North Korea

[JOHN THURSTON]

I suppose the nice thing about dictatorial repressive military dictatorships is that they are "predictable".

The leaders, once attaining power, will never reliquish it.

The leaders will never consider any treaty binding.

The leaders will go to any lengths to to retain or expand their power.


In law I used to call this the ($$$) theory.

If a sordid crazed by money mortgage lender promised only , say, ZERO , closing costs and it found it could not sell a loan as they had planned, and it would cost them actual money to close the loan on the promised terms, they/he/she would simply instruct its attorney (in this case, well ME) to add in "something"($$$)" to make sure closing the loan cost them nothing.

They did not care about their agreement(s). If it cost them over (insert figure here) they simply forgot their written word.

Put this attitude, replacing the lust for money with the belief that POWER is EVERYTHING and that human life means nothing, then one must realize what is going to happen.

N.K. does not care about any agreements if it causes, at any time, the regime to vary (insert amount of variance here) from their goals.

We know where things are going..

If I recall correctly, although Panmunjon's talks resulted in a 'cease fire', the Korean War has never officially ended.

France has indicated that they beleive the first bomb was a 'dud'.

I am not sure this makes a diddly damn difference.

Osirak was the location of Iraq's ( built with French help) Nuclear facility---

I understand the French were rather relieved by Israel's Action at Osirak', as they did not have to actually "do" anything, and they got to keep their francs.

At least they seem to remain consistent.

I apologize for the rant.

Sometimes the lessons of history do not actually have to be gleaned from the arcane depths of dusty texts.

JT