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Senators Urge White House to Appease N. Korea

Appeasement may be the order of the day in Washington, as Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, from President George W. Bush?s own party, has suggested that America should give into North Korea?s demand for direct talks ? something Washington has categorically rejected ? in exchange for abandoning what seems to be plans for a test launch of the Taepodong-2 missile (potentially capable of hitting much of the western United States). There have been varying reports on whether or not the missile was fueled, or even if North Korea plans to actually test the missile. The Stalinist dictatorship has been warned by the U.S., South Korea and Japan not to launch the missile.

The call for direct talks was actually a bi-partisan one, with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Lugar and the number two on that committee, Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia, and Senator Joseph Biden, a Democrat from Delaware, all of the opinion that direct talks with Pyongyang should be granted.

Much has been made of the possibility of offering North Korea more ?carrots? to get it to abandon the launch and the nuclear arsenal it claims to have assembled, though what ? if anything ? America and the world would get in return from the untrustworthy, oppressive Asian nation isn?t discussed much. The crisis in the Far East is seen by many to be a gamble by North Korea to bring the world?s attention away from the issue of Iranian nuclear research and back to its own situation ? quite possibly, Pyongyang and Teheran are working in concert to test those opposed to their aims. North Korea abandoned six-party talks on the nuclear issue being held with the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China, some months ago.