Congressman Gary Ackerman's Press Release
CONTACT: Jordan Goldes Phone (718) 423-2154 Fax (718) 423-5591 http://www.house.gov/ackerman
October 10, 2006  
Ackerman Op-ed on North Korea's Apparent Nuclear Weapon Test

(Washington, DC) - It has become clear to me that we now have a FAITH BASED foreign policy.

And if you believe real hard, I mean REALLY believe, like ‘stay the course’ believe, what you believe in will come true.

And if you talk directly to God, you needn’t talk to anyone else. Especially sinners, because they are evil. Like Iran. Like North Korea.

We have no strategy, grand or otherwise.

The practice of the Bush Administration has been to declare its most fervent hopes to be facts, and then pray for them to come true.

The North Koreans have been trying to get our attention for some time, ever since we walked out of the “four party talks” (established under former President Bill Clinton), and refused to talk directly with them. Direct bilateral talks is what they demanded. So we insist on “six-party talks,” an ironic position after ‘dissing’ the international community in dealing with that other “evil.”
   
I guess we just don’t talk to evil people. Rather than do that, we’ve outsourced our foreign policy.

We have subcontracted to the European Union negotiators the question of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. And we have subcontracted to China, the handling of our policy on North Korea’s nuclear program. And how did that work out? North Korea, a paranoid hermit among nations, has been screaming out for some personal attention from us.

We invaded Iraq, stating we would not tolerate a nuclear weapons development program among the evil axis. North Korea announces it has such a program. We rebuff their request for direct talks. In July, they test seven various range ballistic missiles. We refuse direct talks. On Monday, they exploded a nuclear weapon. We again refuse direct talks.

Clearly, by virtue of the choices we’ve made, or not made, we are much worse off now than we were six years ago.

America’s problem, as it has been throughout the Bush Presidency, is one of strategy, of developing a plan for applying available means to achieve desired ends.

I’m not trashing religion, but prayer is not a plan.

So where has our lack of policy led us, and what resources does the U.S actually have at its disposal to address this challenge?

Where we are:

We have a starving country with a despotic regime, headed by an apparent mad man with a cult like following, who has a missile system and nuclear bombs and who wants to talk to us directly.

And our choices?

• We can invade North Korea and pull down more larger than life dictator statues than ever dreamed of, do a regime change thing and own a broken country with 20 million starving people.


• We can use our charm to convince the previously dismissed international community to impose a strict economic blockade for as long as it takes, painting a desperate despot into a corner.

• We can engage, at the appropriate moment in direct discussions.

• Or we can pray. Maybe just a little harder.


Ackerman, a member and the most recent Democrat to Chair the House International Relations Subcommittee on Asia, traveled to North Korea in 1993 to discuss with the late Kim Il Sung—the country’s president at the time & the father of current President Kim Jong Il—the framework under which the communist nation would cease building nuclear weapons. Upon his return to South Korea, Ackerman became the first person since the Korean War to cross the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone). The Subcommittee on Asia has jurisdiction over U.S. policy towards North and South Korea, China as well as all Asian nations.

 

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CONGRESSMAN Gary Ackerman 2243 RAYBURN BUILDING WASHINGTON,DC 20515 www.house.gov/ackerman