Don't Forget About North Korea

With all this death and violence happening in the Muslim world and with the threat of Iran getting nuclear weapons, we sometimes forget about North Korea. That is a mistake. North Korea is an excellent example of what happens when your foreign policy is to appease and say please too much.

Remember, North Korea started a nuclear program and we told them no. Then they swore it was only for peaceful purposes. President Clinton tried the appeasement game and gave them a nuclear reactor when they "promised" they would not use it to start a nuclear weapons program. The next thing you know, they announce they have enriched enough uranium to make a bomb and shortly after that, they tested a nuclear device. We responded by putting severe sanctions on them to force them to abandon their nuclear ambitions. The problem with that is that every time the sanctions get to heavy and little North Korea feels the pain, instead of dropping the nuc's, they rattle their sabers and do something provocative -and we send them millions of dollars worth of food and medicine....How's that for a successful foreign policy?

 Last week the world paid close attention to the speeches at the United Nations by the leaders of the United States, Israel, Iran and Egypt. But almost no one listened to the speech by the Foreign Minister of North Korea. We should have. Th North Korean minister lashed out at the United States, warning that its “hostile” policy has left the Korean peninsula a spark away from a nuclear war.

Addressing the session of the U.N. General Assembly’s annual meeting, North Korea's Vice Foreign Minister said the Koreas have become “the world’s most dangerous hotspot” and pledged to use the North’s “mighty” military deterrent against any “reckless provocations.”

“The only way to prevent war and ensure lasting peace on the Korean peninsula is to put an end to the U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK,” he said, using the initials of the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

So far,  U.S. State Department has not commented on the speech.

North Korea's Minister addressed the 193-member world body for the first time since the death in December of North Korea’s longtime leader Kim Jong Il and the transfer of power to his son, Kim Jong Un. His speech gave some clues about the foreign policy approach of the new leader, whom he addressed as “our dear respected marshal.”

He went on to say Kim is leading efforts to advance his father’s economic development program with his own “insight into the world” and is implementing an “independent foreign policy” and opening a new chapter in developing relations with friendly countries “not bound by the past.”

Much of his speech focused on North Korea’s continuing state of war with the United States more than 60 years after the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice but no peace treaty. He went on to say that Washington’s intention has been “to destroy the ideas and system chosen by our people and to occupy the whole of the Korean peninsula and to use it as a stepping-stone for realizing its strategy of dominating the whole of Asia.”

“Today, due to the continued U.S. hostile policy towards the DPRK,” the Vice  Minister said, “the vicious cycle of confrontation and aggravation of tension is an ongoing phenomenon on the Korean peninsula, which has become the world’s most dangerous hotspot where a spark of fire could set off a thermonuclear war.” He said the United States has finalized scenarios for a new Korean War and “is waiting for a chance to implement them” and impose military rule after an invasion.

In an apparent reference to North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and massive military, he said his nation’s “patience and self-defensive war deterrent,” have prevented U.S. military provocations “from turning into an all-out war on the Korean peninsula.” “However, the DPRK’s patience does not mean it is unlimited,” he warned.

Ties between the divided Koreas are at a low point following a failed North Korean rocket launch in April that Washington, Seoul and others have called a cover for a test of long-range missile technology. North Korea says the rocket, which broke apart shortly after liftoff, was meant to launch an observational satellite. Many South Koreans also remain jittery from two 2010 attacks blamed on Pyongyang that killed 50 South Koreans.

A nuclear powder keg with a short fuse, which our foreign policy helped create and has failed to defuse. That is a powerful lesson for us in the face of Iran's nuclear ambitions. I wonder of anyone is going to learn from it......

Live Long and Prosper....