North Korea said Wednesday it would give up its nuclear weapons only after the alleged U.S. atomic threat is removed from the divided peninsula and relations with the United States are normalized, according to a South Korean report.
North Korea has problems that interfere with those demands:
"People are gathering wild food, grasses, bracken (ferns), acorns," Bourke said after returning Monday from a three-week trip to the North. "I've seen people going up into the hills with sacks and coming down with sacks of grass and picking through seaweed."
North Korea has relied on foreign aid to feed its 23 million people since disclosing in the mid-1990s that its government-run farm system had collapsed following decades of mismanagement and the loss of Soviet subsidies.
So let the talks drag on. I don't care. We can't let the North Koreans succeed in holding their own people hostage confident that we will care more for their welfare and so give in to save them.
In time, we will have missile defenses. In time, our Army won't be busy in Iraq. In time, even the South Koreans may start to worry about Pyongyang if the North rattles sabres to get our attention.
So when the Pillsbury Nuke Boy issues more threats, we and the Japanese should just smile and nod--and keep on talking. We have no business guaranteeing the survival of such a beastly regime as North Korea demands we do. If North Korea wants to survive, they need to start addressing our security worries.
In the end, starving people may well rise up because they'll have no fears of consequences. At worst, they will be too weak to be much of a threat to South Korea.
Oh, and explain to me again why a nutjob who starves his people to build nuclear-tipped missiles logically will give up those nuclear-tipped missiles in order to get money to feed his people. I mean, under the circumstances I'm fairly unclear on why we think any deal would work.
