GROUND ZERO, New York City, Jan. 24--Last night I sat in the next to the front row at New York City's famous Japan Society with my wife and listened for two hours to a diatribe of Bush Bashing.   The unpublished theme of the meeting was "How President Bush Used Two Four Letter Words To Piss Off North Korea Into Making Nuclear Bombs & Upsetting The Balance Of Power In the Far East."   The official name of the seminar, held at the New York Japan Society headquarters, was "Standoff on the Korean Peninsula: Defusing North Korea's Nuclear Ambitions."

         The main Bush Basher was former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry who served under President Clinton from 1994-1997.  He was also Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1993-1994, and Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering from 1977-1981.  His total service in political defense strategy duty amounts to sixteen years.  You'd think he'd know better.
        Last night he all but accused the United States of provoking North Korea into rekindling  its nuclear production capacity based on two four letter words:   E-V-I-L    A-X-I-S.
        In a not-so-subtle punch-fest of facts, he accused President Bush of lighting the kindling that ignited  the North Korean crisis by addressing North Korea as a member of the "evil axis,"--those nations whom the current Administration has singled out as Terrorist nations, bent on the proliferation and expansion of Terrorism within their countries and exporting it throughout the world.
         I was surprised that a distinguished panel of educators, mostly from the Far East, fell into step with the former Secretary of Defense's attack on Bush.

        Each carried his own special club and brought it down hard on the Administration's head, some with more energy than others.  Japan was the most gentle, its spokesman denying that Japan would ever build nuclear weapons--a denial made so many times one wondered if he was protesting too much.
         To a man, no one on the panel liked the idea that a U.S. President used the words "rogue nation," or its brass-knuckled extension, "evil state," to describe the likes of North Korea or any nation bent on defying the world by building weapons of mass destruction or treating its citizens with such selfishness as to lead them into famine and long-range state oppression.
        Supporting Mr. Perry in lambasting the current Administration's handling of North Korea was Samuel S. Kim, a noted author on North Korea from Columbia University; Xiaobo Lu, an expert on China and director of the Weatherhead East Asia Institute; and a Japanese journalist for Nikkei, Chief Correspondent Tsuyoshi Sunohara.   Moderating the event was John L. Holden, President of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing.
         Such a force of intellect and experience in the Far East was indeed intimidating if one were to take what they said at face value.  The real rogue would have been George Bush had someone from Mars been listening to the invectives hurled his way.

         Bush was portrayed as a  verbal gun slinger, unskilled and inept to handle foreign affairs, and who, was the true "evil axis" eager to bring the United States and world to the brink of war.
         Bush bashing slathered itself over the conference.   At the same time, there was irony and paradox at play.
         In Mr. Perry's opening remarks, he admitted that the first strategy he developed against North Korea when it began making nuclear bombs in the early 90's was a full force military strike.  He said he shelved that plan and instead came up with the Agreed Framework, an appeasement policy that gave guns and butter to North Korea on the grounds North Korea would stop nuclear production.
         Perry and the panelists suggested that North Korea was moving toward a "friendly state status."   He recounted how North Korea began embracing the Sunshine Policy extended by South Korea, and appeared to be breaking down its "hermit nation" shell until President Bush took office and sliced through the potential Xanadu with his "evil axis" expletives.
         Mr. Perry didn't mention that Kim Jong Il invites wealthy nations to dump their toxic waste on his impoverished country or that he produces opium and exports it for hard cash that goes to his lavishly opulent life style while his people boil grass for nourishment.  

       Professor Kim chorused Mr. Perry's remarks, banging loudly how rhetoric of "rogue nations" and "evil axis" was insulting to nations, and drove them to the confrontation wall.  He implied such words twisted North Korea's arms into making nuclear bombs and thus, threatened the stability of the Far East.
         I squirmed in my chair.  It sounded like George Bush was the man starving the Korean  people and threatening to launch a first strike against other nations with biochemical and nuclear weapons.  Or that George Bush was the guy digging the tunnels between North and South Korea that could shove 30,000 troops an hour into the heart of the South Koreans.
         I thought of Winston Churchill's comment:  "Appeasement is feeding an alligator in hopes it will eat you last."
         I pondered the past policies of the world, and how there was only one policy that worked over history's long tenure--and that was to cut out the cancer before it killed the victim.   Appeasement has never worked when dealing with a Beast of Terror.   The Beast's  hunger for power and its thirst to take all it can stomach at any cost overpowers its vision to the future.
         Kim Jong Il, the current head of North Korea has continually starved his people and held his citizens prisoners in a state of Terror--both politically and economically.   Two million North Koreans starved in a recent famine, directly the result of selfish, self-centered policies of Terrorism, fueled by Kim's  paranoia and flagrant search for nuclear power that would give him even more bargaining power.  Half of his nation's revenues goes toward building the military at the expense of its 26 million citizens.  Unicef reports that over 60 percent of the children in North Korean children are malnourished, and World Watch boosts that estimate to 85 percent.
        But despite all the evidence that Kim is indeed a "Hitler of the Far East," Perry and his Bush Bashers chimed that using such "vile" words to describe Kim's nation was nothing more than an invitation for Kim to retreat to his basic nature--that of the Beast.

          When pressed on a question about North Korea's internal attitude toward the United States, Mr. Perry said that North Korea was one of the few nations in the world that disallowed any information from the outside world to its citizens.  All information, he said, comes from state.   He cited an example of bringing medicine to a children's hospital, and the nurse who accompanied him to visit the children's ward warned him that the children would be afraid of him.   She said they children asked when they learned an American was coming to visit:  "Is he coming here to kill us?"
        If evil is measured by the way a parent a treats a child, then the leadership that starves the children of North Korea and soils its land as a major chemical dump for other nations, must be called for what it is--evil.  But the positioning of the conference was that George Bush was the bad guy.  He was the "evil one" for pulling Kim Jong Il's covers, for singling him out for what he is--a bandit stealing from his people and raping the land for his personal gain.
         American foreign policy has taken a dramatic shift since the Bush Administration took command.  After the September 11, 2001 attack, George Bush pulled the plug on "nice guy negotiations."  He stripped off the polish that covers nations who stand out like sore thumbs as example of "rogue nations," countries who threaten not only their own people, but all their neighbors.
        As much as America is despised in the Middle East, there's not a leader in that sector who trusts Saddam Hussein, or doesn't wish him to be removed from power.   Hussein would attack his own mother if he thought he could gain more power from the assault.  Kim Jong Il is cut from the same cloth.
        Rogue is far too nice a word.   Evil is much more to the point. 

      The fact that the Bush Administration has taken off the boxing gloves and chooses to fight with bare fists is not a flaw in foreign policy.   It is a strength.
      Bullies only respect the bigger bully.   The Mid East nations that once swaggered about by coveting and harboring Terrorists now shoo them away, fearful they might come under the wrath of America's anti-Terrorism policy.   Even Yemen, once a haven for Terrorists, sides with the U.S. in seeking and destroying Terrorists.
       In the recent analysis in Time Magazine of the various regional countries surrounding Iraq, to a tee, they all agree that he is a threat to them as well as to the security of the area.
       Doctor Perry, as he is referred to these days, castigated the wrong guy.   Or, he was, as so many former politicians do, covering his own buttock so that his ineptness to take action against Kim back when the Agreed Framework was designed doesn't look like a massive error in foreign policy.
       The issue is, "Who calls the spade a spade?"   "Who has the guts to stand up to a Terrorist nation today, so that downline when the next Terrorist nation starts to rumble and roar, it will be muffled out of fear rather than believe it can bluff its way to power?"
       We let India and Pakistan become nuclear powers.   That was done under Dr. Perry's watch.   Who is going to stop North Korea?  Who is going to stop Saddam Hussein?  Who is going to stop Nation X?  or Nation Y?

      Bush waged war on Terrorism because Terrorism is evil by its nature.  It has no redeeming values.   It seeks to strike Fear, Intimidation and Complacency into the weak and vulnerable.  It attacks the innocent.  It targets women and children.   
      Yet Dr. Perry and his band of panelists would throw curves at the evil axis and have them return to the pitcher, George Bush and blame him for standing tall when the world cowers in the face of the brutes.  
      No way.
      America has taken on the role of the Parent of Vigilance, not just to protect its own children, but to protect the Children's Children's Children of the world.
       Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, stated recently that "Nine Eleven basically brought home to all of us, including me, just what the stakes were in leaving threats like that untended."   He was referring to any and all Terrorists, individuals or nations, whose master plan includes domination over others.
        Last night, when the panelists slipped off the main course of Bush Bashing, they admitted that North Korea has no scruples.   If North Korea continues to build nuclear capacity, and can have 50 nuclear weapons in less than five years, it will more than likely sell its surplus of nuclear weapons to the highest bidder with as much total disregard to how they will be used as it has to the feeding of its children, or the development of free thought and the flow of information to its citizens, or to the protection of its land from toxic dumping.
         As a Parent and Grandparent of Vigilance, I have an obligation to protect my children, my grandchildren, and their children's children's children.  So, do I believe, does every other parent, grandparent, uncle, aunt, cousin and loved one.
         If a nation has a history of denying its children the rights of evolution, the rights of food and shelter, the rights of expanding their human potential, then such a nation is "evil" in its intent.  It doesn't have to manufacture nuclear weapons to attain this lowest of elevations of leadership and guardianship.

        To call such a nation "evil" is not a sign of political insult, but rather a strong and clear message to the world that Parents of Vigilance will not let their neighbors abuse their children, turn them into Terrorists, and stand by trying to appease them.
       While Bush Bashing is camp these days for those who oppose his blunt and parental style of leadership, it is cheered by those of us who realize that unless someone stands up to the "evil," the evil will consume not only those it bludgeons, but those who watch it with apathy.
         Appeasement?  No.  
         Courage, Conviction and Right Action, Yes!
         Perhaps the worst evil of all is watching a poison viper crawl onto an innocent baby's belly and not do anything but call the nurse who let it in the room names.    I think Mr. Perry ought to think about swatting the viper away from the child rather than berating the nurse.   He might find, also, the viper was hiding not outside the door, but in his pocket next to the names he slings at those who stand up to evil.

Jan. 23 -- Visit A Bad Neighborhood Before It Visits You