"A settlement on the Korean Peninsula is crucial to peace and stability in Asia, and it is long overdue. These positive messages from North Korea should be pursued aggressively and without delay, with each step in the process carefully and thoroughly confirmed."
Carter can't help but observe:
"In July, North Korean officials invited me to come to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader, and other officials to secure the release of Mr. Gomes. Those who invited me said that no one else’s request for the prisoner’s release would be honored."
Gomes was released, and now Carter is seeking a negotiated rapprochement with this horrifyingly aggressive dictatorship, yet fails to mention the sinking of a South Korean Pohang-class corvette in March 2010 with the loss of 46 sailors. Thanks, Jimmy.
This call for a renewal of relations with North Korea brings to mind the three New York Times op-eds written by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett calling for a renewal of relations with Iran (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/01/open-letter-to-andrew-rosenthal-yet.html), and the recent release by Iran of hiker Sarah Shourd. Apparently The New York Times places a premium on upgrading the status of rogue regimes which threaten its neighbors with nuclear annihilation and kidnap Americans.
At the bottom of the op-ed, it is written:
"Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, is the founder of the Carter Center and the winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize."
Actually, when I think of Jimmy Carter, I think of Johnny Carson. During "The Tonight Show", Carson would occasionally impersonate the swami Carnac the Magnificent: holding to his forehead a sealed envelope containing a question, he would then divine the appropriate answer before opening the envelope and reading the question. In the episode that I remember so well, Johnny held up the envelope, and, after a moment of solemn reflection, declared: "Breaking and entering". Tearing open the envelope, he then revealed the question: "What is the only way Jimmy Carter will ever again enter the White House?"
My nightmare almost 30 years later: One-term president Carter will ultimately fade from the scene, notwithstanding his monumental ego, and one-term president Obama, freed of constraints, will pick up Carter's radical mantle.
Carter neglects to mention the N Koreans were cheating on their Clinton treaty almost from the start and had/have no intention of ever giving up their nuclear weapons capability, nor willingness to proliferate. Because it is just about the only bargaining chip/source of earnings they have. He is the ultimate example of Lenin's useful idiot. They give back one hostage, which we have to grovel for and in return we cave in to nuclear blackmail. Typical of his beyond naive failed foreign approach.
ReplyDelete"one-term president Obama, freed of constraints, will pick up Carter's radical mantle."
ReplyDeleteIf it helps relieve that nightmare, Obama does not have Carter's religious fervor. I actually see one-term Obama finding a low-profile niche where he can make lots of money and play golf with his leftist friends.
They can create their own eco-golf club in Cuba :)
I am trying to generate the dream where Nobel, with the ghost of Harry Truman at his side, personally asks Obama to return his Peace Prize.
K2K