If Iran weren’t sitting on 90 billion barrels of crude and 23 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. — Hussein Toasterhead

****************************************************

Exactly. After all, North Korea is one of the countries which Bush included among the “Axis of Evil” back in the 2002 State of the Union address — and at least in the earlier years of the Bush administration, the North Korean government seemed to be sending clear signals of an active nuclear weapons program:

1) In 2003, they withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — allegedly over failure on our part to uphold our end of the Agreed Framework, an agreement which we signed with them in 1994…

2) In early 2003 — allegedly in response to the collapse of Agreed Framework — North Korea expelled United Nations inspectors, removed the inspectors’ monitoring equipment, and resumed reprocessing of spent fuel rods

3) In 2004, a Pakistani scientist by the name of Abdul Qadeer Kahn (acknowledged as the founder of their nuclear program) admitted that he had provided North Korea with information potentially enabling them to begin an enriched uranium program in exchange for missile technology — a confession initially confirmed by President Musharraf but recently retracted by Dr. Khan…

4) In 2006, North Korea announced that they had completed a successful nuclear test — and seismographic activity recorded by both the United States and Japan at around the time of the alleged test lends at least some credibility to this claim…

5) North Korea is known to have short-range missile technology which allows them to strike Japan and South Korea as well as parts of China and Russia. Long-range missile technology is under development which could theoretically reach Alaska or even the West Coast — however, a test in 2005 was a failure.

So what happened — or rather, why did nothing happen? Why did we never launch attacks against North Korea — or even rattle our saber towards them nearly as often towards them as we did towards Iraq and are currently doing towards Iran? Granted, it’s quite possible that China was a major deterrent — it’s a historical fact that China assisted North Korea during the Korean War and still provides support in terms of food aid, so it seems somewhat unlikely that China would have reacted well had the United States launched attacks against a sometime ally (never mind one right across their own border). Under pressure from China, North Korea eventually agreed to multi-lateral talks with the United States and China with the additional cooperation of Japan, Russia, and South Korea (and someone explain to me — if you can!– why this doesn’t qualify as “negotiating with the enemy”). However, it’s equally if not even more plausible that oil is the primary rationale. Iran and Iraq are reportedly among the world’s top five countries in terms of proven oil reserves — the other three being Saudi Arabia (naturally), Canada, and Kuwait — but North Korea has little if any resources to speak of that we need, which is probably why we haven’t done anything to them. The United States is, after all, proud of its image as a defender of democracy — but the fact is that the image is not entirely deserved. We’re quite capable of defending democracy when it suits our purposes to do so, but also quite capable of turning a blind eye to injustice and tyranny if it doesn’t. We’re even quite capable of subverting democracy when it suits our purposes to do so as well…Operation Ajax, anyone?

McCain HAS to reach back to the time of Hitler to make his revisionist history work. — Xisithrus

***************************************************

Damn…you beat me to it. Exactly the point that I was going to make.

However, as long as we’re on that tack…what about the SALT — Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty — talks that Presidents Nixon (SALT I) and Carter (SALT II) had with Leonid Brezhnev? Hell, I’m not forty yet but I remember the SALT II Talks and know that I had at least some understanding of what they were about even though I was only twelve or so at the time. I know that I have a better memory than a lot of people but it surely can’t be that much better — unless that fact that I don’t drink has something to do with it — and at McCain’s age, if he can’t remember the SALT Talks or glasnost, it’s not a good sign (or am I the only person who’s been struck with the thought that perhaps McCain’s gaffes could potentially be a sign that he’s already in the early stages of Alzheimer’s?)

June 2nd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
________

Wacko religious views? Pah! Religion is merely the decorative floral detail on the icing of the Greater Middle Eastern conflict-cake. Sure, there may be a few Rapture-Ready ruminants cheerleading the upcoming Iran War to satisfy their Revelation fantasies, but otherwise religion is almost completely irrelevant.

If Iran weren’t sitting on 90 billion barrels of crude and 23 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

It think it’s strange that we are so out for freedom of religion (which I support wholeheartedly) that we seem incapable of calling people out for the fact that their wacko views are patently religious ones and without merit. Especially when those views are held by those who are ready to kill each other over them.

I think we should be calling out ALL of these people for their dumb views.

Sorry to be off topic.

McCain HAS to reach back to the time of Hitler to make his revisionist history work.

June 2nd, 2008 at 1:57 pm
______

You’re absolutely right. Negotiating with that type of evil is indeed pointless. However, since we’re not negotiating with some cartoon supervillain, your point is moronic.

Your premise is simply false. Iran’s “starting point” is not to destroy Israel and not to kill all the Jews in the world, or they certainly would have started with the 55,000 Jews who live in Iran.

“And let’s not forget what do American officials get to see? Well, they get to see the rooftops of a lot of Iraqi houses as they chopper over them or across vast expanses of desert. They get to see rooms in the inside of U.S. bases in the Green Zone, both of which are divorced from reality. And they’ll get inundated with military briefings.”

This is consistent with what Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), a decorated combat veteran and a former Secretary of the Navy, said when he called visits from congressional delegations “dog and pony shows.”

So visiting Baghdad and buying 5 rugs for $5, doesn’t tell you much about the status of the war and the country?

He called for the United Nations to impose tougher political and economic sanctions, and saying that if it fails to do so that the United States should lead “like-minded countries” in imposing their own sanctions, including some sanctions that he said would “impose a heavy cost on the regime’s leaders, including the denial of visas and freezing of assets.’’ And he spoke of spearheading a worldwide divestment campaign, modeled on the one that helped pressure South Africa to end apartheid.

Right tougher sanctions to pressure a hostile regime to fold?

Now didnt we try that with some other country not too long ago? How did that turn out? Oh yeah it strengthened the regime and only punished the civilian population. And when sanctions didnt work a moron US president decided to start a war causing even more death and destruction.

Also a bit ironic McCain talking about pressuring Iran like the South African apartheid-regime, in order to protect another apartheid system in the Palestinian territories.

Grampy, you got nothing, if you don’t talk to them, how are you going to discover that you are wrong? Oh, that’s right, repukes are never wrong, I their mind, that is.

We’ve got a host of Trolls appear daily, wallowing up to their red necks in this manure.

We’ve got mainstream media parroting every talking point of (R)’s.

We’ve got ex-officio members, (Rove, Snow, Fleischer, Wolfowitz, Feith, etc.), appearing now as ‘expert’ talking heads, changing their stories daily.

We’ve got Senators, (LIEberman, Graham, McCain, Imhofe, etc.) altering or fabricating facts to replace lies & distortions.

We’ve got Bush & Cheney still proclaiming bald faced lies daily.

But! We’ve got McLelland trying to tell the truth. Thanks, Scotty. We may find intelligent life yet under this administration.

June 2nd, 2008 at 2:19 pm
______

Neither is Iran. What’s your point?

June 2nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
_______

The Pentagon doesn’t sign $2.9 billion contracts for talk bombs.