I've read a fairly detailed study on this (including interviews with CIA gurus and what not) which indicated Clinton never intended to keep his word to NK. He was hoping that if he drags it out enough, somehow something would happen in NK and the whole issue would be moot. The North Koreans actually kept pushing for it every step of the way. But barring the ground breaking you mentioned (which was also late if I remember correctly) we dragged things out so much that it was clear there is no way we'll meet out commitment.
Let's be clear about something, I despise regimes like North Korea's. I've been to many countries under brutal dictatorships and as far as I am concerned, those regimes are made up of subhuman characters who have taken the whole nation into slavery. It offends me greatly that for what amounts to next to nothing, our political leaders put us in a position that an abusive monsterous regime like NK's can claim we are dishonest and the have the moral ground. I think we should at least demand a higher price for selling out our integrity than a few lousy buildings and equipment, don't you?
...change of subject unless you want me to dig out the details NK...I was a little surprised by the Iranian demonstration not just because Iran is the most US friendly Muslim nation in ME, but also because America is after destroying Saddam whom Iranians hate with passion. This type of thing would never have happened 2 years ago.
ST
DAMASCUS, Syria, March 28 — Protesters took to the streets by the thousands across the Middle East today after Friday Prayers, with calls for a holy war against the American and British forces in Iraq ringing out from minarets throughout the region.
One of the most remarkable demonstrations was in the Iranian capital, Tehran, where tens of thousands of marchers turned out in a government-organized rally to denounce the war against Iraq even though President Saddam Hussein is still reviled in Iran for starting the 1980-88 war between the two countries.
Demonstrators in Tehran chanted both "Death to Saddam" and "Death to America." They also shattered windows in the British Embassy, pelting the building with stones while shouting for its closing.
"Will bombs and the use of force bring democracy and freedom?" asked Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi, delivering the Friday sermon broadcast on Iranian television. "It will definitely not."
The Iranian government, which with Iraq and North Korea is on President Bush's "axis of evil" list, is nervous about the prospect of having American troops to the west in Iraq and to the east in Afghanistan.
Marches throughout the Arab world were largely peaceful, especially compared with the first violent outbursts that erupted last Friday right after the start of the war.
Still, some protests in Jordan and Egypt included unusually blatant chanting against their rulers, a development bound to worry both governments as they try to balance their close ties to Washington and the anger of their citizens.
"Abdullah, listen, listen! Iraq will never surrender!" chanted hundreds of protesters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, referring to King Abdullah.
The crowd also shouted, "Egypt, where are you? King Fahd, where are you? You sold Al Aksa for dollars! Now, you sell Mosul for dollars!" King Fahd is the Saudi ruler; Al Aksa Mosque, in Jerusalem, is the third holiest shrine in Islam; and Mosul is a city in northern Iraq.
In Cairo, a march by some 6,000 demonstrators outside the mosque of Al Azhar University, passed peacefully. Many of the marchers were from the National Democratic Party of President Hosni Mubarak, who on Thursday tried to defuse some of the tension by saying his government shared public sympathies on Iraq.
Some of the marchers from the dissident Muslim Brotherhood, which usually the government barely tolerates, carried banners reading, "Open the Doors for Holy War," while others held open the Koran to the page describing the conditions for such a battle.
Sheik Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, the government-appointed head of Al Azhar and one of Egypt's leading clerics, told worshipers that "the aggression against the Iraqi people is unjust, and the people who are unjust must be resisted." He called on God to give victory to the Iraqis, as well as to the Palestinians.
State-appointed clerics in Saudi Arabia made similar appeals.
"This war must be stopped immediately, and this aggression must end," said Imam Saleh bin Hamid, the prayer leader at the main mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca.
Even Kuwait, which Iraq invaded in 1990 and which the allies have used as a jumping-off point for the war, heard harsh criticism of the Americans in some mosques.
"America does not want freedom for the Iraqi people," said Saleh Jawhar, a Shiite cleric who also called Americans evil. "It wants to install its puppets and subdue Muslims until we become a voice for America." He conceded, though, that Iraq would obliterate Kuwait if American forces withdrew. |
