Your general point is a fair one, but the problem is we don't really have enough knowledge here. Yes, North Korea deliberately lied and misled. I'm sure Jimmy Carter's not surprised, he's not that stupid. But the fact is that after he went there, a crisis was defused. Whether someone else could have done a better job, or whether it was all a charade is something we just can't know (at least I can't).
While we're on the topic, there's speculation that N. Korea's admission that it was lying is also a tactic to pry more aid money out of S. Korea and the West. Gary Smith wrote: > Marc, it amazes me how deep you are on so many things, but then you go > and say something that really shows you didn't fully think it through. > > An action by a person really doesn't mean much if it doesn't turn out as > it should. Yes, Carter went to N Korea and supposedly defused the > .... > The reality is, the proof is in the pudding. A piece of paper means > nothing. Nixon's withdrawal from Vietnam "with honor" was just as naive > or stupid. Not long after the withdrawal, the South fell to the North. > There was no "with honor" in the effort. Given the outcome, we should > have pulled out in 1968 and saved 40,000 American lives and billions of > dollars. > I think Nixon was thinking of his own personal honour :-/ Incidentally, in the BBC documentary about Henry Kissinger, they interview a number of former Kissinger aides and senior officials and show him as a double-dealer who deliberately sabotaged the peace talks underway in 1968, an election which Nixon won very, very narrowly (in fact, as I recall -- I was living in the States at the time and was in 9th grade -- he got a smaller popular vote than HHH), so that Nixon would appoint him national security director. He allegedly did this by promising the then-leader of S. Vietnam that he could get a better deal. As it happened, the treaty he finally worked out cost several tens of thousands more of US deaths, I don't know how many Australians and other Allies, and untold thousands of Cambodians, Laotian and Vietnamese deaths, before he got...exactly the same terms as had been proposed in 1968. For that reason alone I think he's committed a "crime against humanity." > > George Sr's treaties with Iraq are also showing wear and tear. Iraq is > laughing at the agreements. Of course we need to go back in, in order to > cram that paper down Saddam's little throat! > Actually that's technically not true. The treaty that ended the war committed Iraq to stay out of Kuwait, which they have, to allow no-fly zones (which are active), and to hold to the UN Security Council resolutions on arms inspections. The last one was 1998, and this is the one the US is trying to get changed because they exclude the "presidential palaces." I feel no need for anyone to cram anything down anyone's throat. It's simply not the US's or anyone else's role to do this. By what authority? Because you can? Because you feel you should? > > And Clinton's treaties for England/Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and several > others are in the toilet, also. We're killing trees for no reason > whatsoever, because no one is willing to put teeth into any of these > treaties. > I don't understand your point about England and Ireland. > > You'll note I haven't spared either political party. The reality is, > people are either trustworthy or they aren't. A wise man learns to > quickly recognize just who is going to play nice and by the rules, and > who isn't. Any honest historian would have told you that the Palestinians > and N Koreans and Iraqis would not keep their promises, unless it was > beneficial to them. How? Because history shows a pattern of lies and > deceit. the leopard does not change his spots easily. > The U.S. has also reneged on treaties. Washington allowed Alaska to break (not opt out, as most treaties allow, but simply to ignore, to break) the Pacific Salmon Treaty without repercussions and it regularly breaks the NAFTA treaty, for instance (Canada does, too, just to be fair, but most NAFTA tribunal rulings and WTO appeals have been in Canada's and Mexico's favour, primarily because Bush preaches free trade but doesn't dare practise it with mid-term elections coming up, imo). > > There are only two types of events that have gotten people to actually > change: conversion to the gospel, and total humiliation through an > all-out war. Germans and Japanese aren't militarily aggressive anymore, > because they were so devastated in war, it changed their world-view > suddenly. It took being shell-shocked as bad as they were in Dresden and > Hiroshima, to make serious changes. > In other words, imperialist wars of aggression always end in disaster for the aggressor? Like Assyria? And no, I'm not saying the USA is Assyria in an existential sense. As I've repeatedly said, my usage of that typology isn't related to nation-states per se, but to the actions of what really amounts to a group of nations, but led by the USA. So one is "assyrian" behaviourally, not existentially. > > We either have to convert these terrorist nations to the gospel to get > them to change, or we need to bomb them into the Stone Age, then rebuild > them in our likeness. > The latter is not an option. That is just not what the Gospel teaches. > > A piece of paper just will not do. Unless it gives the bad guy a mean > paper cut.... > > And Carter isn't an American. He's a wacko. > To you he's a wacko. But he is a US citizen, so far as I know, so your first sentence can't be true. Many of your fellow citizens revere him. He's also done a lot of good works, instead of just milking the lecture circuit like some ex-presidents I could name (from both parties). -- Marc A. Schindler Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada -- Gateway to the Boreal Parkland “We do not think that there is an incompatibility between words and deeds; the worst thing is to rush into action before the consequences have been properly debated…To think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one’s unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action.” – Pericles about his fellow-Athenians, as quoted by Thucydides in “The Peloponessian Wars” Note: This communication represents the informal personal views of the author solely; its contents do not necessarily reflect those of the author’s employer, nor those of any organization with which the author may be associated. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// /// ZION LIST CHARTER: Please read it at /// /// http://www.zionsbest.com/charter.html /// ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ==^^=============================================================== This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP9AU.bWix1n.YXJjaGl2 Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^^===============================================================
