HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
Dec. 30, 2004 The world seems to be content to look at the situation in Iraq, what with the flimsy evidence behind it and the lack of success in the occupation, as President George W. Bush’s chief first term blunder in foreign policy. To say this is accurate – Republicans and Democrats alike have slapped their foreheads and wondered how such a mistake could be made. What is worrisome now, with Bush’s second term drawing near, is how little press his misleading statements about North Korea have been. The official story runs something like this: North Korea, angered either by being listed as an ‘Axis of Evil’ nation or feeling threatened because of Bush’s no-nonsense policies on invading and overthrowing corrupt nations, decides to attempt to deter action by the United States with nuclear weapons. In response, the United States cuts off oil shipments to North Korea and corners them into multilateral talks while convincing other nations not to deal with them. The story runs perfectly until you realize one small thing: It’s not possible. I’m not a conspiracy theorist. All of the information I am using is backed by months of research from the men and women at such magazines as Foreign Affairs, with extensive backgrounds in their subjects. The idea that President Bush put into the heads of leaders across the globe – that North Korea possessed either nuclear weapons or the facilities that are currently producing either finished weapons or components – is foolish and wrong, and shows Bush’s inherent inability to tell the entire truth. The problem in Bush’s logic follows this line: in order to make nuclear weapons, a nation must produce highly enriched uranium with which to fill the warhead. It takes 60 kilograms of highly enriched uranium to make one standard nuclear missile. The assumption that North Korea had those 60 kilograms is preposterous. The very best that North Korea could have hoped for, given its isolation and very destitute economy, would be lesser enriched uranium that runs in light-water reactors. LEU is not by any means capable of creating a weapon. To create highly enriched uranium, at least enough to make a bomb or missile, hundreds (if not thousands) of high-powered centrifuges must be acting nonstop to create the end product. Those thousands of centrifuges will also require a ceaseless, strong amount of electricity to continue running, and spare parts when individual centrifuges corrode and break down. If there is one thing that is known about North Korea, it is that it does not, and has never had, a reliable source of electricity. Often, electricity will be unavailable for days on end, and is unreliable even when it is active. North Korea also did not and still does not possess the raw capital necessary to purchase all of the replacement parts for thousands of centrifuges operating nonstop for months and years to produce the amount of HEU needed to make a warhead. Pakistan failed at attempting to produce its own HEU even when it had immense monetary help from nations like Iran, which is even now, amid all of its wealth, struggling to make the HEU production systems it has profitable. North Korea had nuclear aspirations, this is very true, but they have never possessed the raw capability to produce nuclear weapons of any kind. They have lacked money and energy, two essentials in the nuclear weapons game. What Bush avoided saying was exactly that: North Korea had intent, but not capability. By allowing his vague and unexplained statements to paint North Korea as an imminent nuclear power, and letting the people of the world buy in to North Korean propaganda, Bush did far more to set back relations with North Korea than he is doing to help it. Former Administration experts based in North Korea, United Nations inspectors, Atomic Energy Agency officials and countless others have only recently saw fit to mention the fact that North Korea could not have nuclear weapons to the world. Nuclear weapons do not simply appear out of thin air – they require massive amounts of time, money, space and energy. These are things that North Korea, still under the watchful eye of the world, simply does not have. ------------ About the author: Max Burns is a 17-year-old Democrat with moderate, centrist ideals. He blames John Kerry's 2004 loss on John Kerry, and is authoring a pamphlet on how to refine the Democratic Party for Victory in 2008 and beyond. For more information, check out The New Democrat. Read the fantasy-fiction novel "Alcardia". Email: DeMBurns@gmail.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
