[Assam] From St. Louis Post Dispatch

Wed Oct 11 19:56:11 PDT 2006

One can come up with couple of wisdoms from this North Korean episode;

1) George Bush was correct all along, North Korea is an axis of evil(?).  But the point is even after knowing this what the Bush administration did to stop N Korea.  I failed miserably.

2) No one came close to defending it?
Is this something for Bush administration to rejoice about?. UN took a resolution and nobody came to defend N Korea. Is that all Bush administration wanted? Poor Bush administration!!! Has to take shelter under the UN, an org it actually undermine.

3) No one came close to defending it?
The funny thing is that on 9/12 also the whole world was with USA. But look what the Bush administration did during the last so many years. It created almost all its supporters its enemies and all the supports vanished.

I hope the bush administration will not do the same mistake with N Korea.

Rajen Barua

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: umesh sharma 
  To: Chan Mahanta ; assam at assamnet.org 
  Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 6:54 PM
  Subject: Re: [Assam] From St. Louis Post Dispatch

  Why do they say on US TV channels -- "Why does the world dislike Americans?"

  I wonder when there would be justice given to Pakistan's AQ Khan and he be convicted in International Court.

  Umesh

  Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:
    Bill McClennan, one of my most favorite newspaper columnists, wrote this :

    http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/columnists.nsf/billmcclellan/story/856BCD6A056949F6862572040032465F?OpenDocument 
    North Korea has an excuse: Defense against schoolyard bully
    By Bill McClellan
    ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
    10/11/2006

    Bill McClellan
    [More columns]
    [Bill's Biography]

    I picked up the newspaper Tuesday morning, and saw the headline on 
    the front page: "A Roar of Condemnation." Just above the screaming 
    headline was a quote: "No one came even close to defending it."

    Naturally, I figured it had something to do with baseball. After 
    all, the Cardinals are about to play the Mets in the League 
    Championship Series, and baseball is going to dominate the news as 
    long as the Cardinals keep playing. Why not? This is a business, and 
    we aim to give the customers what they want. If that's bread and 
    circuses, fine with us.

    But when I took a second look, I saw that the headlines referred to 
    the North Korean claim that it had tested a nuclear bomb.

    No one came close to defending it? Let me try.
    Advertisement

    First of all, I'm no fan of North Korea. From the little I know of 
    their Supreme Leader, I think he's nuts. Then again, I believe in 
    meritocracy, and I think it's a terrible idea to have any country run 
    by political dynasties. Just because your dad was Supreme Leader 
    doesn't mean you should be Supreme Leader. Then again, my congressman 
    is Russ Carnahan. My governor is Matt Blunt. My president is George 
    W. Bush.

    But when I think of North Korea and the bomb, I think about my childhood.

    We sometimes had bomb drills in grade school. We'd sit under our 
    desks. These drills were necessary because the Soviet Union had 
    thousands of nuclear weapons aimed at us.

    I remember having doubts about the efficacy of the drills. Would we 
    really be safe under our desks? Mostly, though, I wondered about the 
    Soviets. Why did they hate us?

    Grown-ups tried to explain the complicated truth. It wasn't so much 
    that the Soviets hated us as much they feared us. You see, we had 
    nuclear weapons, too, and our missiles were aimed at the Soviets. So 
    they figured that if they aimed their missiles at us, we wouldn't 
    dare attack them.

    That was the craziest thing I had ever heard. Didn't they know 
    anything at all about us? We were the good guys. We'd fight if 
    somebody attacked us, and we'd fight if somebody attacked one of our 
    friends, but that was it. We weren't about to start a fight. We were 
    the toughest kid in the schoolyard, but we were no bully.

    I knew, of course, that we were the only country that had ever used 
    a nuclear weapon. But we were justified in so doing. I thought so 
    then, and I think so now.

    So I was absolutely convinced that the leaders of the Soviet Union 
    had pulled a fast one on their people in order to justify their 
    missiles. The United States would never be the first to attack. I 
    believed that with all my heart.

    I became more cynical as the years went by, but still, I clung to 
    that belief until George W. Bush introduced the policy of 
    "pre-emption." He declared that we had the right to attack first - 
    even if the country we attacked was not posing an imminent threat to 
    us. We used that policy to justify our invasion of Iraq.

    In March this year, we reaffirmed our right to strike first.

    "The president's strategy affirms that the doctrine of pre-emption 
    remains sound and must remain an integral part of our national 
    security strategy," said national security adviser Stephen Hadley. 
    "America must confront threats before they fully materialize."

    People can make many arguments against our invasion of Iraq. It has 
    inflamed the world against us. It has strengthened Iran. (There was a 
    reason the administration of President Ronald Reagan tilted toward 
    Iraq in its war against Iran.) It threatens to further destabilize 
    the Middle East. (There was a reason Turkey opposed the invasion.) It 
    has cost us dearly in money and blood.

    But there has been another kind of loss, as well. Kids today cannot 
    feel about the country the way I did. That's a shame.

    Also, when a country that believes in pre-emption announces that 
    another country is part of an axis of evil, can you really blame that 
    country for trying to develop a nuclear bomb? I can't.

    But now, back to baseball.

    _______________________________________________
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  Umesh Sharma
  5121 Lackawanna ST
  College Park, 
  (Washington D.C. Metro Region)
  MD 20740 

  1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

  Ed.M. - International Education Policy
  Harvard Graduate School of Education,
  Harvard University,
  Class of 2005

  weblog: http://jaipurschool.bihu.in/
  website: www.gse.harvard.edu/iep

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