So, although some enterprising souls have reminded us that our fearless leader, President George W. Bush, waived the requirement for inspections in North Korea to verify that no plutonium had been squirreled away to make nuclear bombs with, the whole mess is somehow the Clinton Administration's fault?
I guess that means the former President made the Axis of Evil speech, or that the Clinton WHite House didn't brief the incoming Administration of potential North Korean violations two years ago. I guess the 1994 agreement to halt ballistic missile testing is a worthless piece of trash.
Maybe the President still believes the cold war clap-trap about us being able to successfully fight two wars and a regional conflict all at once -- an idea that was no more than a goal to build toward, not realistic thinking. I hope he doesn't think we can fight wars in more than one place, or that a fight on the Korean Penninsula will be the cake-walk he's expecting in Iraq. All that kind of thinking will result in is a large number of casualties for all sides.
Despite what the oil-driven thinkers may want to believe, the Korea situation is definitely more dangerous. The North has ballistic missiles that can reach China, Russia, Japan, and the South. They mostly likely have atomic or nuclear arms. They supposedly have a trained, motivated, large military force. They also have a border with China, which has a vested interest to see that Korea remains divided and took steps to intervene in the last Korean War. The Chinese, contrary to popular opinion, actually do have a few weapons, both military and economic with which to hurt the United States, so it probably isn;t a great idea to get involved in armed conflict with them while our concentration is on Iraq.
This is another obvious situation where the incompetence and arrogance of the President and many of his advisors is going to cause some serious problems later.
Posted by Chris at January 13, 2003 12:06 PM