Rumsfeld Enabled N. Korea

In the wake of North Korea's recent nuclear test, Bush and Company have set about rewriting history by blaming the Clinton administration for the pending Asian nuclear arms race. In addition to being patently false, it turns out that Bush's Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, helped North Korea go nuclear. We know that Rumsfeld sat on the board of ABB, as that company won a contract to sell nuclear reactors to North Korea:

Mr Rumsfeld was a non-executive director of ABB, a European engineering giant based in Zurich, when it won a $200m (£125m) contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors. The current defence secretary sat on the board from 1990 to 2001, earning $190,000 a year. He left to join the Bush administration.

Furthermore, Fortune magazine revealed Rumsfeld's role in lobbying on behalf of ABB:

ABB spokesman Bjoern Edlund told Fortune magazine at the time that "“board members were informed about this project."” ... "“This was a major thing for ABB," the former director [who sat on the board with Rumsfeld] said, "“and extensive political lobbying was done." The director recalls being told that Rumsfeld was asked "“to lobby in Washington" on ABB'’s behalf.

And like a good war profiteer, Rumsfeld refuses to discuss the matter. He does not seem to recall the arms deal which preceded Bush's abrupt change in policy:

Just months after Mr Rumsfeld took office, President George Bush ended the policy of engagement and negotiation pursued by Mr Clinton, saying he did not trust North Korea, and pulled the plug on diplomacy. Pyongyang warned that it would respond by building nuclear missiles. A review of American policy was announced and the bilateral confidence building steps, key to Mr Clinton's policy of detente, halted.

And like a good journalist, Keith Olbermann recently dug into the truth:


And when it comes to turning profits on a war, follow the money. Especially in a corporate state government. War. It does a corporation good.