RE-ELEX- MINDED US POLS WILL PRIORITIZE VOTER/CONSTITUENT JOBS OVER A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
- Sun Tzu
#2
Personally, I think the left will always lose it, because at a fundamental level, their ideas suck. This means that even with temporary success, defeat follows, because when they put their ideas into practice, they fall flat.
One such reason is that they demand not just perfection, but what is both simple, easy to understand, and perfect.
To achieve this, they take the complex, like people and economics, and try to reduce them to idiotically stupid levels, solely so they can be made to fit simple patterns.
The end result is much like a herd of sheep. The simple solution for lightning and thunder is for the herd to run away from it. Then, when the herd runs off a cliff, they blame it on anything but the stupid simplicity of their ideas.
#3
The question that interests me more is "Why the Right isn't pointing out that: (i) a federal judge who just produced anti-Obama ruling is one of the victims; and (ii) Obama's hurry to insist that the judge was there by unpredictable happenstance is muy suspicious."?
#4
Excellent comments I thought worth sharing taken from the following Krauthammer piece at WaPo:
Teleologicus wrote:
mot2win wrote:
You're a nasty man stuck in a wheelchair who never has anything positive to add.
-------------
This sort of thing is precisely what Leftists and others claim to deplore: nasty, ugly, abusive, demonizing, insulting 'hate speech.'
We know that Leftists routinely deplore what they say they deplore in the very terms they claim to deplore. This would seem to be strange - and would be strange, unless we understood the Leftist mindset.
Leftists are always right. Whatever a Leftist believes about politics is necessarily, indeed almost by definition, correct. There are no rational or moral alternatives, nor any rational or moral arguments to the contrary.
This is how Leftists are able to maintain their self-image as rational, tolerant, and, yes, even as defenders(!) of free speech - even as they consistently behave in a manner that seems to observers to indicate the very opposite.
The Leftist is willing to listen to and learn from any opposing speech and to consider any opposing views, so long as they are rational, moral, and sane. There is absolutely no question of this. And the Leftist is prepared to be tolerant of diversity, difference, alternative beliefs, whatever they may, so long as they are worthy of such tolerance.
It turns out, of course, that since the Leftist is always right and never wrong, and since there are no rational, moral, or sensible alternatives to what he/she believes, nor any arguments worth considering to suggest such. that to disagree with a Leftist is to manifest irrefragable error. The only question is, what is the actual source of such error?
The Leftist dogmatic fanatic considers that there are two possible explanations for why anyone would not agree with them about politics and also other things: (1) error, and (2) wickedness. The category of error is subdivided into vincible(culpable) and invincible(non-culpable) error. The cause of invincible error is commonly though to be manipulation by outside interests and forces, e.g. capitalists, demagogues, opportunists, etc. People who disagree with Leftists are held to be too stupid or ignorant to resist propaganda and influence by others - or they are thought to be mentally deranged and liable to undue influence. This closely parallels the class Marxist explanation for the troublesome fact that the actual workers tend not to agree with the Marxist intellectuals who have gratuitously appointed themselves their spokespersons and benefactors. The reason the workers do not see things the way Marxists do is that they are the victims of Proletarian False Consciousness, which leads them to think, behave, even to vote in ways that are contrary to their genuine interests, interests which the Marxist intellectuals know and are trying to help the workers, not always with the desired degree of cooperation, to achieve.
The poster above is able to write the most appalling, dreadful, abusive things because he/she believes they are on the side of the angels - if there are any angels. People who think the way the poster seems to think feel fully justified in such malicious personal abuse because they think the people they disagree with, or who disagree with them, deserve it. Indeed, in many cases they think they deserve MORE, e.g. to be arrested, put into prison, tortured, even killed. And why? Because they do not agree with them.
The fanaticism of the Left and its assault upon free speech derive from the single, simple, unstated and examined premise that Leftists are always right and that there is no valid reason for anyone to differ with them about politics. Such difference is defined as irrational, perverse, heretical, or willfully ignorant.
This is why Leftists are so personally nasty when one contradicts them. This is why they are enemies of free speech who wish to silence opinions with which they differ and even, indeed often, to criminalize and punish those who take exception to their political beliefs. They are always right - and thus there is simply no ethical, moral, rational basis for anybody not to agree with them.
#5
To put the ideas of the left into practice generally requires huge amounts of money and indebtedness. This requires more in taxes from citizens. I'd agree, generally their ideas suck.
#6
The narrative has escaped the control of the left and they are having a meltdown. This deft pinning smear campaign has certainly proved to be a uniquely clarifying moment in current American politics. And several conservative voices have really stepped up to the plate this time. This piece and the Krauthammer and Taranto articles here on the Opinion page today are all brilliant. I think that all three might merit consideration on a list of the best political essays of 2011.
It may have been inadvertent, but a passage in President Barack Obama's speech to a memorial service it Tucson Wednesday night could undercut a criminal charge federal prosecutors have leveled at suspect Jared Loughner for the death of U.S. District Court Judge John Roll in a shooting rampage Saturday.
"Judge Roll was recommended for the federal bench by John McCain 20 years ago, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, and rose to become Arizona's chief federal judge," Obama told the crowd at the University of Arizona. Roll's "colleagues described him as the hardest-working judge within the Ninth Circuit. He was on his way back from attending mass, as he did every day, when he decided to stop by and say, 'Hi,' to his representative."
In the complaint supporting Loughner's arrest, federal prosecutors argue that Roll wasn't simply seeking to pay a social call on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) when he showed up at the community outreach event where the shooting spree took place Saturday. Prosecutors and the FBI insist that Roll "was engaged in official duties" because he wanted to talk to Giffords and her staffers about problems with a surging caseload in federal courts in Arizona, particularly along the Mexican border.
Loughner's alleged killing of Roll may only be a crime under federal law if Roll was on business and not merely stopping by to say hi to a friend. The death penalty is likely available to the feds anyway, because of the death of Giffords's aide Gabriel Zimmerman. However, multiple murders are an additional aggravating factor that could lead to the death penalty under federal law, as is the killing of a federal judge when carrying out his official duties.
As a legal matter, Obama's view (which tracks with the public narrative offered by Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik) may be irrelevant, but it probably doesn't help to have the President of the United States emphasizing the social aspect of Roll's stop to see Giffords on Saturday, rather than the reason prosecutors claim drew him there.
It should be noted that Roll's killing is clearly prosecutable under Arizona law. The issue of the strength of the federal charge for his murder mainly affects the dynamic between the state and federal governments over which should go first in prosecuting Loughner. For now, the feds are asserting their right to press forward before the state does.
#1
I'm not a lawyer, but it seems to me a federal judge talking to a US Congressperson is doing official duty unless & until it's proven otherwise. Proven, not just mentioned in a political speech.
#9
Picky, can't expect TOTUS to know every little federal law. Local sheriff has said some stuff other than ongoing investigation. Just words and all that.
Besides, wait until we start finding out how badly the starving pig media has screwed the process up.
#10
So according to this article, if a bad guy kills a federal judge because he's presiding over a particular case, but the judge is at home, or anywhere but not actually on the job at that moment, or thinking or talking about it, then there's no death penalty involved. Only if the trial is in progress and he's at work, or thinking or talking about judge stuff, then his murder is a capital crime. As a Dickens character said, "if that's the law then the law's an ass".
#12
Cheap grandstanding, politicking, cheering and booing and the passing out of tee shirts... now that's a memorial service appropriate for six murder victims (or as Pelosi called the shootings "a tragic accident." All that's missing was a tee shirt cannon and two-fer-one jello shots.
Posted by: regular joe ||
01/13/2011 16:11 Comments ||
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#13
Now word that when Jan Brewer, Republican governor of Arizona, spoke at the memorial, some of the assembled Democrats boo'ed her.
Booing Jan for being FOR open borders that allowed such a serious over load of the Federal Court System so seriously that a Federal Judge trying to find a Congress Person at a Safeway Store to plead for help, where he and her were shot to death by a user of the drugs flowing across the border, who was rejected by the miltary for that use, in a county where the Sheriff thinks Open Borders is all good and no arrests for anything is necessary. No. Jan is NOT for Open Borders.
And yes, the Dems that boo'ed her have still not learned one thing. Thwy are hopelessly worthless.
On Wednesday evening, President Obama told the nation:
I have just come from the University Medical Center, just a mile from here, where our friend Gabby courageously fights to recover even as we speak. And I want to tell you -- her husband Mark is here and he allows me to share this with you -- right after we went to visit, a few minutes after we left her room and some of her colleagues in Congress were in the room, Gabby opened her eyes for the first time. (Applause.)
<.....and like a scratched record he continued.....>
Gabby opened her eyes for the first time. (Sustained applause.)
Gabby opened her eyes.
Gabby opened her eyes, so I can tell you she knows we are here. She knows we love her. And she knows that we are rooting for her through what is undoubtedly going to be a difficult journey. We are there for her.
#15
Judge: "Before we start the trial, would the foreman of the jury like to say anything?"
Foreman: "We find the defendant guilty of all charges"
Defense attorney: "Objection, your honor"
Judge:"Overruled"
/dream trial of Loughner
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
01/13/2011 23:27 Comments ||
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#1
What a smackdown. Krauthammer used his medical training to great effect, he focused right on the key issues & sidestepped all the crap being flung by Krugman and Sheriff Numnutz.
#2
Not only is there no evidence that Loughner was impelled to violence by any of those upon whom Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, the New York Times, the Tucson sheriff and other [Foaming at the mouth] rabid partisans are fixated.
Fixed that for ya. These rabid partisans aren't that much different than Loughner--they just don't use a gun.
#4
Loughner seems to have all the same attachment to Reality that Paul Krugman has. Based on zero evidence, I would speculate that Loughner is a protege of Krugman, in fact may actually have read his rantings on the NYT online, and been negatively influenced. Prove me wrong, Paul, and if you do respond, you're only prolonging our national agony, you disgraced blackhearted radical bastard
see how easy it is?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2011 19:15 Comments ||
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The campaign of vilification against the right, led by the New York Times, is really about competition in the media industry--not commercial competition but competition for authority.
#1
Maybe tonight or sometime I'll do a medium length opinion piece on the thesis that the left has been trying to impose their version of blasphemy laws on the US. Of course their version of blasphemy allows urine on Jesus 'art'. It allows calling for the death of George W. Bush and Sarah Palin. However, it does not allow for calling any of Obama's policies socialistic.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
01/13/2011 10:00 Comments ||
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#2
Dishonest, biased, and agenda-driven reporting have come to be the standard for the NYTs. Does anyone trust the NYTs for honest reporting of the news? One of the primary reasons they are going broke and most likely will be out of business soon. Maybe someone will buy them up and change the reporting format to one of honesty. The print media version of MSNBC. Does anyone really take these moonbats seriously?
#3
This whole thing is stinking more and more every day. At first I was afraid of a simple media circus but now I see that they've turned a tragedy into an opportunity to stifle debate. It's almost as if they were all on the same page, organized, prepared and waiting for just such an opportunity. Really scary. Really, really scary.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
By Charles Krauthammer
By James Taranto
