Thinkin’bout Stuff

Well, it’s clear he has no intention of showing the class and courtesy of other former presidents, but it is truly sad to watch as he makes a fool of himself by continuously trying to rewrite history to improve his place in it while tearing down our current president.  The latest was actually one of his mildest attacks:

“Obviously most of the blame is on North Korea but it is U.S. policies that have brought us to this status.  The Bush administration changed that policy. They put in the trash can the agreement with North Korea, and as a result of that — and threatened North Korea with military attack — and as a result of those threats and the discarding of the previous agreement, North Korea announced that they were withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It’s like night and day. It was daytime when Clinton was in office that totally prohibited and prevented any sort of plutonium enrichment. All that was dramatically changed under George Bush and now we have the North Koreans having exploded a plutonium bomb.”

The Non-Proliferation Treaty referred to is the one signed by North Korea in 1985 and violated ever since, before and after the 1994 agreement to buy North Korea’s compliance. 

So… at least we have established that most of the blame for North Korea detonating a nuclear device is North Korea’s fault.  But there is still that little, teensy weensy smidgen of blame that President Bush has because he was mean to the North Koreans.  But was the agreement Carter negotiated with North Korea really working?  Or is this another Carter rewrite, kind of like a diplomatic mulligan?

For all the good things Jimmy Carter has done since the end of his presidency, his four years in office are widely recognized as a failure.  From the Iranian Hostage Crises, to double digit inflation, prime interest rate at 21.5%, Panama Canal Treaty to turn over control of the US built canal, pulling out of the 1980 Olympics to protest Soviet aggression (I thought we were supposed to set aside differences in the spirit of Olympic diplomacy… a friend of mine trained his whole life only to have his dream crushed), reinstatement of the registration for the draft, cancellation of the B-1 bomber program, oil shortages, high unemployment, and slow economic growth… the list goes on and on.  The point is, when did Jimmy Carter become someone we would want advice on anything on?

His diplomatic “victories” in his post-presidency have largely been fabricated by a friendly press.  North Korea is a prime example, and brings me back from the tangent I went off on. Not everyone in 1994 thought this was a great idea: 

William Safire, New York Times, 10/28/94:   Because Clinton backed down, North Korea’s first two atomic explosives - which administration spinmeisters now dismiss as “low yield,” but capable of obliterating everything within a three-quarter-mile radius - could menace Seoul and, in a few years, be deliverable in Tokyo.  That’s enough of a mass-destruction threat to preclude a pre-emptive strike by us if North Korea, in the next U.S. president’s administration, breaks its agreement to freeze additional bomb-making.  …   

Dallas Morning News editorial, 10/25/94:  The accord that the U.S. and North Korea signed Friday is so bad that it would be better not to have one at all. Put plainly, it gives the North 10 years to comply with an international treaty it signed in 1985. And for doing so, the U.S. and its allies will give the North plenty of cash, oil and greater diplomatic recognition.    

There are many other quotes and editorials from 1994 here.

It is a matter of public record that North Korea did indeed cheat while accepting oil and other incentives from the USA.  Aside from the cheating, which was so inevitable that the Clinton Administration only went along with the deal Carter negotiated because it was believed the North Korean government would collapse before the cheating started, Jimmy Carter’s negotiation in this “deal” was similar to other Carter negotiations:  The US will send you money, oil, etc in exchange for North Korea not developing a nuclear bomb.  In Jersey we called that protection money… essentially, this was an agreement based upon that not-so-diplomatic technique called extortion.  Not going off on another tangent here.. but this is not much different than Carter’s purchase of peace in the Middle East at Camp David.

So, is North Korea responsible for its violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and for testing a nuclear bomb?  Of course.

Does the Bush Administration get some of the blame because President Bush included North Korea in the axis of evil and stopped unilaterally fulfilling our end of the 1994 agreement even while North Korea violated there one and only obligation in the agreement?  Nope.. don’t think so.  Continuing to pay off North Korea in the hope that they would not develop a nuclear weapon would be a foreign policy disaster not seen since… well .. the Carter years.

Stumble it!

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 21st, 2006 at 12:26 am and is filed under North Korea, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.