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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I like that you are no longer saying that you know any of the facts -- like how North Korea used the reactors Clinton built for them to make nuclear weapons -- and instead are just asking me how I know.
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No I am saying our facts differ. I am also focusing on the facts that are the most relevant to the issues at hand. What did the treaty say and how stupid was it? Did the North Koreans break the treaty under Clinton or Bush? Did Bush push them into breaking the treaty? If they broke the treaty under Clinton then Clinton royally screwed up. If the resources Clinton gave them under the treaty helped them produce the bombs they have now, then the issue is not whether Clinton royally screwed up, but how much he screwed up. You are saying he did not screw up at all so I am focusing whether he just screwed up. We can discuss the other stuff once you agree he screwed up.
You seem to be saying that our agreement only forbid them from producing Plutonium (this would seem bizarre to me. Weapons can be made from other material from Plutonium so why would we only forbid Plutonium. According to the New York Times and every other document I have read they were continuing with their weapons production during the end of the Clinton administration. So you are saying that even though they were still involved in nuclear weapons production, they weren't producing plutonium so they abided by the treaty. Was Clinton really that stupid to only prevent them from building Plutonium when they could build other weapons grade material?)
You also seem to be saying that they abided by that agreement for a while.
You also seem to imply that the Bush administration pushed them into breaking the treaty.
1) I am saying that agreement said they were not supposed to produce any weapons grade material. They violated the treaty by producing weapons grade material at the end of the Clinton administration, and they admitted to that.
There is no question they were producing weapons grade material at the end of the Clinton administration (New York Times etc), so if that was not a violation of the treaty, then Clinton screwed up by leaving such a big loop hole.
2) We have no idea whether or not they were producing Plutonium. They could have been. However, we do know they were breaking the treaty.
3) Bush's words did not get them to break the treaty because they were already breaking the treaty.
4) To say that Bush's words got them to break the treaty is also stupid because strong words and threats never encourage dictators. Only weakness and lack of determination encourages dictators. He wanted nuclear weapons and whatever Bush said never changed that fact.
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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
If you do the sort of web research that you did to find the CRS report, you will learn that North Korea was processing uranium during the Clinton Administration, but not plutonium. When Bush pulled the U.S. out of (what was left of) the deal, North Korea started in with the plutonium again, and fairly quickly had enough to build a bomb.
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See above.
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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop Clinton did not "appease" the North Koreans in the sense that anyone thought they would become good people. But he essentially bribed them with fuel oil and food aid to stop enriching plutonium for a while. Far from a perfect solution, but better than anything Bush did.
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Are you listening to yourself? The idea behind a bribe is that you think the people are trustworthy enough to comply with it. If they are totally dishonorable they will not honor the bribe. There is no reason to think that the bribes would work, and there is no evidence that they did.
It was appeasement. The were running a weapons programs, and in order to get them to stop, instead of threatening them, we gave them stuff hoping that by giving them the bribe they would follow their end of the agreement.
Chamberlain never thought Hitler was a good person, so saying the Clinton administration did not think "Dear Leader" was a good person means nothing. Chamberlain thought Hitler was bad, but could be trusted enough to follow a treaty, so if he gave him the Sudetenland, Hitler would abide by the agreement. Clinton thought the "Dear Leader" was bad, but could be trusted enough to follow a treaty, so if he gave him some oil and other stuff, the "Dear Leader" would bide by the agreement. They were both the exact same kind of appeasement and they both didn't work.
