North Korea believes that once President Bush has dispatched Iraq, they’re next to be gotten rid of.

North Korea needn’t worry.

Bush, in his New Year’s statement, said the recent crisis over North Korea’s atomic weapons building could be diffused by “political and economic pressure from its neighbors, particularly China.”

Then, Bush added that Iraq was still on the invasion list because, evidently unlike North Korea, “Saddam Hussein hasn’t heard the message.”

I’m trying to figure out. Is Bush a halfwit, or a liar?

North Korea has heard the message? They’ve been consistent, consistently dishonest. But what do you expect from Bolshevik North Korea------truth? You can be shot in that country for eating lice out-of-season.

North Korea violated the 1993 Clinton-sponsored agreement whereby they would cease building A-bombs in return for American nuclear technology. The American taxpayer was once again the sucker. The North Koreans took our money and technology, and just kept building their bombs as if nothing had happened.

They’ve admitted it.

Why is Bush now being nicer to these guys (North Koreans) than he is to Iraq?

Iraq has enslaved and abused its populace.

So has North Korea.

Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

So has North Korea.

Iraq is a dangerously destabilizing influence in a volatile area of the world.

Ditto North Korea.

Iraq has neighbors we have diplomatic ties with, such as Egypt and Syria, who could influence her.

So does North Korea (China and Russia).

So why the difference? Why, the, “let’s handle North Korea diplomatically,” the friendly approach, and the unchanged, “let’s go ahead and bomb Iraq” plan?

Simple! Iraq is one of the few rogue states left it’s still easy for the U.S. to chastise, with what officials hope are few casualties (one of Bush’s military advisors said we could take out both Iraq and North Korea at the same time).

I know Iraq’s leader is a bad guy. It’s the cynical double standards and inconsistencies I hate. 

We can’t get too tough with North Korea because they have a big bully boy, China. We don’t want to anger China, our pal, our trading partner, whom the Clinton Administration gave top secret missile technology to in the 1980s (the rest China stole fair and square).

The reality is, we can’t stop other countries of the world, some of them rogue states, from doing what we’ve done, acquire nuclear weapons technology and act as arms merchants.

The message is clear. You can fear invasion by the U.S., only if your ruler is a nutcase, and only if the president can safely act tough with you, and only if you’re sufficiently isolated from the rest of the world, with no important powerful allies bordering you, and only if you have a vulnerably reduced military, and only if-----------the president holds you accountable to prior agreements