Can The Times Find a Position And Stick To It, Please?
The New York Times has spent the better part of six years berating and criticizing the Bush Administration for this and that. From Abu Ghraib to the NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program, they seem to have an opinion that is consistently contrary to the administration. And now, they have decided to break from their accusations that the president is a unilateralist. He was a "cowboy" in 2003 for going into Iraq, and bucking the United Nations. Today, however, they want him to be more unilateral when it comes to North Korea. Can someone please ask the Times when they are going to quit switching sides of the fence?
Mr. Bush appears to care deeply about Darfur. But the United States is so overstretched in Iraq that no one in this White House is even talking about sending NATO to stop ethnic cleansing that has already left more than 200,000 dead and displaced more than two million.
Closing our eyes for another two years isn’t an answer. Washington needs to assert its leadership, no matter how tattered, on all these fronts.
We suspect that cargo inspections and a cutoff of military and luxury trade will not be enough to get North Korea to back down. But having started there, Mr. Bush now needs to tell China and Russia that all future relations will be judged on how they hold the North to account.
Beijing and Moscow would find it harder to say no if Mr. Bush made a clear pledge — no caveats and no fingers crossed behind his back — that he would not try to overthrow North Korea’s government if it abandoned its nuclear weapons. Mr. Bush needs to make the same unambiguous offer to Iran. As for Darfur, Khartoum might feel less cocky if Mr. Bush announced that he was taking the lead on soliciting troops for a peacekeeping force while asking NATO to start drawing up plans for a possible forced entry should the United Nations fail to act.
Where did that 200,000 dead figure come from? Are they digging up something out of the new, in-the-process-of-being-debunked Lancet Report? Maybe so, but that is not the point.
Now, they want a unilateral president. One that would throw aside China and Russia. One that will rattle the saber and threaten an invasion of North Korea. Please. Enough already. Invading North Korea is not the answer right now. The president has chosen a path of diplomacy, and while many may disagree with that, it is the most sound strategy at the moment. The world must respond to North Koreas postulating, not the United Nations. The United Nations has been so ineffective the last few years, I am beginning to wonder whatr those yo-yos are being paid to do. It certainly is not taking care of several problems around the world.
The Times is smart to hold up both China and Russia to the light. Let us face cold, hard facts: Neither nation is going to back away from their support of North Korea. They are enjoying the chaos that Kim Jong-Il is perpetuating. The problem is, for them, they need to have a more serious person in charge there. Kim Jong-Il is crazy enough to push only so far before all of his boasts turn to duds. (For an example of this, I tell readers to remember not only this week's non-nuclear test and his failed missile tests from a couple of months ago.)
North Korea, under Kim Jong-Il, is going to go through more problems. Sanctions are coming. The Aussies wasted little time in placing travel restrictions on North Koreans, and the Phillipines are looking like they will follow suit. Both nations have stated they will continue issuing new sanctions against North Korea for it's arrogance. Japan, as Sabrina pointed out beautifully when we were gone, is considering rearmming itself. And that, friends, has not only North Korea worried, but China as well. Neither nation wants to see Japan remilitarized. And expect a lot of whining and crying should Japan become nuclear.
But why, now, is the Times calling for something that the president was slammed for in 2003? The president's decision to go into Iraq was based on over twenty separate reasons. Among them were the seventeen resolutions Saddam did not abide by, the constant violations of the no-fly zones, the intelligence in hand that he was working towards reconstituting his WMD programs, his connections to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups in the region, and his continued human rights abuses. But to the Times, none of those were reasons for unilateral action.
And yet we see similar reasons in North Korea. To date, I am unaware of any sanctions from the United Nations against North Korea. That is the only difference between the two. (And for all the moonbats out there who will try to correct me, yes Kim Jong-Il does have ties to terrorism; if they disavow that, then they are claiming that Iran is not a terrorist state. They do not, however, have a no-fly zone, but they have made border incursions into South Korea.) So, aside from one example, the rest are all there, and now the Times wants action. Lord have mercy, these people cannot decide which way the wind is blowing.
We, at The Asylum, would support military action against North Korea if push came to shove. We would not welcome it, but we would support it. North Korea's military has Seoul targeted with enough rockets and missiles that it could be reduced to rubble in a short time span. Their military is prepared for a war against the South, and has been preparing for it for some time. But with the inclusion of a nuclear North Korea, the stakes in the game just went up. But every time Kim Jong-Il raises the pot, the world matches him. The threatened sanctions from the United States and Japan, and those agreed to already by Australia and the Phillipines, is an example of the world responding while the United Nations is handcuffed by diplomats that do not want to threaten their personal trade with a Communist nation under the control of a man who is clearly not in control of his own faculties.
People say not to underestimate Kim Jong-Il. He is "smart," "cagey," and "well-versed" in war. Uh-huh. And I am Marilyn Monroe reincarnated. He exhibits all the signs of a child throwing a tantrum because he did not get the toy he wanted at the store. "If you don't go back and buy me that toy I will blow up the house, mommy!" Then he lights off a firecracker, demands congratulations, respect, and proclaims that the house is blown up. He needs a good spanking is what he needs. And hopefully the sanctions being proposed and moved on will be just the sort of spanking he needs.
But I find the Times completely disingenuous in their calls for unilateral action. It makes the paper look very bad. When we had the information in hand about Saddam--the same, exact information that President Clinton had and used as a justification for bombing them in 1998--the Times and other MSM outlets criticized the president. They claimed he was doing it to get back at Saddam for "trying to kill his daddy." And now they want him to act. It is worse than being disingenuous.
It is intellectual dishonesty at it's worst, and shows why the MSM is dying. No one can take them seriously anymore. They say one thing on Monday, and change their tune by Friday. With that sort of thought process, is it any wonder why outlets like the Times are looked at as jokes?
Marcie
The New York Times has spent the better part of six years berating and criticizing the Bush Administration for this and that. From Abu Ghraib to the NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program, they seem to have an opinion that is consistently contrary to the administration. And now, they have decided to break from their accusations that the president is a unilateralist. He was a "cowboy" in 2003 for going into Iraq, and bucking the United Nations. Today, however, they want him to be more unilateral when it comes to North Korea. Can someone please ask the Times when they are going to quit switching sides of the fence?
Mr. Bush appears to care deeply about Darfur. But the United States is so overstretched in Iraq that no one in this White House is even talking about sending NATO to stop ethnic cleansing that has already left more than 200,000 dead and displaced more than two million.
Closing our eyes for another two years isn’t an answer. Washington needs to assert its leadership, no matter how tattered, on all these fronts.
We suspect that cargo inspections and a cutoff of military and luxury trade will not be enough to get North Korea to back down. But having started there, Mr. Bush now needs to tell China and Russia that all future relations will be judged on how they hold the North to account.
Beijing and Moscow would find it harder to say no if Mr. Bush made a clear pledge — no caveats and no fingers crossed behind his back — that he would not try to overthrow North Korea’s government if it abandoned its nuclear weapons. Mr. Bush needs to make the same unambiguous offer to Iran. As for Darfur, Khartoum might feel less cocky if Mr. Bush announced that he was taking the lead on soliciting troops for a peacekeeping force while asking NATO to start drawing up plans for a possible forced entry should the United Nations fail to act.
Where did that 200,000 dead figure come from? Are they digging up something out of the new, in-the-process-of-being-debunked Lancet Report? Maybe so, but that is not the point.
Now, they want a unilateral president. One that would throw aside China and Russia. One that will rattle the saber and threaten an invasion of North Korea. Please. Enough already. Invading North Korea is not the answer right now. The president has chosen a path of diplomacy, and while many may disagree with that, it is the most sound strategy at the moment. The world must respond to North Koreas postulating, not the United Nations. The United Nations has been so ineffective the last few years, I am beginning to wonder whatr those yo-yos are being paid to do. It certainly is not taking care of several problems around the world.
The Times is smart to hold up both China and Russia to the light. Let us face cold, hard facts: Neither nation is going to back away from their support of North Korea. They are enjoying the chaos that Kim Jong-Il is perpetuating. The problem is, for them, they need to have a more serious person in charge there. Kim Jong-Il is crazy enough to push only so far before all of his boasts turn to duds. (For an example of this, I tell readers to remember not only this week's non-nuclear test and his failed missile tests from a couple of months ago.)
North Korea, under Kim Jong-Il, is going to go through more problems. Sanctions are coming. The Aussies wasted little time in placing travel restrictions on North Koreans, and the Phillipines are looking like they will follow suit. Both nations have stated they will continue issuing new sanctions against North Korea for it's arrogance. Japan, as Sabrina pointed out beautifully when we were gone, is considering rearmming itself. And that, friends, has not only North Korea worried, but China as well. Neither nation wants to see Japan remilitarized. And expect a lot of whining and crying should Japan become nuclear.
But why, now, is the Times calling for something that the president was slammed for in 2003? The president's decision to go into Iraq was based on over twenty separate reasons. Among them were the seventeen resolutions Saddam did not abide by, the constant violations of the no-fly zones, the intelligence in hand that he was working towards reconstituting his WMD programs, his connections to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups in the region, and his continued human rights abuses. But to the Times, none of those were reasons for unilateral action.
And yet we see similar reasons in North Korea. To date, I am unaware of any sanctions from the United Nations against North Korea. That is the only difference between the two. (And for all the moonbats out there who will try to correct me, yes Kim Jong-Il does have ties to terrorism; if they disavow that, then they are claiming that Iran is not a terrorist state. They do not, however, have a no-fly zone, but they have made border incursions into South Korea.) So, aside from one example, the rest are all there, and now the Times wants action. Lord have mercy, these people cannot decide which way the wind is blowing.
We, at The Asylum, would support military action against North Korea if push came to shove. We would not welcome it, but we would support it. North Korea's military has Seoul targeted with enough rockets and missiles that it could be reduced to rubble in a short time span. Their military is prepared for a war against the South, and has been preparing for it for some time. But with the inclusion of a nuclear North Korea, the stakes in the game just went up. But every time Kim Jong-Il raises the pot, the world matches him. The threatened sanctions from the United States and Japan, and those agreed to already by Australia and the Phillipines, is an example of the world responding while the United Nations is handcuffed by diplomats that do not want to threaten their personal trade with a Communist nation under the control of a man who is clearly not in control of his own faculties.
People say not to underestimate Kim Jong-Il. He is "smart," "cagey," and "well-versed" in war. Uh-huh. And I am Marilyn Monroe reincarnated. He exhibits all the signs of a child throwing a tantrum because he did not get the toy he wanted at the store. "If you don't go back and buy me that toy I will blow up the house, mommy!" Then he lights off a firecracker, demands congratulations, respect, and proclaims that the house is blown up. He needs a good spanking is what he needs. And hopefully the sanctions being proposed and moved on will be just the sort of spanking he needs.
But I find the Times completely disingenuous in their calls for unilateral action. It makes the paper look very bad. When we had the information in hand about Saddam--the same, exact information that President Clinton had and used as a justification for bombing them in 1998--the Times and other MSM outlets criticized the president. They claimed he was doing it to get back at Saddam for "trying to kill his daddy." And now they want him to act. It is worse than being disingenuous.
It is intellectual dishonesty at it's worst, and shows why the MSM is dying. No one can take them seriously anymore. They say one thing on Monday, and change their tune by Friday. With that sort of thought process, is it any wonder why outlets like the Times are looked at as jokes?
Marcie
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 11:23 AM
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