...While this [nuclear] test is the culmination of North Korea's long-held aspiration to become a nuclear power, it also demonstrates the failure of the Bush administration's policy toward that country. For almost six years this policy has been a strange combination of harsh rhetoric and inaction...And who exactly was the number one assistant to North Korea's "long-held aspirations to become a nuclear power"? Why, that would be Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter who struck the deal with North Korea which gave our little friends two nuclear reactors worth $5 Billion dollars. It is a bit disingenous on Secretary Perry's part to blame the Bush administration for their actions on a situation that was dumped into their lap by Perry's former boss.
The most important such limit would have been on reprocessing spent fuel from North Korea's reactor to make plutonium. The Clinton administration declared in 1994 that if North Korea reprocessed (spent fuel), it would be crossing a "red line," and it threatened military action if that line were crossed. The North Koreans responded to that pressure and began negotiations that led to the Agreed Framework. The Agreed Framework did not end North Korea's aspirations for nuclear weapons, but it did result in a major delay. For more than eight years, under the Agreed Framework, the spent fuel was kept in a storage pond under international supervision.Well, I'm glad to see that Secretary Perry actually has the stones to admit that the Clinton administration played a part in this whole mess. Of course, according to Perry, if North Korea had gone forward with their ambitions for a nuclear weapon while Clinton was in office, they would have crossed a "red line" that Clinton would presumably have answered with armed force. Clinton? Armed force? Boy that's rich! Just sit there for a second and try to imagine Bill Clinton making any aggressive move toward North Korea for violating an agreement. Yeah, I couldn't imagine it either. This is the same guy who let eight years of terrorist attacks on the United States go unanswered, with the exception of a pre-impeachment bombing of some tents in Afghanistan and an aspirin factory in Sudan. The only major military action he conducted was against a country (Serbia) that he knew was no threat to us, and in a twofer, he also defended a drug-running Muslim terrorist organization (the Kosovo Liberation Army).
Then in 2002, the Bush administration discovered the existence of a covert program in uranium, evidently an attempt to evade the Agreed Framework. This program, while potentially serious, would have led to a bomb at a very slow rate, compared with the more mature plutonium program. Nevertheless, the administration unwisely stopped compliance with the Agreed Framework. In response, the North Koreans sent the inspectors home and announced their intention to reprocess (spent fuel)....Ohhhh, I see. The Bush administration "stopped compliance" with the Agreed Framework. Never mind that the North Koreans had already violated it themselves when they started their "covert program in Uranium". So, when we get right down to it, Perry's argument is that the only reason North Korea made the Bomb is because George Bush made them angry. They never would have done it otherwise. Hell, I'm game; just for the sake of argument, let's say that George Bush's supposed belligerence toward North Korea is the reason that they began producing uranium and then plutonium in order to make a nuclear bomb. What Perry never acknowledges is that the reason the North Koreans were able to make a bomb in the first place is because Bill Clinton gave - not sold - gave the North Koreans the technology to make the bomb in the first place.
To quote my heroine Ann Coulter, "The beauty of being a liberal is that history always begins this morning. Every day liberals can create a new narrative that destroys the past as it occurred."
Good Day to You, Sir
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