Posts Tagged ‘North Korea’

What to do about North Korea.

Wednesday, July 5th, 2017

The North Koreans launched a new two stage missile, which signals more escalation of their part.

The two-stage missile launched Tuesday by North Korea will be classified by US intelligence as a brand-new missile that has not been seen before, US officials told CNN.

The first stage of the missile is believed to be a KN-17 liquid fueled missile, which is well-known to US intelligence and has been previously launched by North Korea.

Ahead of Tuesday’s missile test, US satellites had seen evidence the KN-17 missile was being prepared for launch.
But at some point prior to launch, the North Koreans attached a second stage atop that missile.
The focus now is on the capability of that second stage, and how it technically contributed to making Pyongyang’s latest test its first ever intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch.

The next step will be the development of a solid fuel missile which could be launched with little warning.

NK launch

The trajectory was high and short but the second stage could be programmed to go much longer range.

It is apparent that the US policy going back to Bill Clinton and his “Deal” to stop the Norks nuclear program, has been a complete failure, like so many of Clinton’s deals.

On Oct. 18, 1994, Clinton approved a plan to arrange more than $4 billion in energy aid to North Korea over the course of a decade, in return for a commitment from the country’s Communist leadership to freeze and gradually dismantle its nuclear weapons development program, according to The New York Times.

The “complex” deal was to de-escalate the situation on the Korean peninsula, where the two Korean nations never negotiated a peace treaty after the Korean War ended in armistice in 1953.

“This agreement is good for the United States, good for our allies, and good for the safety of the entire world,” said Clinton in 1994. “It’s a crucial step toward drawing North Korea into the global community.”

The drawing-in never happened.

I can only imagine what Hillary Clinton would do if she were President. The mind boggles at the thought.

(more…)

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Condi Rice is not a good Sec State

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

A year ago, there was some activity about convincing Condaleeza Rice to run for President or VP. You don’t hear much of that lately and this may be why. There has been considerable disappointment in the Bush foreign policy since 2004, with the exception of Iraq. We had hoped for support of Iranian dissident groups and pressure on North Korea, although the only country that matters to NK is China. Nothing has happened.

Stephen Hayes has a lengthy essay on the subject.

Christopher Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and the government’s chief negotiator on North Korea’s nuclear program, met privately in Beijing with Kim Gye Gwan, North Korea’s deputy foreign minister. The meeting itself was a major concession. Although Hill’s boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, had given him wide latitude for his negotiations she had not authorized a one-on-one meeting. The North Koreans had been pushing for bilateral negotiations with the United States since the beginning of the Bush administration. The president had repeatedly and categorically rejected any direct talks with the North Koreans.

This followed the 2006 test of a nuclear weapon by NK. Christopher Hill has been the subject of a fawning profile this week in the Washington Post.

“If you just let me go to Pyongyang, I’ll get you a deal,” the career Foreign Service officer said, prompting others to roll their eyes and move on.

In the twilight of the Bush presidency, the nuclear agreement that Hill has tirelessly pursued over the past three years has emerged as Bush’s best hope for a lasting foreign policy success. In the process, Hill has become the public face of an extraordinary 180-degree policy shift on North Korea, from confrontation to accommodation.

If the Washington Post says this, you know Hill is in the wrong administration. Maybe he should be advising Obama.

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Posted in History, politics, terrorism | 2 Comments »

Obama’s advisors

Friday, April 25th, 2008

Obama has had a parade of advisors depart the campaign after various gaffes. First there was economic advisor Austan Goolsbee who tried to reassure the Canadians that anti-free trade talk by Obama was just for the consumption of the bitter “rubes” of the Rust Belt. Then there was foreign policy advisor Samantha Power who thinks the Iranian nuclear program is a figment of Bush’s imagination.

The war scare that wasn’t stands as a metaphor for the incoherence of our policy toward Iran: the Bush Administration attempts to gin up international outrage by making a claim of imminent danger, only to be met with international eye rolling when the claim is disproved. Sound familiar? The speedboat episode bore an uncanny resemblance to the Administration’s allegations about the advanced state of Iran’s weapons program–allegations refuted in December by the National Intelligence Estimate.

A common theme among Obama advisors is antipathy to Israel. Joseph Cirincione is the Obama nuclear advisor. Here is Cirincione’s opinion of the Syrian nuclear site before it was proven to be a North Korea-built reactor.

This story is nonsense. The Washington Post story should have been headlined “White House Officials Try to Push North Korea-Syria Connection.” This is a political story, not a threat story. The mainstream media seems to have learned nothing from the run-up to war in Iraq. It is a sad commentary on how selective leaks from administration officials who have repeatedly misled the press are still treated as if they were absolute truth.

Of course, we now know the reactor was not “a lie.” And Cirincione is still advising Obama.

This is what passes for wisdom on the political left these days.

I am coming to the conclusion that Democrats realize Obama may be another McGovern. They are willing to lose the election since the loss can be blamed on racism, further binding blacks to the Democratic Party. The alternative, nominating Hillary, would split the party.

A loss is a tactical retreat and can be used to further demonize Republicans to the blacks who are knee-jerk Democrat voters.

“[T]he vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for Barack Obama in November based on race are probably firmly in John McCain’s camp already,” he says.

Yup. There it is. No mention of the racists in Rev. Wright’s church.

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Syria, Iran and North Korea

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

Hearings today in Congress may finally reveal what happened last summer in Syria when Israel attacked a desert site. The best summary of what happened is here but it is still mostly speculation based on reports at the time. Now we are hearing reports that video tape exists that shows North Koreans at the site. There also appears to be evidence that it was a reactor essentially identical to North Korea’s Yongbin site. The New York Times hints, inadvertently, why the secrecy may have persisted.

The timing of the administration’s decision to declassify information about the Syrian project has raised widespread suspicions, especially in the State Department, that Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration hawks were hoping that releasing the information might undermine a potential deal with North Korea that would take it off an American list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Why in the world would we take North Korea off such a list if they are providing WMD to Syria and Iran ?  Senate hearings were scheduled   for this week but the information may still be kept secret, at least as secret as anything can be kept once Senators hear of it.

I expect to hear everything soon.

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Posted in History, politics, terrorism | 2 Comments »