Kim Jong Il has apparently tested a nuclear weapon in North Korea. With our resources sunk into Iraq and our international influence squandered, we’re left in the position of relying on China to do the right thing and try to handle its crazy neighbor. That’s not a great position for us to be in.
If it werent for ‘Red’ China, Wal-Mart and similar big box stores wouldnt be able to stock their shleves, so were beholding to China more than we are able to rely on them.It’s a brave new world with USA being pushed to the margins by our OWN policies.I have never quite been able to understand why one-world government is not OK but one-world economy is just fine. Is there a difference as far as the individal citizen is concerned? When a situation like Norh Korea comes up,we no longer have any diplomatic leverage.But I cannot continue and give any solutions.
Let’s assume we never went to Iraq. I’m not sure what we could have done with a full army vs what we have now. Invading is just out, they have been preparing for it for decades. Trying to do anything like that would make Iraq look easy.
It seems to me that we’re left with the same whip, economic restrictions. I have not heard anyone come up with a solution, either one we can do now or one we could have done if the USA was the world’s golden child.
Kim Jong Il is a loon, and there is no dealing with him. I don’t think we will ever have a way of dealing with his kind. No, that does not mean I think war is the only way, it is just as much of a losing option as everything else is.
Look at Castro. He isn’t even in the same league as Kim, but we have been trying to deal with him for decades and it looks like he will die never having been defeated. We tried everything with him too, including invasion.
Iraq has badly hurt us financially. Prior to Iraq, our military threat was at least more credible even if it was never very plausible. And, most importantly I think, Iraq has severely damaged our standing in the world community. Our ability to attempt diplomatic solutions has been crippled.
Prior to Iraq, our military threat was at least more credible even if it was never very plausible
Oddly enough, the threat of a US attack is the excuse N. Korea is using to pursue this.
And again, I just don’t even understand what diplomatic solutions are possiable for anyone. N. Korea seems to just be playing extortion. Maybe this is just a failing of our media or my willingness to research it, but I don’t understand what N.K. wants! It isn’t like the Gaza strip or Iraq or even the Taliban. I can see (but not agree with) both sides of the arguement and understand why both sides are angry. I can see what “tokens” can be debated over for diplomacy.
With N.K., it just seems to defy logic. We used to have B-52’s with nukes on-board in South Korea at all times. We’re either not doing that now or not advertising it, but in either case why are they getting scared now? With the outcry over Iraq and maybe Iran in our future, is Kim really so sick he thinks we would really be able to pull off an attack and not get attacked ourselves?
We went it alone into Iraq and now we are deservedly alone diplomatically in the world.I don’t mean to minimize Great Britain,but they haven’t embraced the EU yet and are themselves astrocized from Europe,probably by mutual consent.We can appreciate how far down we are in world prestige when we have to woo back western Europe. Western Europe is the mother culture of our forefathers. The Bush administration had this grandiose delusion to undermine the EU,divide France from the EU and then set ourselves up as the ruler of a new American-Euopean alliance through NATO. France has always seen itself as the natural ruler of the EU,and traditionally of Europe, and that’s from where much of the long enduring american-french antagonism originates.What has happened is a greater French-Germany unity at the expense of the USA. Germany especially is courting the former Communist Eastern Europe countries such as Bulgaria and Romania and Lithuania and is fast becoming the new hope for many peoples. The Bush administration has sold us all out in many ways and it will only become clear after they leave power and we can think beyond the political posturing.
Clinton dealt with the loon, and got the plutonium locked up until Bush declared the whole enterprise a failure and decided that just puffing out his chest and talking tough would be so much better policy. Now it appears that Kim Jong Il has come to the conclusion that Bush is just a big-talking pussycat with no means to back it up. So glad Bush chose a half-hearted game of chicken rather than to engage in any of those pussified negotiations that the Clintons favored that were such an annoying success.
T,
Bush game of chicken with Kim-Jong Il might be only half-hearted, but we all have to admit that it’s been fully assed.
;-)
A nuclear device may or may not be usuable as a weapon. For all we know the device may have been the size of a large building.
The only rationale I can ever devise for Kim Jong Il’s behavior is that he thinks it will help get him more handouts from the South. With or without Iraq it is hard to see what the United States can do about him as long as the Chinese are content to tolerate North Korean behavior. Iraq is limiting our freedom of action around much of the world, but I don’t think Korea is really one of those places we had many options to begin with.
I think though that the Chinese are making in mistake here. N. Korea is giving a fairly right wing Japanese government every excuse it needs, perhaps even every reason it needs, to fully rearm. The new Japanese prime minster’s (Abe) comments on this point are clear. A situation where the Japanese and Chinese are facing off over Korea is not something that fills me with comfort.
T- Was it not the Clinton administration that helped build the reactors in the first place?
Lou- Isn’t there like 64 countries involved in Iraq? Maybe not great world powers like our great friends the French and Germans but other countries.
Tim Joyce,
It would be interesting to see a list of casualties from all these 64 countries.It’s just more of this endless propaganda, I think, from Bush administration. It’s ‘true’,but meant to mislead.We are alone in Iraq,but with British help til they pull out. As I have posted before, nothing lies more effectively than facts and statistics( out of context) and that’s the Bush administration’s greatest expertise..facts out of context…
Lou,
You can find statistics for the size of each country’s commitment, and their casualties, at the Coalition of the willing article in the Wikipedia.
Thanks for that link Branden. In it, we see that 90% of the “Coalition” was made up of U.S. troops. Another 8% came from Great Britain. Though, small troop contributions aside, we could have taken some pointers from our Mongolian allies about how they conquered and held Baghdad back in the days of their empire.
Probably the pyramid of skulls thing wouldn’t have gone over too well with Americans. But, after Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, who knows?
I don’t see any references to Clinton actually getting any reactors built. The reactors in question predate his presidency. He did forge an agreement for two “light water” reactors that were felt to be unsuitable for weapons production to be built in return for him not using his plutonium. But we never built them. Is that part of the rightwing lore that Clinton built reactors that produced this plutonium?
So no, the Clinton administration (inaugurated in 1993) did not help build nuclear reactors that produced plutonium discovered in 1994.