Catch-43

New Deal

Random thoughts on the New Deal with North Korea:

• Should we go ahead and call the President George W. Clinton? I say yes. This is a regime that does not respect agreements and does not abide by its word. In 1994, President Clinton struck a similar deal in which we provided North Korea with food and fuel in exchange for the cessation of their nuclear program. Problem is - the North Koreans happily took what we gave them (it kept their regime alive while dooming millions of innocent people to death by starvation, torture, and/or hard labor) while continuing their program in secret. The left gave itself a congratulatory pat on the back, and the problem was punted down the road for Bush to deal with. In 2002, we confronted the North Koreans with evidence that they were not honoring the deal - they agreed, and since then we have had lots of trouble with them. What is different about this deal?
• Although Bush errrr George W. Clinton is derided for his administration's unilateralism, this agreement is so much a reflection of multilateralism that it arguably doesn't even advance America's interests! North Korea's neighbors have no interest in regime change, because they would fear it would destabilize their own borders and create a massive refugee crisis - making East Germany circa 1990 look like a walk in the park. As such, we crafted a deal which will essentially stabilize North Korea in response for full dismantling of the nuclear program (don't hold your breath on that one). As Mark Steyn would say, the stability junkies strike again.
• The fact that North Korea signed any deal, no matter how repugnant, is proof of the fact that our attack on their illicit finances for the last year or two got their attention (the most publicized example was the blacklisting of a bank in Macau by the US Treasury Department which was used by the NK's to launder money); we are currently using the same tactics against Iran, and they are quietly squeezing that outlaw regime as well - this is how diplomacy will occur in the 21st century
• I hate this deal, as I do any deal with any outlaw regime at any time, but if it buys us some breathing room and time with respect to our brewing war with Iran I am all for it anyway (which may be the Bushies are thinking right about now)

posted by JM @ 6:42 PM |

A Good Story From Iraq

Subject: A case study of how the U.S. got bogged down in Iraq.

Problem: If a cop in Anytown, USA, pulls over a suspect, he checks the person's ID remotely from the squad car. He's linked to databases filled with Who's Who in the world of crime, killing and mayhem. In Iraq, there is nothing like that. When our troops and the Iraqi army enter a town, village or street, what they know about the local bad guys is pretty much in their heads, at best.

Solution: Give our troops what our cops have. The Pentagon knows this. For reasons you can imagine, it hasn't happened.

This is a story of can-do in a no-can-do world, a story of how a Marine officer in Iraq, a small network-design company in California, a nonprofit troop-support group, a blogger and other undeterrable folk designed a handheld insurgent-identification device, built it, shipped it and deployed it in Anbar province. They did this in 30 days, from Dec. 15 to Jan. 15. Compared to standard operating procedure for Iraq, this is a nanosecond.

Read the rest of this article from the Wall Street Journal here.

posted by JM @ 6:22 PM |