North Korea laments Gaddafi's nuke folly

[bemildred]

SEOUL - North Korea could hardly have come up with a better reason for not giving up its nuclear weapons program than the United States-led bombing of the forces of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

It was nearly eight years ago that Gaddafi made a show of jettisoning a nuclear weapons program in deference to the demands of the United States and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In return, Gaddafi, once the bete noir of the Western world, the cruel tyrant who condoned or maybe ordered the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21, 1988, was showered with aid and favors, not to mention diplomatic relations with the US in 2006.

The bad boy had reformed, so much so that the neo-conservative servants of the presidency of George W Bush held him up as a shining example of what a little common sense and diplomacy could do.

Now if only the worst actor of all, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il, would follow his example. Repeatedly the neo-cons held up the Libyan example as a model for North Korea in all those rounds of six-party talks that culminated in elaborate agreements in 2007 for the North to abandon its nukes. North Korea had no intention of doing anything of the sort, but US negotiators, and South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak, never tired of reminding North Korea of all the riches they would share in the form of direly needed aid if only the North would live up to its word.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/MC29Dg01.html

[David__77]

1. It is true that voluntarily surrendering self-defense capacity is "foolish."

Now, if someone will place their own head under a guillotine, then why stop them? But it's absolutely true that doing so will hardly win friends or placate enemies.