Who here is in favor of war with N. Korea?

Bush would never say this because it's TRUE!

 

Oh, this should be good.

FWIW: I opposed the WAY we went to war in Iraq, not the idea of the war per se.

N. Korea is a completely different case. It will take more than administration dissembling and rhetoric about WMD and terrorist links -- all of which are much easier proved regaring the PRK than against Iraq. But, as you mentioned, the kind of war we're talking about is a much, much more serious undertaking.

The administration will have a much higher standard of justification in order to get public approval for something that will cost tens of thousands (if not hundreds) of lives and derail the world's 13th largest economy (by GDP) for an undetermined period. Then there's the China question...

Not the same situation, AT ALL. A much stronger case for intervention, but a much stronger enemy in a more volatile region.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

 

Didn't the soviet union also have WMD and evil dictators? Why didn't we invade them?

Oh, right, we used constructive engagement over 40 years to achieve our goals.

Such a shame that coherant long-term policy is incompatible with America these days.

 

I am most definitely not in favor of war.

But I do think that we should make regime change in NK a de facto, if unstated, goal of US policy if it isn't already.

To destabilize NK I think that we should promote an exodus of refugees. The problem here is that China has enough domestic problems and doesn't need hundreds of thousands of half-starved North Koreans wandering around, on top of the North Koreans already living there. I would hope however that some accomodation could be found with Beijing, perhaps an international coalition agreeing to pay for the cost of refugee camps or other countries agreeing to house a share of them.

But the question is, does Beijing even want to see Kim Jong Il out of power? Probably not. But I doubt it is such a vital interest that they don't have a price. Perhaps a price that South Korea would be willing to pay, like increased economic aid or Samsung or Hyundai suddenly agreeing to build new factories and ramp up investment in China. I don't know.

The problem here is that I am not at all convinced Seoul isn't content with the status quo. Although they profess a love for their North Korean brothers, they are terrified of the potential flood of refugees that a North Korean collapse might entail. I also think that they are reluctant to admit that the sunshine policy has been a disaster.

So the way I see it, the US can't do a whole lot until we get both Beijing and Seoul to see the light that the collapse of the North's Stalinist regime would be a good thing. Until that happens I say the US should withdraw our troops and let China, SK and Japan take the lead. It's much more their problem than it is ours.

 

If this was really only a problem for North Korea's neighbors, then there wouldn't be a problem. Kim Jong Il's government is insisting on face to face negotiations with the US because we're the only country they regard as a threat. They don't feel threatened militarily by China, Japan or South Korea, and those countries have essentially no influence on US foreign policy, so why bother talking to them about nuclear weapons? The North Koreans mostly view their nuclear weapons program as insurance against US imperial fantasies and as a lever to get economic aid. Therefore, they will stop their weapons development program in exchange for help and believable promises of peace from the US. I say they will because they have done so in the past.

There has only been a proliferation problem with North Korea twice in the last decade. First, when the Ginrich lead House led a move to gut the treaty Clinton had signed (later restored to something vaguely resembling the original intent), and second, when Bush repudiated most of Clinton's policies as soon he was sworn in. Bush has already back tracked on these changes a number of times, mostly on things that will only produce a couple of column inches on the inside of the newspapers and no notice at all on TV. I think that if he is successful in dealing with North Korea, it will be because he will have turned back to the main points of Clinton's policy in this area.

 

This article struck me as interesting.

Pulling american troops away from the border is an offensive move (cuz then they are not in the way of retaliation when we strike their nuclear reactor via missles and planes)

http://www.msnbc.com/news/924258.asp?0dm=C16RO

Quite different than the old days when a country would declare war when it saw its neighbor building up troops on a common border - huh?

 

Partially true, but there is also a political angle at work. By insisting on negotiating with the US, NK is attempting a divide and conquer strategy, attempting to alienate the US from SK. They have actually had some success here, with many younger South Koreans having a somewhat positive view of the North and regarding the US as unwelcome interlopers.

The problem with this is that it's not true. As Nicolas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute has noted, North Korea, outside of perhaps an international postal union or something, has an incredibly poor record of abiding by treaties and agreements. They are the definition of a pariah state.

Actually Bush didn't change Clinton's policies much at all. Rather he announced a review of North Korea policy would be held. In the interim the US did little. In October of 2002 the Bush administration finally dispatched James Kelly to Pyongyang for talks. Kelly's own words:

http://usembassy.state.gov/seoul/wwwh43cv.html

However, as I explained to the North Koreans, it had become impossible for the United States to move forward on that approach because of recently acquired information. That information had indicated that North Korea has a program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons in violation of the Agreed Framework and of other international agreements. I told the North that they must immediately and visibly dismantle this covert nuclear weapons program. After initial denials, North Korean officials flatly acknowledged that they have such a program and declared that they considered the Agreed Framework to be "nullified." The North Korean side attempted to blame this situation on recent U.S. policy, but I pointed out that this was inconsistent with information we had that their uranium enrichment program is already several years old.

In other words -- unless you view the North Koreans as more trustworthy than the Bush administration, no doubt a close call for many of your lefties -- North Korea had been violating the AF even under the Clinton administration. But Clinton's response was to play hear no evil, see no evil, and instead of confronting NK actually sent Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang to attend a party.

There are also practical problems with the AF. NK is home to something like 12,000 caves and holes in the ground. How do we verify that their nuke program isn't being conducted in secret in one of these locations? Plainly we can't simply take their word for it.

Also, why were we building nuclear reactors that North Korea's decrepit electrical grid couldn't even handle?

http://www.npec-web.org/opeds/10-29-00-washpost.htm

In the case of the Agreed Framework, the United States is offering two reactors that will produce far more electricity than North Korea, with its limited electrical grid, can handle. This was driven home recently by a World Bank analysis done for the Korean Energy Development Organization (KEDO), an international group created by the framework to build the two reactors. Bradley Babson, the World Bank's senior adviser on North Korea, wrote that "if the nuclear plant project supported by KEDO was subjected to a normal World Bank project evaluation and appraisal, it would get an F." The reason, he explained, was that North Korea's capacity to generate and distribute electricity was far too meager to absorb even one of the proposed 1-gigawatt nuclear power reactors. Without the ability to exploit the electricity produced, he noted, Pyongyang would never be able to repay the interest-free loan it took out to pay for the reactors.

But let's drop the practical issues and assume that North Korea is completely trustworthy. Even so, what kind of precedent does the AF set? That the surest way to obtain economic aid from the US is to build a nuke? Is that the lesson Iran should take from all this? Why should US taxpayers subsidize the last Stalinist regime on earth, home to some of the most horrific violations of human rights on earth (even worse than Guantanamo from what I hear)? I find those to be very problematic questions.

 

I thought the pulling back of the troops was an FU at the current South Korean administration (who would be working in a PRNK rice paddy if it wasn't for said troops).

 

Re: Re: Who here is in favor of war with N. Korea?

OK, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the situation was thus under Clinton;

1) we talked to NK and worked out an agreement where we would help them with "safer" reactors, and other aid.
2) we gave them oil and food and dragged our feet on the nukes. Had to do rewrite the environmental impact statement. Basically, we did nothing for them nuke-wise.

Why? Cuz we figured he wouldn't last more than 2-3 years before NK completely imploded and something - anything - would be an improvement. We played them for time. Please reference Soviet Union, late 80's.

And please - first republicans assert that dems love saddam more than Bush, now you say we like Kim more than Bush. Obvious complet-wrongness aside, who's next?

No - that's just a nice side-effect.

 

Re: Re: Re: Who here is in favor of war with N. Korea?

Well, we weren't quite in charge of building the reactors. Rather it was an organization known as KEDO.

http://www.kedo.org/

Yeah, the process was dragged out, but if we were hoping for an implosion we went about it in bizarre fashion, giving NK both oil and food aid. I'm not sure how a collapse is supposed to occur under those conditions.

Meanwhile, as this was going on NK went ahead with its nuke program anyhow according to Kelly.

Never said that. Rather I said many lefties may view Pyongyang as more trustworthy than the Bush administration. Said nothing about liking them more. It was tongue in cheek anyhow.

 

Except they were rational and essentially predictable. Not to mention capable of wiping us off the planet.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Who here is in favor of war with N. Korea?

Well, lets see - Clinton gave them some food and oil (not as much as promised), and made sure no reactors got built. Maybe that bought us a few months of delays in the NK program as they tried to hide their program better.

And now, Japan/SK/China are giving them food and oil, and they're more blatant about their plans and the acceleration.

Giving food and oil is for humanitarian purposes. You could hardly grudge any administration or nation for donating it, can you? Yes, it prolongs the suffering of NK, but w/o it, the suffering would be less - because a hundred thousand or so NK peasants would have suffered their last.

(unless they're Buddhist)

 

Except that NK will sell the technology, if not the nukes themselves, to anyone. Unfortunatley, it's our problem. I just hope Bush can do a better job of dealing with it than Clinton-Carter (not that he could do worse).

I agree that we should withdraw our troops. There's no reason our guys should be sitting ducks.

 

And Kim is predictable - lots of posturing, speeches against the US, starving his country, builds palaces and big statues, threatens his neighbors, works on his nuke and long-range missle program, bangs hot little north korean singer/maids and hogs all the internet porn for himself.

Exactly what I'd do as a dictator.

 

we aren't withdrawing them, we're staging them in a more offensive stance, that won't require retreating & reinforcement b4 we counterstrike. it also let's us posture for a pre-emptive strike if they do something stupid.

if anything, we should double our footprint and adopt the Reagan strategy of bargaining from a position of authority, that is give them what they want(cash, diesel fuel and assurances we won't attack 1st) in exchange for what we want( nuke monitors, stopping offensive unconventional production, stop working on Nodong & Typodong 1-2 missiles, stop selling weapons to Iran and other baddies)

they ratchet up the crisis level to get attention and we can't ignore them firing rockets over japan and test firing anti-ship missiles, so let's create an envio the looks like we're affecting regime chg and see how far we can push b4 they topple. brinksmanship is dangerous, but it could increase the stability long term.

A war w/ NK is undesireable since the collateral cost on both sides will be enormous and our troop losses could reach in the several thousands, since NK has burried fortified positions and special forces numbering in the hundred thousands-and ya saw what that rag tag bunch of fedayeen did to our supply lines. OPLAN5027 calls for an aggessive multifront rapid advance w/ amphibious assault and air infantry landings to capture Pyongyang. i imagine their blue water threat & air power will be neutralized very quickly followed by ground forces. We'll use bunker busters and heavy strategic bombing to counter their shelling, but IMHO it will take much longer than planned and the cost will be huge.

So, w/ that being said, I'm against going to war unless provoked into preemptive action by factors deemed essential to protecting strategic interest. if we go to war, we'll win and the Korean peninsula will be reunited under Seoul. but I doubt any action will be taken at all, since our iraqi deployments have stretched our ranks too thin to mount anything in 2k3, and 2k4 will be an ellection yr. Pres Rove wont risk a rtn to Austin that quickly.

 

Better question is...

Knowing today that North Korea almost certianly has nukes, if you could go back in time 10 years and order an invasion of a nuke-less north (I guess the time-travel process would turn you into Bill Clinton), would you do it?

 

I would say no, up to the point where they use nukes or give the technology to somebody who does.

We can't just go around invading countries that are about to get nukes, can we? There's gotta be better non-proliferation stategies than that. Good diplomacy can prevent more problems than military "solutions" could ever fix.

Even the most gung-ho of americans in our armed forces would surely rather have somebody effective at the diplomatic helm instead of a warmonger that keeps sending them overseas into permanent conflict, right?

You're going into the armed forces, right? Don't you only want to invade/attack only when necessary?

 

No... let's continue to try to engage them diplomatically.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Who here is in favor of war with N. Korea?

So we give NK food, oil and begin construction on nuclear reactors for them, and maybe that bought us a few months. Great deal. Not.

I'm unaware of Japan giving NK anything, especially in the wake of NK revelations about kidnapping Japanese citizens. As for China and SK, that's nothing new. Yes, the key difference is that NK is more blatant. But does that mean that it is better if they are doing it in secret? Does that allow us to pretend it isn't happening?

But this isn't true. Food aid to NK does not reach those who need it most. It is suspected that much of it actually goes to feed the army and politically reliable individuals. This is why almost every humanitarian group has pulled out of the country.

 

North Korea's possession of nukes by itself isn't our problem. They can only be used against NK's neighbors. I agree that proliferation of the nukes and/or the technology is our problem. I think that the following Bush administration policy may be a step in the right direction:

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20030604-104133-3700r.htm

 

Fair enough. But if you knew North Korea (we're not talking India or Pakistan here) was going to have a bomb in a few years if you didn't do something about it, and everything short of invasion was tried and didn't work, would you not pull the trigger?

 

I think they're bluffing, and so do some people in State as well, as I read after they bragged they had enough for 3 nukes. I say, call their hand and force a settlement.

 

But it's the first refuge of Gee Dubbya... what in God's name does that make him!?

 

FWIW, we are still at war with N. Korea. They only signed a 'cease fire' not a 'peace treaty.' In which case the N. Korean's have already broken that 'cease fire' agreement many times since it was signed and I'm sure that the US has too. Any time the N. Korean's cross into S. Korean water they break that agreement.