What should be done about North Korea?

[outdeep]

I came across this collection and like this one

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MDE1MjE0YzM5YTY0MTJjY2U1ZGZlNjJiNzdhOGJhODA=

Newt Gingrich

Our goal in North Korea should be peaceful regime change. Our model for leadership should be Ronald Reagan.

President Reagan entered office in 1981 with a clear vision of allying with Prime Minister Thatcher of Great Britain and Pope John Paul II to defeat the Soviet Empire. Without firing a shot they worked to strengthen the Solidarity trade union in Poland, to increase the resources available to the Polish people, and to undermine the effectiveness of the Communist dictatorship. Within eleven years of Reagan’s inauguration the Soviet Union disappeared. The Cold War was over. We had won.

North Korea is a vicious dictatorship in the middle of a famine. Its policies have shrunk the height of the average North Korean by over three inches over the last generation through malnutrition. There are over 200,000 North Koreans imprisoned in concentration camps. It is an evil regime grinding down the lives of its people.

A Reaganite strategy would funnel every penny of help and every bit of food aid through a system of private activity consciously designed to undermine the dictatorship. A Reaganite strategy would isolate the government while helping the people. It would seek every angle to get humanitarian help to the people. Food might be parachuted into the country, delivered from submarines and small boats by clandestine services, shipped in from China and Russia through anti-regime middlemen and delivered in every way possible to divert energy and authority away from the government and toward an alternative organizing system of individuals dedicated to a better more prosperous life. Just as in Eastern Europe, we would rapidly discover a lot of people willing to subvert the regime for better lives for their families and we would find the regime beginning to splinter and fragment in the face of opportunities for food, goods, and prosperity.

And a Reaganite strategy toward North Korea would mean what it says, and say what it means.

Last July, the entire civilized world said it would be “unacceptable” for North Korea to fire missiles. In response North Korea chose our Independence Day to fire seven missiles. They tested the “unacceptable”. It turned out to be acceptable. Is it any wonder that North Korea has now tested a nuclear weapon?

Reagan would have found a variety of steps to make it extremely expensive for the North Koreans to display contempt for the entire civilized world.

For President Reagan “unacceptable” would have meant “unacceptable.”

— Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House, is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of Winning the Future: A 21st Century Contract with America.

[Mark C.]

Hi Dave!

  I would like to comment on Newt's view of Reagan's plan that brought down the former Soviet Union.

    No doubt the actions he alludes to that sought to undermine Soviet control in Poland are true, but these by themselves would have had little real impact without Reagan's main plan:  This main plan was to build up our defenses and reject all the detante nonsense that kept us locked in a cold war for decades with the Ruskies.

  Much to the annoyance of the Democrats, Reagan refused to make agreements re. disarming as he knew them to be thoroughly untrustworthy ( "trust, but verify!" was one of his famous phrases re. this.)

  The Soviets could not keep up with our spending on defense and finally capitulated.  With N. Korea, and their midget pot-bellied dictator, the same kind of force needs to be applied (no more talking), via the taking out of his weapons of mass destruction.

  Remember that other loud mouth Khadafi?  Reagan brought the pain home (literally) and stopped his nonsense from that moment on! 

   N. Korea is far less open than Poland was and I don't think it would be easy (especially without China's help) to devise a means to bring relief to the people.  A few well placed cruise missles to take out the Dictator and his atomic programs might be the only way to get to the place where we could rebuild the country.

                            IMHO, God Bless, Mark C.

[vernecarty]

With N. Korea, and their midget pot-bellied dictator, the same kind of force needs to be applied (no more talking), via the taking out of his weapons of mass destruction.

  Remember that other loud mouth Khadafi?  Reagan brought the pain home (literally) and stopped his nonsense from that moment on! 

   N. Korea is far less open than Poland was and I don't think it would be easy (especially without China's help) to devise a means to bring relief to the people.  A few well placed cruise missles to take out the Dictator and his atomic programs might be the only way to get to the place where we could rebuild the country.

                            IMHO, God Bless, Mark C.

Mark is right on the money.
Niall Ferguson in his book War of the World I think rightly contends that America is a bit schizophrenic about it role as an empire (super-power).
He talked about the four E's that lead to massive loss of life in the course of human history among them economic inequity, ethnic diversity, and empire decline.
I think he is right in saying that the US has not learned anything form the British invasion of Mesopotamia in our ambivalent claim that we are not nation-building.
When you invade a country like Iraq with an intention of democratization, you had better be prepared to not only nation-build, but to be at it for a long time.
Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
The key to dealing with N Korea is to get China on board.
The US should srike some kind of deal over Taiwan so as to be able to take out this monster.
North Korea is one nation about which I often pray for God's intervention for I think things there are that horrific.
Verne

[outdeep]

Yes, Mark.  You are absolutely right about Reagan's stand.  Folks were toying with the MAD (mutually assured destruction) plan and Reagon had a new plan:  "How about we win and they lose?"

I sent to you in the mail a set of CDs called Reagan in His Own Voice.  It was a series of radio broadcasts - all of which he wrote himself - that Reagan made between his California governship and his Presidency.  It demonstrates that he through through many of the issues he stood before long before he became President.  I think you will enjoy this on your next truck ride.

-Dave

[Joe Sperling]

I find this IRL number and I use. I no like tone of this convelsation one bit. Kim Jong Il is nice guy and Nolth Kolea is best countly in wold. We make nucleal weapon but we not bad countly at all. Kim Jong Il is wondelful leadel and his chalactel shine like the sun. Him like a god liding on the winds of milacles. Him gleatest leadel in the univelse. I fall down and wolship me, I mean, him. Stop this convelsation now because I can become vely angly and maybe I do bad thing, I mean maybe he do bad thing to all of you. Blessed folevel be me, I mean, be Kim Jong Il fol evel and evel.

An anonymous admilel of King Jong Il