Negotiating With Terror

I normally don’t really give a rat’s ass what al-Qaeda says in its videotapes, but this does seem more than mildly newsworthy:

And in yet another gambit that smacks of desperation, [al-Qaeda in Iraq leader  Abu Omar] al-Baghdadi tries to rile up the French and the Chinese against American global hegemony, and addresses those nations as “the freemen of the world.” Not only that, but he adopts a scolding tone with North Korea, essentially invoking the “sharing is caring” line, when he says, “And let North Korea know that it owes its nuclear tests to the mujaheddin in Iraq.” Translation: ” Al Qaeda’s actions distracted America from dealing with your evil, and the least you can do is share a nuclear device with us.”

I don’t know what’s sadder:  that the news media don’t report this, or that we no longer need wonder why.  Incidentally, the  interest in proliferation  is mutual:

The United States should consider the danger that we could transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists, that we have the ability to do so.

““ North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-Gwan, April 2005

Last month, Mr. Kim’s boss,  Foreign Minister  Paek Nam Sun,  went off to present his credentials to Saddam, so Kim Gye-Gwan is now  the de facto Foreign Minister of North Korea.  Richardson informs us that Kim, with whom we’re negotiating in  Beijing this very day,  is known as “the smiling assassin.”  I’m sure to the South Koreans who gave him that name, and to the media who won’t report his crude threat, that’s a term of endearment.   I submit, however, that when  those who have the duty to inform us shield us  from such mortal threats to our safety, they do not make our world safer.