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The Occasional Muse January 13, 2003 Communist Claptrap North Korea has been a pain in Uncle Sam's backside for several weeks now. Last year, the U.S. caught the Stalinist prison cheating on its 1994 agreement and building nuclear weapons. Surprisingly, North Korea admitted it and suddenly turned all nasty, threatening to build more weapons and even proclaiming a "holy war" against the U.S. President Dubya responded to this belligerence by cutting off oil supplies and working to isolate the regime from its neighbors. But the commies haven't capitulated. Instead, they've grown more brazen, throwing out atomic weapons inspectors, pulling out from the non-proliferation treaty, and demanding a bilateral non-aggression pact with the U.S. There are some important lessons to be learned here. First of all, communists lie. They do not tell the truth. You can't trust what they say. For some people, that's pretty obvious. For others, it's the truth that dare not speak its name. For example, when grinnin' Jimmy Carter negotiated an agreement with the commies in 1994, he trusted them when they said they would not pursue their nuclear weapons program if the U.S. would build it a nuclear reactor or two. For energy, of course. Totally peaceful. Clueless Carter fell for it and an even more clueless Clinton signed off on it. Ever since, the U.S. has been supplying the commies with energy and aid for the reactor while they have continued to build nukes. They lied to us. That should not be a surprise, because - let's say it again - communists lie. The South Koreans, who we have been protecting for a few decades with 37,000 American troops, also tend to forget this lesson. Their new president has come up with a brilliant solution. Give the commies what they want, but only if they promise to stop building nuclear weapons. Someone needs to fly to Seoul and slap a little Sam Kinnison on President Roh. "The North Korean commies are liars! They don't tell the truth! You can't trust them! What are you thinking? AAAHHHRRRGGHH!" (As a brief aside, it's past time those 37,000 Americans came home. The South has twice the North's population, and, I don't know, about a gazillion times the North's wealth. It should be able to defend itself, rather than hiding behind the Americans' skirts.) Anyway, President Dubya has done the right thing and ignored Mr. Roh's wonderful idea. But now it's appearing to back off its no-negotiations-with-liars pledge. From the Associated Press in today's paper: "The United States is willing to consider energy aid for North Korea if it ends nuclear weapons development, a U.S. envoy said today. 'Once we get beyond nuclear weapons, there may be opportunities with the U.S., with private investors, with other countries to help North Korea in the energy area,' Assistant U.S. Secretary of State James Kelly said at a news conference in Seoul." So now we're going to reward North Korea for its belligerence and overheated rhetoric, which can't be trusted anyway. This is how commies operate. Make grand threats, watch surrounding nations quake with fear, then demand concessions in return for "peace." It worked for the Soviet Union until President Reagan came along and called their bluff. It's time to do the same with North Korea. President Dubya can't give in to imagined or even real threats. His administration's policy toward North Korea should be the same as Iraq - regime change. I don't care how he does it. If he doesn't want to use overt force, fine. Reagan didn't need it against the Soviets. But it is past time for the Supreme Tyrant Kim Jong-il and his discredited and evil communist philosophy to join the Soviet Union in the dustbin of history. That, and not placating an aggressive and untrustworthy dictatorship, will make the world safer. Speaking of Iraq The North Korea issue also casts some much needed light on Iraq. Those who are against taking out Saddam Hussein are in essence pursuing the same policy that helped create the North Korean crisis. After all, North Korea had nuclear weapon inspectors and built the program under their noses. There's no reason to think Saddam can't do the same, since the inspections currently underway are a joke. Regime change in Iraq is necessary because Saddam wants to be where Kim Jong-il is now. He wants a fearsome weapons program with which to blackmail and terrify his neighbors into giving him what he wants. We can deal with Saddam now because he hasn't reached that point yet. If we wait too long, he could easily develop the means to create havoc in the Middle East and the world, and the U.S. and other nations would be forced to negotiate with him. It would be an Arab version of North Korea, in essence, a disaster. The U.S. can't let that happen. That's why Saddam must be taken out.
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