BREAKING: Bush Admin to Ask Congress on Thursday to REMOVE North Korea from TERROR WATCH LIST

[kpete]

BREAKING: Bush Administration to Ask Congress on Thursday to REMOVE North Korea from TERROR WATCH LIST

Tonight, The Washington Note confirmed that the Bush administration will "ask Congress" to de-list North Korea from America's "terrorist watch list." This request will be made on Thursday -- if there are no last minute, unexpected interventions.

Rumors have been kicking around that this might be happening, but no administration officials would confirm until today that this was finally decided.

During the day today, I spoke with officials from the State Department, the CIA, the Department of Defense, President Bush's staff, and the Office of the Vice President -- and several sources from these departments confirmed that the administration was moving forward on formally asking Congress to remove North Korea from the controversial watch list -- which is seen as a key confidence building step by North Korea and China in moving towards North Korea's eventual return to the nuclear non-proliferation club.

Sources also tell TWN that while the Bush administration will take this step Thursday, Vice President Cheney's office was a dissenting voice in the administration's internal discussions.

more at:
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/06/breaking_bush_a/

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Translation

North Korea is ready to agree to neoliberal trade pact.

[lazyriver]

16. I think you're spot on. Inflation in China and Vietnam are driving

costs upward dramatically, as is the plunging dollar. The company I work for has some products manufactured in both those countries. We've incurred four price increases from China in the last 12 months (8% last June, 11% in August, another 11% in January and just last week, 18%). The factories are predicting at least one more double digit increase before the end of the year. Vietnam, though not as dramatic, is moving in the same direction.

This is just one of the major flaws in the current business model where everything has to be continuously cheaper. Sooner or later, the developing country becomes a victim of its own "success" and its labor market becomes too expensive compared to the next even poorer country the government has lined up to pillage. It's a typical use up and throw away mentality designed to make a quick buck for the corporate masters while sacrificing any and everything in their path. They chewed up and spit out the American workers in the last decade and a half and are working on China and Vietnam now. Infrastructure is being laid for North Korea for the next 10 years and 20 years from now all the toaster ovens in the world will say, "Made in Sudan" on them.

[TroglodyteScholar]

2. NK, key member of the Axis of I Guess Maybe You Guys Aren't So Bad n/t

[gateley]

3. Why is he doing this?

The Repubs have to be making some money off of it somehow.

[Elwood P Dowd]

4. Another fake free trade deal and cheap labor.

:grr:

[gateley]

7. Thanks. I knew there'd be a "good" reason. nt

[Old and In the Way]

11. No doubt North Korea represents the lowest cost labor market in SE Asia

that has yet to be exploited and I also suspect that South Korea would prefer to tap this market than export jobs into China. An NK/SK reapproachment based on mutually beneficial trade/development could be quite intriguing for capital investment in this part of the world. This may very well be driven by SK....they might be demanding that this administration stop using NK as a whipping boy so relations can be normalized....or find a new home for our bases in their country.

[DCKit]

12. And why is the Dickster against it? They don't have any oil, do they?

You'd think he'd be too busy with all the evil regimes sitting on vast oil deposits to worry about what Lil' Kim's up to.

The M.E., Western Africa, Hugo Chavez and his resource-rich neighbors should be a full-time obsession, yet he's got time for N. Korea? Dick Cheney isn't simply inhuman, he's SUPER inhuman.

[jmowreader]

19. They DO have oil!

There's:

The West Sea Basin
The Anju Basin
The Pyongyang Basin
The East Sea Basin
The Kilju Basin
The Kyongsong Bay Basin
and an area 150km off the North Korean west coast that doesn't yet have a name

This is a win-win for everyone except the American working class:

North Korea would like to end the famine that grips the DPRK and has for decades
South Korea would like to reunify with North Korea (they would have done it forty years ago except that South Korea doesn't want to become a communist country and the Kim regime doesn't want to be anything else)
Wal-Mart thinks China's getting just a touch big for its boots
and the increasingly-puritanical US Army would like to be able to stop stationing soldiers in the Juarez of the Orient.

[ben_meyers]

5. Maybe a step towards reunification

And we can finally bring our troops home.

[mcctatas]

6. DUzy!!!

:rofl:

[gateley]

8. Bring them home - or send them to Iraq? nt

[WheelWalker]

14. Oh Ye of so little faith... n/t

[Renew Deal]

9. And then the republican will run ads against Democrats for taking NK off the list.

:shrug:

[Newsjock]

10. If North Korea gets off the terror watch list while I'm still on it ...

... something is seriously wrong.

[johnfunk]

13. Then Bush Jr. can nuke Iran, and claim he cleaned up the "Axis of Evil"

... it's his legacy, don'tchaknow...

[pansypoo53219]

15. green light to attack iWan?

or does NK have mangos for georgee?

[eridani]

17. Its population is very isolated and has fuckall to do with terrorism

Nuclear weapons are actually a different matter.

[Maureen1322]

18. Here's my problem,

anything Bushco say or does is suspect to me. Keeping the damage to a minimum for the next seven months is the goal.

[shadowknows69]

20. So the country we know has nuclear weapons isn't a threat anymore

But the one that doesn't we have to attack. Got it.

[conspirator]

21. Iran will only be removed when they develop nukes as well. Ironic isn't it n/t

[Hydra]

23. Word

But apparently NK wants to play ball now- I wonder what GW offered the reigning tyrant in return for what passes as his soul?

[Virginia Dare]

22. Yay, the corporate overlords salivate over the new pool of slaves!..n/t