SEOUL (AP) - Deepening a nuclear crisis, North Korea condemned U.S. President George W. Bush as “a shameless charlatan” and said his state of union message was an act of war.
In Seoul, outgoing South Korean President Kim Dae-jung faced a payoff scandal over his crowning feat: an historic inter-Korean summit in 2000 that helped him win the Nobel Peace Prize. In its first reaction to Bush’s State of the Union speech this week, which described North Korea’s leadership as an “oppressive regime” that “rules a people living in fear and starvation,” North Korea said Thursday it was an “undisguised declaration of aggression.”
“Bush has so far earned an ill fame as an emotional backbiter but his recent address clearly proves that he is a shameless charlatan reversing black and white under the eyes of the world,” a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said in a report by the country’s news agency KCNA. “This policy speech is, in essence, an undisguised declaration of aggression to topple the DPRK system,” said the spokesman, whose name was not identified in the report. The DRPK, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the North’s official name.
The nuclear dispute started in October when U.S. officials said North Korea admitted having a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement. Washington suspended oil shipments to North Korea - which in turn expelled UN nuclear inspectors and pulled out of a global nuclear arms-control treaty. North Korea insists the standoff can be resolved only through bilateral talks with the United States. Washington views it as an international matter that should be addressed by the UN Security Council, which could eventually impose sanctions against Pyongyang.
South Korean news media reported Friday key members of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency met in Vienna on Thursday and tentatively decided to convene an emergency meeting of its 35-country board of directors Feb. 12 to consider referring the nuclear issue to the Security Council.
The UN watchdog previously suggested a Feb. 3 meeting. South Korea wanted to postpone the meeting to give North Korea more time to change course. South Korean president-elect Roh Moo-hyun, in an interview broadcast Thursday on Japan’s public television NHK, said he opposes any UN economic sanctions against North Korea. …
Malik :k: What, indeed, is stopping the US ? Especially at such a sensitive period, why send out such badly mixed signals of your administration’s policies.
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*Originally posted by underthedome: *
did you not read my post Malik or are you in one of your "screw logic" moods?
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I read your post, and as usual it dodged my quite simple question. Who is the biggest thread in terms of WMD? Iraq or North Korea? No waffle just a point to point answer please.
At least other Americans are now conceding that they are scared of what North Korea might do in response to any US move...
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*Originally posted by Abdali: *
Since US don't have the balls to take on NK it will pussy foot and play tought in media. Yeah right it can be solved diplomatically sure it will.
This is what the monkey in the white house will say. Our diplomatics efforts have paid of.. LOL..!! NK has agreed to freeze and roll back its UNclear program. LOL...!! Another victory for us just like we had one in the 50s and 60s... LOL...!!
And NK will continue to have its nukes except this time media will mask NKs WMD give it a spin and give US a face saver.
NK has 1M troops fully armed to the teeth 30 minutes from DMZ. 3M reserves and nukes in the basement. Naaaaaa uncle sam u be very careful this is not Iraq you dealing with and you know what 4 footers did to you in the 50s. Play smart play pussy don't commit ground troops diplomacy will work all the way. LOL.. gooooood luck.....
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that's one of the most devastating posts I've come across! events seem to bear out what abdali wrote!
One reason Pyongyang’s defiant provocations are met with diplomatic overtures while Baghdad’s mix of cooperation and evasion elicits threats of force is the strong suspicion that Kim Jong Il already has nuclear weapons while Saddam Hussein does not.
That may be a good argument for not backing North Korea into a corner. But it is not a very promising formula for avoiding future nuclear threats — threats almost certain to materialize in the years immediately ahead.
The Bush administration should also drop its provocative policy of threatening nuclear retaliation against non-nuclear threats.
Is is fear of North Korea, or fear of what the North Koreans will do to the civilian population of South Korea that is dictating US' cautious stance with NK? When US gets tough they are bashed for being overpowering brutes. When they choose diplomacy there are mocked for being 'scared'. Is there anything positive to contribute? 5 pages of calling US scaredy-cats is rather childish. It causes your positions on other issues to not be taken seriously because of this transparent anti-Americanism.
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*Originally posted by Seminole: *
Is is fear of North Korea, or fear of what the North Koreans will do to the civilian population of South Korea that is dictating US' cautious stance with NK? When US gets tough they are bashed for being overpowering brutes. When they choose diplomacy there are mocked for being 'scared'. Is there anything positive to contribute? 5 pages of calling US scaredy-cats is rather childish. It causes your positions on other issues to not be taken seriously because of this transparent anti-Americanism.
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hehehehehehe its called pussyfooting, hey those 4 footers gave GI Joes a trashing worth 500 miles...... I truest each GI Joe including the moneky in the white house knows the distance from Yul river to DMZ is 500 miles... LOL...
After killing 2M in the 50s so much concern for the chinkos.. my my...
When US gets tough they are bashed for being overpowering brutes. When they choose diplomacy there are mocked for being 'scared'.
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No what is rightly pointed out is the double standards of the Bush regime. They want to wage war on Iraq even though they still have to prove to the world they have WMD. Yet they want to only try a mild diplomatic route with North Korea, a country more dangerous than Iraq, especially as it freely admitting it has WMD, and is accelerating its programme. It is quite unashamaedly thumbing its nose at the Americans and showing the US double standards up quite starkly.
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*Originally posted by Seminole: *
Which is it? Fear or double standards?
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I would say both, but more so fear. From the answers of the Americans in this thread it seems to be fear...of North Korea, and what it would if the Americans dared make any move against it. America has been cowed into practical inaction by North Korea's threats. :)
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*Originally posted by Seminole: *
Thanks, really. But you can stop now. You've already answered my question.
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I thank you for confirming what other Americans have also concdeded i.e the fear of North Korea's response to any US moves against it. There's no shame in saying you are scared. :)
If you insist on reiterating my point, would you please relate my fear, shame and hypocrisy to the massacre of the Native Americans and the dropping of nukes on Japan?
When you mock the suffering that America caused these people, don’t then turn around and ask why they hate you.
But back to the topic, which you are keen to get away from. This is what your “ally” in the South was upto in all the years you were trying rather unsuccessfully to stop the North acquiring WMD.
instead of the 
But good enough.