UN Food for Missiles Program
North Korea is going around making inflammatory claims about possessing nuclear weapons again according to a Korea Times report.
The North made the claim to an American congressional delegation which visited the communist country Jan. 11-14, Radio Free Asia reported on Saturday. The U.S. government radio station said that Curt Weldon, who headed the delegation, revealed the North’s claim in a forum held in Washington on Wednesday. According to the radio station, the North told the congressional delegation that through the cases of India, Pakistan and Israel, it had learnt that the possession of nuclear arms was the only means to thwart external attacks. It also told the delegation that the North had no intention of keeping its nuclear program in the long term and wished to maintain friendly relations with the U.S.
Here is the most interesting part of the article:
There looms the strong possibility, though denied by Washington, that the U.S. will take the issue to the Security Council of the United Nations if the North keeps playing with the six-party negotiations. If the case is referred to the U.N. governing body, it may plunge the peninsula into heightened tensions for an indefinite period, thus impeding the expansion of inter-Korean relations. But without doubt, the North will suffer the most because of various sanctions that the Security Council will inevitably impose against the Pyongyang regime.
In this regard, the North ought to return to the negotiating table immediately so as to diplomatically settle the nuclear confrontation with the U.S. and restore peace and stability to the peninsula. Time is rapidly running out for the North.
Reading this I begin to wonder why the UN hasn’t already demanded that they be solve this crisis like they demanded in Iraq? It can be easily argued that the Kim Jong Il regime is as oppressive as the Saddam Hussein regime or even worse. The people in North Korea are already starving more than the Iraqis ever did. They both got illicit weapons programs the subject of concern of the US. These are just some of the similarities between the two situations. According to the Iraq paradyme the UN believes all international disputes should be settled through the context of the UN. So why isn’t Kofi Annan not demanding that the UN handle this?
The only reason I can think of is that North Korea has no oil and nobody is getting any lucrative kick backs from the regime like what was happening in Iraq with the UN Food For Oil scandal. So in the interest of promoting international cooperation I propose the perfect compromise using the same “successful” logic in relieving the suffering of the Iraqi people by the UN.
Why doesn’t the UN create the Food for Missiles program! The UN could sell Kim Jong Il’s missiles on the international arms market and then give the money to the regime for the purposes of buying food and medicine for the suffering North Korean people or Kim could just build palaces like Saddam did. According to the Iraq paradyme either option is okay. Then the officials involved in selling the missiles could get kick backs from the regime for their efforts. Saddam gave oil vouchers as kick backs, maybe Kim Jong Il could give heroin vouchers or kickbacks of counterfeit US money. Whatever works. After all this is for the sake of international relations. Mostly everybody wins with this scenario. Kim gets the source of hard revenue he has been seeking, the UN gets to call the shots, officials are making money from kick backs, South Korea doesn’t have to worry about the collapse of the North, the US can put the North Korean crisis on the back burner for a while, and the North Korean people, well not much really changes for them.
However if the US threatens to attack the country still, then demand inspections after inspections and cast the Americans as unilateralists. It would be important to keep the Food for Missiles program operarating after all because without it so many of the North Korean people would suffer. Well mainly just the Nork military would suffer; the civilian people who cares about them anyway? This is all for the sake of international relations and goodwill. There is nothing more important than that. Well besides lining ones own pockets, that is pretty important too.
