Peace Is Our Profession?

The excitement over North Korea's pledge to abandon its nuclear weapons programs was short lived. Today, the six party talks have hit a hurdle when Lil' Kim's government demanded a right to possess a civilian nuclear reactor:

The agreement, which came after a three-year stand-off over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, was hailed as an important breakthrough. However, in a statement broadcast on North Korean radio early on Tuesday morning local time, Pyongyang reiterated its "right to peaceful nuclear activities". It said the US "should not even dream" it would dismantle its nuclear arsenal until Washington had provided it with a light-water nuclear reactor. Soon afterwards, Vice-Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan told reporters that his nation was not prepared to make the first move. "They are telling us to give up everything, but there will be no such thing as giving it up first," he said.

I have the perfect solution! Donald Rumsfeld could sell them a civilian nuclear reactor. He already has experience selling nuclear reactors to North Korea considering his company did it between 1994 and 2000. Maybe he'd be kind enough to offer them a repeat customer discount. Remember this:

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, sat on the board of a company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea - a country he now regards as part of the "axis of evil" and which has been targeted for regime change by Washington because of its efforts to build nuclear weapons. Mr Rumsfeld was a non-executive director of ABB, a European engineering giant based in Zurich, when it won a $200m (£125m) contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors. The current defence secretary sat on the board from 1990 to 2001, earning $190,000 a year.

other Rummy/North Korea sources:

[Swissinfo/CommonDreams]   [Fortune]   [Counterpunch]

GOP: Making money off global catastrophe for 50+ years!

If the non-proliferation talks fail we could just nuke those commie bastards into pulverized kim chee. Congressman Tom Tancredo would definitely be game for such an operation. I bet Congressman Sam Johnson would volunteer to drop the bomb personally, Major T.J. 'King' Kong style.

See, only the American "can do" spirit can solve this mess.

Comments

[Mike]

Rummy selling nuke material and reactors to North Korea and Cheney selling selling oil technology and equipment to Saddam. Seems the administration was busy during the 90's arming the enemy.

It also make me wonder if the whole point of all this neo-con shenanigans was simply for Haliburton and Bechtel to make "a killing"...

Not that L'il Kim shouldn't be dealth with, but maybe he wouldn't be a threat if Rummy hadn't sold him the technology in the first play eh?

[Agi T. Prop]

It’s almost as if they intentionally wanted to create enemies for the future. During the 1980s there was a concerted effort by the Reagan-Bush administration to fund and arm Saddam as well as Bin Laden’s fighters in Afghanistan, which eventually formed Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The military-industrial complex profit engine requires a state of perpetual warfare. This in turn requires enemies. I wonder which enemies we are creating today...

[EeK]

I fear we are approaching a crisis of monumental proportions. Given the proclivity of the Bushies to squander capabilities, how do we know if we have enough tactical nukes to take out korea AND iran?

It would be just like those half-assed republikans to leave the job half done, just like ole poppa bush did back in iw1. You remember that one don't you boys?? When we were gonna usher in the Nu Amerca Cenury? Them god damn bush boys aint got the brains of one o them inbreed saudi princes they caint stay out of the sack with.

[denisdekat]

A little peace of this, a little peace of that...

[Fred]

Even Eisenhower got it...
"The Power Elite"
C. Wright Mills

The Warlords
"In this military world, debate is no more at a premium than persuasion: one obeys and one commands, and matters, even unimportant matters, are not to be decided by voting. Life in the military world accordingly influences the military mind's outlook on other institutions as well as on its own. The warlord often sees economic institutions as means for military production and the huge corporation as a sort of ill-run military establishment. In his world, wages are fixed, unions impossible to conceive. He sees political institutions as often corrupt and usually inefficient obstacles, full of undisciplined and cantankerous creatures. And is he very unhappy to hear of civilians and politicians making fools of themselves?"

"It is men with minds and outlooks formed by such conditions who in postwar America have come to occupy positions of great decision. It cannot be said that they have necessarily sought these new positions; much of their increased stature has come to them by virtue of a default on the part of civilian political men. But perhaps it can be said, as C. S. Forester has remarked in a similar connection, that men without lively imagination are needed to execute policies without imagination devised by an elite without imagination."