Associated Press
It's hard to overstate how pointless partisan chest-thumping like this is.
Senior Republicans on Tuesday used North Korea's latest nuclear test to attack President Barack Obama's foreign policies and his reported plans to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
"The Obama administration must replace its failed North Korea policy with one that is energetic, creative and focused on crippling the Kim regime's military capabilities through stringent sanctions that tackle its illicit activities and cuts off its flow of hard currency," California's Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a written statement.
Right, "stringent sanctions." Why didn't the Obama administration think of that? Wait, it did think of that -- the White House has already helped impose sweeping sanctions against North Korea, and has pushed the United Nations Security Council (specifically, China) for more. One would like to think the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee already knows this.
California Republican Howard "Buck" McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, cited Pyongyang's nuclear test as a reason to dissuade Obama from any new plan to make further cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which some media reports had suggested could come in his State of the Union speech Tuesday night.
"On the same day the president of the United States plans to announce further reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons, we see another hostile regime unimpressed by his example," McKeon said in a statement.
This doesn't make any sense. President Obama, like his predecessors in both parties, hopes to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal, but if McKeon is worried about creating a short-term deterrent, the White House's reported goals would still leave the U.S. with over 1,000 nuclear weapons. Besides, the more American leaders push for reducing our nuclear stockpiles -- which are expensive and poorly suited to a 21st-century national security landscape -- the more credibility we'll have on counter-proliferation.
One would like to think the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee already knows this, too.
As for "failed" U.S. foreign policies towards North Korea, congressional Republicans might want to take a stroll down memory lane.
I'm reminded of this Fred Kaplan classic from 2004, which detailed the Bush/Cheney administration's reaction in late 2002 to learning that Kim Jong-il's regime had acquired centrifuges for processing highly enriched uranium, and had a stash of radioactive fuel rods, which could be processed into plutonium.
Thanks to an agreement brokered by the Clinton administration, the rods were locked in a storage facility under the monitoring of international weapons-inspectors. Common sense dictated that -- whatever it did about the centrifuges -- the Bush administration should do everything possible to keep the fuel rods locked up.
Unfortunately, common sense was in short supply. After a few shrill diplomatic exchanges over the uranium, Pyongyang upped the ante. The North Koreans expelled the international inspectors, broke the locks on the fuel rods, loaded them onto a truck, and drove them to a nearby reprocessing facility, to be converted into bomb-grade plutonium. The White House stood by and did nothing. [...]
The pattern of decision making that led to this debacle -- as described to me in recent interviews with key former administration officials who participated in the events -- will sound familiar to anyone who has watched Bush and his cabinet in action. It is a pattern of wishful thinking, blinding moral outrage, willful ignorance of foreign cultures, a naive faith in American triumphalism, a contempt for the messy compromises of diplomacy, and a knee-jerk refusal to do anything the way the Clinton administration did it.
That congressional Republicans never took the slightest interest in any of this -- they, like Bush/Cheney, focused more on invading Iraq -- still amazes me years later. North Korea joined the nuclear club on Bush's watch -- a development that could have been avoided -- and developed nuclear weapons partly in response to Bush's policies.
Royce and McKeon are outraged by the current state of affairs. I wonder if they realize what happened over the last decade to bring us to this point.
Leave a Comment:
Just the standard GOTP babbling points as they try to take US into another ill conceived war! You know for a group of people that have never served in the Military nor have most of them held a public office in which leadership, knowledge and understanding were requisite this bunch is pathetic in their own know-nothing, die-hard bloviating along with trying to send more of America's children to war!
NOW can WE vote these people out in November 2014?!
Yeah ...
A well conceived conflict that was resolved until Athenians filled with remorse decided that resettling Mytilene with colonists to replace the slaughtered men and enslaved women , was a tad harsh .
The effort of war should be so last option , that its life as a political subject should have the same brief as an obituary .
Exactly,. "The measure of a civilization is the rate with which cooperative intelligence replaces brute force". We're still picking bugs out of each other's fur.
A non-obsessed mind looks out to the world and asks what is going on, who is involved, and what may come of it. When more data becomes available regarding these three natural questions, the sentient mind works with the new data to fit it into context with what has been going on, who has been in charged, and what has been trending toward an outcome!
A Republican mind, seemingly lately, has gone out of bounds regarding clear thinking: They have their foil in one President Obama, and their minds continually operate with the conclusion President Obama is to be blamed for everything, just as soon as they massage their fantasy into whatever circumstances are actually being played out in the real world!
Republican mind simplified: President Obama is an interloper, and is the reason we can't have nice things like unregulated industry, off-shoring profits, tax havens, voter suppression, 2nd class citizens, guns for every American student, and a government small enough to fit inside a woman's uterus!
We've had enough of these kinds of Republicans, and we think they need a refresher course on how to re-become reasonable people! -Kevo
Re Become , sounds like that script might have legs . To bad about the zombies , but we gotta have 'em according to the test groups .
Bring your own wardrobe !
Wait a minute, wasn't Obama going to be the wise and wonderful "bringer together" of nations? You know, the smart President that would make the world safer?
Yeah! I mean Bush got OBL! No wait, that was Obama...
What was your point, blanks?
Well shooter, it would be a lot easier if it weren't for certain snide jerks who do everything in their power to keep us a failure level.
"I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you're not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration." - Hillary Clinton
Deal with it.
@ Donna:
How did President Obama get OBL? Did the intelligence fall right in his lap during his administration or was it acquired and assessed for the countless years prior through Clinton and Bush jr? Watching Zero Dark Thirty may give you an idea that one person was the key to this entire operation but there were a large number of analysts across the intelligence community that had some part in that larger picture. There are hundreds of books discussing OBL, the Taliban connection, Afghanistan, the sub-splinter groups of Al Qadea, etc etc. If you look a little deeper past the 30 second blur on the news report you would see that there is a lot more to the story.
Mac,
You wouldn't be saying such bullsh*t if Bush had got OBL.
And if Obama had failed to get OBL you would be saying it was all Obama's fault. Trolls can't have it both ways.
And if you watch a fictional movie to get your information, then you must be a fox news watcher.
If you pull your head out of your ass and stop watching fox news, you would see there is alot more to the story.
Too bad the republicans didn't listen to Hillary when she made that statement in 2003.
And NOW the right wants to listen to Hillary's quote.
A bunch of dishonest hypocrites, and you are one of them.
Deal with it.
Donna,
That's the great thing about people like yourself, when faced with individuals who have some insight to the story, situation, or event, you would rather use the time tested approach of calling them "trolls" rather than actual acceptance to some of what was said. Your idea is that I should be running around preaching that President Obama gave the order to kill Bin Laden but refuse to accept that it took years prior to him getting into the White House to get to the final results. Maybe, just maybe there were analysts across several intelligence communities in search of various topics to add to the overall picture about Bin Laden? Maybe a person like yourself who wants to throw out conjuncture when all I said was that you missed the two previous administrations that started to seek Bin laden out. You think that intelligence is picked up overnight and then we plan some massive insertion to take him out on a laptop? To get to Bin Laden you had to get to the lower level guys, and his immediate circles. We killed or captured dozen of key associates prior to 2009. All that time we were putting the pieces together, that is how it works in the real world, so once again how about listening to what I am saying instead of beating your chest out to proclaim your admiration for this President. How would we know if President Obama gave an order and Bin Laden had not been there? Clinton did that during the 90s to sway public opinion and media coverage away from the Lewinski fiasco. Clinton gave the order to send cruise missiles into a suspected camp that was believed to be where Bin Laden was last seen and a building that was suspected to be a terrorist site. Both turned out to be bad intelligence, but the public attention was shifted for a few weeks. You think that the "War on Terrorism" is over and that based on some re-election remarks that "Al Qaedea is no longer the threat it once was..." and "that the Taliban and Haqqani Networks have lost significant men and material".... etc etc. Then we have the Libya event, Syria imploding, Iran going nuclear, and the entire North African area swarming with growing wanna be jihadist. Yep, no worries here folks we can call it a day. But being a "troll" like you said, I cannot find anything to add to this discussion and since I am not falling over backwards for the administration I guess I have no clue in your viewpoint.
Wow , what a revolting development this is !
The kind of strain on our collective frontal lobes is hard to understate with a opening line like -
What Republicans don't understand ...
-No need to graphically descend into detail , not when we have William Bendix to express the outrage of an entire nation .
Thank you .
Incompetent, corrupt, blinkered, self-destructive, bigoted,misogynistic, stupid, hypocrites. ..., feel free to add anything I've left out.
When did the N Koreans set off their last blast?
Yesterday.
I meant from some years back.
The Republican understanding of any problem begins and ends with "The failed Obama __— policy..." They're not interested in problem-solving, they're interested in scoring political points. When the problem is the economy or the budget, that's bad. When the problem is nuclear weapons, that's terrifying.
it's worse than you think. the pugs understand the problems running the government, the economy and dealing with foreign affairs. they just don't care. it's more important to them that they have power. it really galls them that the people of this country saw fit to elect and then reelect a man with far better qualifications than their candidates to occupy their White House. and this guy is much farther to the right than anybody i would have picked for the office.
this reordering of priorities is not only bad politics but could be suicidal for the entire world. blocking good policies might wreck the world economy and start a nuclear war but, no problem, it's worth it if they can just have their White House back.
with other Democrats they disagreed but managed to work with whomever the President was on any number of issues. with Barack Obama cooperation is completely off the table. House and Senate pugs who treated Dems with some degree of respect have devolved to open hatred.
i'm not saying it's racism. but it's racism all the way down.
The republicans and teaparty do not understand the USA , but they do seem to understand Nazi-Germany !
The Republicans are going down in History. Once they were a great Party now they are just worthless an Has been Party, If we are stupid enough to re-elect any one of them we might as well just give up and Put America up for sale, Just how much more harm will we let them do to America. They should look back a few years It was under Republican Control that allowed North Korea to become a Atomic Power, Obama and the Democrats have done more with sanctions on North Korea and Iran then any Republican has done in History, So give up the blame game and start working for a change or just quit and do us all a favor.
Republicans talking about Obama's failed foreign policy?????? It's a joke right? Weapons of mass destruction-do they remember that one? Do they know that Osama Bin Laden is still dead?
Did that Libyan thing happen after OBL's death or before? Has terrorism stopped? Is the War on Terrorism over? No, of course not, it didn't stop, it only stopped and was over during the work-up to elections. Now that the elections are over, we see a growing trend of Al Qadea organizing in North Africa, Western Coast of Africa, Yemen, Sudan, and the entire Syrian fiasco. But hey, the President got OBL, not anyone else, no assistance from the previous administrations, it was him all him.......
This chinless kid with nukes is like giving a drunk spider monkey a blowtorch and a hand grenade. Ignoring his sabre rattling ain't real bright darling!
Certainly, but what do you suggest? If you isolate them too much, you run the risk of another situation like Japan in 1941. 1,000 nukes is about 995 more than we need to make NK entirely unlivable for 30 years. Invasion is probably the worst solution, considering the "drunk spider monkey" will gladly draw our forces further into the country only to detonate the nuke, he cares little for his population, they only exist to serve the divine leader. Their sacrifice is his will.
So what are we left with? What we are doing and continuing to get information into the country that can counter the propaganda machine. Some people think the MSM is propaganda, but it isn't even close to what's happening in NK. In a few years, enough of the NK people will know that they are being lied and won't tolerate it any longer. Once that occurs, it will only be a matter of time before the dictatorship crumbles. Of course, there will be a hard road to get there and a real concern that nuclear weapons will be used against the revolting population, but they won't be pointed at us and that action would only serve to cause a further erosion of support from the people.
At one point, We The People were the politicians' boss. Now it's the one that contributes the most to the politicians' campaign. That boss will make his "employee" do and say whatever the boss wants. Regardless of the good of the people (or facts for that matter). Maybe if the country took up a collection we could buy (I mean, lobby) the votes needed to do something, anything right. Or those idiots that keep voting the bigger idiots could grow a brain for an election. Or maybe the magic fairy god-mother of intelligence will wave her magic wand and magically make politicians wise and intelligent. I forsee the odds on any of those options being equivalent.
Senate's Contribution to National Insecurity:
This as a threat to National Security must also reflect the deliberations of the U.S. Senate, who in performing its duties, has left the world to fester.
In suffering the Senate's waste of time in mean political machinations, to deflect and misdirect, to posture and conflate, to raise the dull sword of words against phantom windmills swirling the misty fog of fact and fancy.
What can be done to correct and to direct, that most powerful body, toward its founding purpose?
Nothing:
As the Constitution indelibly describes the Senate makes its own rules, placing the Senate completely above the document that created it. It would be impossible to imagine that the honorable and trusted gentlemen that formed this Constitution failed to contemplate that the Senate would then be called to overrule the House (mob), or an errant executive, or to oppose an errant Amendment, but that it had no way to overrule the Senate itself.
If we succeed in calling your attention to how the Senate is 'perceived' by the wider world as of today, will we ever command you attention to the actions of that Senate has having sat in the same position of power for past generations? Can we even define and 'cause and effect', when 'cause and effect' have themselves been define as Cause equals Senate and Effect equals Senate.
The Senate does not know its Power, and North Korea cannot know anything but Power.
Neither knows compromise, the word either does not exist, or needs to be removed from the dictionary; neither side is capable of yielding.
One side is willing to guess that other side will not risk annihilation and the other side unwilling to annihilate.
Possible Consequences:
- (North Korea is willing to be annihilated, but knows that the United States is unwilling to annihilate?)
- (If United States is willing to annihilate then the United States loses by using Power, North Korea may vanish, but then so does the United States as Power annihilates free government?)
- (Once free government has ended the only government left is Power?)
- (North Korea wins by leaving the world ruled by Power?) Or (United States wins by leaving the world ruled by the Senate's Power?)
Conclusion: If actions are taken short of annihilation then the problem be extended indefinitely North Korea and United States will continue to exist with the problem.
The Infant State:
The test shows the world that North Korea is a “nuclear weapons state that no one can irritate,” Kim Mun Chol, a 42-year-old Pyongyang citizen, told The Associated Press in the North Korean capital. “Now we have nothing to be afraid of in the world.”
This from the mind of child, having a child throw tantrums reflect poorly on the parental qualifications, where prevention is the better cure. Children are designed to be irritating because it tests the natural boundaries, giving in by parents is nearly always the wrong action. I assume that this does not mean that North Korea can attack anyone who irritates North Korea, the silliness of the statement at worst indicates a delusion of weaponry.
Children are capable of using fear to gain attention, of all the peoples of the world there hasn't been a country more fearful, made so by generations being held in check by fear. We don't know what that fear is like, but it clearly points to the willingness to give up life. But to be unafraid of the world at large, begs the question of all that fear suffered at home for generations. To say the least, this North Korea problem, was man-made and should have been resolved along ago when it was between China etal and the United States etal (over the status of Taiwan), but it was left as a Power Standoff, but was not because the United States Senate then did not understand its duties in the Power vs Power conflicts [#,##]. The fact that three generations have passed has made the old problem into a new and much worse problem.
If China's tantrum throwing child were three generation removed from (compromise; it goes back much further), then what might it take to solve that problem? Gasp the expression 'solve that problem', leaves us stunned. No one wants this child, or 25 million of them, how would correct this, and to keep correcting it for three more generations.
Diplomatically Assisted Conflicts:
[#] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea#Division_of_Korea - After the Soviet forces' departure in 1948, the main agenda in the following years was unification of Korea until the consolidation of the Syngman Rhee regime in the South and a brutal crackdown on Communist sympathizers under his presidency. In 1949, a military intervention into South Korea was considered by Kim Il-sung, but failed to receive support from the Soviet Union, which had played a key role in the establishment of the country.
The withdrawal of most of the American forces from the South in June dramatically weakened the Southern regime and encouraged Kim Il-sung to rethink an invasion plan against the South. The war proposals were rejected several times by Joseph Stalin, but along with the development of Soviet nuclear weapons, Mao Zedong's victory in China, and the Chinese indication that it would send troops and other support to North Korea, Stalin approved the invasion which led to the start of the Korean War in June 1950.
[##] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Glaspie#Meetings_with_Saddam_Hussein - "It seems far more likely that Saddam Hussein went ahead with the invasion because he believed the United States would not react with anything more than verbal condemnation. That was an inference he could well have drawn from his meeting with United States Ambassador April Glaspie on July 25, and from statements by State Department officials in Washington at the same time publicly disavowing any United States security commitments to Kuwait, but also from the success of both the Reagan and the Bush administrations in heading off attempts by the United States Senate to impose sanctions on Iraq for previous breaches of international law." (Journalist Edward Mortimer wrote in the New York Review of Books in November 1990)
Proxy War Against Understanding?
Can you understand? Could you understand? What would it take to understand? It seems that you have difficulty in understanding. What basics might it take to understand? How did it get to be so difficult to understand? This understanding seems to take a long time? What got in the way of understanding? If earlier understanding got in the way, can understanding be the same today? Who's started this great miss-understanding? Where are they today, we understand they are dead? Do dare to understand, would you be criticized for it? Would mother accept it if tried to understood? Who were fighting in the conflict? Do you understand how the war was stopped? Was the round table big enough to understand? Were there other countries involved to suggest understanding? Would those other countries have any points for understanding? Was there any global understanding after WWII? Can you understand that dividing a nation in half for so long is a problem? If you could understand the human costs incurred, can you not understand that those cost have been accepted? Clearly and dearly there is no understanding? Neither side can understand to admit that they don't understand. Can anyone anywhere start to understand that there are underlying issues that have to be addressed? Can no one understand what has to be put aside by next to attempt to understand?
None can dare speak, to think to write, of how understanding is so missing that even understanding itself is alien concept.
You do understand?
I appreciate the point of the article and am also tired of "partisan chest-thumping," but I must say, using comments from two Republicans to lump them all into the same boat only serves to further the divide.
I know moderation doesn't get the views that over-generalization does, but it also doesn't help win new people to your argument. Anyone who identifies even partially as a republican will immediately take affront to the notion that "Republicans don't understand North Korea." There you have someone who might agree with the later points, but now is set against agreement because they have already disagreed with the general premise.
At any rate, I do appreciate identifying the ridiculous way in which some people will find fault in anything, just so long as it is "the other side" doing it.
Have you not noticed that they rarely speak out of turn? Everything they think, do, and say, has to approved or their pundits will destroy them. If their pundits are not outraged than these two are speaking for all.
I'm eageraly awaiting the first Republican to chastise his/her fellows for their stupidity/incoherence.
I think I'll get a drink, it may be a while...
Only China can place any real effect on North Korea. North Korea is dependent on just about everything from China. Bulk fuel, resources, food, etc comes from China. China needs a heavily fortified North Korea to counter balance US foreign influence and keep a buffer state from the US supplied and supported Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Austraila, and several other Pacific rim countries. While China will publicly cry "foul" about the nuclear testing but they could cut supplies to North Korea if they really wanted them to play ball.
"The North Koreans expelled the international inspectors, broke the locks on the fuel rods"
Bush's fault, again? Sounds more like Clinton seeded the problem, relying on simple locks and inspectors, who were expelled. It's not like these inspectors were Navy Seals or something.
Clinton also seeded the mortgage crisis.
But, this is MSNBC. The editors of the Treyvon tapes. Evidence tampering is a-ok with them, as long as they don't get caught.
Nice try Bill with the classic attack, but fail.
The republican party is so out of touch with reality that it boggles the mind. I am embarrased that i have voted republican in the past. What the hell happened to them. It's like they are being controlled by the taliban ( tea party)
No need to be too harsh on Republicans. Blame all the politicians, past and present. They created this monster and allowed only their allies to have them. Its a no no if you're not a member of this exclusive club. How would you feel if a neighbor who owns an arsenal of weapons tells you that you cannot have them and only he and his relatives and friends in the community can own them. However, you may keep knives, spears and arrows, but never guns. Wouldn't you feel being told, threatened, bullied and intimidated? Would you not try to develop or acquire the same kind of weapon to even up the playing field? But surely, there will never be peace in the community as everybody will always be watching their backs.
NK has not been invaded since 1952 and that invasion was the direct result of NK's unprovoked assault on SK. The SK's have no desire to invade, or even reunite with, NK - the country is in worse shape than East Germany ever was!
There is no threat from China, the only other country bordering NK. Japan couldn't attack if it wanted to. We can't attack without endangering our troops stationed in SK or risking a confrontation with China.
So, sorry, false equivalency.
Reality is North Korea really doesn't care and isn't threatened by Obama, Democrats or Republicans. Instead of trying to find a real solution you are all just complaining about what one party says or the other one doesn't. We idiots just keep voting the same incompetent, self serving people into office. Oh and no one on this site, so far, is an expert on N.K. or how to deal with the problem. Unfortunately, neither is anyone in the Obama administration.
new account created this month....
But take heart, young troll: you are not an expert on N.K. either.
I know that is hard news to take for someone like you.
So chill out. Lurk around this site. You just might learn something.
It's all connected to the 2nd amendment. Every American is soon going to have the right to have a nuke in their very own backyard.
How can anyone not take N.Korea an Iran as threats.America we are under a Dictatorship today an must fight to stop these IDIOT THUG LEADERS we are under an i mean both parties.America should light up both these countries alone with Egypt an Syria like Japan an send a Worldwide message TYRANNY will not be accepted anywere period.