WTF? Sanctions Lifted Against North Korea

President Bush on Thursday lifted trade sanctions against North Korea and moved to remove it from the U.S. terrorism blacklist, a remarkable turnaround in policy toward the communist regime he once branded as part of an “axis of evil.”

The announcement at the White House came after North Korea handed over a long-awaited accounting of its nuclear work to Chinese officials on Thursday, fulfilling a key step in the denuclearization process.

Bush called the declaration a positive step along a long road to get the nation to give up its nuclear weapons. Yet, he remained wary of the regime, which has lied about its nuclear work before. And North Korea’s declaration, received six months late, falls short of what the administration once sought, leaving it open to criticism from those who want the U.S. to take an even tougher stance against the regime.

“We will trust you only to the extent you fulfill your promises,” Bush said in the Rose Garden. “I’m pleased with the progress. I’m under no illusions. This is the first step. This isn’t the end of the process. It is the beginning of the process.”
Link: http://news.aol.com/story/_a/us-lifts-sanctions-against-north-korea/20080626080309990001

More like the continuation of the carrot on a stick process. You know, the one where the North Korean Gargoyle holds the stick.

Jeeezustapdancingchrist, George. You cannot be that naive about North Korea. When it comes to illusions, this one takes the cake. Taking Kim Jong Il at his word is just out and out stupid.

Don’t think he isn’t taking shit from Republicans over this:

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expressed her “profound disappointment” over the decision, while Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, also expressed his outrage.

“Lifting sanctions and removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism flies in the face of history and rewards its brutal dictator for shallow gestures,” said Hoekstra, who has not shied away from criticizing the White House in recent years.

“Just as the Clinton administration was fooled by the Kim Jong-Il regime, time will soon tell if the Bush administration will fall for the same bait,” he added.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0608/House_Republicans_blast_Bush_for_North_Korea_decision.html

If you give a despot like Kim Jong Il an inch, he’ll take a hundred miles. You cannot ply an entity like North Korea away from it’s dictatorship and nuclear ambitions, especially when it’s being propped up by China, who in turn, benefits from billions of dollars in U.S. trade.

Former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton weighs in:

“I think the steps the President announced today go a long way to granting enormous political legitimacy to North Korea,” he said.

“It will facilitate their economic transactions in the marketplace.”

He says it is dangerous to give North Korea concessions in return for information that is not verified.

“The estimates that we have of their plutonium production are well in excess in what they’ve declared, and even the famous 18,000 pages of documents that they’ve given over reveal gaps in their data,” he said.

“We can’t even verify the declaration based on what they’ve given us.

“I think their record of deception and duplicity over the years is such that any deal with them would have to have extensive verification mechanisms and we don’t really have that here.”

Link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/27/2287869.htm?section=justin

North Korea’s nuke program is Saddam Hussein, Part II.

Another Tyrant for Obama

They just keep jumping on the bandwagon.

The Chosun Sinbo, the mouthpiece of North Korea’s Japanese front organization Chongryon and often for the North Korean regime itself, has announced its preference for Obama over McCain, whom it calls “a variant of Bush” and “nothing better than a scarecrow of neoconservatives,” which is a bit odd considering that the Bush Administration’s giveaway diplomacy is better for Kim Jong Il than even Clinton’s awful performance.

It’s worth pausing to consider the disturbing rhetorical similarity between the Chosun Sinbo and Daily Kos, although the sheer incoherence of Bush’s North Korea policy makes any comparison to it questionable. …

North Korea’s endorsement of Obama will probably draw comparisons to the unwanted Hamas endorsement of Obama, which Hamas later withdrew after Obama spoke at AIPAC’s convention. Fidel Castro, by contrast, took a more sophisticated and self-aware approach:
[O]n Monday [Castro] gave Senator Barack Obama an endorsement of sorts, calling him “the most progressive candidate to the U.S. presidency” while also berating him for his plan to continue the trade embargo against Cuba. “Were I to defend him, I would do his adversaries an enormous favor,” Mr. Castro said. “I have therefore no reservations about criticizing him.” [N.Y. Times, The Caucus]

Which Castro then proceeded to do, on Obama’s stated support for trade sanctions during a campaign speech to Cuban exiles in Miami.

http://freekorea.us/2008/06/22/obama-gets-another-unwanted-endorsement/

And:

The communist country, which has survived a relatively hawkish Bush administration, considers McCain “a variant of Bush” and “nothing better than a scarecrow of neoconservatives,” according to the Choson Sinbo, a newspaper run by ethnic Koreans in Japan. http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/ea_nkorea0256_06_19.asp

Sounds eerily similar to the Democrats’ talking points.

Hat tip: Little Green Footballs
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/30439_More_Celebrity_Endorsements_for_Barack_Obama-_Kim_Jong-Il_and_Fidel_Castro

 

Elian Gonzalez, Cuba’s Proud Communist

And to think this kid’s mother died trying to get him to freedom.

Eight years after a headline making international custody fight which ended with his return to his father in Cuba, Elian Gonzalez has joined Cuba’s Young Communist Union.

In an article in Cuba’s communist youth newspaper, Juventud Rebelde, the 14-year old Gonzalez said he would never let ex-President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro down. He joined more than 18-thousand others who joined the group on Saturday.

In 2000, Gonzalez’ mother was killed when a boat carrying them to the U.S. capsized in the Florida Straits. Elian, who was 6 years old at the time, and two other refugees were found clinging to an inner tube for survival. After his rescue the boy stayed with relatives in South Florida until a long tug of war over custody end with armed federal agents seizing him from his great uncle’s Miami home. Elian then returned to Cuba with his father.

Link: http://cbs4.com/cuba/elian.gonzalez.cuba.2.748694.html

Janet Reno and Bill Clinton, two of the worst slugs in American history, ripped him from his chance at freedom and sent him back to be exploited by Castro.

Congratulations Fidel, the indoctination is complete.

Obama’s Revisionist History

In his victory speech after the North Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama said something that is all the more remarkable for how little it has been remarked upon.

In defending his stated intent to meet with America’s enemies without preconditions, Sen. Obama said: “I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.”

That he made this statement, and that it passed without comment by the journalists covering his speech indicates either breathtaking ignorance of history on the part of both, or deceit.

I assume the Roosevelt to whom Sen. Obama referred is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Our enemies in World War II were Nazi Germany, headed by Adolf Hitler; fascist Italy, headed by Benito Mussolini, and militarist Japan, headed by Hideki Tojo. FDR talked directly with none of them before the outbreak of hostilities, and his policy once war began was unconditional surrender.

FDR died before victory was achieved, and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Truman did not modify the policy of unconditional surrender. He ended that war not with negotiation, but with the atomic bomb.

Harry Truman also was president when North Korea invaded South Korea in June, 1950. President Truman’s response was not to call up North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung for a chat. It was to send troops.

Perhaps Sen. Obama is thinking of the meeting FDR and Churchill had with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in Tehran in December, 1943, and the meetings Truman and Roosevelt had with Stalin at Yalta and Potsdam in February and July, 1945. But Stalin was then a U.S. ally, though one of whom we should have been more wary than FDR and Truman were. Few historians think the agreements reached at Yalta and Potsdam, which in effect consigned Eastern Europe to slavery, are diplomatic models we ought to follow. Even fewer Eastern Europeans think so.

When Stalin’s designs became unmistakably clear, President Truman’s response wasn’t to seek a summit meeting. He sent military aid to Greece, ordered the Berlin airlift and the Marshall Plan, and sent troops to South Korea.

Link: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/obama_needs_to_study_history_b.html

Oh yeah, Obama plans to have a regular kaffee klatch with Hezbollah, Hamas, what’s left of Al Qaeda and Taliban, FARC, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hugo Chavez. He’d probably rent the Lincoln Bedroom to Bin Ladin.

Somewhere, Neville Chamberlain is smiling.

BTW: He’s ‘been to 57 states’ in the U.S.
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGH02DtIws

I wonder where he acquired the extra seven.

The Democrats and the leftwing media fall all over themselves portaying this asshat as a Christ-like sex symbol. The Hildabeast has been tossed overboard by his legion of groupies in the DNC, so it looks as if he’ll get their nomination.

Barak Hussein Obama is a radical socialist who has terrorists for friends, and some admirers who are the worst fecal matter on the planet.

They’ve gone from Gore to Obama. From bad to worse. That’s what the Democrats have to offer as a Presidential candidate.

Congratulations Dems, you’ve reaped what you’ve sown. 

We’ll make sure you don’t inflict it on the rest of us.

People’s Paradise of Vietnam Charges Dissidents With “Terrorism”

HANOI, Vietnam - A Vietnamese-American and two Vietnamese nationals will be put on trial on charges of terrorism for allegedly planning to distribute anti-government pamphlets in Vietnam, an official said Thursday.

Nguyen Quoc Quan, of Sacramento, and Vietnamese nationals Nguyen Hai and Nguyen The Vu face jail terms of up to seven years if convicted. Their trial begins Tuesday at the People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said.

The three were arrested last November at a house in Ho Chi Minh City along with Truong Van Ba, an American, and Nguyen Thi Thanh Van, a French national. Authorities allegedly found them preparing to circulate anti-government pamphlets on behalf of Viet Tan, a California-based pro-democracy group that Vietnam considers a terrorist organization.

Viet Tan says it promotes nonviolent political change in Vietnam, and U.S. Ambassador Michael Michalak has said he has seen no evidence the group is engaged in terrorism.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080508/ap_on_re_as/vietnam_dissident_trial_1

 
The Vietnamese government still engages in wholesale slaughter and imprisonment of anyone who objects vocally, or in print, against the brutal regime.

Once entrance to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was safely obtained at the beginning of the year, the Hnaoi government has begun once again to tighten its grip on political and religious freedom, a grip it had been forced to loosen during entry negotiations. Thus the arrest of people with diverging political ideals to the Party have begun once more. As in the case of Fr Nguyen Van Ly condemned to 8 years in prison and the lawyer Nguyen Van Dai who is waiting his trial. Both are part of the so called “8406 Block”, a democratic movement which first appeared in April of last year.

404 members of US Congress have voted unanimously for resolution number 243, calling on Vietnam to unconditionally free both men along with all politic prisoners. “Vietnam’s government – comments an elderly Hanoi citizen – should greatly improve human rights conditions. Instead it hasn’t freed anyone, in fact its preparing other arrests”.
Link: http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=9321&size=A

The communist utopia in Southeast Asia sure hasn’t changed much since Jane Fonda’s buddies took over in 1975.