Missile Defense and North Korea

Re “Charm, Fear May Help China Lure N. Korea Back to Arms Talks” and “Interceptor Missile Test Fails,” Feb. 15: Isn’t it strange that the fate of the world may hang on the U.S. not talking to North Korea?

The refusal of the Bush administration to talk one on one with North Korea is not only arrogant but may well further the proliferation of nuclear weapons. It would appear that the genie is already out of the bottle and that further containment is not possible.

The number of nations that already have or are in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons is growing, making it clear that nonproliferation is already dead. The time for talking is now. When U.S. “Star Wars” tests continue to fail (as they did again this week), when China is within five to seven years of becoming the world’s largest economy, it is not the time to blow smoke.

With President Bush flexing his military muscle and Condoleezza Rice strutting what appears to be American imperialism on the world stage, the final curtain may come down in one big fireball. If FDR were alive today, he would know that with Bush around, we have “more to fear than fear itself.”

Phil Wilt

Van Nuys

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This missile defense system has always been a deplorable failure and will continue to be one. Bush’s campaign promise to pursue this boondoggle is a tremendous waste of tax money that could be spent on worthy homeland security projects. Believe me, when the time comes for nuclear terrorists to deliver a device to America, it will be in a shipping container on an old, rusty freighter, not in the warhead of a missile.

Fred Williams

Oceanside

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Instead of filling those silos with taxpayers’ money, let’s cut these lemons out of the budget before they go off and hurt somebody. As it is, no one can possibly think a terrorist is going to get his hands on an intercontinental ballistic missile, and if he did this system couldn’t hit it anyhow.

In the meantime, China, North Korea, Russia and the other paranoids that we ought to be trying to pacify are tooling up to meet our so-called defense system, which everybody knows is euphemistic for first strike. And for this we are spending $8 billion to $9 billion a year.

Bob Newport

Los Angeles

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Bush, who won reelection with more votes than any other president, and Secretary of State Rice are holding out for six-nation talks with North Korea. The “giant” of foreign policy, The Times, demands bilateral talks (editorial, Feb. 14). Guess whose side I am on.

Frank Wagner

Oxnard

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If Pyongyang were to load its nuclear bombs onto its intermediate-range missiles (which the military successfully tested in 1998), then the North Koreans could easily obliterate Japan (Feb. 11).

This situation is similar to the situation in which the Israelis found themselves in 1981. At that time, the Iraqis were perilously close to building a nuclear bomb that could obliterate Israel, and Israel promptly eliminated the threat by bombing the Baghdad nuclear reactor that would have produced the enriched uranium (or plutonium) needed for such a weapon.

The Japanese would do well to follow in the footsteps of the Israelis. Tokyo should repeal Article 9 of its constitution and send the Japanese air force to North Korea to destroy both its nuclear facilities and the weapons produced by them.

Pyongyang would almost certainly use such weapons to threaten Tokyo, for the North Koreans have already demonstrated their hostility toward Japan by kidnapping at least 13 Japanese citizens during the last 30 years.

Dwight Sunada

Stanford, Calif.

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Why does the American public think that we can keep trusting regimes that never fail in breaking nuclear agreements? Did we really think that our accord with North Korea would not falter or that North Korea would abide with the agreement and keep from trying to obtain nuclear weapons?

The Clinton administration never took this into account when it met with North Korea in 1994. Due to Bill Clinton’s style of lackluster governing, the dreaded day has finally arrived in which the North Koreans have broken this treaty. Have we not learned anything from history? If we don’t recognize our mistakes of the past, then we’ll be doomed to repeat them.

Edward Tanenbaum

Beverly Hills