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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Your answer seems to be- "but they blew up a plutonium bomb so the cheating on Uranium doesn't matter."

As a lawyer I think that is an intellectually dishonest argument. We KNOW they are cheating on one type material, but since they didn't build their bomb from it we should not be concerned about the cheating?

No. Obviously the cheating on uranium wasn't good, but we still got something when they stopped plutonium production.

And let's be clear -- I'm not saying that the 1994 agreement solved the problem. This conversation started when Spanky posted something blaming our current problems on Clinton. That's what I was reacting to, and that's ridiculous.

As understood, you are comfortable there was no plutonium development because a camera was running where we would have expected the development.

And for other reasons stated in some of those documents. It's relatively easier to hide a some centrifuges to enrich uranium, and relatively hard to hide a plant of the size and capability needed for the plutonium.

Your other point, that it served to buy time, is the strongest argument for the deal being a bad idea. You point out the plants never were completed so no harm- BUT 2 types of harm are likely:

• We had to back out of a deal. We had to accuse the NK of cheating (n.b. one of your "solid" links (2) seems to imply that the evidence of cheating was contrived- EVEN though NK admitted it).

There's no doubt that they were enriching uranium. The Foreign Affairs article doesn't suggest that the evidence was contrived, but rather that the 1994 deal did not address uranium. Are you just throwing this out there to see if it sticks, or do you really think that the North Koreans were not in violation of the agreement?

If the deal didn't cover uranium, then we didn't have to back out of anything -- we gave them fuel oil and they stopped producing plutonium. If the deal did cover uranium, they were cheating, so where's the harm?

AND given how long the agreement was in place, I find it difficult to believe that a good deal of know-how was not given to NK. We likely trained NK personal in nuclear technology. and that was the damage my one document evidenced.

When you or Spanky find some actual reason apart from your own conjecture to think that the Clinton Administration gave North Korea nuclear know-how, you post here, 'kay?

At best your position, "we never actually followed through on the deal" misses the point that clinton didn't stop the deal AND if Clinton's defense was he knew the deal would get stopped, that's double fucked. He knowingly dumped and worsened the problem.

I truly don't understand what you're arguing here. The problem is that North Korea -- for decades -- has been working to build the problem. Nothing Clinton did "worsened the problem," unless you think that he harmed our happy relations with North Korea, in which case I'm waiting for you to apply the same critique to the Bush White House.

Your 10 links (actually 9, 3 doesn't open) don't change any of the above. Clinton made a deal to get him out of the White House. Gore or whooever could clean it up.

Until now, you tried to say that the North Koreans were processing plutonium -- not just uranium -- between 1994 and 2002. Have you forgotten that already? C'mon, Hank -- you haven't put up, and you haven't shut up. Do you think anyone here isn't going to notice that you were full of shit and are now trying to change the subject?

Oh, and 3 opens if you click on it.

So the new Hank argument is that Clinton didn't wave his magical wand and make the North Korean nuclear program disappear. That's pretty cogent. It must all be Clinton's fault.