I agree with a lot of what was said but I also look at this from the perspective of the NK peopple not just their leader. In the past, we gave food to NK but the people never got it and probably were told that the evil Americans were letting them starve. People who are starving to death will do anything because they know they are going to die anyway and that to me makes them extremely dangerous. We did a poor job of making sure the things we gave to NK were distributed properly...a problem we've had in other regions of the world with similar problems as well.
I tend to disagree with both Bush and Kerry on how to handle NK. I don't think we should just ignore them and not talk to them as Bush more or less stated in the debate but I also don't agree with a U.S./NK only talk situation as it seems Kerry is in favor of. I think it needs to be an open talk forum with all the countries in that region with the goal of hopefully one day getting Kim Jong Il or whatever his name is to stand down and join the rest of countries in the region in a peaceful manner. May be a bit optimistic (or even a dream) but I think it COULD happen.
Also, I don't think it was ALL Clinton either: this "rattle the sword to get some stuff" or "baby style policy" with NK has been going on a lot longer than that. The plan now is for the U.S. to slowly start drawing down and letting the ROK handle their own country. Won't happen overnight obviously but within the next 10 yrs you will see a significantly smaller number of U.S. troops over here. Wouldn't surprise me if shortly after that NK and SK sit down and talk things over and unify...if they do they'd be a major player in the world rather quickly I think.
Even though no one wants a war over here I still think this is a much bigger issue than people think because no one really knows what Kim Jong Il (or whatever his name is) is capable of if he continues to develop nuclear weapons. I just don't think this is the time to turn our backs and downplay this issue.
This may not be a popular idea but I think that we can solve the NK issue through time ECONOMICALLY easier than through political means. If we loosen up a bit and allow NK to become more part of world trade maybe they will see that "playing by the rules" has a huge payoff and they will change their policies and ideas for the economic betterment of their country. Conformity through economic change I guess. Again, might be a bit of dreaming but nothing has really worked up to this point.
'00 Blk CSVT #1087/2150 built 12/23/99
