History doesnt matter, until it doeswhen it rears up and smacks you in the face.

[ashling]

https://www.thenation.com/article/this-is-whats-really-behind-north-koreas-nuclear-provocations/

This Is What’s Really Behind North Korea’s Nuclear Provocations

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. One huge problem in this country is that history is very badly taught

in the high schools. Add to the fact that most students don't give a flying fuck about history, and their parents, who were also badly taught history, haven't a clue that it might matter. And even thought the parents are old enough to remember events twenty or so years in the past, they don't really remember them, can't place them in context, and haven't a clue that it might matter. Although I'm repeating myself there.

But my point is that the vast majority of people don't know anything about history, about events in the past, don't know or care that those things might matter. And it's a genuine shame, because it's precisely that ignorant attitude that has brought us to this point. It's why so many vote against their self interest: they know nothing about history and don't understand that it might possibly matter.

[Xipe Totec]

3. The other is the US tendency to unilaterally abrogate international treaties

Once it gets what it wants.

[Rhiannon12866]

2. K&R! Excellent article! Thanks for posting!

But it left just one thing out, it was Jimmy Carter who negotiated the original 1994 agreement with Kim Jong-il's father for the Clinton administration. He and Rosalynn were the first people to cross the DMZ in 43 years. He was a nuclear engineer so he had the background and knowledge Kim Il-sung could respect and of course Carter had done his homework. And Kim Il-sung's request was that he be respected in return. SoS Madeline Albright successfully continued the dialog. When the Bush* administration took over, Kim Jong-il asked if he could continue to deal with her. And then Bush* broke the deal by including North Korea in his "Axis of Evil" in 2002 and everything's gone downhill from there. And it looks like the clueless fool currently in the White House is doing everything he can to exacerbate this volatile situation...

[Bernardo de La Paz]

5. Instead we got Bush & tRump who think everything has a simple solution. . . . nt

[Rhiannon12866]

6. And there is inexplicably no effort made to broker peace

Isn't that what we all want? Carter and Clinton made the effort. It wasn't always easy, but it was certainly worth it. And isn't that what the job of president is about - keeping the US - and the world - a safe place? War is always the last possible resort.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. tRump & RW want to be bullies (Authoritarian). Far right doesn't want foreign adventures. . . nt

[Rhiannon12866]

9. The thing is, everybody loses if this ends in war.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Clinton stopped N Korea. GWBush kicked them and started them up again. . . . nt

President Bill Clinton got it to freeze its plutonium production for eight years (1994–2002) and, in October 2000, had indirectly worked out a deal to buy all of its medium- and long-range missiles. Clinton also signed an agreement with Gen. Jo Myong-rok stating that henceforth, neither country would bear “hostile intent” toward the other.

The Bush administration promptly ignored both agreements and set out to destroy the 1994 freeze. Bush’s invasion of Iraq is rightly seen as a world-historical catastrophe, but next in line would be placing North Korea in his “axis of evil” and, in September 2002, announcing his “preemptive” doctrine directed at Iraq and North Korea, among others. The simple fact is that Pyongyang would have no nuclear weapons if Clinton’s agreements had been sustained.

[rurallib]

7. excellent article

[KingCharlemagne]

10. We might easily have avoided the Afghan and Iraq quagmires, had

we simply re-read (as I did) a few volumes of the history of the Vietnam War (or, as the Vietnamese refer to it, "The War with the Americans&quot .

N.B. I've read estimates that the U.S. killed almost 25% of the North Korean civilian population during the Korean War (1948-53) by carpet bombing urban centers in the North. There's never been any accounting for that atrocity.