Community | June 08, 2009 | 130 comments

What should Obama do about North Korea?

source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/world/asia/08korea.html?ref=us

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DeliaTheArtist
The Obama administration signaled Sunday that it was seeking a way to interdict, possibly with China’s help, North Korean sea and air shipments suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met Friday in Washington with Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan of South Korea.

The administration also said it was examining whether there was a legal basis to reverse former President George W. Bush’s decision last year to remove the North from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.

The reference to interdictions — preferably at ports or airfields in countries like China, but possibly involving riskier confrontations on the high seas — was made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was the highest-ranking official to talk publicly about such a potentially provocative step as a response to North Korea’s second nuclear test, conducted two weeks ago.

While Mrs. Clinton did not specifically mention assistance from China, other administration officials have been pressing Beijing to take such action under Chinese law.

Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Mrs. Clinton said the United States feared that if the test and other recent actions by North Korea did not lead to “strong action,” there was a risk of “an arms race in Northeast Asia” — an oblique reference to the concern that Japan would reverse its long-held ban against developing nuclear weapons.

So far it is not clear how far the Chinese are willing to go to aid the United States in stopping North Korea’s profitable trade in arms, the isolated country’s most profitable export. But the American focus on interdiction demonstrates a new and potentially far tougher approach to North Korea than both President Clinton and Mr. Bush, in his second term, took as they tried unsuccessfully to reach deals that would ultimately lead North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

Mr. Obama, aides say, has decided that he will not offer North Korea new incentives to dismantle the nuclear complex at Yongbyon that the North previously promised to abandon.

“I’m tired of buying the same horse twice,” Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said last week while touring an antimissile site in Alaska that the Bush administration built to demonstrate its preparedness to destroy North Korean missiles headed toward the United States. (So far, the North Koreans have not successfully tested a missile of sufficient range to reach the United States, though there is evidence that they may be preparing for another test of their long-range Taepodong-2 missile.)

In France on Saturday, Mr. Obama referred to the same string of broken deals, telling reporters, “I don’t think there should be an assumption that we will simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways.” He added, “We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation.”
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130 comments // What should Obama do about North Korea?

  • meganunn
    • 0
      meganunn  
    • vagrantaesthetic:

      Not to mention they were convicted today to 12 years in a labor camp. Interesting that there was a report done by Ms. Ling a while back and still no response from current about their imprisonment. WHY?

    • 2 years ago
  • akamaial
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  

    • Obama should look at the nation's debts and realize America cannot afford to start new wars, and he needs to extract America from the present wars.

      Iran and Korea....added to Iraq and Afghanistan .oops.

    • 2 years ago
  • 96thdayofrage
    • 0
      96thdayofrage  

    • First of all, none of L'il Kim's high flying fireworks has made it further than the ocean right outside Korea. Even at that, it brought all the heat of my neighbor's kid setting off M-80s four and five at a time daily in the trash cans in the alley from the 30th of May until Labor Day every summer. In short, it's more an annoyance and a danger to L'il Kim than a problem for the rest of world.

      L'il Kim is only acting out to insure his son Kim Jr inherits his dictatorship when he croaks, which looks to be about to happen pretty darn soon. The little pest is in horrible physical shape and obviously knows he isn't long for this mortal coil. Still, the people of Korea are a little leary of what all this holds for them once Dear Leader is gone and the little Prince inherits the wrath of the world his dad has spent a lifetime incurring against them. Sanctions are one thing, but the hatred and dread of an irritated world is a beast of a more dangerous variety, a fact that has not escaped a people for whom a coup d'etat is not a foreign notion. Knowing that, if I were the President, I'd just bide my time until L'il Kim departs this life, and Kim Jr is deposed in the coming coup.

    • 2 years ago
  • Liberal_Extinction
    • 0
      Liberal_Extinction  

    • Maybe obamessiah can deliver a personal fluffy bunny speech to little kimmie, promise him hope & change, and then apologize for America being America. Liberals seem to think it's working everywhere else.

    • 2 years ago
  • 2hellnwait
    • 0
      2hellnwait  

    • welcome to the wonderful world of biased and slanted selective and monitored topics here at current. . . you can say anything you want as long as they "agree".

    • 2 years ago
  • lvk104
    • 0
      lvk104  
    • 2hellnwait:

      I don't even know how many of my topic suggestions and posts have been deleted. Even comments mentioning a specific incident which I will NOT name, at risk of having THIS deleted.

    • 2 years ago
  • 2hellnwait
  • queenofhearts
    • 0
      queenofhearts  

    • Obama should invite Kim for dinner at the White House. They should have a good home cooked southern meal. And then go out on the back porch and drink whiskey and smoke cigs. Then convince the North Korean Dick that America will NOT stand for this rude behavior ! And if he says one sly remark...Obama should sock him in the nose !!!!!

    • 2 years ago
  • Snuff99
  • NakedGoblin
  • 2hellnwait
  • mmengel
  • dwb2585
    • dwb2585  
    • This comment has been hidden for review.
  • 2hellnwait
    • 0
      2hellnwait  
    • dwb2585:

      It is becoming more and more obvious as time moves along that there is a core group of favorites that are in lock-step with 'current' and anyone outside of the "unspoken mantra" are censored at will.

    • 2 years ago
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  

    • It's really not an easy situation.

      Pretty much bottom line is that we need to go to war with them. But we're really not in any position to be doing that, and who knows how the region would actually react to that. South Koreans haven't exactly been very grateful for our presence or our military aid, they hold rallies against us all the time. Plenty of shopkeepers in Seoul hang signs in their shops that say "no Americans allowed."

      But Obama is right, a policy where intimidation is continuously pandered to cannot last forever, especially when the result is just slowing down the inevitable.

      Man, if Bush was going to start any bullshit illegal war, he should have started one there.

    • 2 years ago
  • TE1091
    • 0
      TE1091  

    • Didn't we fought in the Korean War and made it into two countries one communist and the other non-communist. I do know in fact that this happened during the Cold War.
      And if North Korea are not using outdated military weapons then were are the new ones? Where did they get support?

    • 2 years ago
  • MinneapolisMafia
  • clownpuncher
    • 0
      clownpuncher  

    • I am pretty sure Obama will do nothing about N. Korea. He would be to worried about the far left peace lovers slapping him around. Besides if there are only two things Obama is good at...spending money and apologizing....He is such a good liberal.

    • 2 years ago
  • wintermadness90
    • 0
      wintermadness90  
    • clownpuncher:

      "far left peace lovers slapping him around"

      I think there are plenty of Liberals that want Obama to take some kind of action with North Korea, me being one of them.

      By the way, Obama cares too much about pleasing the right wing, not the left.

    • 2 years ago
  • brad62
  • blknight
  • chasingame
    • 0
      chasingame  

    • Hate to say it but I think we do have to at least try to work along side China on this one because China is the only country that kim jong il has any real relations with. Hopefully they can talk him down off the ledge. If they cannot, and military action becomes the only alternative, then the UN has to be in the lead. Not the US.

    • 2 years ago
  • chasingame
    • 0
      chasingame  

    • @DonaldJude......Did you learn anything from Iraq or do you actually believe that just because GWB landed on an aircraft carrier that the war is actually over. It might only take four days to take out their military but these people are brainwashed. We would be tied up in the quagmire for a decade or more. Do you honestly think the US is financially, militarily, and psychologically in a position to commit to something like that.

    • 2 years ago
  • Nazzareno
  • DonaldJude
    • 0
      DonaldJude  

    • How long would it take the US military to effectively destroy the NKorean military? It took 4 days to destroy Iraq's, which was larger. Blowing apart every palace and military command post should only take a few hours. Why not just do it? We would be doing the NKorean people a favor.

    • 2 years ago
  • lvk104
    • lvk104  
    • This comment has been hidden for review.
  • Taxxpayer
    • 0
      Taxxpayer  
    • lvk104:

      And why hasn't Al Gore made 1 comment about
      sending 2 reporters to the North Korean/China
      border? Why isn't there any comments from
      Current TV about Euna Lee and Laura Ling?
      What is wrong with Current TV? It's not current.

    • 2 years ago
  • lvk104
    • 0
      lvk104  
    • lvk104:

      I agree...it's outrageous and changing my perception of Current in general. I think that current users in particular should be aware of this story, since it a tangential way it involves each and every one of us. This is supposedly our news organization. So who the hell is censoring it?

    • 2 years ago
  • AngryUser
    • AngryUser  
    • This comment has been hidden for review.
  • lvk104
    • 0
      lvk104  
    • AngryUser:

      Thanks for posting this. I've tried to get it up in the "news" section but so far haven't been able to get through the "review" process.

      Seems to me a news organization should allow the news. I can understand if it would jeopardize their safety, but perhaps the more people who know about it the more pressure there'll be in the US gov't to get them home.

    • 2 years ago
  • middle_east
  • papadnice
    • 0
      papadnice  

    • Kim Jong Il is a egotistical dictator that keeps the people of his country in poverty while he orders culinary chefs from Japan to be his personal sushi preparers. Our president cannot do anything when the leader of N. Korea is insane. Plain and simple--America gave them nuclear information and known it's biting us in the butt. We have no power in Asia except in Japan (which we bombed mercilessly in WWII).

    • 2 years ago
  • AngryUser
    • AngryUser  
    • This comment has been hidden for review.
  • courage89
  • BDiamond
    • BDiamond  
    • This comment has been hidden for review.
  • courage89
  • remanns
  • Mikeysfake1
  • BDiamond
    • BDiamond  
    • This comment has been hidden for review.
  • unimatrix0
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  

    • N Korea is China's big Stick to keep US in place, till we deal with the Ball we dropped in Tienanmen Sq. 20 years ago that buggy man will keep getting stronger in our minds!

      Freeleeling.

    • 2 years ago
  • najwa
    • 0
      najwa  

    • it really is a difficult situation to handle...
      if we are agressive towards North Korea then it could start a nuclear war.
      If we do nothing then it can start an arms race for the world and we look like pushovers.
      there's a hard decision that's going to be made but one thing is we can't reward north korea by going easy on them when they clearly don't deserve it.

    • 2 years ago
  • Denica_Cassandra
    • 0
      Denica_Cassandra  

    • This makes me so sad, I feel helpless... I want to go in there Rambo-style and take care of a few things, but I know we can't. What to do without starting a war?

    • 2 years ago
  • DGibsonjr
    • 0
      DGibsonjr  

    • N. Korea + Nuclear Missle = ??

      I believe President Obama will handle the situaiton effectively. The entire globe knows the outcome if Korea crosses the line, an attempt to establishing dominance in our time of weakness moronically underscores the spirit of Americans.

    • 2 years ago
  • keithponder
  • krush_productions
  • Denica_Cassandra
  • morirjedi
    • 0
      morirjedi  

    • There has to be an end to this. You can warn only so many times. It is time for some payback. If it is right there is no wrong time.

    • 2 years ago
  • brad62
    • brad62  
    • This comment has been hidden for review.
  • numinant
  • IcypawsJG
    • IcypawsJG  
    • This comment has been hidden for review.
  • brad62
  • numinant
  • jenpixel
    • 0
      jenpixel  
    • IcypawsJG:

      well considering the silence on all fronts, this is not surprising. up until recently, i don't think the families could talk about it. there is still a lot of background stuff going on and i think that is why you will probably read/see more about the story elsewhere.

    • 2 years ago
  • brad62
  • courage89
  • spanky07
  • numinant
    • 0
      numinant  
    • spanky07:

      What about food?

      I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand there would be a humanitarian crisis without aid. On the other, continuing aid only empowers the regime. Tough call.

    • 2 years ago
  • IllCutYou
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