KIM JONG IL'S USEFUL IDIOTS
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan (idiot #1) sent a special envoy, Maurice Strong to Pyongyang for talks with Kim Jong Il's purple-sneaker-people regime. The envoy has now emerged, revealing that he's idiot #2:SEOUL: A top United Nations envoy returned from North Korea Saturday and said it was possible the United States and the Stalinist nation could go to war although Pyongyang was keen to avoid conflict.
Nice juxtaposition there. War is possible, but Pyongyang is "keen to avoid conflict." Therefore by implication, it's the US that's the problem. I guess that's why Pyongyan renegged on its 1994 deal and cranked up the nuke factory.
Maurice Strong, special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, told reporters on arrival in Beijing: “There is no need for war and yet war could occur if the parties concerned cannot find a way of resolving the differences across the table diplomatically.”
“I know that they do wish to avoid war,” Strong said at the Beijing airport upon returning from a four-day mission.
The parties concerned? Don't the parties concerned include the UN, as the North Koreans have violated all non-proliferation agreements and booted out the UN monitors? Oh, but the Chinese have quietly and effectively vetoed any UN action against North Korea, haven't they. And since the UN is as impotent here as it has been in Iraq, let's blame the Americans again. That's pretty much the gist of Strong's report thus far.
Prior to leaving Pyongyang Saturday, he told China’s Xinhua news agency that North Korea wants “very much” a peaceful solution to its standoff with the United States focused on its nuclear programme.
“The message I get is that the DPRK (North Korea) wants very much a peaceful resolution, but at the same time, it must remain (maintain) its sovereignty,” Strong was quoted by Xinhua saying.
Washington has rules out one-on-one talks until North Korea dismantles its nuclear programmes.
Again, they're the peace-loving North Koreans, we're the bullies.
Strong told reporters Sunday he sensed concern from Pyongyang that North Korea could be the next target of US military action, but that there was a “very strong commitment” on Pyongyang’s part to seek a peaceful solution. “Fear I do not believe is in their vocabulary. Concern, yes,” Strong said.
See above--we're still the bad guys.
He said there was no visible evidence of preparations for war or a heightened sense of tension in North Korea.
However he had noted among attitudes in the country a “high degree of preparedness” for any war. He said North Korea could take more actions deemed provocative by the international community, but which Pyongyang would consider “logical” in light of its security concerns and a sign of its determination to defend themselves. He told Xinhua the Iraq war gave “new impetus” to the need to resolve the North Korea crisis peacefully.
He urged Washington and Pyongyang to hold talks as soon as possible.
I guess a million men and 11,000 artillery guns poised to raze Seoul on a moment's notice don't constitute "preparations for war." Well, technically I suppose he's right, since North Korea is pretty much always on a hair-trigger for a southern conquest. Anyhow, the UN fellow says we should hold bilateral talks with the Kim regime quickly, which amounts to acceeding to Kim's demand for bilateral talks. Doing so would play right into Kim's hands, and marginalize the South Korean government. And why is the guy framing the entire problem as a Washington vs Pyongyang debate? Oh yeah, because the organization he represents is an irrelevant, sad joke. As for evidence that the North likes bullying the South in order to belittle it and delegitimize it, the story helpfully supplies:
North Korea suspends talks with South Korea: North Korea on Saturday suspended planned economic cooperation and maritime talks with South Korea citing Seoul’s military alert posture during the Iraqi war and its joint military drill with the United States.
North Korea’s chief delegate to the inter-Korean economic cooperation committee, Pak Chang-Ryon, said in a statement the North had to postpone indefinitely the two meetings scheduled for the coming week. He accused the South of putting its military on a high alert posture, dubbed a defense readiness condition, against the North “under the pretext of the Iraqi war,” according to North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency.
He also attacked the South for staging an annual joint military drill with the 37,000 US troops stationing here.
Belittle the South, threaten Japan and try and force the US into bilateral talks. Kim's strategy is obvious. He wants money, food and technology, while at the same time he hasn't given up on the notion that he's the only legitimate ruler of the entire Korean Peninsula. His current path--start up the nukes, threaten war on the South and Japan, demand bilateral talks with the US while using the UN as his diplomatic arm against us--may yet get him what he wants. But only if we give in. It's clear that the UN is full of idiots useful to Kim's designs, and we should treat it as such.