The Bush administration's Korea experts were distressed earlier this week when a Pentagon official suggested that Washington was perhaps only weeks away from taking its case against North Korea to the UN Security Council.
That was not the message that the administration wanted to convey as President George W. Bush was preparing to receive South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyon at the White House. The Pentagon official's words were quickly disavowed.
Bush met with Roh on Friday and assured him that he is committed to the six-party negotiation aimed at achieving North Korea's nuclear disarmament.
Bush said the negotiation was "essential" and that Washington and Seoul were "strategic partners and allies and friends." Roh said, "We are in full and perfect agreement on the basic principles."
It was a decorous exchange, fitting nicely with Roh's aversion for sabre-rattling and provocative rhetoric. Bush appeared to show deference to his guest when he referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as "Mr." -- a sign of respect that Bush does not always show. Just a month ago, Bush described Kim as a "tyrant."
Bush made no reference to the UN Security Council option, which the North would vigorously oppose as a provocation.
Roh's visit was timely, giving him the opportunity to compare notes with Bush on North Korea's recent expression of interest in resuming the six-party discussions, which it has boycotted for a year.
For both sides, the ideal outcome is an agreement under which North Korea would verifiably dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for economic benefits from the US, South Korea and other prosperous countries.
While agreeing on the long-term strategy, there are differences over tactics. Geography is widening the gap between the two. The mighty North sits within artillery range of the Seoul. The US is an ocean away.
The South gets rattled when the US tries to coerce the North into behaving better. But without an element of coercion, Washington believes the North has no incentive to negotiate away its nuclear arsenal.
And as the North appears to be en route to possession of six or more weapons, the US worries that Pyongyang will go international, exporting weapons or weapons technology, not to mention the missiles needed to launch bombs. The US fears it would keep in reserve enough bombs to deal with contingencies at home.
Roh doesn't discount this scenario but believes the best way out of the dilemma is engagement with the North. He feels most comfortable when its Washington ally speaks softly and stresses the need for peace -- precisely what Bush did on Friday.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.