In violations of the very sanctions we pressured the UN to enact.
Three months after the United States successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea because of the country’s nuclear test, Bush administration officials let Ethiopia complete a secret arms purchase from North Korea, in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, according to senior U.S. officials.
The United States let the arms delivery proceed in January in part because Ethiopian troops were conducting an offensive against Islamic militias inside Somalia, a campaign that aided the U.S. policy of combating religious extremists in the Horn of Africa.
U.S. officials said that they were still encouraging Ethiopia to wean itself from its longstanding reliance on North Korea for cheap Soviet-era military equipment to supply its armed forces and that Ethiopian officials appeared receptive. But the arms deal is an example of the compromises that result from the clash of two foreign-policy absolutes: the Bush administration’s commitment to fighting Islamic radicalism and its effort to starve the North Korean government of money it could use to build up its nuclear-weapons program.
So, let’s see here, North Korea’s bad because they have nukes, but they’re not as bad as the muslims who don’t have nukes. I’m confused. John “get rid of the top ten floors of the UN” Bolton seems to think that it was a bad idea.
John Bolton, who helped to push the resolution imposing sanctions on North Korea through the Security Council in October, before stepping down as chief U.N. delegate, said that the Ethiopians had long known that Washington was concerned about their arms purchases from North Korea and that the Bush administration should not have tolerated the January shipment.
Somebody wake me when a semblance of sanity has returned to the world.
Soo… arms deals between two sovereign nations are now…
Oh, right. It’s the SDMB. Sorry, carry on.
North Korea probably just needed some extra cash for bunny food.
Garfield226:
Soo… arms deals between two sovereign nations are now…
Oh, right. It’s the SDMB. Sorry, carry on.
If you’d have bothered to read beyond the thread title, you’d see that the arms deal was in violation of UN sanctions. Sanctions, I might add, that the US pushed heavily to have enacted in the first place. That’s a bit different than the Republic of Tobango buying something from the Republic of Tuvalu.
Lumpy
April 8, 2007, 5:26pm
5
Realpoltik rules. What else is new?
Yes, they allowed the arms sales, but North Korea promised to use the revenue for abstinence education.