More News on North Korea 10-11-06

Newsweek: North Korea: A Nuclear Threat The link to this article is titled "Did U.S. Provoke N. Korea?" and that is what appears on my blogger in the title bar. And in fact the article appears to answer the question "Did U.S. Provoke N. Korea?" with an affirmative. The writer, Selig S. Harrison is one to know. In other words the Bush adminstration failed us, again.

China says it will back sanctions, but indicates there are limits to what they will agree. Defying the Lil' Emperor? How dare they!

NYTimes: Bush Says No Plans to Attack North Korea There is a video linked to Washington Post articles on North Korea on a Bush press conference, but I can't stand to listen to his clownish speech patterns. (Why would we attack NK anyway? There's no oil there.)

Anthony Faiola, who did the best article on the Thai coup that I read (and posted on at the old blog), has and article, in today's Post titled 'N. Korea Wants U.S. to End 'Hostile Attitude' which confirms Mr. Harrison's assertion as noted above (or vice versa) and reports the the planned actions of other nations.

To take people's minds off their failure in North Korea the Bush administration has announced another year of reduced budget deficits. Funny but they announced the last year of reduced budget deficit just months ago. Anyway a New York Post (owned by News Corp) writer showed in 2004 that the Bush administration lies about its figures. Here's a copy of that article.

Faiola and Joohee Cho report on the effect the DPRK nuclear weapon test has had on the program that allowed the reunification for short times of families that had ended up on opposite sides of the North-South Korean border and showing that the test has created distrust with South Koreans. Interesting pattern here shows a hint of propaganda manipulation in Korea maybe. They certainly aren't getting all the facts on this, but as American we should understand how a government can "gin up a scare". and indeed the New York Times article linked above shows how South Korea is using this somewhat like their 9/11.
Excerpt:

But in Seoul, President Roh Moo Hyun told the South Koreans to brace themselves for a “prolonged” confrontation with North Korea.

Mr. Roh also called the North Korean claim that it has built nuclear weapons because of American threats a ``gross exaggeration.”

``The threat to security the North Koreans are talking about is either nonexistent or a gross exaggeration,” he said. ``It’s unclear whether the North Koreans are deliberately exaggerating the threat or they are ignorant.”

Has Karl Rove visited South Korea lately? Anyone know?