The Death of an Alliance, Part 55: South Korea’s Ruling Party Blames America for North Korea’s Nukes
Update 10/15: Correction — according to a newer poll, 43% of South Koreans are retarded.
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If you also watched the new “South Park” episode last night, you may still be laughing about it. I still am. It dealt with 9-11 conspiracy theories, and naturally, Eric Cartman acted as the surrogate for all that is irrational, prejudiced, and nasty (Kyle was the scapegoat, of course). I won’t spoil any of the plot twists, but there’s a scene in the beginning where Cartman, Kyle, and Stan are talking about 9-11. Kyle says that only a retard would believe in the conspiracy theories. Cartman answers that a quarter of the American people believe that 9-11 was a conspiracy. Can one-quarter of the American people really be retards?
Kyle: Yes, Cartman, a quarter of the American people are retards.
Stan: Yeah, at least.
It helps you put this into some perspective.
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow said Wednesday it was unfair that his country had been criticized in the wake of North Korea’s nuclear test. On a visit to the Grand National Party, the ambassador said according to a recent press poll, 30 percent of Korean’s believe that the North’s test was the fault of the U.S. But Vershbow insisted the U.S. did everything it could at the six-party talks on the North’s nuclear program. Party spokesman Na Kyung-won quoted Vershbow as voicing disappointment that people did not look at the entire series of events.
How can I possibly describe my reaction to this? Let me find exactly the right word. I am …
relieved.
Yes, relieved. Because if you compare that result to some of these results, we could have the makings of a tourist brochure: “South Korea — Now 20% Less Retarded!” Unfortunately, there appears to be substantial overlap between that 30% and South Korea’s current government. The foundation of the ruling Uri Party is the idea that appeasing North Korea would improve its behavior. Now that the Sunshine Policy has just suffered the mother of all sunburns, Cartman Uri must find a scapegoat:
[F]ormer president Kim Dae-jung and the ruling Uri Party continued to work out their theory that the U.S. was to blame for the test. During a talk Wednesday at Chonnam National University, Kim said, “Under the Sunshine Policy, was North Korea engaged in nuclear development?
Where does DJ think North Korea got its bomb(s)? Botswana?
With the U.S. refusing to even talk while bullying North Korea, isn’t nuclear development the only option left (to North Korea) to ensure its survival.
Why, yes, if you exclude instituting meaningful economic reforms, releasing the captive citizens of your neighbors, importing some food, getting out of the counterfeiting and dope rackets, complying with the NPT, letting in some food aid, and moving some of the guns away from the DMZ. Other than that, I suppose that’s your only option. The continuation of Moammar Khaddafy’s life term of office does present some problems for DJ’s theory, of course, but facts are simply inconvenient obstacles.
During an urgent plenary session at the National Assembly, Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook said, “I do believe that the U.S. sanctions and financial pressure on North Korea may be one of the causes for the nuclear test. The initial responsibility falls to the North, but it is hard to name any one country.
Next to DJ’s, Han’s drivel seems almost reasonable. How sad.
Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok told lawmakers Seoul “told the U.S. government that if North Korea conducts a nuclear test, the fate of the Korean people is at stake, and recommended that if at all possible the U.S. should hold direct talks with the North, but the U.S. refused to accommodate us.
B.S., from an accomplished provider of it (one, two, three, four links, and the latest is a gem: “”I apologize for the illegal remittance issue, which was caused by mismatch between law and reality.). We’ve held bilateral talks and multilateral talks, and we’ve specifically held bilateral talks about counterfeiting and sanctions. It is North Korea that has refused to return to the six-party talks for a year now. North Korea wants to keep cranking out supernotes, smack, and nukes with abandon, and we’re unwilling to just let them and “take one for the team,” some of whose members are sitting out the game. If South Korea wants to break the deadlock — at least when it comes to counterfeiting, the North’s excuse d’anee — it knows exactly how to do it.
Chun Jung-bae posted a notice on his website that read, “The Neocon-led U.S. policy on North Korea has not stopped the nuclear proliferation and is a clear failure. It is a result of ignorance of the precept that the carrot and the stick must be used together to bring about positive effects. Rep. Jung Chung-rae said Washington had “abandoned the spirit” of a statement of principles agreed in the six-party talks last year and thus shoulders a large part of the blame.
Ruling Uri Party Chairman Kim Geun-tae said, “The final result was the North Korean nuclear test, so the Bush administration’s hostile attitude and policy of not recognizing North Korea are clearly not working.
When I testified at the House International Relations Committee on September 27th, I accused the South Korean ruling party of using anti-American demagoguery for pecuniary political gain. That party is elected to the leadership of the South Korean government. These examples certainly would make a good appendix to that testimony.
This is exactly what KJI was counting on. China and Russia aren’t willing to put the screws to him and SK’s leaders can’t seem to pull their collective head out of their collective fourth point of contact. Let the U.S. media get a hold of this and USFK will be dead for sure. Meanwhile, Kim will create a nice little stash of nukes, print a bunch more funny money, and sell drugs and missiles around the world, all the while screaming it was the U.S. that drove them to it….and there are plenty of people stupid enough to try to rationalize it.
My wife just told me it’s our fault. Let’s break contact with this country before they seal the borders, hold us captive, and force us to sign some confession or some other bullshite. I’ll take my chances in the sandbox.
Off topic…I don’t find this template very user-friendly, but I do like the fonts.
I’m sorry Mark…if you need a place to stay, let me know. j/k.
I really don’t know why it is that Koreans in general can’t seem to accept responsibility for bad things. Great things, sure. But bad things….had to be the fault of a foreigner. The one pure race could never be at fault.
Without a doubt, the sanctions the US placed on North Korea was a strong influence on the North toward testing a nuclear bomb.
Whether or not that means the US should “endure” the actions (and money flows) the sanctions targeted —– is a completely different point.
I think we should talk about this issue in this manner — so we can point to the real points.
We should embrace the idea that sanctions led to the nuke test. We should turn it on people like the Uri flops and misguided Kim Dae Jung —– to point out for all to see just what they are defending.
If we continue (as we always do) to leave the discussion with the words floating around being “sanctions” vs “diplomacy” – it will remain muddled enough for KDJ and crew to win over their 30% and confuse an extra 20-30% of the typical fence sitters.
What I mean is —– when KDJ and crew voice opinions like this, and use the word “sanctions”
we should rush to beat them over the head with exactly what the santions mean.
We are not sanctioning baby-food formula and medication for orphans (created by the 1990s famine – or politically motivated bullets to the head).
We are sanctioning illegal money flows that come from drug smuggling, counterfiting (sp?), illegal weapons technology and hardware sales, and so on. Force Kim Dae Jung to come out and openly defend those enterprises, which is exactly what he is doing when he says the US caused the nuke test with its sanctions – thus implying the sanctions were wrong and shouldn’t have been put in place.
We must make the focus more clear.
I don’t buy that the US sanctions caused the nK nuke test. I think they provided a convenient excuse for what kji already intended to do. Testing a nuke damn sure wasn’t going to cause the sanctions to be lifted.
On the other hand, if countries hadn’t been pouring aid and currency into nK regardless of nK actions, maybe kji would have had to focus on the needs of the country. However, when he knows he can count on the gullible South Koreans and Chinese to feed his people, he can use his money to buy migs, cognac, and artillery while developing nuclear weapons.
Even now, with nK claiming to have nuclear weapons, sK still wants to continue “economic cooperation” with nK. nK only has the technology to fling those things so far…. South Korea claims ending economic cooperation would only hurt South Korea. Translation: we don’t want to see nK collapse and face the reality of rebuilding it, as well as accepting the fact they South Korea has ignored the hellish living conditions of their cousins to the north because it was unpleasant and made the Sunshine Policy seem retarded.
NK could have tested an ICBM and/or nuke anytime since the last ICBM went up in 1998. Even when Bush came into power and the second nuke crisis began when NK admitted to having a secret enrichment program, it still didn’t fire up a missile or test a nuke. But it did both recently.
The most likely reason why is the sanctions the US put on the North over the last year – and the fact China did not make up the shortfall with increased aid – really bit into the regimes necessities.
Now, a normal nation might think about changing its ways in face of something like that – like putting an end to drug smuggling, fake currency, fake smokes, selling illegal weapons technology and hardware, and such things as the US sanctions targeted — but this is NK — so they fired up a missile and then tested a nuke.
—which proves they are really hurting.
If we look at the word “cause” as a neutral word, the sanctions did “cause” the reaction —- just as US sanctions on Japan’s war in Asia “caused” Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor.
The problem is —– most people use the “cause” to mean “blame” — which is how South Korea and some Democrats in the US are using the word now in relation to the North’s nuke test.
I still think KJI conducted his last two temper tantrums because he anticipated the difference in reactions from SK and the US. They brought SK’s apathy toward the alliance and SK’s own security to center stage.
As you said, he could have done it at any time. One thing he had to wait for was the US to dedicate large portions of its military elsewhere. Aside from that, I think the political climate was right to drive a wedge deep between the US and SK, KJI realized that, and he took advantage.
On wedge driving, this and I think future actions in 2007 will also work to split South Korea from Japan even more than they have been the past year – which has been a terrible year in that relationship. I think in 2007, NK will be able to further exploit the rift at the top of both nations. South Korean society has hated the Japanese for a very long time, but now, I think, it is going to start to turn into policy and business strains on a significant, lastly level as NK starts striking out at others — which is what I think they will do in 2007.
KJI is pushing Seoul towards Beijing (and nK) and pushing the U.S. out of Korea and toward Japan. All the parties are playing into his hand. And all he has to do is weather the storm of sanctions his two major benefactors have no intention of enforcing. It’s really quite impressive….he’s a crafty little guy in platform shoes.