Is North Korea no longer part of the "Axis of Evil"?
posted by
Wally
8:24 AM
Remember the good old days, when George W. Bush introduced us to the "axis of evil" of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea in his January 29, 2002 State of the Union speech. Oh those were the days. When we knew who our enemies were - who was "with us" and who was "with the terrorists." We knew, of course, because the president told us, and the puppy-dog media repeated it ad-nauseum. We knew who the bad guys were, and we knew how to deal with them. Tyrants were not to be dealt with lightly. As Vice President Cheney said on 12/12/2003 "I have been charged by the President with making sure that none of the tyrannies in the world are negotiated with. We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it." Those were simpler times. When everything was black and white, good and evil, us and them. Of course, as often as not, the administration got them confused and tried to tell us things like we were at war to keep peace, bombing people to save them, and occupying their nation to liberate them, but that's not my point. My point is that things were simpler then. There were no shades of gray, no need for subtlety or complexity of thought. And we all knew for sure that we did NOT "negotiate with evil." So what's this all about then?
U.S. Holds Direct Talks in North Korea
The United States' chief nuclear negotiator began a surprise two-day visit to North Korea today, saying he wanted to speed up six-nation talks aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear program.
In the first visit to Pyongyang by a senior American official in nearly five years, the envoy, Christopher R. Hill, was scheduled to meet senior North Korean officials, including his counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, for one-on-one talks.
Mr. Hill's trip came just hours after the United States found a way to return to the North roughly $25 million in funds that were frozen for several years. The United States had frozen the money, saying it came from counterfeiting and trade in missiles and nuclear equipment.
In the next step, the North is supposed to provide the United States and the other participants in the six-party negotiations on the issue - Japan, South Korea, Russia and China - with a detailed list of all of its nuclear programs and facilities. That sounds like "negotiating" to me. Which leaves only one of two options. Either North Korea has suddenly become not evil - which seems highly unlikely - or Bush and Cheney changed their minds and decided it's okay to negotiate with evil after all. What to Republicans call that again? Oh yeah....
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