European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 12, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Friday August 11, 1994 commentary the stars and stripes Page 15 no condolences Over North Korea s despot Howard Kleinberg when Bill Clinton sent sincere condolences to North Korea on behalf of the american people he was t speaking for me or millions of other americans i suspect. Kim ii Sung is dead and i do no Grieve for him his family or his people. And when Jimmy Carter praised the North korean tyrant As a great Leader he dishonoured the 33,000 americans who gave their lives in the 1950-1953 korean War those who were wounded those who served and lived to Tell about it and the More than 5,000 still unaccounted for nearly 45 years later North korean and South Korea military and civil Ian casualties exceeded 1 million As a re sult of what Many of us now Call the forgotten War the War Kim ii Sun started. More than 3,000 troops from other . Countries gave their live fighting alongside the South koreans and  the soviet Union unravelled North Korea lost a sponsor and a provider of Cash and killing tools. That s when Kim started tinkering with nuclear Black mail and All the temporary largess that goes with threatening to raise a Mush room Cloud Between you and the Sun  understand the necessities of diplomacy but none of it required that you Praise or mourn a person who had so much blood on his , sometimes circumstances re quire you to shake hands with your ene Mies As Yitzhak Rabin had to do with Yasser Arafat but you Don t have to Salute  israelis made a business Deal with the palestinian Leader not a  kissing at the altar there just a reluctant diplomatic acceptance of the Handy the israeli prime minister from a Man he really  ii Sung also needed to be dealt with when he raised the Specter of nuclear War not exactly a praiseworthy Posi Tion More like political blackmail. So the if Mya j v1wse up i North Korea,., United states through Carter s Initia Tion worked out an arrangement to meet with him the atomic fist being too pow Erful to neglect. You shake hands with the Man ask him what he wants and Start negotiating. The last time we negotiated with Kim was from 1951 to 1953 when he stalled peace talks time and time again As More and More died in combat. Had Kim not dropped dead before the planned meeting i suspect the Confer ence would have ended in acrimony ashes so Many other conferences with that belligerent despot or his representatives. At no time did i think we Ever were planning to kiss him or Honor his foul memory. But with the inappropriate Choice of words by Clinton Ana Carter we did the equivalent of kissing the dead North korean dictator on the Cheek As did that pitiable cuban exile when she embrace Fidel Castro during a dialogue in Havana several months ago. When Saddam Hussein goes to his grave will we say the same about him that he was a great Leader and we extend our condolences to the people of Iraq i Hope not i Don t believe we did it when the Ayatollah Khomeini finally cashed in and i know Harry Truman did t say it for Hitler Kim ii Sung was As brutal a dictator As Ever there was and that includes Stalin Hitler Castro Idi Amin and the whole gang of bloody butchers1 who find Succour in human  should have recalled the grief of the thousands of american families who lost loved ones in Kim s korean War of the hundreds of thousands of americans who were wounded in action of the thousands still missing and of those who returned whole but mentally scarred by the ferocity of the conflict be fore offering sincere condolences on behalf of All of us. And Carter should have just shut up