Posted on 10/08/2006 7:43:33 PM PDT by Ragnar Danneskjold
CNBC Asia, South Korea Wire Services Reporting
ALBRIGHT: We talked with slobodan milosevic and I went to see Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea, because I thought it was worth talking to them to see...
CAVUTO: But you acknowledged in the latter case that you were dealing with a nut?
ALBRIGHT: I actually said he wasn't a nut. I said that he was rational, he was...what he is, is isolated. He's not a nut. But he has only cash crop...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The leftist media spin is that the current crisis in North Asia is the result of George W. Bush calling Pyongyang a member of the 'axis of evil.' In reality, the soft-line appeasement policy taken by Clinton against North Korea and China is what has led us to this point.
For example, former Clinton adviser Paul Begala, now serving as a talking head on CNN, claimed that the Clinton administration contained the threat from North Korea. Clearly, Mr. Begala missed the 1990s.
Of course, Mr. Begala simply forgot that Clinton's military chief of staff testified in 1998 that North Korea did not have an active ballistic missile program. One week later the North Koreans launched a missile over Japan that landed off the Alaska coast.
During the early Clinton years, hard-liners and so-called conservative hawks advocated a pre-emptive strike to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons development before it could field an atomic bomb. Instead of taking the hard line, President Clinton elected to rely on former President Jimmy Carter and decided to appease the Marxist-Stalinist dictatorship.
Carter met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang and returned to America waving a piece of paper and declaring peace in our time. Kim, according to Carter, had agreed to stop his nuclear weapons development.
The Clinton appeasement program for North Korea included hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, food, oil and even a nuclear reactor. However, the agreement was flawed and lacked even the most informal means of verification.
In return, Kim elected to starve his people while using the American aid to build uranium bombs. The lowest estimate is that Kim starved to death over 1 million of his own people, even with the U.S. aid program.
FOXNEWS per Bush admin official - NKoreans may not have gotten what they wanted (under 400kt level)
Any word on fall out risk in Japan as a result of this test? (Radiation? Again? That would *really* irritate the hell out of them.)
Reporting that it was not a success.
S. Korea confirmed security meeting started 11:30 am there.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a_iHY63Panlo&refer=home
What choice did Japan give us ?
Yes, but with a supercomputer, you can design a high-yield device and run virtual tests: what we do now that we're signatories to the NTB.
Truth be told, the Japanese Defense Ministry probably has, if not a partially assembled device, certainly blueprints and the ability to machine and assemble all the pieces the moment the Diet gives the okay.
Well, give me some credit....I DID throw in the Balkans, but I was NOT serious. Didn't you actually read what I wrote, then?
Americans wouldn't be under any more risk than anyone else in South Korea.
While this is very serious news, NK is not going to just nuke South Korea out of the blue. They will threaten it, however, if the US or anyone else tries to disarm NK.
This was the reason for the look of worry on W's face at the GHWB aircraft carrier event. I always get concerned when I see that look.
Short of a bomb similar to our now long retired Mark-18 weapon or else a thermonuclear weapon.
If they were trying to fire off a thermonuclear device, then what probably happened was only the primary fired but the secondary stage was a fizzle.
Interesting that the New Japanese PM was in red China Sunday.
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China, Japan break ice as N.Korea casts shadow
Sun Oct 8, 2006 11:35 AM ET
By Teruaki Ueno and Lindsay Beck
BEIJING (Reuters) - China hailed a visit by new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sunday as a "turning point" in relations as they agreed to upgrade ties and denounced North Korea's plans for a nuclear test as unacceptable.
Beijing had refused summits with Abe's predecessor Junichiro Koizumi, who stepped down last month, because of his repeated pilgrimages to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine to war dead, seen by critics as glorifying Japan's past militarism.
But Chinese leaders struck a conciliatory tone and Abe expressed "deep remorse" for past Japanese actions as he broke with tradition in making his first trip abroad since taking office on September 26 to China, rather than the United States.
"Your visit is serving as a turning point in China-Japan relations and I hope it will also serve as a new starting point for the improvement and development of bilateral ties," China's Xinhua news agency quoted Chinese President Hu Jinta as telling Abe.
At a meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, both sides expressed hope of overcoming animosity linked to Koizumi's regular war shrine visits, which angered China and hampered progress on territorial, trade and energy disputes.
Chinese leaders agreed in principle to an invitation from Abe to visit Japan, China's foreign ministry said. State television also quoted Wen as saying China and Japan should keep up mutual visits by state leaders, suspended since 2001.
Mending ties is key to addressing a threat by reclusive North Korea to conduct a nuclear test, an issue high on the agenda during Abe's two-day visit to Beijing, host to stalled six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue.
"Japan and China shared the view that North Korea's nuclear test is unacceptable. And this is a strong message to North Korea," Abe told reporters.
A joint statement said the two sides "expressed deep concern" over the threatened nuclear test.
In Seoul, a senior Japanese official said the North Korea situation was "a very urgent matter".
"We can see the fragility of the security situation in East Asia because of North Korea," he said, adding that North Korea's return to six-party talks was "an absolute necessity".
Abe flies to South Korea on Monday for talks with President Roh Moo-hyun that are expected to focus on North Korea's threat.
"DEEP REMORSE"
China and Japan also agreed to "elevate" relations to a higher level, their joint statement said.
Abe said he wished to "build a relationship of trust with Chinese leaders".
"Sixty years of Japan's post-war history is built on our deep remorse for our country inflicting grave damage and suffering and left scars on the people of Asia," Abe told reporters. "I feel certain that my visit to China this time will lead Sino-Japanese ties to a higher level," he said.
Abe's Beijing visit is seen as a chance for a fresh start for the two countries, whose economic interdependence has grown despite the political chill.
China replaced the United States as Japan's top trade partner in 2004. Japan's trade with China, including Hong Kong, reached $212 billion last year.
"The change of government gives an opportunity for both sides to build a new relationship regardless of what has happened up to now," an aide to Abe told reporters in Beijing.
Both China and South Korea had refused summits with Koizumi because of his pilgrimages to Yasukuni, which is seen by critics as glorifying militarism by Japan, which occupied parts of China from 1931-45.
Abe, at 52 the first Japanese premier born after World War Two, has defended Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni. Abe has also paid his respects there in the past, but again declined on Sunday to say whether he would do so as prime minister.
Experts have warned that his diplomacy could backfire in Beijing and Seoul if he later visits Yasukuni.
(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg in Tokyo and Jon Herskovitz in Seoul)
why?
Bingo.
So now we have THREE of the same threads :)
This test makes China look like fools.
YOU ARE CORRECT. He has been looking exhausted.
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