A note on the Amazon ads: I've chosen to display current events titles in the Amazon box. Unfortunately, Amazon appears to promote a disproportionate number of angry-left books. I have no power over it at this time. Rest assured, I'm still a conservative.
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Monday, February 23, 2004
Insanity: Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright spoke to the Union-Tribune editorial board earlier this month, and a Q&A summary of the interview is available here.
There should be no surprise, but the interview contains some whoppers. My favorite (and by that I mean alarming) has to do with North Korea.
Is North Korea a threat?
Yes. Let me say that I hold no brief for Kim Jong Il. And having been the highest-level American official to meet him ever, in Pyongyang, and knowing full well what goes on in North Korea. It's a horrible place and the people are starving. And he is a horrible dictator. I do think, however, that we were in the process of talking with him about a verifiable agreement on limiting missile technology and the export of missile technology. What we were also doing was working out a way so that we could make a clear statement that we had no intention of aggression. And with the ultimate goal of trying to figure out whether there could be some kind of a normal relationship or diplomatic relations or some kind of path to that. And I had had interesting talks in Pyongyang with him. It made it very clear to me that he was smart and knew what he was doing.
I believe very strongly that you make arms control agreements with your enemies, not with your friends. So it was very important to try to get them within a variety of arms control regimes and then try to make them as verifiable as possible. We left a hand of cards on the table and the (Bush) administration did not pick them up.
Does the revelation by the North Koreans that they were in fact cheating on the agreement that they reached with the United States change any of your thoughts about North Korea?
First of all, I think there's some genuine confusion these days about what they really said. And whether the translations were correct. So it's hard to say.
Read that last answer again. The former secretary of state is unsure whether or not North Korea violated the 1994 Agreed Framework. This woman was in charge of the United States foreign policy -- and that should scare the bejeezus out of every American. In an effort to keep a grip on a Clinton administration "success" she attempts to deny the undeniable.
There's a lot more in the Q&A that demonstrates just how nuts the prevailing Democrat view of the world is. Just a couple more tidbits for those who are interested.
Albright on the right of a soverign state to self-defense:
There is an inherent right of self-defense for any country, which the president, as the commander in chief, exercises. The U.N. Charter is based on collective action. But Article 51 of the U.N. Charter does allow for the inherent right of self-defense. But once the international community takes a look at it, then it's supposed to be moved over to them.
That's right, once some U.N. committee (or maybe the Security Council) takes a "look" at your self-defense, then they have final say over what you're doing.
Finally, for a diplomat who's supposed to be careful with their words, this one's a doozy:
The American public knows very little about Islam and I think makes gross generalizations about people who are Muslims without understanding that that religion has been hijacked by fundamentalists. [emphasis added]
Considering what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, I might suggest she choose a different term.
3:17 AM
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