Links from weblogs of varying opinions.
Senator John McCain Guest Blogged On Captain Ed’s Blog and has created quite a stir with his swipe at Clinton administration policy on North Korea:
The worst thing we could do is accede to North Korea’s demand for bilateral talks. When has rewarding North Korea’s bad behavior ever gotten us anything more than worse behavior?
I would remind Senator Hillary Clinton and other Democrats critical of Bush Administration policies that the framework agreement her husband’s administration negotiated was a failure. The Koreans received millions in energy assistance. They diverted millions in food assistance to their military. And what did they do? They secretly enriched uranium.
Prior to the agreement, every single time the Clinton Administration warned the Koreans not to do something — not to kick out the IAEA inspectors, not to remove the fuel rods from their reactor — they did it. And they were rewarded every single time by the Clinton Administration with further talks. We had a carrots and no sticks policy that only encouraged bad behavior. When one carrot didn’t work, we offered another.
TMV was a McCain supporter in 2000. The bottom line is that the North Korea tests are also a sign of the clear failure of Bush administration policy. See our Quote Of The Day from Bull Moose (who is a McCain fan) below. (FOOTNOTE: McCain Guest Blogging is a sign of how the blogs have increased in importance, how Ed Morrissey has created a site that has significant prominence, and how McCain continues to try to win over and mend fences with conservatives who remain suspicious of him. He can’t get the GOP nomination in 2008 without having GOP conservatives comfortable with him).
And Speaking Of Hillary aTypical Joe has some interesting thoughts on her here and here.
Has The GOP Lost The Security Moms? Right Thinking looks at the issue.
What Will The GOP Message Be This Election Cycle? John Cole thinks he knows and he doesn’t like it.
What Did Bob Woodward Write In His Book About George Bush And North Korea? He wrote this.
If You Want To Read What Iraqi And Afghani Bloggers Are Writing visit The Carnival Of The Liberated.
Is Fox News Just Inaccurate or are they trying to tell us something?
A Goverment Change In Israel could be in the offing soon…
Is Obama Eyeing The White House? Oxblog’s thoughts..
On The North Korea Crisis one of our favorite and most analytical sites gives its usual comprehensive analysis and then blasts the Bush administration. Intel Dump:
South Korea itself may go nuclear, and we would then have the equivalent of the India-Pakistan nuclear stand-off, except that an actual state of war already exists between the divided Koreas. The DMZ is a result of a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. And the bomb will be in the hands of Kim Il Sung, and for all we know he is bat-#$%& crazy.
Finally, the Scud missiles that our forces have faced around the world are North Korean Scuds. The North sells weapons to the highest bidder. There is a real possibility that nuclear technology in the hands of North Korea will, shortly, mean a nuclear state in Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and/or an atomic weapon in the hands of Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists.
None of this was inevitable. The world is much more dangerous than six years ago – even without 9/11 and the consequences of the “war on terror.” We are weaker, the Army and Marines are worn out, with weapons systems sitting idle at depots waiting for repair and understrength, untrained units desparately attempting to train in the basics before another deployment to Iraq.
The repeated, serial incompetence of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, one designed strictly for domestic vote-getting and not designed to make America more secure, is coming home to roost.
Happy Monday.
BLOG ROULETTE: Take a moment and take a look at these blogs of differing viewpoints:Anonymous Lawyer, Fester’s Place, IMAQ, Left of Centrist, A Little More To The Right, Swords Crossed
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.