Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[XenaLives]

Zeev, I admit a great deal of ignorance in matters of foreign policy.

I read this on the Yahoo fuel cell thread.

http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=FN&action=m&board=4687441&tid=erc&sid=4687441&...

If the poster is correct, I am more afraid of our government's agenda than that of the North Koreans (which would seem to be survival).


12/27/02 12:07 pm
Msg: 69851 of 69919

The North Koreans had nuclear weapons before Clinton was in office. President Clinton's agreement accomplished having NK's plutonium-generating reactors shut down and locked up under UN , onsite supervision. In exchange for halting the production of plutonium from NK's reactors, Clinton negotiated an exchange of GE light water reactors (to deliver electrical power) and regualar shipments of heating fuel oil. The GE lightwater reactors were never built.

Because the NK's secretly developed a uranium enrichment program to develop fissile material by another, somewhat less efficient route, Bush cancelled the fuel oil shipments--and chose to walk away from further negotitations. Because the North Koreans believe that this Bush administration is interested in active military invasion of other countries and regime change (I wonder where they got that idea?), they have been prodded to engage in brinksmenship by putting their plutonuin reactors back on line and possibly using the already manufactured plutonium locked up under the Clinton agreement into bomb production.

The Bush Administration's war rhetoric is the most ham-handed foreign diplomacy I've seen in 40 years. Everything Bush and his hawks decide to do works to produce the very events good diplomacy would strive to curtail. Bush has talked himself into a corner--unwilling to talk to North Korea unless they do waht he wants first (while they possibly assemble many new bombs in a matter of months) and leaving the NK's to assume a military strike against them isn't out of the question. This is dumb.