Reuters: Problems With North Korea Began In 2002 Under Bush

We commented yesterday about the bad habit that Reuters has for reimagining history, where it becomes they want it to be rather than what it actually was. This afternoon they’ve got a timeline of the NoKo crisis up – and it begins only in 2002:

Six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme will resume soon, the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday. Following is a chronology of major milestones in the North Korean nuclear crisis: – October 2002: Top State Department envoy James Kelly confronts Pyongyang…

Now a concerned citizen might comment that – wait – weren’t there a lot of things that contributed to the crisis that happened before 2002? Events that are relevant to understanding the current shape of the crisis and to making judgments about future anti-proliferation efforts? Things like this:

Then again, if you don’t tell anyone that talks failed in the past, it becomes a lot easier to push the editorial line that talks are the solution to the crisis now. So that’s convenient for them.

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