North Korea: What’s really happening? Here's everything you need to know - by Tim Shorrock for salon

[Douglas Carpenter]

A very important article that must be read in full:

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/north_korea_whats_really_happening/

Saturday, Apr 6, 2013 04:02 AM +1000

North Korea: What’s really happening

Are we primed for war? Here's everything you need to know about our current -- and past -- relationship with DPRK

By Tim Shorrock


North Korean army officers at a rally at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea, March 29, 2013. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin) (Credit: Jon Chol Jin)


It’s hard to believe today, but in 2000, Kim Jong-il, dispatched his second-in-command, Vice Marshal Jo Myong-rok, to Washington. There, Jo met in the White House with President Clinton as well as the secretaries of State and Defense. At that time, Clinton officials later said, the United States and the DPRK were on the verge of an agreement in which North Korea was going to end its missile production and testing program in return for guarantees from Washington that the United States would recognize the DPRK and respect its sovereignity. Those talks grew out of Clinton’s 1994 accord with Kim Il-sung – the current leader’s grandfather. North Korea shut down its Soviet-era nuclear power program and the United States, South Korea and Japan agreed to help build a light-water reactor for civilian use and supply fuel oil to fill the gap.

The 1994 agreement, in turn, set the stage for South Korean President Kim Dae-jung – at one point that country’s most famous dissident – to initiate a broad “Sunshine Policy” with the North designed to build political and military trust and lead eventually to normalization and a form of unification. During the sunshine era, Kim’s successor as president, Roh Moo-hyun, reached an agreement with Kim Jong-il to build the Kaesong industrial zone – now the only thread remaining of this brief period of glasnost on the Korean Peninsula. The warming was symbolized in late 2000, when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright flew to Pyongyang and met with Kim Jong-il in the highest-level meeting in U.S.-North Korean history.

But Clinton’s missile agreement was never completed, and in 2000 incoming President Bush declared that North Korea could not be trusted as a negotiating partner and stopped all talks with the DPRK. Then, after the 9/11 attacks, Bush decided to place North Korea in the company of Iran and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq as partners in the “Axis of Evil.” That ended any chance of rapprochment. The hostility only deepened when Bush invaded Iraq and installed a pro-U.S. government – a move that Pyongyang understood as a clear statement of Bush’s intentions in Korea. This was followed in 2002 by U.S. accusations, denied at the time by the DPRK, that it was running a secret uranium facility to build bombs. After that, the earlier Clinton agreement completely unraveled. In 2006, North Korea shocked the world by testing its first atomic bomb (for a detailed timeline of North Korea’s program, click here).

By 2007, however, Bush began to rethink his policies as the costs of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan escalated. Prodded by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was edging out Dick Cheney as Bush’s chief foreign policy guru, the administration participated in a series of negotiations involving China, Japan, Russia and North and South Korea. The so-called six-party talks ended in an accord that extended Clinton’s 1994 agreement, shut Yongbyon for good, and set a timeline for deepening U.S.-North Korean ties. That agreement ended what historian Bruce Cumings called at the time “the most asinine Korea policy in history.” The DPRK even broadcast video of the Yongbyon cooling tower being blown up (those images were replayed on U.S. television this week when the North threatened to restart that plant).

A year later, Barack Obama, running in part on a platform that promised U.S. talks with countries like North Korea and Iran, was elected president. Shortly into his administration, a new Korea policy began to evolve under the stewardship of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It was called “strategic patience,” and was designed on the premise that Kim Jong-il was about to die and that the Kim dynasty, torn by internal power struggles, was bound to collapse. Clinton and Obama also made it clear that they would not reopen any talks with the North until it turned away from nuclear weapons and opened itself to change. That policy turned out to be a strategic miscalculation: Kim did die last year, but the transition to his third son, Kim Jong-un, has gone smoothly. The regime is still there, as strong as ever.

A very important article that must be read in full:

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/05/north_korea_whats_really_happening/

[RKP5637]

1. Pic looks like Simon says, Simon does! n/t

[TwilightGardener]

2. I think a lot of it is crap. The US and South Korea has been nothing but restrained and patient

toward NK. The worst thing we've ever done to them besides sanctions for unlawful pursuit of nukes was for Bush to name them in the "Axis Of Evil". Oh, and do annual war games, which they expect and use as an excuse to make threats. I completely disagree with this guy's take on things. NK is emboldened by SK's (and our) failure to strongly respond to the sinking of the ship and the shelling. The author is actually SYMPATHETIC to NK, which is asinine. No mention of how North Korea shakes us down with ever-bigger threats (now with NUKES!) and then gives the food aid to the military instead of its starving zombies. And if Hagel says they're a "real and clear danger", then they are. Sorry, this is left-wing drivel.

[distantearlywarning]

3. I agree with your take

I read this article yesterday and thought it was very biased (and obviously, wrong).

[TwilightGardener]

5. Two weird things: not much mention of China and how it props up NK,

and blaming South Korea for having its island shelled and civilians killed, because a shell dropped into water and they'd been warned...WTF? He's also buying North Korea's claims that it's just scared of the big bad US always menacing it. They're just victims, you know.

[DeSwiss]

4. K&R

[smirkymonkey]

6. WTF is with the squirrel in the background?

Hysterical!

[RKP5637]

7. ...

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. it goes without saying that North Korea's regime is crazy - but considering the cost even under the

best case scenario - of war with North Korea - With close to two million North Korean troops just north of Seoul - armed with some of the largest stockpiles of artillery and short range missiles on earth - it would be a matter of only minutes before there were several hundred thousands of dead South Koreans and much of South Korea's energy, transport and industrial infrastructure would almost certainly be destroyed. The situation for North Korea would doubtlessly be far worse - Even if total military victory came very quickly - millions of half-starved North Korean refugees will be struggling to make it south - just wrecking any viability for South Korea for a long, long time to come.

With all of this in mind and of course fully aware of the crazy nature of this isolated and paranoid regime - it only makes sense to examine what missteps have been made and to ask - Is there not an alternative to war? War with North Korea would truly be opening the gates to hell - and everyone will in the long run lose.

[AnnieBW]

9. April 15th

If something's going to happen, it will be around April 15th. It's the 101st anniversary of Kim Il Sung's birth. That might be what's going on. Li'l Kim is probably whipping the people into a frenzy about that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Il-sung