I can't believe I'm saying this....

[palsgraf_polka]

But I agree with John Bolton.

http://tinyurl.com/ks9857

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Obama administration is rewarding North Korea for its bad behavior by sending ex-president Bill Clinton to Pyongyang to win the release of two US journalists, the former US ambassador to the UN said Tuesday.

John Bolton, an outspoken hardliner in the previous administration of George W. Bush, told AFP that Clinton's mission to Pyongyang undermines a number of public stands held by his own wife, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"It comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists," Bolton told AFP when asked about Bill Clinton's trip to secure the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

The pair were sentenced in June to 12 years in a labor camp for an illegal border crossing and an unspecified "grave crime," after they were detained by North Korean border guards on March 17 while working on a story.

"I think this is a very bad signal because it does exactly what we always try and avoid doing with terrorists, or with rogue states in general, and that's encouraging their bad behavior," Bolton said.

In a US television interview here on July 26, Secretary Clinton warned North Korea that even its traditional allies had turned against it and that the communist state's rogue behavior will no longer "be rewarded."

Bolton also scoffed the White House's contention that Bill Clinton's visit is "solely a private mission" when he said "this is a former president who is married to the secretary of state. There's nothing private about this."

The visit also undermines Secretary Clinton's public remarks in which she separates the case of the two journalist from efforts to force North Korea to return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks, he said.

"Hillary has said she wanted to delink the two but (Bill) Clinton was met at the airport by Kim Kye-Gwan who is the lead and has been for 15 years or more the lead North Korean nuclear negotiator," he added.

He added it "is hard to imagine" that Clinton did not talk about the nuclear issue when he had dinner with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, given the nuclear negotiations that Clinton pursued when he was president in the 1990s.

"If you wanted to divorce the kidnapping, abduction issue of the two reporters from the nuclear issue, you couldn't have picked a less likely envoy than president Clinton," Bolton said.

"I think this is a win-win for North Korea," according to Bolton, who believes all negotiations are useless in trying to force North Korea to abandon its weapons-grade nuclear program.

I bolded the parts that get me the most about all of this. As a woman, I'm offended because it reinforces the public belief that you shouldn't send in a woman to do a man's job. It's why Hillary couldn't get past the primary election last year. If they keep pulling shit like this - with her own husband no less - than how are women going to truly be taken seriously in American politics?

I really hope Hillary was 100% behind this because if not, then it makes me angry and sad.

Comments

[wobblerlorri.livejournal.com]

All that matters to me is the journalists were released. Who gives a flying fuck how it was done, who brokered it, or what it looks like to anyone else?

As for the whole "don't send a woman to do a man's job", I think that's just being overly sensitive. The North Koreans weren't looking for a Sec'y of State, they wanted the highest level American politician they could get -- setting aside that Bill is a private citizen now. On the plus side as well -- now the US has proven that we will negotiate first before rattling sabers.

As for John Bolton, I think he accomplished exactly what he was trying to do -- spinning the whole episode into a divisive and completely fictional slur on Hilary Clinton. He needs to just shut up and sit down.

[philosophyjeff.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[sandman008.livejournal.com]

From the Washington Post article on this topic:

The point to be made on the Clinton visit is that the knee-jerk impulse for negotiations above all inevitably brings more costs than its advocates foresee. Negotiating from a position of strength, where the benefits to American interests will exceed the costs, is one thing. Negotiating merely for the sake of it, in the face of palpable recent failures, is something else indeed.

Sadly, no.

From another Washington Post article on this topic:

North Korea announced Tuesday that it had pardoned two detained American journalists, hours after former president Bill Clinton met in Pyongyang with reclusive dictator Kim Jong Il as part of an unannounced and highly unusual diplomatic mission to win their freedom.

Kim issued an order “granting a special pardon to the two American journalists who had been sentenced to hard labour in accordance with Article 103 of the Socialist Constitution and releasing them,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

THIS

[jvmatucha.livejournal.com]

Re: THIS

[palsgraf-polka.livejournal.com]

You guys, I'm not disagreeing with the setting free of the people. I was just agreeing with the BOLDED parts that sending in Bill Clinton undermines Hillary's authority as Secretary of State and makes her look weak and that a woman can't do the job.

Re: THIS

[sandman008.livejournal.com]

Which is why I included the telling excerpt from the original WaPo article rather than the boiled-down bit from Yahoo.

First blockquote is Bolton's thesis about "knee-jerk impulses to negotiate" and "dealing from a position of strength." Second blockquote is that thesis being demolished.

Bolton is still wrong. Regrettably, he's still getting air time.

Re: THIS

[leroyjackson.livejournal.com]

Bolton is one of the smartest people I can think of. He just tells it like it is. The US of A just negotiated with terrorist. I was terrified every time my wife went over to South Korea with the Navy. This action will pay with thousands of more lives down the road. How about we just pull out of every country military wise and mind our own business. I mark my words, those journalist will just be out there doing this crap again, stopping around in dangerous places.

Re: THIS

[palsgraf-polka.livejournal.com]

Well, that's another one of the things that bothers me too about this - what were they doing so close to the border that they were able to be snagged? Did they cross the border into N. Korea? Maybe, maybe not. But the case still stands that these two women were wholly unprepared to do a story so dangerous. It should be seasoned reporters with decades of experience and underworld and intelligence contacts that can save them in times like these, and not have to get Bill fucking Clinton of all people involved to kiss Kim Jong Il's ass and negotiate with a terrorist.

Will this inspire dictators, extremist groups who are considered terrorists to take more hostages? Probably.

I'm actually an somewhat of an isolationist - I think unless we are directly attacked by a foreign nation (I don't count 9/11 as being attacked by a foreign nation) we should not invade other countries. Maybe we should set an example and not be so militaristic.

And in the case of 9/11, instead of invading Iraq (or even Afghanistan for that matter - didn't we learn from Russia?) we just should have sat and gathered a lot of really good intelligence and then sent in an elite team to hunt and kill Bin Laden, and show his severed head on TV. Send a message.

But no. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and their coven of cretins wanted a big expensive war(s). Look at the money spent on and atrocities that Blackwater is being indicted for; it's scary. I wish we had never invaded either country.

And I still stand by the fact that Hillary has been essentially demoted by this whole N. Korea event and this could possibly ruin her career and any future aspirations to the presidency. Obama should have just swallowed his pride at the outset and made Bill Clinton his secretary of state instead of humiliating Hillary by sending Robert Gates and Bill Clinton to do her job and relegating her to do photo ops in Kenya while the big boys jerk each other off.