NORTHKOREA

workingforchange: One hell of a mess: a North Korea primer

Dubya basks in the sunshine, baits pygmies, and puzzles over two presidents named Kim

When we need a laugh in grim times, we count on our Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Whoopi Goldberg of the Bush administration. This week, Ashcroft took time off from tracking down terrorists in order to bust 55 people for selling rolling papers, pipes and other drug paraphernalia. Nice to see a man who's got his priorities straight.

Onward. Let's review the bidding on North Korea. "Review the bidding" is a bridge term for "how the hell did we get into this mess?" In 1994, the Clinton administration came to something called the Agreed Framework with North Korea, under which Pyongyang agreed to put its 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods -- which can be easily converted into weapons-grade plutonium -- into storage, watched over by U.N. inspectors and cameras. In return, they were supposed to get two light-water nuclear reactors and economic and diplomatic relations.

Unfortunately, we didn't quite live up to our end of the bargain. As usual, the Republicans had a cow and decided anything agreed to by Clinton (not to mention the dread Jimmy Carter) must be a sellout. We did, however, provide a substantial amount of food and fuel aid over the years, and in 2000 the Swiss company ABB agreed to deliver equipment and services for two nuclear power stations at Kumho. Interestingly enough, Donald Rumsfeld was on the board of ABB at the time, though a Pentagon spokeswoman says the secretary does not recall the $200 million deal ever having been brought before the board.

So in comes Bush, and six weeks into his term, March 2001, Bush humiliates President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea during his visit to Washington by announcing we would not support his "sunshine initiative" to improve relations between the Koreas.

The initiative for which Kim Dae Jung won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize.


"guter artikel über die Gründe die zur momentanen Krise mit Nordkorea geführt haben...es ist geroge's schuld"