John McCain thinks Barack Obama should order U.S. Navy personnel to board North Korean ships... which should work out nicely if you want to restart the Korean war. From CNN:
Appearing on the CBS program "Face the Nation," the Arizona Republican said the North Korean ship being tracked by the USS John McCain — a destroyer named after his father and grandfather — may be contributing to the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue states.
"If we have hard evidence that that ship is carrying technology equipment missiles that are in gross violation of the U.N. Security Council resolutions, I think we should board it," said McCain, who lost his presidential bid to Barack Obama in last November's election.
What is he, taking it personal??? Meanwhile:
North Korea has warned that any effort to stop one of its ships would be considered an act of war.
Thank you, thank you, 53 percent of America, for not giving this man access to the button.
Remember that deal North Korea made with the Bush administration to get off Dubya and David Frum's "Axis of Evil" baddie list? You know, the one that even Mr. Moustache thought was stupid? Well ... never mind. ... well, just add it to the pile...
Two American journalists are sentenced to 12 years hard labor in North Korea.
A former Gitmo detainee denies being a terrorist, and says yes, he was tortured.
The SUPCO has rejected a challenge to Don't Ask, Don't Tell. (Expect activists to lose their natural minds today at the Obama administration for fighting in court on behalf of the policy...) As is not uncommon, the Moderate Voice has a good post on the topic.
Laura Bush speaks up for the few remaining reasonable people in the Republican Party (did I mention she grew up a Democrat?) ... and for Judge Sotomayor.
The neocon crazy train rides again: Gaffney plays 'Hardball'
If you missed the performance on "Hardball" tonight by the almost comically paranoid Frank Gaffney (the man whose life is apparently devoted to tilting at Muslim windmills) you missed a treat like few others. David Shuster filled in admirably for Chris Matthews, and the only thing missing was that look of utter consternation that Chris tends to get on his face whenever a neocon speaks. Gaffney, who has created an entire organization to fight ... wait for it ... sharia law (which isn't being implemented in the U.S. ... yet) claimed, with all due seriousness, that:
1. The U.S. should have shot down that failed North Korean long-range missile launch, possibly restarting the Korean War and causing the annihilation of tens of thousands of South Koreans in the process. It's a thought echoed by the purportedly legit wing of the neocon press.
2. The North Koreans are developing what amounts to a "death ray" -- a super secret missile called an "EMP weapon" that can knock out all electronic devices and communications in this country, effectively bombing us back to the stone age! No, he really means it! This, the same North Korea that couldn't manage to launch a long range Taepodong missile ... that wasn't even secret because everybody knew about it in advance??? (BTW in case you're wondering, the whole EMP madness was debunked, like, years ago.)
3. Dick Cheney (of whome Gaffney declared himself a "member of the fan club" is right about the country being less safe, and we'll be even worse off if the Obama administration dismantles our super secret missile shooter-downer ... rays!!
I think I've figured it out. The neocons, who also said Saddam Hussein had developed wooden, pilotless drones that could deliver chemical weapons over the U.S., (and that he, not Tim McVeigh, blew up the Murrah building in Oklahoma) and who insisted that Ronald Reagan go to war with the Soviet Union which was going to nuke us into last week ... even as that country was busy collapsing ... are not only insane, and constantly in need of a Boogeyman to go to war with (I mean for other people to go to war with ... they don't DO fighting, themselves... too busy thinking up crazy stuff...) they're living in a warped, Twilight Zone episode of "The Jetsons," in which Mr. Spacely isn't just mean, he's trying to kill you, and make you submit to Sharia law...
Watch the segment, and pay close attention to the incredulous look on fellow panelist David Corn's face:
Medic!
Meanwhile, the cons, having learned nothing from Iraq, are already calling for regime change in North Korea. Seriously.
Despite all of the kudos from the TV punditocracy, George W. Bush's massive capitulation on North Korea -- which included walking back from demands that Pyongyang detail just what nuclear weapons it has, and to whom it has sold its weapons technology, in exchange for a generalized accounting of NK's uranium, and additional details to be provided later (whenever that is,) was a pretty shocking turn-back from the cowboy diplomacy that brought us the Iraq War. (That the Bush administration's soft shoe was a punk move actually brings parts of the left, myself included, into agreement with, of all people, John Bolton...)
But it may not be as out of character as it seemed. Bush has shown a surprising willingness to bend to the wishes of China, and to accommodate the Communist government, on trade, on Taiwan, on China's mad scramble for often blood-soaked African oil, including in the Sudan, on the North Korea deal (which is really China's deal, which Russia co-piloted and the other four parties simply gave in to,) and on Tibet, which China continues to oppress, a fact that has given rise to several world leaders' principled decision to skip the opening ceremonies of the poorly placed 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Bush's give-and-go on China has shined an unpleasant spotlight on his dogged determination to show up at the opening ceremonies, something he was forced to defend at a G8 summit press conference today in Tokyo (standing alongside Japan's Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda (who also capitulated on NK, without getting something his country dearly wanted -- answers on abducted Japanese soldiers thought to have been taken by the North Koreans during the 1970s and '80s. Fukuda plans to go to the opening ceremonies, too.) (Photo at left by Reuters)
At a news conference with Fukuda, Bush defended his decision to attend the Olympics opening ceremonies Aug. 8. Among the leaders who plan to skip that event are British Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is considering not attending.
China's role as host has focused attention on its human rights record and the security crackdown in Tibet; some U.S. conservatives have criticized Bush for planning to go to the opening ceremonies.
"The Chinese people are watching very carefully about the decisions by world leaders and I happen to believe that not going to the opening ceremony for the games would be an affront to the Chinese people, which may make it more difficult to be able to speak frankly with the Chinese leadership," the president said.
It's tempting, since Dubya is such a sports buff, to figure he's just going because it's a chance to get out of the White House, where schedulers mostly are booking him at children's parties these days, and go see some sports! But I suspect there's more to it than that, and that sucking up to China, for reasons perhaps to be explained later, is at least part of the calculation.
Bush's tendency to back down where China is concerned has been in evidence from the day he took office. Remember in the days before 9/11 spun the wheels of the constitutional spokes? What was Bush's first presidential crisis? It happened in April 2001:
A U.S. reconnaissance plane made an emergency landing in China on Sunday after colliding with a Chinese fighter sent to intercept it.
U.S. officials said the EP-3 Aries II, a U.S. Navy electronic surveillance aircraft, was on a routine mission over international waters off China when the collision occurred about 9:15 a.m. (8:15 p.m. Saturday EST). The damaged spy plane landed on the Chinese island of Hainan, about 400 miles (640 kilometers) southwest of Hong Kong, and none of its crew of 24 was injured.
Chinese state television said the F-8 fighter jet involved in the collision crashed into the South China Sea off Hainan, and its pilot was missing. The collision appeared accidental, said Air Force Lt. Col. Dewey Ford, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command in Hawaii.
... The incident comes at a time when relations between Washington and Beijing are strained over issues such as human rights and U.S. support for Taiwan.
The EP-3 is a sensitive surveillance aircraft that aviation experts say is capable of monitoring electronic communications and aircraft movements inside the Chinese mainland from points offshore.
Bush wound up kowtowing to Beijing, which had demanded an apology, by instead issuing a face-saving, but still contrite, statement of regret, which was greeted by Beijing with a "thanks, but not enough," as they continued to refuse to release the American crew. Meanwhile, Chinese editorials (in papers that are official organs of the government) blasted away at the U.S. human rights record, and at America in general, while Americans waited for resolution. One piece, in the Hong Kong Economic Times, dated April 5, 2001, stands out:
"Beijing Waits At Ease For An Exhausted Enemy"
"This incident gives China a great opportunity, turning the nation from a passive position to an active one. China's leaders can take this opportunity to test how strong the new Bush administration is.... China can clearly see whether its rival is strong and powerful, or externally strong but internally weak. Then China can lay down its strategy of how to deal with the Bush administration in the next four years. In conclusion, it can be seen from how China is handling this incident that it does not intend to let tensions escalate, nor does it want to damage Sino-U.S. relations. Since it has the bargaining chip, China can test the ability of the Bush administration to resolve this crisis. China is therefore not anxious to settle the incident."
Indeed, the Bush administration was tested, and China has pretty much known how to deal with Dubya ever since. The American pilots were released after an 11-day stand-off.
Fast-forward to September 2006, when Bush was again faced with a China problem:
China has fired high-power lasers at U.S. spy satellites flying over its territory in what experts see as a test of Chinese ability to blind the spacecraft, according to sources.
It remains unclear how many times the ground-based laser was tested against U.S. spacecraft or whether it was successful. But the combination of China's efforts and advances in Russian satellite jamming capabilities illustrate vulnerabilities to the U.S. space network are at the core of U.S. Air Force plans to develop new space architectures and highly classified systems, according to sources.
The blogger who "snipped" that clip, Afarensis, adds a bit more from Defense News:
Pentagon officials, however, have kept quiet regarding China's efforts as part of a Bush administration policy to keep from angering Beijing, which is a leading U.S. trading partnerand seen as key to dealing with onerous states like North Korea and Iran. Even the Pentagon's recent China report failed to mention Beijing's efforts to blind U.S. reconnaissance satellites. Rather, after a contentious debate, the White House directed the Pentagon to limit its concern to one line. In that one line, the report merely acknowledges China has the ability to blind U.S. satellites, thanks to a powerful ground-based laser capable of firing a beam of light at an optical reconnaissance satellite to keep it from taking pictures as it passes overhead. According to top officials, however, China not only has the capability, but has exercised it. It is not clear when China first used lasers to attack American satellites. Sources would only say that there have been several tests over the past several years.
... Wynne stressed that what's at stake isn't merely U.S. military superiority, but the fate of global commerce because signals from Air Force GPS satellites are critical to everything from airline and maritime commerce to car navigation systems.
It does beg the question, what is it with Bush and China?
He no longer has his Republican human shields in Congress. With dicey re-elections looming, it's every GOPer for him/herself. And with Bush's new tack to the center (which appears for all the world to be a mad dash for some shred of a legacy beyond Iraq,) combined with his dismal polling, Bush has become the guy nobody invited to the party, but who showed up anyway. (Hell, the POTUS can't even get a porch wave...) Quite a fall from the hero worship and almost cultish support he enjoyed from the FReeperati for years after 9/11 (remember the days when you would get banned for criticizing "The President?" or when the Free Republic had a gauzy, nauseating daily thread called "pray for the president"? Gonzo.)
So now, Dubya is in trubya with his former winger friends, over turning North Korea into a one-country "Axis of not-so-evil." Observe:
Several prominent House Republicans blasted the White House Thursday for removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, as some of President Bush’s staunchest supporters in the war on terror publicly lambasted him for engaging the country once famously branded as part of the "axis of evil."
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed her “profound disappointment” over the decision, while Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, also expressed his outrage.
“Lifting sanctions and removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism flies in the face of history and rewards its brutal dictator for shallow gestures,” said Hoekstra, who has not shied away from criticizing the White House in recent years.
“Just as the Clinton administration was fooled by the Kim Jong-Il regime, time will soon tell if the Bush administration will fall for the same bait,” he added.
...“The administration’s call for North Korea to be removed from the state sponsors of terrorism list is cause for profound concern,” said Ros-Lehtinen. “Serious verification questions linger, and I would have hoped that the administration would have shown more caution, and less haste, on a matter of this gravity.”
Let's face it. Ileana's got a tough re-election fight for the first time in her career, and distancing herself from Bush at a time when many Cuban-American voters are jumping the GOP ship (no pun intended) is good politics. And with winger voters, it never hurts to make ominous noises in the general direction of foreign countries...
Besides the fact that North Korea gets to put off detailing its nuclear weapons holdings, today's agreement, which is largely drawing muted cheers, also leaves Japan in the lurch. The Asia Times' Ralph Cossa explained the Japanese dilemma just yesterday:
Intertwined in all the above is the North Korea-Japan normalization process, which both are committed to making "sincere efforts" to address. A dispute over "full accounting" regarding Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s has resulted in a bilateral stalemate.
Pyongyang acknowledged the kidnappings in 2002 but then claimed the issue was "settled" (with the return of five abductees and the announcement that eight others had died). Tokyo disagrees: it refutes both the accounting of how the eight died and believes there are more abductees still not acknowledged or accounted for. More importantly for Washington, Tokyo believes it has a commitment from Bush that the US will not remove North Korea from the terrorist sponsors list until there has been "progress" in resolving this dispute. Suspicions in Japan about Washington's perceived over-eagerness to accommodate Pyongyang continue to make this a sensitive alliance issue.
As a result, the agreement in early June 2008 by Pyongyang to "reinvestigate the abduction issue" is seen as a major step forward (and a diplomatic victory of sorts for Hill), even if it comes with no promise of actually providing more information, much less more abductees.
The mere fact that Pyongyang has reopened discussions constitutes some form of "progress", thus allowing Japan to begrudgingly endorse the removal of Pyongyang from the state sponsors list, provided there really is a "complete and correct declaration".
Of course, the reporter underestimated the desperation of the Bushies to get a deal, and the power of China to force one. Thus, as the New York Times explains today:
Japanese politicians like former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe complained this week that the United States should not remove North Korea from the terrorism list until there is a full accounting of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea in the 1970’s. Doing so would harm relations between Tokyo and Washington, Mr. Abe warned.
On Wednesday, President Bush talked to Japan’s Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda by telephone and assured him that he had not forgotten about the abductees. And in a nod to Japan in his comments Thursday, Mr. Bush said the United States would “never forget” the abductions of Japanese citizens.
On Thursday, Mr. Fukuda, a moderate, rejected criticism inside Japan that Tokyo now had little leverage over Pyongyang because of its removal from the terrorism list. He said working with the United States “will be really necessary to realize the denuclearization and, at the same time, pave the way for solving the abduction issue, which is a major task for our country.”
And Mr. Bush said in his brief presser today:
The other thing I want to assure our friends in Japan is that this process will not leave behind -- leave them behind on the abduction issue. The United States takes the abduction issue very seriously. We expect the North Koreans to solve this issue in a positive way for the Japanese. There's a lot of folks in Japan that are deeply concerned about what took place. I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office. It was a heart-wrenching moment to listen to the mother talk about what it was like to lose her daughter. And it is important for the Japanese people to know that the United States will not abandon our strong ally and friend when it comes to helping resolve that issue.
in other words, the U.S. and Japan both caved on key issues in order to get a deal, which is of questionable value from the standpoint of what's supposedly the most important issue: nuclear weapons. Confused yet?
Q Mr. President, what do you say to critics who claim that you've accepted a watered-down declaration just to get something done before you leave office? I mean, you said that it doesn't address the uranium enrichment issue, and, of course, it doesn't address what North Korea might have done to help Syria build its reactor.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first, let me review where we have been. In the past, we would provide benefits to the North Koreans in the hope that they would fulfill a vague promise. In other words, that's the way it was before I came into office.
Everybody was concerned about North Korea possessing a nuclear weapon; everybody was concerned about the proliferation activities. And yet the policy in the past was, here are some benefits for you, and we hope that you respond. And, of course, we found they weren't responding. And so our policy has changed, that says, in return for positive action, in return for verifiable steps, we will reduce penalties. And there are plenty of restrictions still on North Korea.
And so my point is this, is that -- we'll see. They said they're going to destroy parts of their plant in Yongbyon. That's a very positive step -- after all, it's the plant that made plutonium. They have said in their declarations, if you read their declarations of September last year, they have said specifically what they will do. And our policy, and the statement today, makes it clear we will hold them to account for their promises. And when they fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be eased. If they don't fulfill their promises, more restrictions will be placed on them. This is action for action. This is we will trust you only to the extent that you fulfill your promises.
So I'm pleased with the progress. I'm under no illusions that this is the first step; this isn't the end of the process, this is the beginning of the process of action for action. And the point I want to make to our fellow citizens is that we have worked hard to put multilateral diplomacy in place, because the United States sitting down with Kim Jong-il didn't work in the past. Sitting alone at the table just didn't work.
Now, as I mentioned in my statement, there's a lot more verification that needs to be done. I mentioned our concerns about enrichment. We expect the North Korean regime to be forthcoming about their programs. We talked about proliferation. We expect them to be forthcoming about their proliferation activities and cease such activities. I mentioned the fact that we're beginning to take inventory, because of our access to the Yongbyon plant, about what they have produced, and we expect them to be forthcoming with what they have produced and the material itself.
Uh-huh... you expect them to be forthcoming... or what?
The WaPo's top story has the Bush administration preparing to give North Korea a "get out of the Axis of Evil free" card as the "six party talks" regarding its nuclear programs bear limited fruit. Note the lead country in making the deal: China.
KYOTO, Japan, June 26 -- Nearly seven years after President Bush described it as part of "an axis of evil" and less than two years after it stunned the world by exploding a small nuclear device, Kim Jong Il's Stalinist dictatorship in North Korea appears on the brink of emerging from decades of diplomatic isolation.
North Korea on Thursday handed over to Chinese diplomats here a long-awaited declaration detailing its rogue nuclear program, clearing the way for an increase in international aid and removal of the country from a U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism. The Bush administration has announced that when the declaration is handed over, it will start a process of removing North Korea from the list.
The president is scheduled to speak about North Korea this morning.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said that following receipt of the document "the United States will implement its obligations to remove the designation of (North Korea) as a state sponsor of terrorism and to terminate applications of the Trading with the Enemy Act."
NoKo's declaration will not even be "complete." The Bush administration is in such a rush to wring at least one success out of the last eight, miserable years, its willing to pull the plug on NOKO's terror designation without actually finding out what nuclear weapons it has, or whether it has transferred nuclear technology to other countries, including Syria. Huh??? The announcement left poor Condi Rice explaining that what the Six Parties will get -- an accounting of how much plutonium North Korea has produced over the years -- will give us "the upper hand" in understanding Kim's nuke program. Whatever helps you sleep at night, mama. As the Asia Times' Donald Kirk points out:
The declaration contains no clues about the caves and redoubts, the laboratories and production facilities where North Korean scientists are believed to have begun to learn how to fabricate a warhead from highly enriched uranium. It does not admit acquisition of centrifuges from the disgraced Pakistan physicist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and it says nothing about acquiring from his network the technology if not the materiel or the training and experience needed to go the final steps to production of a uranium bomb.
Nor does the declaration reveal anything about proliferation of North Korea's nuclear materiel, technology, training and expertise to other countries, notably to Syria, where the Israelis bombed a facility to oblivion in September. Similarly, it maintains silence on North Korea's history of nuclear exchanges with other Middle Eastern countries, notably Iran, which has long boasted of using highly enriched uranium for electrical power while denying any military purposes.
Equally important, the declaration leaves out the question of what North Korea has done with all the plutonium produced for warheads at its nuclear complex at Yongbyon, 100 kilometers north of Pyongyang. There's no word on how many warheads it has there, leaving intelligence analysts to repeat longstanding estimates of anywhere from six to a dozen.
After having insisted repeatedly that North Korea had to "come clean" on its uranium program and proliferation, and also account for all the plutonium warheads, the US decided to forsake that approach in the interests of advancing the protracted process of getting North Korea finally to abandon the entire program.
Which is kind of strange, since the U.S. insisted -- to the point of invasion -- that Saddam Hussein "come clean" and bear his complete soul regarding his nuclear "programs." Bush was not satisfied with Saddam's declaration of how much nuclear material it had, and what it destroyed. But with North Korea, lack of detail is no impediment to making a deal. Meanwhile, we await a similar softening when it comes to Iran, which has repeatedly insisted (with back-up from the IAEA,) that it has no nuclear weapons program. Ironic, ain't it?
But hey, today's momentous announcement won't be all for naught. There will be "good explosion video!"
(Washington Post) -- North Korea has said it will follow up on the release of the declaration by blowing up, as early as Friday, the cooling tower of its Yongbyon nuclear facility. It has invited some Western media to televise the largely symbolic event at the plant, which U.S. inspectors say has been substantially dismantled over the past year.
Alright!!!
Meanwhile, Steve Clemons is much less cynical than I am, and he makes a good point about the dissymmetry between the U.S. postures on North Korea and Iran:
This is huge news -- and is a giant step in putting US-North Korea relations on a new and more constructive track. This is a success for the Bush administration -- and more importantly for Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian & Pacfic Affairs Christopher Hill who has been a punching bag for former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton who has been spitting on Hill's deal-making for the last year.
There are still a lot of questions ranging from the interesting issue of North Korea cooperation with Syria's alleged nuclear facility that was destroyed by Israel and other issues -- but when President Bush gave Colin Powell the positive nod in the first week of April 2003 to proceed with the Six Party Talks, Bush and Cheney ignored Iran's offer of a structure for normalized US-Iran relations the very same week in 2003.
The contrast in circumstances between where America is today with North Korea and where we are with Iran is vital to note. We 'engaged' North Korea and blew it with Iran.
Clemons also makes the point that the agreement could not have been reached without China, which was the lead negotiator in the talks that finally brought Kim around. And he says there's good news in the deal for Barack Obama:
Barack Obama's inclination towards engagement with problematic leaders around the world now is now buttressed by an experience of the George W. Bush administration.
We await John McCain's statement about how we didn't so much "talk" to North Korea as we invaded them psychologically ... for 100 years... oh my damn...
Meanwhile, an interesting op-ed in the WaPo this morning raises the question of whether the same "pressure principles" -- talking and not threatening to invade -- might apply to the arguably wicked Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Swaminathan S. Anklesaria, an editor at the Economic Times, (and who also writes a terrifically titled column in the Times of India called "Swaminomics," gotta love that... argues there is no moral ground to oust Mugabe, despite his sins.
Quick take headlines: Thursdays in the park with Cheney
There will be no indictment against the white woman who pointed out 14-year-old Emmit Till to her husband and brother in law, who later murdered the boy and threw his body into the Tallahatchee River. Even 50 years later, the case is chilling. And while the jury found "not enough evidence" of Carolyn Bryant Donham's guilt, she knows that guilt full well. The good news is that God will deal with her.
Take the person who briefed reporters aboard Vice President Cheney's plane after his secret stay in Afghanistan. He didn't want his name used when he talked to reporters, but he kept using the words "I" and "me" as he referred to Cheney and to the reason for the vice president's visit.
For example, the source said, "The reason the president wanted me to come, obviously, is because of the continuing threat that exists in this part of the world."
And when it comes to the reports that Cheney went in to "beat up on" the Pakistani president and to get him to crack down on al-Qaida and Taliban fighters on the border with Afghanistan, the official said, "That's not the way I work."
Howard Kurtz of the WaPo asks in his column whether reporters should have refused to go along with Cheney's "anonymous source" fakery, and he lambastes blog commenters who seemed to wish that suicide bomber had succeeded. Earth to Kurtz! People were joking, and let's recall that it was right wingers who started us down this path to hating the president of the opposite party...
Meanwhile, the poster child for the Sovietization of America, Jose Padilla, has been ruled competent to stand trial. Padilla's case is an embarassment to the now quaint notion that the United States is a nation of laws, where the president is prevented from wielding dictatorial power over helpless citizens.
Over to Iraq, where U.S. troops are moving out of fortified bases, and into the violent, chaotic neighborhoods they usually patrol. Sounds like a recipe for more U.S. casualties. And the U.S. continues to insist that no children were killed in a soccer field bomb blast in Ramadi this week. But a local sheikh says differently.
Meanwhile, Africa has become a key transit point for illegal drugs, particularly cocaine and heroine trafficking. Just what they need.
