U.S. envoy in North over food; senators skeptical

[xchrom]

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2936616

With a U.S. food assessment team led by special envoy Robert King entering North Korea today - a move some regard as a preliminary step toward resuming U.S. food aid to the North - a group of high-profile U.S. senators urged Washington not to make a hasty decision.

In a joint letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday, Republicans John McCain and Jon Kyl, Democrat Jim Webb and independent Joseph Lieberman said the U.S. should use extreme caution so as not to play into the hands of the North Korean regime, which they said may be using the food aid issue as a political weapon.

The senators said Washington should respond to the North’s request through careful consultation with South Korea and Japan.

Over recent months, North Korea has desperately requested food aid from the international community through various diplomatic channels amid the prospect of a worsening food shortage in the North. A recent World Food Program report said more than 6 million North Koreans are in need of food.

[DJ13]

1. Starvation as a political tactic is just wrong

[xchrom]

3. that was my thought. nt

[Scuba]

2. What? No oil in North Korea, huh? Too bad for the people there. Or is it?

[izquierdista]

4. What would they NOT use as a political weapon?

The North Koreans could use a pallet of vacuum cleaner bags as a political weapon. Given that, how about we tune them out and just give the various organizations distributing food whatever they need? It's pretty much a given that the amount of food Americans throw away, meaning not just orange peels and coffee grounds, but packaged food that is close to the 'sell by' date could feed several North Koreas.

[Old Troop]

5. My initial thought was that the envoy won't get much food there.

My second thought is that we should provide food aid to the people, but, often, restrictions on aid agencies have required that such aid be provided to the NK government and it has been distributed to the chosen few.