Slashdot Mirror
North Korea Agrees To Suspend Nuclear Activities
Hugh Pickens writes writes "In a breakthrough in negotiations with the secretive communist nation the Guardian reports that North Korea has agreed to suspend nuclear activities and to a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests. According to U.S. State department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, North Korea has agreed to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to verify and monitor the moratorium on uranium enrichment and confirm disablement of its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. In return for the moratorium on nuclear activities at this key site, the United States has agreed to finalize a package of 240,000 metric tons of nutritional assistance to North Korea. There will be intensive monitoring to assure the delivery of such assistance is made to those in need, and not diverted to the military or government elites."
I'm more than a little Tired of reading about all these triumphant negotiation sessions over the years where NK promises to be a good boy just long enough to get the trade concessions, only to violate the agreement shortly there after. This is like the third or forth president in a row that has been duped by these tactics. As each agreement falls apart, there are the usual dire warnings about "grave consequences". These are the code words by which the US State Department looks tough, but signals the other side that the only "grave" involved is the one in which the whole issue will be buried as soon as the grandstanding is over with.
Son of Whack-Job, and Grandson of Whack-a-Doodle has absolutely no incentive to honor this agreement any more than his predecessors did the prior ones. However, a certain government leader needs a feather in his re-election hat. So we get another useless agreement with a perpetual liar state.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Alternatively, we sent desperately needed food to people who are starving to death by the tens of thousands and got a temporary concession out of the North Korean government in the process. And don't tell me it just supports the dictatorship either, do you really think the people of North Korea are about to rise up and overthrow the Kim family business? It's not going to happen until something major goes down, either a military coupe from within or a 2 week war with one of their neighbors, neither of which will be effected by us giving them food aide.
You get one chance to keep your word. This is it.
Have gnu, will travel.
Stalin used famine to crush those who opposed him. He caused one! Holodomor not ringing a fucking bell for you?
North Korea saw true famine in the 90s, it only made their people more sure that the west was the evil empire. Famine only proves to the people of North Korea that we are their enemies and only the Kims are keeping them alive.
There is a new leader. A goodwill gesture toward getting him to be friends with the international community is not a lost cause. He is not his father and may decide that he would rather move in the direction that China has moved. This is a good move for the US to make.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Here's a little tidbit from Slate: ... he seized all the grain and food that was grown in 1932 and 1933 to feed the rest of Russia and raise foreign capital, and in doing so left the entire Ukrainian people with nothing to eat—except, sometimes, themselves. ...
One more horror story. About a group of women who sought to protect children from cannibals by gathering them in an "orphanage" in the Kharkov region:
"One day the children suddenly fell silent, we turned around to see what was happening, and they were eating the smallest child, little Petrus. They were tearing strips from him and eating them. And Petrus was doing the same, he was tearing strips from himself and eating them, he ate as much as he could. The other children put their lips to his wounds and drank his blood. We took the child away from their hungry mouths and we cried."
If interested, read the whole article at http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2011/02/stalins_cannibals.single.html