Why President Clinton's Trip Is Not Appeasement

While in principle I've always been a supporter of John Bolton even when he fell out with the George W. Bush administration when the administration did its sudden U-turn on its North Korean policy, I wouldn't believe it to be as bad as Bolton makes it out to be (yes, it's a form of appeasement, but to rigidly be against a policy just because of it's name is a strike against common sense and an exercise in sheer stupidity) and considering how things currently are I think its realistically the most the U.S. can ask for.

Yes, while sending another former U.S. (Democratic) President to North Korea definitely looks bad as the U.S. seems to continually be rewarding North Korea for bad behavior -- bad behavior in the sense that North Korean behavior has led to sanctions on at least two different occasions by the United Nations Security Council, after mostly being championed by the U.S. And, sending a former President after the country allegedly explodes a couple nuclear devices definitely sends the wrong signal if the U.S. is against accepting North Korea as a nuclear state.

Before you can answer the question "Is it appeasement", you have to ask yourself if Billy would be there if it were not for the captured American journalists. The answer to that question is clearly no. The PRNK takes an outlandishly provocative action, like capturing two citizens and trying and convicting them of spying, and they are rewarded with a visit from a former American President. Granted, that honor isn't quite what it used to be, but it is what it is.

Clinton's PRNK strategy was wrong for the same reason Bush's and now Obama's policy were/are wrong; The don't recognize that nothing short of regime change is going to dissuade Korea from developing, proliferating and threatening it's neighbor's (and America) with weapons of mass destruction. Weapons proliferation is North Korea's only source of revenue generation (that and counterfeiting). Why would they give up the only thing that keeps them in power? They wouldn't.

Shucks! It’s just Bill doing the work that Jesse Jackson is apparently no longer interested in doing.

Gibbs stated that the Obama administration has not authorized any of this so don’t expect any “breakthroughs to come from this. Our Bill actually let Jimmah take an unauthorized trip to the Norks back in the nineties and actually let Jimmah foist the “agreed framework” upon him. But don’t expect Obama to do likewise. Unless, of course, Bill floats something that he likes.

This is just the old Jesse publicity stunt of bringing back imprisoned Americans from dictatorships to cheers and flashbulbs a popping.

(1) In the Independent (UK daily), there was a line there that said, clearly, the mistake that these two captured American journalists made was a blessing for the U.S. I can’t remember the exact words. But, yes, consider how the situation may be in the absence of these two journalists having been captured.

(2) And, I think your assertion that, “The don’t recognize that nothing short of regime change is going to dissuade Korea from developing, proliferating and threatening it’s neighbor’s (and America) with weapons of mass destruction.” is downright wrong.

I think North Korea wants nuclear weapons for a number of reasons and that’s something that all parties are going to have to accept in the short-term. I think this was the question that was asked by both those on the right and left — is North Korea willing to abandon its nuclear weapons program. And, the answer has been shown to be a definitive, no.

So, it now comes down to what to do about it given that North Korea won’t give up its nukes.

But the part about “proliferating and threatening” it’s neighbors with WMD just comes down to North Korean insecurities. Imagine if the U.S. shared a land border with China (and Russia and was an hour’s flight away from Japan). N.K. wants is a security guarantee (a right to exist kind of thing). And, the U.S. is the only country that can credibly do this (the U.S. is still after all the world’s sole remaining superpower and still has the largest economy in the world).

(3)As with respect to the rest of your argument that “Weapons proliferation is North Korea’s only source of revenue generation (that and counterfeiting). Why would they give up the only thing that keeps them in power? They wouldn’t.” I’ll leave that for somebody else to refute.

Also, the proper acronym here would be DPRK here (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, PRC is China :)).

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