Today on O'Reilly's show Bush stated that his refusal to negotiate directly with North Korea is based on Kim's gradual-yet-deliberate rebuff of the peace plan Clinton had orchestrated in 1994.

Additionally, Bush said the best way to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear program is to get a coalition of voices who urge such action.

Surprisingly, this makes a great deal of sense. There has never been any love lost between the United States and North Korea; even when Clinton the Pragmatist was president. Even if Bush had never employed the "Axis of Evil" comments in his first term, it is unlikely that Kim Jong Il would have been interested in making any concessions based on one-on-on talks with the United States.

Indeed, North Korean officials continually claim that their nuclear endeavors are for defensive purposes to ward off a regime-changing military operation against them.

My question is, when has there been any substantive evidence to show that such an invasion (from the U.S or anyone else) has been even moderately close to becoming a reality?

It was interesting when O'Reilly point-blank asked Bush if he thought Kim Jong Il was insane. The mutual adoration for one another put Bush at ease and, love him or hate him, this was one of the best interviews I have seen him give in his 6+ years.

That is not to say I bought everything he was selling, but it was good television and worth the ten minutes to watch.

Well, lets face facts here. The United States fought a pretty savage war in Korea back in 1950-53. That war resulted in a truce but it never resulted in a peace treaty. Technically a state of war exists and continues to exist.

It was a massive war for the North Koreans. As with South Korea, much of their territory became a battleground. Approximately three quarters of both countries were overrun by the other side at different points. A large proportion of the North Korean male population were either in the army or directly supporting the war effort. Casualties went well into the hundreds of thousands. Just about the entirety of the population had someone who fought, who died, who was wounded or who was directly affected by the war.

In America people still whine about the civil war 140 years later. Arguably, the Korean war was a proportionately bigger and far more traumatic event for the Koreans.

The Government of North Korea has been built around the raison d'etre that the United States can and will invade at a moments notice. Call it paranoid, but that's the world they live in.

Nor has the behaviour of the United States offered much comfort. Within a decade of the Korean war, the NK watched as the US got into Vietnam and fought a protracted war there. They watched the US support dictatorships in the Phillipines and Indonesia, and watched the US support genocidal pogroms in Indonesia and East Timor.

More recently, in the 1990's, President Clinton went up to the verge of going to war with North Korea.

Most recently, in the Bush administration, the North Koreans watched Bush conduct an elaborate wmd fandango on Iraq, a country it had succeeded in isolating and disarming for over a decade. A fandango that resulted in a catastrophic invasion.

They also saw an obsequious conciliatory approach to nuclear armed Pakistan, an invasion of helpless Afghanistan, threats but lack of action to a potentially dangerous Iran, full bore support for Israel's attack against a helpless Lebanon, and more threats against a not very dangerous Syria.

In short they feel that the United States is a serious and aggressive security threat, and your country has gone well out of its way to bolster that feeling.