Appeasement

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  • From the BBC's Timeline on North Korea:
    1994 - North Korea agrees to freeze nuclear programme in return for $5bn worth of free fuel and two nuclear reactors.

    2003 - Pyongyang claims that it has produced enough plutonium to start making nuclear bombs.

  • From Neville Chamberlain's speech in October 1938 after signing the Munich Agreement which gave Hitler the Sudetanland in return for his promise not to take any more territory:
    We are resolved that the method of consultation shall be the method adopted to deal with any other questions that may concern our two countries, and … thus to contribute to assure the peace of Europe.

  • From PBS' Newshour with Jim Lehrer, October 30, 2000. Lehrer asks Secretary of State Madeline Albright, who has just returned from a visit with North Korea's Kim Jong-il to discuss the growing threat of offensive missiles, what she found out:
    Well, he's basically prepared to look at some kind of an exchange in terms of this idea that he actually originally had raised with [Russian] President Putin about if we would launch some peaceful satellites for him instead. But he basically, I think, is prepared to take some important steps.

  • From the BBC's "On This Day" website for September 1:
    1939: Germany invades Poland; German forces have invaded Poland and its planes have bombed Polish cities, including the capital, Warsaw.

  • From the LA Times, Wednesday, July 5, 2006:
    Defying broad international pressure, North Korea test-fired at least six missiles into the Sea of Japan today, including a long-range Taepodong 2 that has been the focus of tension because of its purported ability to reach U.S. territory.

  • Chamberlain 1938: I believe it is peace for our time.

  • Albright 2000: Kim Jong-il is "prepared to take some important steps."

  • January 29, 2002: George W. Bush in the State of the Union address North Korea, Iran, and Iraq, "constitute an axis of evil."

  • Albright, quoted by the BBC, "called Mr. Bush's comments 'a big mistake'".

  • If we've learned anything over the past century it is this: You cannot make a deal with a madman.