North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is seen reviewing a military parade, in Pyongyang, on Sept. 9, 2003.
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea on Thursday announced for the first time that it has nuclear arms and rejected moves to restart disarmament talks anytime soon, saying it needs the weapons as protection against an increasingly hostile United States.
The communist state’s pronouncement dramatically raised the stakes in the two-year-old nuclear confrontation and posed a grave challenge to President Bush, who started his second term with a vow to end North Korea’s nuclear program through six-nation talks.
“We ... have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration’s ever more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the (North),” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
The claim could not be independently verified. North Korea expelled the last U.N. nuclear monitors in late 2002 and has never tested a...
Neil, I would say that are glass was half full rather than half empty in the Korean conflict. South Korea did become a democracy, with many Christians in it. Now if you want to make the argument about the Vietnam War, I wouldn't give you an argument. The American government was looking around for something to offset the stupidity of Kennedy for giving away Cuba to the Communists, and this is one of the prizes that Khrushchev got from the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yeltsin did the same thing to Bill Clinton during the Serbian troubles by grabbing and airport -- no comparison to losing a country on our doorstep, however.
I'm not saying NK is worth a war over. I'm just saying our rhetoric about Iraq is inconsistent. Evidently, freedom is worth a war in the Mideast, but not in Asia.
Truman decided NK was dying for (well, GIs at least) so Democrats wouldn't be stung by Repub charges of being soft on Communism. Before 1950, there was no claim of vital interest in Korea, by Truman or MacArthur.
Remember if you please the last time th US entered N Korea the Chinese got involved. Remember also that Kim is crazy enough to starve half of NK to death. Also, by being difficult Clinton gave him a couple of billion dollars. We are already involved in Iraq, with little money for expanding the Military that Clinton tried to destroy. And the American people don't want to draft their children for a fight half-way 'round the world. Kim knows that, and is trying to pull our chain so we'll give him another monetary "goodie". Bush is being cautious "AS HE SHOULD", any talk of him starting a war is ludicrous. The security that Jesus offers the dead is eternal life, but radiation sickness is a bad way to get it.
A possible reason why Bush does not (inconsistently) wage war to depose this tyrant is simple: it's next door to China, and our ruling class does not want to offend the Middle Kingdom.
I'm no fan of either Iran or North Korea, but I can somewhat understand their cause for concern that "W" might be interested in starting a "just" war against them. They'd be foolish-just as any other nation would be-to get rid of the only real substantive deterrance to a U.S. attack. Of course the whole message that "W" and the leaders of this world forget is that at the end of the day the only real security can be found in Jesus Christ
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