As Tensions Between North Korea and U.S. Rise, Clinton Hints At Weapons Interdiction
By Susie Madrak Monday Jun 08, 2009 2:00pmIn yet another of a series of provocative acts, North Korea sentences those American journalists to a labor camp for unspecified "grave acts." In the meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council is considering new sanctions against the nation, while North Korea promises any such move will be met with "extreme" measures:
TOKYO, June 8 -- A North Korean court sentenced two U.S. journalists to 12 years in a labor camp Monday, as the government of Kim Jong Il continued to ratchet up tension with the United States and its neighbors.
Laura Ling and Euna Lee, television reporters detained in March along North Korea's border with China, received harsher sentences than many outsiders had expected. But several experts in South Korea predicted that talks will begin soon to negotiate their release.
As tensions rise, the Obama administration hints it's considering seizing North Korean weapons shipments:
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration signaled Sunday that it was seeking a way to interdict, possibly with China’s help, North Korean sea and air shipments suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met Friday in Washington with Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan of South Korea.
The administration also said it was examining whether there was a legal basis to reverse former President George W. Bush’s decision last year to remove the North from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.
The reference to interdictions — preferably at ports or airfields in countries like China, but possibly involving riskier confrontations on the high seas — was made by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. She was the highest-ranking official to talk publicly about such a potentially provocative step as a response to North Korea’s second nuclear test, conducted two weeks ago.
While Mrs. Clinton did not specifically mention assistance from China, other administration officials have been pressing Beijing to take such action under Chinese law.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Mrs. Clinton said the United States feared that if the test and other recent actions by North Korea did not lead to “strong action,” there was a risk of “an arms race in Northeast Asia” — an oblique reference to the concern that Japan would reverse its long-held ban against developing nuclear weapons.
So far it is not clear how far the Chinese are willing to go to aid the United States in stopping North Korea’s profitable trade in arms, the isolated country’s most profitable export. But the American focus on interdiction demonstrates a new and potentially far tougher approach to North Korea than both President Clinton and Mr. Bush, in his second term, took as they tried unsuccessfully to reach deals that would ultimately lead North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arsenal.
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12 years. That's a lot of reporting. Just think of all the stories they will have when they get out.
a BIG weapon. I have been waiting my entire life for this moment. Get 'em, Hil.
Sounds pretty imperial to me. We gott'em you can't hav'em, even when
you are surrounded by them. We are judge and jury. We know what's
best. Long live the Empire!
It's the old trick that has been utilized many times before by the imperialists, who deny they are imperialists. Set up a boogey man, go after the boogey man, after destroying them set up military bases to try to police the world. Sadly very few Americans actually realize what is going on with their leaders they naively trust, so they are surprised by the word empire.
Thank God that there are a few people in this world who understand the real story. If North Korea was a capitalist country that knuckled under to Uncle Sam's every wish, the US might "tut tut" there nuclear endeavors. It's only the countries that refuse to play along with the US and it's wishes that feel the whole wrath of US pressure. How many countries has the US invaded in the last century? How many foreign leaders has the US either killed outright, attempted to kill, or just overthrown in the last century? The lesson to be learned is: don't piss off the "land of the free and the home of the brave". Free enough as long as they don't ask questions and brave enough to support military interventions against countries that have done nothing to them.
it's that Kim Jong-il uses them to threaten other nations in order for that ridiculous, under grown, high heel wearing, foot stamping, despot to demand and get things he is not entitled to for himself. He is a joke with nuclear arms. He is an insult to people everywhere, especially in his own country.
Drink much Kool Aid do ya?
This unit is fully programmed and operational. Deploy this unit to
nearest mall, there is a sale on Lee Press on Personality.
Does Obama know you are unwilling to talk to the NKoreans? Such dramatic things happening, and you meet with.............South Korea? WTF? What happened to open dialogue? Could it be that these women were given their day in court, unlike what the US has done to Gitmo detainees, and found guilty. 'Nuff said. Nukes? Why can't they have nukes? You have them.
And that would do nothing but please the Greedy War Profiteers who set up this situation under the previous administration.
Heckuva Job John Bolton!
At least he didn't torture them.
He is the benevolent one!
it's pretty hard to starve, freeze and sanction a nation that has weapons to defend itself. See Iraq. Afghanistan. Grenada. Haiti. Panama. Columbia. Etc, etc. Go get 'em Hillary. Show them mean ol' buggers that Bush policies are alive and well with this administration! Such a travesty of justice! Teach 'em a lesson. Hold direct talks with South Korea and China!!
in that area for years. He needs to be put in his place. Bribing him with things he can sell to other countries isn't working. I am talking exclusively about Kim Jong-il. If you want to defend and coddle this nasty weasel, you go for it. I prefer he gets dealt with by someone that has the ability to do it. Excuse me if you do not agree.
Get a brain. The US has been doing far worse to countries all over the world for decades. Is it ok because it's your country doing it? Try turning off the tv for awhile. CNN and it's ilk are clearly poisoning your superpatriotic mind. There is one country on Earth that spreads pain and misery everywhere it's tentacles reach and it's called the United States of America.
Hmmmm, the whole muslim terr'rist thing must be starting to track lower. Probably makes sense, people getting OD'd on it I suppose. Thank heavens we've got ol' krazy Kim out there to keep things stirred up.
How can we drop all those cool military programs now? Why Obama would be leaving us defenseless! Let's not trim military spending, let's increase it! The reds will get us if we don't!
Thank you John Bolton !
I suspect that the acts were specified but again we are getting our information from the MSM. These ladies weren't arrested for illeegal immagration, they were Americans who were there without proper documentation. They are of Korean descent and taking pictures and taking notes about sensitive issues and that makes them look like spies. They are absolutely the wrong nationality of reporters to send there. It enforces the suspician that they were spies.
Laura Ling's family is from Taiwan, which makes her either Taiwanese or Chinese, not Korean. They were following human traffickers.
How do you know about any lack of documentation on their part, Where they were grabbed up etc, the circumstances surrounding their arrest or anything else for that matter, ron? you are already wrong about the nationality of one person in the story...
Again, do you want to rely on the US MSM for your information. I apoligize if I was wrong about one of the nationalities.
"...They are taking...pictures and taking notes about sensitive issues and that makes them look like spies...
'
You know THIS how?
What do reporters do if they don't take pictures and notes. I'm not trying to pick a fight. I do think that if it comes from the MSM is not regarded as fact with their previous records.
but you just wrote up something as if it were true. You don't know what they were doing, or which side of the border they were on.
Now if I were a reporter, tracking people who were breaking the law, on the qt, I wouldn't be whipping out my Hasselblad or my Reporter's Book of Important Notes. I won't say they WEREN'T doing that, but I think if they were that stupid, Darwin would have caught up with them long ago.
While I can't say they weren't doing that, you can't say they WERE doing that.
Ok reread the initial post. Your "I suspect" qualified only the first part of your statement. Everything else you posted reads as an absolute, a statement of fact.
"They are of Korean descent...
"They are...taking pictures...
"They are...taking notes about sensitive issues..."
You have no personal knowledge of this, yet post as though you do.
it is the reliability of the MSM that I'm questioning. Perhaps I could have worded my original post differently but I stand by my intent.
From N. Korea?
these ladies were "spies" and are now detainess, they can go ahead a torture them invoking Bush administration policy. It's only a matter of time before some nation invokes the Bush standard. Pitiful.
Do you have any evidence whatever that those two entered N. Korea before they were captured? The DPRK is known to have kidnapped thousands of people from S. Korea and Japan for various purposes in the past -- there's no good reason to believe they didn't kidnap those two from Chinese soil as well. The territory in
And now the DPRK has sentenced them to be slowly tortured to death unless the US pays them another ransom. If we hadn't gone adventuring in Iraq, we'd be in a position to deal effectively with that violent little pissant in Pyongyang.
"But the American focus on interdiction demonstrates a new and potentially far tougher approach to North Korea than both President Clinton and Mr. Bush, in his second term, took as they tried unsuccessfully to reach deals that would ultimately lead North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arsenal."
Am I the only one who noticed "President Clinton" and "Mr. Bush"?
Mike
good catch. Ironically President Gore is involved w/ the cable channel these two women were working for.
I see, so being on this list has nothing to do with actually being a country that supports terrorism and everything to do with the US finding ways around international law to violate the sovereignty other countries.
Thanks for clearing that up Mrs. Clinton. For a second there I thought the lists name was indicative of it's purpose, silly me.
It isn't all that far to send some people to get rid of N. Korean leadership and the nukes. Israel has a great record of doing the impossible.
To all the N. Korea apologists whining about their tit-for-tat nuclear policy. I believe that the Kool-Aid mix is on your hands. It is an utterly naive and idiotic viewpoint to believe in granting the right to nuclear arms to any nation "just because we have them".
"There is one country on Earth that spreads pain and misery everywhere it's tentacles reach and it's called the United States of America."
See, it's shit like that that proves why the majority in this country laugh at true progressives. I'm not saying the US is innocent, but it isn't the only country out there that's oh so very, very bad. Is it mostly high school kids pissed off at mom and dad and the man that post on this site? Trust fund college kids that only know how to whine about their country instead of actually trying to f-ing fix it? Whoever it is: read a few books, do some research on the labor camps and the testimonies of those who have either survived life in the North or have somehow gotten the hell out of Dodge.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles...
And you want to let these guys build nuclear weapons because it's only fair? Get a fucking CLUE.
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