Below The Beltway

Brendan Loy puts it exactly the way I would:
President Bush’s comment, by contrast, is not within the realm of rationality. He is claiming that the mere act of sitting down and negotiating with an enemy is tantamount to “appeasement.” That is absolutely absurd. Bush needs to look up a dictionary definition of the damn word […]

Suffice it to say that Democrats aren’t happy at all with President Bush’s remarks before the Israeli Knesset.
The Obama campaign was the first to respond:
In a statement, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., shot across the bow: “It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel’s independence […]

Usually sitting Presidents who are nearing the end of their final term in office don’t inject themselves too much into the battles between the men, or women, who would succeed them. They’ll campaign for the candidate of their party, of course, and be the guest of honor at $ 5,000 a plate fundraising dinners, but […]

It looks like North Korea is headed for another famine:
TOKYO, April 16 — Food-starved North Korea is facing a humanitarian crisis this year and will likely need large food donations from the international community, the U.N. World Food Program said Wednesday.
“Major sources of food for North Korea are all going down and there is no […]

Just in case we’ve forgotten about them, the North Koreans are back to making insane threats again:
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea continued Sunday to lash out at the new conservative government in Seoul, threatening to reduce the South to “ashes” if the South Korean government made the “slightest move” to attack.
The warning, one of […]

For several weeks, questions having been brewing about what exactly happened in Syria on September 6th. Israel isn’t talking, and the United States has denied anything actually happened. Last week, Syria took the step of taking reporters on a tour showing that nothing had happened.
When that many people are denying that something happened, you can […]

But potentially more important than anything else you’ve read:
Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.
The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown […]

North Korea is helping Iran prepare a nuclear weapons test:

North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year.
Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their […]

In a rather obvious response to the North Korean nuclear program, Japan has announced that it has the capability to produce nuclear weapons:
TOKYO (AP) — Japan has the technological know-how to produce a nuclear weapon but has no immediate plans to do so, the foreign minister said Thursday, several weeks after communist North Korea carried […]

Kim Jong Il’s Christmas wish list just got dealt a heavy blow:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Bush administration wants North Korea’s attention, so like a scolding parent it’s trying to make it tougher for that country’s eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters.
The U.S. government’s first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to […]