Thursday, February 10, 2005

Nukes R Us

All sorts of news this morning.

The North Koreans, to nobody’s real surprise, have announced they have nuclear weapons. According to the text of the North Korean Foreign Ministry statement, (available at the BBC website), North Korea says these weapons are to “cope with the Bush administration’s ever more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the. . .[North].” According to the statement, the administration has a “sinister design” to dramatize the nuclear threat and isolate North Korea. The North Koreans say that if the US keeps “threatening the DPRK (North Korea) with nukes…the DPRK will have no option but to build up a nuclear deterrent force.”

The North Koreans have also announced that they are suspending participation in negotiations with the U.S., China, Japan, Russia and the Republic of Korea.

As said above, it is not news that North Korea has these weapons. Global Security.org says that North Korea probably has enough plutonium to make one or two nuclear weapons, with the possibility of up to six more. Whether the North Koreans have fabricated the actual weapons, and worked out a way to deliver them to targets is another issue.

The most alarming aspect of the North Korean nuclear program is the evident willingness of the Kim Jong Il regime to sell nuclear weapons technology to anybody who can come up with the cash. Uranium recently found in Libya, courtesy of the Qadaffi government’s new willingness to be friendly, was apparently sold to the Libyans by North Korea.

It is too late to stop the North Korean nuclear program by negotiation. The Clinton administration sold the pass on this issue in 1993. The North Koreans aren’t going to be negotiated out of their weapons – and since they are the only card the regime has at all, they would be stupid to concede them. What is left is the question of how we prevent them from opening branches of Nukes R Us worldwide. This may be done in two ways: either by (1) paying them well not to open nuke franchises; or, (2) by wiping North Korea off the face of the Earth.

Since Choice No. 2 is a non-starter, it’s time to open the check book. I wish I thought Choice No. 1 would work – i.e., that the North Koreans wouldn’t cheat us and sell under the table anyway. Oh well, maybe the horse will sing. Maybe the North Koreans will solve the problem by hanging Kim and his henchmen from some convenient lamp posts.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree with most of your post, and it just baffles me how people will submit to such a regime.

I admit being born American tilts my mindset to liberty, but these people are starving to death while their nation is spending billions on a war machine. I can only guess that through mass murder, complete control of media, education, communication, and all the essentials of life the people have been cowed enough to quash any spark of revolt.

How do we help these people? How do we do it without a war? Sanctions and shunning aren't working, the elite stride on and the little people die like flies.

I don't know the answer, but I do know desperate people, and their leaders, do desperate things. Couple that with their announced nuclear capability and you've got a d*mn scary situation.

MHW, Major(R), USAF