Official Aid and Comfort

President Bush, who not so long ago, listed North Korea as a member of the "Axis of Evil", and who vowed never to "falter" or "fail" to fight against terrorism -- or to negotiate with our enemies -- has completely sold out to the North Koreans.

North Korea agreed today to close its main nuclear reactor in exchange for a package of food, fuel and other aid from the United States, China, South Korea and Russia. The breakthrough, announced by the Chinese government after intense negotiations, came four months after North Korea tested a nuclear bomb.

The partner nations agreed to provide roughly $400 million in various kinds of aid in return for the North starting (!) a permanent disabling of its nuclear facilities and allowing inspectors into the country. [Didn't we try "inspectors" already with Saddam Hussein? --ed]

Perhaps equally important, the United States and Japan agreed to discuss normalizing relations with Pyongyang. The United States will begin the process of removing North Korea from its designation as a terror-sponsoring state and also on ending U.S. trade and financial sanctions.

Among the negotiators, Japan did not agree to the aid package, however, saying it first needs to work out further bilateral issues regarding abductions by the North.

The accord sets a 60-day deadline for North Korea to accomplish the first steps toward disarmament, and leaves until an undefined moment -- and to another negotiation -- the actual removal of North Korea's nuclear weapons and the fuel manufactured to produce them.

Under the agreement, the first part of the aid -- 50,000 tons of fuel oil, or an equivalent value of economic or humanitarian aid -- would be provided by South Korea, Russia, China and the United States; in the case of the United States , that would require congressional approval, which is likely to be difficult to get. [my bold]

I bloody well hope congressional approval will be "difficult to get"! And as for our side bleeding itself dry "in exchange for" the prospect of future negotiations on whether North Korea will actually reciprocate, remember how long it took even to get to this point! The "six-party talks" of which this is the outcome were stalled for fifteen months when I last blogged about them in March of last year!

Our Constitution specifically describes treason in the following manner:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted. [links dropped, bold added]

Some time back, I speculated on whether Noam Chomsky could be tried for treason and concluded that our failure to declare war might be among the impediments. This is worse, and our government's whole treasonous conduct of this war should be punished accordingly. But how? The very officials who should be considering the charges have not declared war and are by that fact complicit in the very act, whether they agree to Bush's particular form of surrender or not.

This is sickening and nearly unreal. For the icing on the cake -- massive evasion and a contradiction so blatant as to insult the reader's intelligence -- we need only read the following two sentences from the Times:

But North Korea has sidestepped previous agreements, and is thought to have many mountainside tunnels where it can hide projects.

The deal marks the first concrete plan for disarmament in more than three years of six-nation negotiations.

Thank God the New York Times is so committed to its mission of making sure its readers are as well-informed as possible! Let me translate the above: (1) North Korea is able and, according to ample evidence, willing to violate this "agreement". (2) This farce of assisting and trusting North Korea represents a "concrete plan" towards the disarming North Korea.

We have neither the leaders nor the press we had at the time of the American Revolution. Instead, our lives are becoming increasingly dependent on the weakness and incompetence of our enemies -- the only two problems our leaders seem willing or able to address.

-- CAV