Bush manipulated NKorea intelligence like he did in Iraq: US expert

[NNN0LHI]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20041210/pl_afp/nkoreanuclearus&cid=1521&ncid=1478

BEIJING (AFP) - The United States manipulated intelligence on North Korea (news - web sites)'s nuclear program in a similar fashion to its use of weapons of mass destruction to justify the war on Iraq (news - web sites), a US foreign policy expert said in an article.

"Relying on sketchy data, the Bush administration presented a worst-case scenario as an incontrovertible truth and distorted its intelligence on North Korea (much as it did in Iraq), seriously exaggerating the danger that Pyongyang is secretly making uranium-based nuclear weapons," Selig Harrison said in Foreign Affairs magazine.

Harrison, from the Washington-based Center for International Policy, chairs the Task Force on Korean Policy, a grouping of former senior US military officials, diplomats and Korean specialists.

The Task Force, which includes a former joint chiefs of staff head and ex-US ambassadors, on Friday issued a report calling on the US immediately to back down on its insistence that North Korea come clean on its alleged uranium program.

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[maddezmom]

1. so while * & his crew, screw around with Nuke talks...

they get closer to the ATOM bomb... :shrug:

[peacetalksforall]

2. I heard a snippet of an interview with Jimmy Carter today - he said the

Bush administration will not allow anyone to speak to N. Korea.

[radwriter0555]

3. I've been saying that for 4 years. North Korea poses no more a threat to

the USA than Iran and Iraq.

Nuclear power plants aren't a threat to anyone but OIL COMPANIES.

[Massacure]

8. Oil is a bad choice for power plants.

[struggle4progress]

4. Well, ya wanna have options when deciding where to go to war.

[Karenina]

5. It's about time.

The BFEE is such a horrendous joke. They tell you they're gonna FUCK YOU UP, release their "manifestos," then they go on ahead and do it, couch their language in "We're Initiating Clear Air, Restoring the Constituton, and Fighting Turrurismus as we BRING DEMOCRACY TO IRAQ. (Pssst... You can't bring what you ain't got).

Saddam has WMD. 45 minutes. Bad chemicals. (And my favorite,) "insurgents."

North Korea is a tragedy, controlled by the controllers of a LOON, but your *PNAC gub'mint dwarfs NK's current kinetic in a thousand points of potential radioactive light. The apocalyptic mindset of this LYING, STEALING, CRIMINAL "elite" (got W-A-Y too much control over W-A-Y too much moolah and nassssssy explosive toys which facilitate getting a lotta folks killed after ROBBING them and their great-grandchildren BLIND, DEAF and DUMB, while hiding out in bunkers) is not comforting to anyone who recognizes it. They are ITCHING to test their latest "aquisitions. They WILL manipulate info to justify setting them off.

Nobody in this world needs another U.S.military "Sic 'em." Pleased to see the LIES being called out.

[teryang]

6. Jung mal yo.

I've tried to point out the similarities is lies concerning Iraq and Korea for two years but few listen. The indoctrination and cultural bias on N.Korea is more complete even than that on Iraq.

N.Korea needs a nuclear power program for ordinary economic purposes. They have uranium mines. The US has been interfering with their nuclear power program for over a decade now, pursuing a policy of duplicity and lies.

[Art_from_Ark]

11. The NK threat is overblown

but NK itself is a creepy country. They have kidnapped Japanese and South Koreans and done no-telling-what with them. They have claimed several Japanese kidnap victims "died", then claimed the cemetery they were supposedly buried in was completely obliterated by a freak flood. They have returned supposed remains of a Japanese kidnap victim, only to have those remains certified as NOT belonging to the purported victim. They have shot a missile over Japan, and are constantly playing stupid cat-and-mouse games with the Japanese and South Korean navies. When their vintage WWII rustbuckets get too dilapidated even for them, they drag them over to Japanese waters and dump them, toxic chemicals and all.

Of course, if you're Japanese you might want to try one of the guided tours offered by the NK version of Intourist. But don't look at some of the statues or temples wrong-- you could be fined for it. And don't step in the wrong place, like the wrong crack in the sidewalk-- once warned, twice fined.

And don't even THINK about trying out your Korean with one of the locals. "Fraternizing" with foreign tourists from "unapproved" countries is strictly verboten!

[teryang]

13. The Japanese record in Korea isn't too good either

Japanese murderers and opportunists tortured and slaughtered millions in Asia. Visit the National Independence Memorial in S.Korea. It has the historical record all laid out. The US and Japan have killed millions of Koreans. The Japanese ran a racist slaughterhouse there from 1911 till 1945. Curtis Lemay destroyed every single building in N.Korea down to the smallest thatched hut. Japan was the base from which these attacks were staged. The US and Japan choose to forget these inconvenient facts. There is a saying in Korea, ten thousand years is not too long to avenge a grudge. Japan is weird in that these facts are expunged from their history.

The wierdness in N.Korea is a paranoid legacy of the treatment they received at Japanese and American hands. S.Koreans understand the political perspective of N.Korea a whole lot better than the Japanese or Americans. The Kim government will fall of its own accord some day. The truth is that Japan and US want the peninsula to remain divided. If neither one can control the whole thing, they seek to perpetuate the conflict rather than lose a foothold on the strategic peninsula. A united Korea will cut deeply into Japanese geo-political and economic interests.

[Art_from_Ark]

23. Why would a united peninsula cut into Japanese interests?

Japan has nothing to gain from keeping the peninsula divided. The Japanese government is not trying to sell weapons systems. It is not trying to keep its people in a state of fear. It supported Clinton's initiatives in the peninsula. What would Japan have to lose if a peaceful resolution was found or if relations between North Korea and Japan were normalized?

[aikido15]

17. I've had my eye on this one since....

the first day Bush opened his lying mouth about N. Korea.

I am so glad this is out...the entire article will be in Foreign Affairs Mag., January issue.

[Just Me]

7. *throws her hands up in the air*

The neoCONfascists psy-opped me!!!

[Nordic]

9. Duh.

Think the mainstream media will run with this?

HA!

We've known this for frikkin' ever.

Didn't ANYBODY ever read the story about the boy who cried wolf?

I guess not ......

[George W. Hayduke]

10. Kick...

[AndrewJacksonFaction]

12. Media? ::::::crickets:::::::

[NNN0LHI]

14. Media shit. We have DUers who are ready to invade NKorea over this crap

But when the truth comes out they have no comment. Same ones who were all worried about Saddam's balsa wood drones coming over here and spraying them with poison gas. Notice how this thread died? Funny, eh?

Don

[berni_mccoy]

15. Now, finally, for the sake of our democracy

can we start the impeachment proceedings. This illegal activity by the administration is endangering our country!

[Disturbed]

16. Senator Luger

I have listened to several speeches of his regarding NK. He is rational and advocates a softer approach to NK. He actually advocates helping NK in exchange for a more open policy. Japan is the Govt. that has thrown major roadblocks in the effort to bring NK and SK together.

[Art_from_Ark]

20. Japan supported Clinton's initiatives vis-a-vis North Korea

As soon as bu$h took over the White House, he snubbed them, and he snubbed the South Korean (and Nobel Peace Prize winning) president when he visited Washington shortly thereafter. The bu$h administration has been holding up the paper boogeyman of North in an effort to keep people in this part of the world afraid and sell weapons systems to Japan and South Korea.

[hughee99]

18. So NK isn't making, and doesn't have, nuclear weapons? n/t

[Judi Lynn]

19. Kick!

"The Enemy!"

[teryang]

21. Hand in hand we'll overcome the wall

1988 Seoul Olympic theme song. Athletes from the warsaw pact countries understood it well. It went right over American heads.

This picture reminds me of a video recording of "Ari rang" sung by a group of Korean school children in N. Korea. The video was broadcast on Hermit Kingdom on the Korean Broadcast System as part of a cultural exchange program. Most beautiful song I ever heard. As soldier in the south, I realized that Korea is profoundly one country and the constant talk of war by our nation was a dreadful thing.

Of course, N.Korean sound broadcasts and billboards had a similar affect. My favorites were Mi goon na ga ra! American soldier go home! Another was Se gum op nun nara. Tax free country.

[justjones]

22. No shit. Just like Iraq and now N. Korea, I'll betcha OBL....

is a made up character that didn't have anything to do with 9/11. If these bastards said the sky was blue, everyone better look up in the sky and verify with our own eyes whether it was true.

[0007]

24. Wow! I bet this makes junior green with envy

Notice the size of the people compared to the statue

[davsand]

25. His lips were moving--thus you KNOW he lied.

How shocking could this actually BE to anybody that has been paying attention for the last five years? I'm happy to see him get called on it, but this is not exactly a huge surprise.

Something that I AM amazed by, however, is his ability to feed off the racism and paranoia that hangs out there for so many people. His entire propaganda attack on the Middle East fed directly off the people who were left with fear and anger after the first Gulf War and then, later, 9/11.

Similarly, his rhetoric on Korea fed directly into the people who were Korean War vets. If you stop to think about it, those are the same people who remember Pearl Harbor all to vividly as well.

He's loathsome and he's a lying sack of shit--but you have got to hand it to the asswipe--he's got an amazing ability to feed into all the idiosyncrasies of the American public.

Laura

[Rose Siding]

26. Here's the Foreign Affairs mag piece

Since James Kelly was involved, it was nutty to take what the admin was saying as gospel in the first place.

It's a long piece...

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20050101faessay84109/selig-s-harrison/did-north-korea-cheat.html

On October 4, 2002, the United States suddenly confronted North Korea with a damning accusation: that it was secretly developing a program to enrich uranium to weapons grade, in violation of the 1994 agreement that Pyongyang had signed with Washington to freeze its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Since North Korea had cheated, the Bush administration declared, the United States was no longer bound by its side of the deal. Accordingly, on November 14, 2002, the United States and its allies suspended the oil shipments they had been providing North Korea under the 1994 agreement. Pyongyang retaliated by expelling international inspectors and resuming the reprocessing of plutonium, which it had stopped under the 1994 accord (known as the Agreed Framework). The confrontation between North Korea and the United States once more reached a crisis level.......

[Judi Lynn]

27. After reading that article it's easy to see anyone accepting Bush claims

at face value is going to be wildly misled. It's unbelievable that _Bush is conducting the country's business in such sub-standard ways.

This article is just great for anyone who hasn't taken time to read anything about North Korean/US relations, and it shows we have NOT been respected enough to be told even the smallest truths about this.

Why were we not told that Koizumi has been clearing the way to a better relationship with North Korea, as well as Seoul? Why were we not told that _Bush has been determined to prevent it?

Really puts a different look on the image the _Bush people have tried to install of _Bush's seduction of Koizumi, working that old charm, and bending him to do his will! Far from it! Why is it they have actually tried to ram this crap down our throats about _Bush having such a power personality, such magical charm that all the world's leaders do his bidding, other than the ones we hate?

Anyone who hasn't taken the time to read about _Bush vs. North Korea will REALLY benefit from this article.



Oh, PLEASE!