AMERICA WAKE UP

We went into Iraq 3 years ago, and we wanted to look like tough guys. But we went into the only country in Bush's "axis of evil" which posed no real threat. While we were busy "shocking and aweing" the world with our bombing of Baghdad, Iran and North Korea may have actually questioned their nuclear intentions; but then they watched as our Iraq mission went terribly wrong (in addition to watching us go into a country they both knew didn't have nuclear capabilities, while we didn't do anything other than call them evil axis members). They have looked on as we have become bogged down in a big mess with no end in sight. They have watched as the nations of the world have become more and more united in their hatred of the USA. The last few years they have put their feelers out, threatening more and more nuclear objectives, scorning inspections, and basically giving us the old nani-nani boo boo. They have watched as we have done relatively little to stop them. Bush has made us liars. He said the United States would stop any of his defined "axis" powers from developing nuclear weapons. We have stood by and watched, offered weak threats and now North Korea has the big one (or something damn close).

Not only did we not stop them, the fact is that we may have pushed them into a corner where their only option was to develope "the bomb." Humans are a resourceful bunch, and that includes North Korean humans. We have been starving them with sanctions, and now we are threatening more. Condi Rice has basically made clear that America is not really considering a military option. We bluffed, they called and raised, and we folded. Now we are telling them that they will be punished and feel the might of American consequences (i'm paraphrasing here). Only all we are doing is promising more of the same: more sanctions, which have been the very things driving their nuclear ambitions. Now we're scurrying around the world, trying to make friends with everyone again, so they will all impose the sanctions we tell them to. But much of North Korea's income comes from the black market anyway. The whole world can sanction them, but Kim Jong Il will still have income and power, while the poor of North Korea will suffer the great blunt of our pathetic and foolish retaliation.

A little history helps us understand the present situation. The fact is, four days after North Korea signed a denucleariztion agreement with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea on September 19th, 2005, the United States imposed huge sanctions against North Korea which were designed to cut off their access to the international banking system. We imposed these sanctions because we branded them a "criminal state" which was guilty of money laundering, counterfeiting, and trading in "weapons of mass destruction." But when we entered into that denuclearization agreement with them four days earlier, we agreed (according to Newsweek) that the United States and North Korea would "respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations." So we were acknowledging them as a sovereign state with a right to exist, they entered into the agreement with us; and then we imposed sanctions because we suddenly decided that we'd deny their right to exist. We backed out of our part of the denuclearization agreement, in which Pyongyang promised to "abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs," thereby terminating the agreement itself, and giving them the right (at least as far as we were concerned) to continue developing nuclear weapons, which they have now done.

It almost seems like we didn't want to stop them in the first place. And what will we do now? We'll impose more sanctions even though we know that they depend on lucrative black market dealings including trading in weapons. We want to take all of their legitimate money making capabilities away through sanctions. What are they left with then? Kim Jung Il doesn't seem like a man to fold, on the contrary, he seems determined to stay in power. I'm sure they have noticed, like me and the rest of the world, that we are not going to stop them from producing nuclear weapons, except through worthless threats and through sanctions and more sanctions, many of which we have already been imposing on them.. It seems to me that they have little option but to really start pumping up their nuclear weapons production and including them in their weapons trade. When you starve a man, he'll eat what he can. When Al Qaida gets their hands on a big nuclear war-head, and maybe a rocket to fire it with, we'll only have ourselves to blame.

Come on Condi! WAKE UP! USA WAKE UP!! North Korea is a real threat. We know it, they have told us, demonstrated it, and we know they are a criminal state who will sell deadly weapons for the sake of profit. Putting them in more economic need seems like about the worst idea possible. Would anyone like another cup of crazy? The war we got into is one that is needless and criminal, it is the one that looked easy: Iraq. There is such thing as a just war, but Iraq was far from it. If North Korea will sell nuclear weapons to the highest bidder, then they are an imminent threat, and should be dealt with as such. But that does not necessarily mean that we must go to war with them, although we must acknowledge that it is an option, and one we take seriously.

The Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan said in discussions with Selig S. Harrison, as reported in the October 16th issue of Newsweek, that they "...really want to coexist with the United States peacefully... we are definitely prepared to carry out the Sept. 19th agrement, step by step, but we won't completely and finally dismantle our nuclear weapons program until our relations with the United States are fully normalized..."

I want to know why my government officials aren't having the conversations with North Korea that a Newsweek reporter is having. This reporter, Mr. Harrison, sat down with the chief North Korean negotiator for 6 hours of talks, including two personal dinners, according to the Newsweek article. The North Koreans are clearly willing to talk and they seem quite honest; they say they have a nuclear weapon, and then they test it to show that they do. I have no reason to believe that they are lying if they say they are willing to give those weapons up in return for certain demands.

According to Harrison:

"Kim Gye Gwan spelled out what Pyongyang has in mind, calling for bilateral negotiations without preconditions leading to a package deal that would be followed by the resumptions of the six-party talks. For example, he indicated, the U.S. would lift some or all of the sanctions in return for North Korean concessions such as a cessation of plutonium production at the Yongbyon reactor; a missile-test moratorium, or a commitment not to transfer nuclear weapons or fissile materials to third parties..."

Sounds a lot better than a nuclear weapon in the hands of a stateless terrorist, someone who mutually assured destruction, that special nuclear war deterrent, doesn't exist for. If we do all we can peacefully, and North Korea doesn't desist from its nuclear program, then we have to get a coalition together and stop them by any means necessary. The consequences of nuclear arms in fundamentalist terrorist hands are too great to ignore. I'm normally a peacenik. Most things can be done peacefully. But we are peacefully driving North Korea into a role as a global nuclear arms provider for enemies of the so called "free-world." This is unacceptable.

WE NEED TO WAKE UP and smell the plutonium.

Just One Minute Men [and women]

On Thursday night, the 5th of October 2006, a group of liberal Columbia students stormed the stage while the founder of The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps was speaking as an invited guest of the College Republicans, another student group. The disrupters stopped the speech, prevented a question and answer session, and chanted "si se pudo, si se pudo" ("yes we could") over and over again. "Could what?" I might ask. They had unrolled a banner onstage which said in English and Arabic "No One is Illegal." I agree that no one is illegal, but doesn't the founder of the Minuteman group deserve the same status, even though we might not agree with him? As a free, "non-illegal person" (by the broad definition given by the protesters themselves), he should have been allowed to speak.

There is a way to organize a protest and there is a way in which a group can undermine itself with behavior that does not serve its cause. What on earth was happening at Columbia University this past Thursday? People with one point of view brought a group to speak at their University. All were welcome to attend. It was a public forum. While I don't agree with the ideas of the Minute Men, or think that their tactics or intentions are very American, it is only my opinion. At such an open forum, people with other viewpoints are brought, and we are free to question them, and to try and change their mind. But how can we engage them in discussion if we don't hear what they have to say? If we want them to listen to our argument, then we should listen to theirs. Columbia University is supposed to attract and admit the best and the brightest students. But what were these students thinking? (Or were they just not thinking?)Organizing a protest is as American as Washington D.C. cherry blossoms in spring. Showing up and making sure that your alternative perspective is represented is totally appropriate. But if we show up at an organized event where an alternative viewpoint is meant to be heard, then it is our civic duty as a citizen of a free society to sit down and listen if we wish to be represented there. If we want to bring a big sign that says "I think so and so and my opinions differ from yours," then I am all for it. Why sit in a group of peers who think the same as we do, and talk about the ills of the world as we agreeably see them? We aren't changing much by doing that. We need to be out mixing with the folks who hold the alternative opinions we see as being so destructive to the happier societies we envision. We need to be there to remind them that they might be wrong, just like they are there to remind us that we might be.

If we act like monkeys and chant something they probably don't understand, if we take their voice away, if we attack them and make them feel unwelcome, yelling and screaming in their faces, they will not listen to us. They will think that we are as crazy as they think we are, and they will think that we are as wrong as they think we are. If we act like we don't know how to act in a free society, by welcoming alternative viewpoints, hearing them out, and presenting our different opinions in a civilized way, then the people who observe us will be forced to consider us uncivilized. They will see us as less than respectable monkeys.

It's no way to get the point across. It is also making the same mistake we so often criticize the Bush Administration for making. It is to act like a child and not talk or listen to people who disagree with us. It is to tell them that they don't have a right to exist. I am reminded of why we are so hated in the Middle East. Our leaders have told people that they are with us or against us. They have told them that their way is wrong. It is this mentality and behavior which is the reason the current US Administration is at war. It is why they think they have a right to torture, to silence, to imprison without trial, and now to try these prisoners without fair representation or disclosure of evidence.

It is liberals who usually defend the oppressed, whose voices are being shut down with violence, whose rights are being violated, whose freedom is at stake. But when liberals act like the very Administration and persons who they criticize, the validity of their arguments is undermined. Their actions and their ideas are devalued in the eyes of those whose minds they need to change, and also to those in the center, who may now veer Right to avoid obnoxious monkeys. Those of us with disagreements, if we think we have a better way and want others to see things differently, would do well to listen to the arguments of those we disagree with; it might tempt them to listen to us. The least we can do is tell them they have a right to think and speak their own truth. If we don't want to give them that right, then we aren't fighting for freedom; and we probably aren't worth listening to.

A

Monday Mexico sent a letter requesting that Bush veto new legislation just passed by the senate which would allow 700 miles of fence to be put up between our countries. With the Iraq mess and the repeat button stuck on the "terrorist threat" message, I , maybe like many Americans, have been distracted enough to have missed this immense moment in American (or un-American) history. Today Bush signed the bill.