"DSK" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:
... Intel said that N. Korea didn't have an active ballistic missile
program...and they couldn't have been more wrong. That intel was
provided by the same folks that you cited for your "proof" that N. Korea
didn't have an active nuclear program under Clinton.

So? Nobody has a perfect record. If you want to make a big deal of this,
let's list all the major policy blunders committed by President Clinton
due to bad intel (or wilfully ignoring intel that didn't agree with his
preconceptions); and stack them up next to President Bush's.

My advice to you is to be a little more quiet on this subject.

You've been the master of bad advice. I'd have to be stupid or a masochist
to listen to any it.

What's really interesting is how easily you dismiss poor policy decisions by
Clinton when the the decisions were the result of poor intel, but are so
quick to chastise Bush for acting on intel failures.








Radiation is hard to hide. Spotting radioactive tailings is one of the
few things satellite spy-eyes are very good at.


You've been reading too much Popular Science. If it were so easy to spot
"radioactive tailings" on a bomb that's never been detonated, then why
all the fear about a suitcase nuke being smuggled into out ports?
Afterall, the satellite spy-eyes are very good at spotting them.

No, the spy-eye is good at spotting the rasioactive plume emitted as fuel
is enriched.

Hogwash. We don't have near the ability you think (and hope) we have
regarding the ability to spot nuclear fuel enrichment. Why do you think we
have been pushing so hard for boots-on-the-ground inspections in Iran.




An already-built bomb does not leave a plume of radioactive tailings and
can be shielded from a geiger counter.



One or two produced in the early 1990's! And we're supposed to believe
that Kim agreed to quit building them because Clinton handed him $4
billion and asked "please"?

Umm, not exactly.

"Not exactly" what? N. Korea did "not exactly" develop nukes in the early
90's? Or Hillary did "not exactly" write an article talking about those
nukes.

Perhaps if you gave up on lies & distortion, you might realize how sensible
the program was... if the Clinton Administration believed that the North
Koreans had already built nukes on Reagan and Bush Sr's watches, then the
options were either 1- a premptive strike to take them away or 2- give
solid incentive to get back on the Non-Proliferation bandwagon.


Option 1 would have stopped the continuation of the program. Option 2 ended
up funding the very program that it was trying to abate! Talk about irony.
Kim probably gets hyterical with laughter every time he thinks about it.

The money was to be handed over in smaller sums, over a period of years,
subject to verification that the N. Koreans were abiding by the
Non-Proliferation rules.

The N. Koreans never abided by the rules yet still collected the money.
Some program!




Whoa. Wait a minute. If N. Korea developed a nuke in the early 90's
during Clinton's watch, and that was Reagan and Bush Sr.'s fault, then
why aren't nukes built in 2003 (Bush's first term) the fault of the
administration that preceded Bush? You're being quite the hypocrite
here, Doug.

Not at all. First of all, N. Korea only announced that they were
re-activating their nuke program after Bush Jr had been in office for some
time,

Yeah, yeah...sure, whatever. N. Korea realized that Bush cut them off from
Clinton's gravy train. With nothing more to gain by concealing the nuke
program, they felt they had nothing to lose by revealing it.



and given them a ration of ****. Bush Jr has been in office now going on
five years

Whoah. Wait a minute. The N. Koreans talked about restarting their nuke
program only a year or two into Bush's first term.

... if the N. Koreans had nukes in 1993, then Clinton had been in office
less than a year.

But he was in office for 8 years. He allowed the N. Koreans to keep what
they already had, and then gave them funding which helped expand the program
even further.




I guess there's no difference between less than one year and more than 4
1/2 years, is there?

How about 8 years?

I guess there's no difference between "might have had nukes, which were
clearly developed & built while under the eye of the last administration,
and announcing DURING one administration that they plan to start building,
activating enrichment plants, and then claiming (with credibility) to have
active nuclear warheads.

The N. Koreans announced the same exact thing early on in Clinton's
presidency. They said that they planned to build and activate nuclear
plants if Clinton didn't give them the funding.

The only difference is that Clinton acquiesced...and Bush did not. That's
the *only* difference. When Bush said "get lost", Kim acted like a spoiled
little rich kid stomping his feet for not getting his way.


No, those two things are pretty much the same, arent't they?

They *were* the same. The only difference was the response from each
administration...and the ensuing response from Kim to each of those
responses.







Yes. We were disgraced and withdrew...

Disgraced? Why?


Because our forces weren't given the chance to finish what they started.
Their CIC pulled them out too soon.

WHAT?!? The only outcome of not pulling out would have been a massacre.


Yes...a massacre of the Somali warlords and their followers. We could
have and should have gone in with armored vehicles and decimated the
population in that region.

But we didn't. The force in place had to be evacuated or left to be
massacred.

The force "pulled back" to a safe base of operations. But they were still
in Somalia...right up until Clinton ordered their withdrawal.


One problem you seem to consistantly have, wishful thinking versus dealing
with the facts as they exist. It's great to daydream about using
overwhelming force, but that force was not in place at the time.



Casualties are not the goal of a military operation, unless you're a
worshipper of Stonewall Jackson.


Inflicting casualties is most certainly a goal of any force that squares
off against the US military.

That is because we are in the lucky position of having unbeatable logistic
& technological resources, provided from an (almost) unassailable economic
base.

Does this mean that you support the 'body count' concept of going after
'terrorists' and feel that as long as we're killing them faster than
they're killing us, we're winning?

Absolutely. As long as the numbers are in the neighborhood of 1000 to 1 or
more. I'd like to see closer to 10,000 to 1, but that would require the use
of nukes...which is something that I favor in *some* circumstances.