With Friends Like These...

The Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker pacifist group, says that North Korea's decision to test a nuclear device, recently, is a result of the Bush Administration's "failure" to develop a comprehensive strategy toward the Korean peninsula. This is a group that has worked for more than 60 years "to end the scourge of nuclear weapons", remember.

To refresh everyone's memory, Bush described three nations in the world as an "Axis of Evil" in his first address to Congress. Can anyone remember which three nations he accused of membership in this unholy alliance? Why yes, they were Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Since that time the world's terrorists have literally crawled out of the woodwork to fight the US in Iraq, Iran is threatening Israel and the rest of the world with its nuclear ambitions and North Korea, well is still North Korea. On December 11, 2002, a ship was boarded, while flying no flag, in the Arabian Sea. The ship was a North Korean ship carrying a bunch of SCUD missiles that had been sold to Yemen, according to the Koreans and the Yemenis. So the North Koreans are demonstrably engaged in destabilizing that very unstable region of the world.

To get back to the Quakers, though, what is it about an axis of evil that troubles them so? North Korea has been proven to be a rogue state, engaged in starving its people, selling weaponry to anybody, counterfeiting money (US), and making and selling drugs. Now it says it wants a nuclear arsenal and if you want to stop it, you better give it more aid or else. Simple, really. Clinton bought them out to the tune of about a billion dollars over the course of his administration. What did that get us? Negotiating with terrorists has a habit of making you look silly. That's why Bush won't engage in bilateral talks with NoKo. He's right.

The guy had prescience enough to identify the axis of evil in his first address to congress. He was almost laughed out of office after that speech, as more nuanced politicians discussed how irrelevant these countries really were. How relevant is a nuclear North Korea? How about a nuclear Iran? Kim Jong Il is a madman. He is an evil dictator who doesn't care a whit about the poor, starving population in his country, as long as he is well-fed and able to grow his military stronger. His buddies Saddam and Ahmadinejad were/are evil, too. But that kind of talk isn't politically correct. You're supposed to be more nuanced when dealing with these folks. Don't call a nut a nut.

The Bush administration has been an embarrassement to most conservatives for its lack of attention to reducing the size of government and its total focus on retaining political power, at the expense of doing the conservative thing. In this situation, it has been all over the right thing, right from the beginning. I just hope it's got the stones to walk the walk. The alternative is a troubled world indeed.