Expanding War on Terrorism

[TSMorris21@aol.com]

Here's a NY Times article I found concerning nuclear arms in North Korea.  On 
one hand, I think it is good that the US is looking into the potential threat 
of North Korea, who are likely to be much more dangerous than Iraq.  On the 
other hand, there is very little international support for any effort against 
North Korea (only Japan and South Korea ere cited as allies in the article) 
and the article mentions that the US might soon give "counterterrorism 
support" to countries like Malaysia, the Phillipines, and Indonesia, which 
sounds suspiciously like occupation to me.  

U.S. and 2 of Its Allies Warn North Korea on Atomic Arms
By TIM WEINER

CABO SAN LUCAS, Mexico, Oct. 26 — The United States, Japan and South Korea 
issued a joint statement today calling on North Korea to dismantle its 
clandestine nuclear weapons program "in a prompt and verifiable manner" and 
warned Kim Jong Il, North Korea's leader, that his "relations with the 
international community" hinged on his quick action.
The statement, issued after considerable behind-the-scenes diplomacy by the 
United States to form a common front against North Korea, stopped short of 
threatening the complete economic isolation of North Korea that the Bush 
administration has talked about in the last week. But Prime Minister 
Junichiro Koizumi of Japan, who traveled to North Korea to normalize 
relations just before the nuclear disclosure, warned today that 
"normalization talks would not be concluded" until the nuclear issue was 
resolved. That was considered crucial by American officials because Japan is 
the largest potential sources of trade and investment for North Korea.

The statement came as President Vicente Fox of Mexico told President Bush 
today that his country, which holds a pivotal vote on the Security Council as 
it debates how to confront Iraq, is still unwilling to give the United States 
broad latitude to strike at Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Fox's statement, at the end of a half-hour meeting with Mr. Bush just 
ahead of the opening of the annual summit meeting of the Asia-Pacific 
Economic Cooperation group, underscored the increasing concern within the 
White House that it might fail to assemble the votes needed to pass the kind 
of toughly worded Security Council resolution that Mr. Bush has been pressing 
for six weeks.

Flying here aboard Air Force One from the Bush ranch in Texas, the White 
House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, warned that "no one has ruled out the 
possibility that the U.N. will fail" and said the president would not 
hesitate to disarm Mr. Hussein without an explicit United Nations mandate if 
the debate dragged on.

Mr. Fleischer told reporters it would be "not very hard at all" to create an 
international coalition to attack Iraq, though he declined to say what 
nations, other than Britain, would join that coalition.

Mr. Bush's troubles in convincing Mr. Fox — the one leader he knew best when 
he came to office, but with whom relations have become strained in the last 
year — came as the president arrived here this morning hoping to build a 
united front against both Iraq and North Korea, which disclosed earlier this 
month that it had secretly been building a nuclear weapon despite its 
numerous agreements to forswear them.

The twin crises have changed the nature of this year's Asian leaders' summit 
meeting, which began nine years ago to focus on trade. But the political and 
economic impact of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington last year, 
and in Indonesia and the Philippines in recent weeks, turned the conference's 
attention from removing trade barrier to preventing terrorism.

Russia's prime minister, Mikhail M. Kasyanov, attending for President 
Vladimir V. Putin, who stayed home to deal with the hostage crisis in Moscow, 
said world events compelled "the countries which were to some extent 
reluctant to join in this coalition to more actively participate in combating 
all signs of terrorism."

The United States wants strict new rules for weapons inspections in Iraq and 
"serious consequences" — meaning military force — if Iraq does not submit. 
Russia wants the old inspection rules without the threat of force. France 
also wants to forestall a military attack, though its draft resolution would 
impose inspections stricter than those in the Russian proposal.

The White House wants to coerce the North Koreans through economic pressure. 
China, South Korea and Japan have been skeptical of that tactic, and today's 
statement was notable in part for its lack of specificity from South Korea. 
North Korea has insisted that the United States sign a nonaggression pact 
before it gives up its nuclear arms — a step it has linked in the past to 
complete withdrawal of the 37,000 American troops in South Korea. The United 
States has said that no withdrawal is planned, and in the statement today Mr. 
Bush repeated his assurance from last February that the "United States has no 
intention of invading North Korea."

But not all of those here are convinced of the urgency of the problem. The 
Russian prime minister, Mr. Kasyanov, said here on Friday that North Korea 
and its newly disclosed nuclear weapons posed no danger to the world.

"We do not have any evidence and proof that North Korea holds any threat," he 
said.

Mr. Bush will also meet with Indonesia's president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, 
aiming to stiffen her spine against militant Islamic forces in Indonesia. It 
took the bombing in Bali this month, which killed some 200 people, for her to 
acknowledge the force and depth of that militancy in Indonesia, home to 
roughly a quarter of a billion Muslims.

Prime Minister John Howard of Australia, which lost 90 or more citizens in 
the bombing, said the nations of APEC had to work together to deal with 
forces that, as he put it, share "a distaste for Western civilization" and an 
antipathy for any government with secular values.

President Megawati met with Mr. Howard on Friday and offered her condolences 
for the attack, the Indonesian foreign minister, Hassan Wirayuda, said. 

Other nations' leaders have used the conference to evoke a common humanity, 
as did Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the deputy prime minister of Malaysia, who said 
that the world was becoming one giant "interconnected village — a village 
where if a house burns, no one is safe."

The United States is not unmindful of this notion. Mr. Bush is likely to 
offer some kind of counterterrorism support in the form of soldiers or spies 
or technology or money to nations like Indonesia, the Philippines and 
Malaysia, three countries where Al Qaeda and its allies are a known if 
shadowy presence. For example, Washington is prepared to begin regular 
reconnaissance flights by spy planes in the Philippines, where Islamic 
guerrillas are based in thick jungles, according to Adm. Thomas Fargo, who 
commands United States forces in the Pacific.