Don’t deal with cheats

As if you could not come up with your own naive editorials, on Aug. 6 you borrow one from the Los Angeles Times, promoting a soft approach to North Korea. Wake up and smell the kimchi.

The only thing the North Koreans produce and export are $100 supernotes, illegal drugs and weapons. There is good evidence of past and current nuclear proliferation activities with Pakistan, Iran, Syria and now Myanmar. Nearly 40 percent of their U.S. POWs died in captivity. In the ’70s they kidnapped Japanese and South Koreans. In ’83 they murdered six members of the South Korean cabinet and 13 others during a trip to Rangoon. In ’87 they bombed a South Korean airliner, killing 115. In the ’90s up to 2 million North Koreans starved to death. More are starving now.

Negotiating with the North Koreans is like negotiating the proper extortion payment with a murderer who starves his family, kidnapped your friends, sold drugs to your friends’ kids, is forging your checks and who cheated on the last extortion deal. This would be a clear triumph of naive optimism over experience. Sadly, Obama appears likely to continue a failed Clinton and Bush soft approach.

Tom Horne

Spokane