North Koreans Arm Ethiopians as U.S. Assents (NYT)

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

North Koreans Arm Ethiopians as U.S. Assents

By MICHAEL R. GORDON and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: April 8, 2007

WASHINGTON, April 7 — 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 allowed Ethiopia to complete a
secret arms purchase from the North, in what appears to be a violation of the
restrictions, according to senior American officials.

The United States allowed the arms delivery to go through in January in part because
Ethiopia was in the midst of a military offensive against Islamic militias inside Somalia,
a campaign that aided the American policy of combating religious extremists in the
Horn of Africa.

American 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.

-snip-

American officials from a number of agencies described details of the Ethiopian episode
on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing internal Bush administration
deliberations.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/world/africa/08ethiopia.html?ref=africa

[Boojatta]

1. Is that better or worse than "US arms Stalin"? e.o.m.

[Kagemusha]

2. Better

The Ethiopians aren't fighting us and probably won't be.

Not like if they hadn't bought from N. Korea, they couldn't have gotten similar stuff elsewhere so, it's not THAT big a deal.