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North Korea Returns To The Table
EmperorKagato writes, "North Korea has agreed to rejoin the Six Party Talks on its nuclear weapons program. The sanctions placed against North Korea on October 9, 2006 will remain in place; however, financial sanctions will be addressed by the group of the six nations: North Korea, China, Japan, United States, Russia, and South Korea."
North Korea returns to the table, we (Team America) make even more powerful nukes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/10/19/AR2006101901863.html Why do we need even more powerful weapons that we never want to use? How is doing this going to encourage any other country to disarm?
We are all just people.
This whole (queue scare quotes...) "WMD" thing is just silly. Sovereign nations should be able to do whatever the hell they want in their own borders w/o the meddling of other nations. Sure, it may be an eventual problem for other nations, but any nation should realize that the retaliation they would incur should they use those weapons in this modern time would be swift and harsh, to say the least.
Nations that cause financial hardships for the citizens of countries like NK should be ashamed. It rarely seems to have any affect on those in power (see Cuba and the 10 years between Gulf Wars I and II), and it just causes more suffering of the lower classes than they had before the sanctions.
That said, leaders who fold under international pressure against nukes (like, Kadafi, for example) are lame. Look where the US stands with India and China (both pursuing nuke tech). Very hypocritical, especially regarding China. But hey.... Wal Mart gets to import cheap shit from Asia, so we'll turn the other cheek.
Method of processing duck feet
That's not what I've been hearing at all. The US wants deep sanctions, and Japan has already implemented deep sanctions. The Chinese want sanctions, but also want North Korea to remain stable. Sanctions that cut too deep could cause instability within the North Korean government, and China would rather have a stable dictatorship with nuclear weapons on its border than an unstable failed state with nuclear weapons there. Obviously, the South Koreans are trying to balance the need to look strong with the need to avoid poking the hornet's nest right next to them.
Open war with North Korea is impossible, and they know it. Even without nukes, North Korea has the ability to basically flatten Seoul before we could do anything about it with conventional weapons, and trying to hit them with nukes would be just as bad or worse for the South Koreans. It is a very sticky situation, and North Korea is bargaining from a much stronger position than anyone likes to admit.
Sanctions only seem to work if the people in charge of the target country give a damn about the citizenry or economy. If all they care about is being in control, rather than being in charge of a nation that actually has some prestige, they'll just siphon off the country's own supplies to make up the difference.
And then there's the rhetorical win: "See, that country is trying to prevent you from having food and shelter! Aren't they evil!"
Actually, the current administration has a lot to do with the recent escalation:
On Sept. 19, 2005, North Korea signed a widely heralded denuclearization agreement with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Pyongyang pledged to "abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs." In return, Washington agreed that the United States and North Korea would "respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations."
Four days later, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea designed to cut off the country's access to the international banking system, branding it a "criminal state" guilty of counterfeiting, money laundering and trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.
Source: Newsweek
Sure, I guess that's one way to view things.
6 /10/do_you_feel_saf.html is a good recap of the situation around the DPRK's nuclear weapons program, going back to the first Bush administration.
Or, for those of us who prefer some sanity, there's the other description: When Clinton was in power, negotiations successfully stopped Korea's plutonium refinement process, and no weapons were produced. Bush, on the other hand, abandoned that agreement, resulting in Korea restarting their plutonium refinement program, producing several nuclear weapons, and testing one of them successfully.
So why exactly are we thanking him again?
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/200
"but penalizing starving peasants is never the right thing."
Neither is subsidizing their dictator.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Of course, the problem is that 'sanctions' as a concept, are a POLITICIAN'S response to a DIPLOMATIC issue.
If the government you're dealing with is vulnerable to sanctions, i.e. they give a shit about their populace like France, Germany, Japan, etc. they are PROBABLY already amenable to negotiation and diplomacy. Sanctions just become the 'biggest hammer in the toolbox' of diplomacy between what I'd call 'reasonable' nation/states.
But if you have rogue states, dictatorships, or thugocracies (as you state) that don't care about their people, 'sanctions' are a mealy-mouthed politician's way of saying "I don't really have the balls to call you on the carpet and demand you change your activity; you changing your ways isn't worth me actually risking blood and treasure. But I sure would like it to SEEM like it matters to me (to the voters, or the public, or other countries, etc.) so I'm going to call for sanctions. That will make me seem appropriately stern, without having to really risk anything."
It's a result of a democracy of milquetoast voters selecting milquetoast candidates. When the silver-spoon rich kid who evaded Vietnam service by serving in the Nat'l Guard is the 'hawk', it shouuld be abundantly clear that the testosterone levels in the American male have been plummetting for a while. And don't misunderstand me - I don't buy that 'chickenhawk' crap for one minute; Bush may have evaded the draft, Kerry (to choose another example) *tried* to 'serve without serving' by choosing a cushy Naval job, and got snookered into combat duty which he promptly tried to shirk at every opportunity while parlaying it into political fuel for his attempt to be the 'new JFK'. Bush IS clearly the hawk here, and even he wussied out short of truly LEVELLING Iraq...leaving us with another unwinnable 'twilight half-war'. Either fight to win, with every resource you can bear, or don't fight at ALL, George.
I do believe that there are no more Disraelis, Bismarcks, or Cavours. None of them would have had any hesitation to apply force where needed, call a spade a spade, or simply refuse to get sucked into other people's problems. None of them would have relied on sanctions to accomplish anything but a distraction while the real action was elsewhere.
-Styopa