It's slow around here, so I figure this might slightly be interesting.

N. Korea agreed to stop their main nuke program in exchange for political and economic incentives. Now, am I mistaken, or was N. Korea part of the terrorist axis of evil? And do we not negotiate with terrorists?

Also, why didn't the admin. trumpet this victory more, or was it the MSM that failed to talk about since it wasn't Iraq?

10/8/2007 10:14:31 PM

Quote :

"N. Korea agreed to stop their main nuke program in exchange for political and economic incentives. "

it's deja vu all over again.

Quote :

"do we not negotiate with terrorists?"

yes, you are correct. we do.

10/8/2007 10:37:19 PM

They also announced last week that they're going to pursue an actual peace treaty for the Korean War, which technically is still on.

10/8/2007 10:43:20 PM

I'd wait a bit more before I believe it. As stated earlier:

Quote :

"it's deja vu all over again."

10/8/2007 11:16:05 PM

i'll tell you why they're not trumpeting this victory, it's hollow.

the north koreans have us bent over because this administration needs a "win" so bad we'll give them anything they want. they're going to "shut down" the 1 site we've known about all this time with no mention of any clandestine sites. they've also made no mention of their uranium enrichment program that they bragged to high heaven about before claiming that it never existed.

beyond all that, they've been selling everything not bolted down to the syrians and god knows who else, all the while bushy and crew overlook the very proliferation (and to the middle east, no less) we're supposed to be hardline against, so they can get this political win over 1 plant getting shut down.

it's all bullshit.

10/8/2007 11:20:11 PM

care to back that up with any evidence?

10/9/2007 1:13:49 AM

I never quite understood why you'd post in your own thread under multiple user-names. Pretending to have a conversation with yourself?

10/9/2007 6:48:28 AM

Quote :

"i'll tell you why they're not trumpeting this victory, it's hollow. the north koreans have us bent over because this administration needs a "win" so bad we'll give them anything they want. "

That doesn't make too much sense. The admin is in dire need of a win, they get one (however hollow), then don't make noise about it? That doesn't add up.

10/9/2007 7:37:43 AM

because they don't want people to know that we're exchanging 800 million dollars in energy aid to them AND overlooking the proliferation they're responsible for simply to be able to have "n. koreans shut down nuclear weapons program" to scroll across the bottom of cnn

10/9/2007 8:31:57 AM

Quote :

"N. Korea agreed to stop their main nuke program in exchange for political and economic incentives. "

Isn't this the standard operating procedure for North Korea? Make a bunch of threats/bully, then get free stuff out of people by promising to behave in the future.

10/9/2007 8:44:28 AM

Quote :

"the Korean War, which technically is still on."

im a bit confused here. i though "war" was never officially declared. you know, like Vietnam. and, ostensibly, Iraq.

10/9/2007 3:36:27 PM

Not for the United States, but for the two Koreas, it was. On second thought, I wonder if can be considered an official war given that instead of formally declaring war, they just simply rolled tanks across the border and said that they would annihilate the supposedly illegitimate government in the South.

10/9/2007 3:59:41 PM

It all started with two post-WWII occupation zones fighting for control of the peninsula. The origins of the conflict are rather convoluted and you argue that it was a civil war or a conflict between sovereign nations.

The technicality of it still being on is the result of a cease-fire being signed but never a peace treaty.

Interesting, but widely unknown incident:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axe_Murder_Incident

10/9/2007 5:53:02 PM

Yeah, that was a pretty gruesome event, but it goes in line with a lot of the crap that happened from the 1960s through the early 1980s. The Axe Murders, the NK commando team's botched attempt to assassinate President Park, and the Rangoon Bombing that blew up a good chunk of the ROK presidental cabinet, bombing of airliners just to name a few.

Those are the big things too, there are plenty of smaller border horror stories from that time period that I've heard from both veterans who served on the DMZ. People used to sneak across the border and slit each others throats at night, collecting ears as trophies, and take pot shots at each other. Probably the most disturbing one was a story by a 2nd lieutenant about his first night on the DMZ. He just got transferred up there to an elite border unit in the early 1970s. That night, the North Korean propaganda speakers welcomed him by name, identifying him by his parents, his home town, talking about how he must miss a small restaurant in the neighborhood where my grandparents lived, and what a shame that he'd never get to see any of it again. He obviously didn't sleep well that night. Today is pretty tame in comparison.

There is also a certain irony too about the current North Korean situation. Until around the late 1970s, there was actually a bit of role reversal. It was North Korea who was the industrial powerhouse; they had the smaller but better equipped and more modern military. South Korea was struggling and backwards, and when it looked like the United States after Vietnam was going to abandon the South, the nation began to actively pursue a nuclear weapons program. Only after security guarantees from the United States did they give up the program in 1975.

10/10/2007 10:34:30 AM

From the rotten history thread in chit chat:

Quote :

"Dec 16 1950 To fight "world conquest by communist imperialism" in Korea, President Truman declares a state of National Emergency. The order is still in effect, one of four current states of national emergency granting extraordinary powers. We must be fools."

That's pretty wacky.

12/16/2007 5:19:48 PM

They have been doing it off and on for decades. We should just stop all aid regardless and see how long their "Juche" (self reliance) policy works. What they are going is basically extortion.

12/16/2007 6:28:33 PM