- North Korea, part and parcel of the Dubya-declared axis
of evil, has torn the seals off its mothballed nuke plants, much to the
dismay of the US, South Korea, and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The assumption is the sinister Stalinists in Pyongyang will start making
nuclear bombs. North Korea has over 300 Nodong-x missiles, which can reach
Japan and Okinawa. It has a thousand Scud-B/C missiles, capable of hitting
South Korea. Most worrisome for Bush and Clan, it has Taepodong-x ICBMs,
which can reach all the way across the Pacific and hit Los Angeles, San
Francisco, San Diego, and even Chicago.
-
- Be afraid. Be very afraid.
-
- Not to worry, though. Intrepid Donald Rumsfeld to the
rescue. The prickly Secretary of Defense confidently told the world earlier
this week the US can wage two wars at once, no problem. "We are capable
of winning decisively in one, and swiftly defeating in the case of the
other," he insisted. "Let there be no doubt about it."
-
- No, there's no doubt, especially considering Bush has
warned the US will use nukes in response to "surprising military developments,"
as spelled out in the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). The recent
behavior of North Korea should come as no surprise since the Bush NPR specifically
targets not only North Korea, but also Russia, China, Libya, Syria, Iraq,
and Iran. The Bushites want to employ a "flexible arsenal," which
is code for war-fighting with "mini-nukes" designed to be used
in regional conflicts. As if to demonstrate it is not fooling around, and
will pull out all stops to annihilate "rogue regimes," the Bush
administration has not only decided to throw deterrence to the wind, but
will resume nuclear weapons explosions at the Nevada nuclear test site,
has scornfully withdrawn from the ABM Treaty, and disrupted the work of
the Biological Weapons Convention. All of this makes the assumed threat
posed by North Korea and Iraq insignificant by way of comparison.
-
- Now that Bush has drawn up his hit list and used colorful
adjectives to describe his enemies, and has promised to use nukes against
them if push comes to shove, we can likely expect these "evildoers"
to begin developing nuclear weapon programs of their own. In fact, Russia
has helped Iran build two nuclear sites, including a heavy-water plant
crucial for the production of a plutonium-based nuclear bomb.
-
- Commercial satellite photographs, according to the New
York Times, reveal a separate facility for producing highly-enriched uranium.
Iran, of course, may have what it considers good reason to develop nukes
-- less than friendly neighbor Israel is estimated to have around 200 ready-to-go
nukes with the missiles to deliver them (the Jerico class missile can easily
reach Syria, Iraq, Libya, even southern Russia; in 1998, the Washington
Times reported, Israel bought three large submarines from Germany capable
of carrying nuclear-armed cruise missiles).
-
- Last year Israeli Defense Minister Director General Amos
Yaron threatened to take out Iran's nuclear program. Israel has a reputation
for not kidding around when it comes to interfering in the private affairs
of its neighbors -- in 1981, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered
air strikes against Iraq's Osirak nuclear facilities. Naturally, according
to the Bush neocons, the idea that Iran may consider Israel a threat hardly
fits into the equation -- not the way ragtag terrorists do, anyway. "We've
never seen any evidence that Hezbollah was any place near [Iran's] nuclear
program," one Bushite told the New York Times, "but obviously,
given Iran's support of terrorists, it's got to be a concern." Of
course, the anonymous Bushite failed to mention that just about everybody
in the Middle Eastern neighborhood considers Israel and the Sharon government
as terrorists. But then double standards are old hat for US administrations
going back almost fifty years.
-
- North Korea, smarting from Washington's abrupt cut off
in oil supplies, warned that "US hawks" were "pushing the
situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war."
The Pyongyang government believes Bush and Crew are plotting an invasion
-- a not unreasonable assumption considering Bush's outrageous Evil Axis
rhetoric and its dangerous revision of the NPR, noted above, as well as
Rummy's recent braggadocio about fighting two wars at the same time. North
Korea says it will stop developing nukes if the US signs a non-aggression
treaty, something the hell-bent neocons in the White House have absolutely
no intention of doing because it would sink their plan to conquer most
of the world. Phil Reeker, a state department spokesman, says the US will
"not give in to blackmail."
-
- "Even though it remains a small, failed Communist
regime whose people are starving and have no petroleum, North Korea is
a useful whipping boy for any number of interests in Washington,"
writes Chalmers Johnson (Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American
Empire, Henry Holt, 2000). Or, as Tim Savage of the Nautilus Institute
notes, "If the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) didn't
exist, it would be necessary [for the US] to invent it." North Korea,
a paltry handful of nukes not withstanding, does not have the capacity
or intent to threaten US interests. It simply wants reassurance the truculent
Bushites will not attack. If attacked, however, the result may be deadly
for hundreds of thousands of people.
-
- But with neocons such as Richard Perle, chairman of the
Pentagon Defense Policy Board, who is dictating policy toward "rogue
states" such as North Korea, no such accommodation or understanding
will be possible or forthcoming. Perle told the Korean paper Chosun Ilbo
a military response to North Korea should be considered because "the
danger to be brought upon us by North Korea's nuclear development is so
great that it will result in a quarantine of unprecedented comprehensiveness."
In other words, a blockade, or embargo, which most states consider an act
of war.
-
- The regimes ruling both North Korea and Iraq, according
to neocons William Kristol and Gary Schmitt over at the hard right Weekly
Standard, "are evil, irredeemably so, and the lasting solution to
the threat they pose is a change of regimes in both places... Either we
act aggressively to shape the world and change regimes where necessary,
or we accept living in a world in which our very existence is contingent
on the whims of unstable tyrants." Anything less is appeasement and
treason.
-
- Unfortunately for Kristol, Schmitt, Rumsfeld, and neocons
far and wide, reality does not marry up with their Napoleonic dreams of
empire. "In all due respect to Rumsfeld, [taking on North Korea] was
a very patriotic thing to say," retired Army Col. Ken Allard, a military
analyst, told the Washington Times. "But we do not have the means,
the manpower or the strategy to actually do that. We simply lack sufficient
ground forces, sufficient airlift, sufficient sea lift to do those things."
Retired Rear Adm. Jeremy Taylor, a former attack pilot and carrier commander,
was far less accommodating. "We have a [two-war] strategy that is
totally out of whack with the size of the force we have. For the secretary
to say we can handle two regional conflicts is ludicrous to the point where
the rascals of the world, our adversaries, don't believe us. We have lost
our ability to deter war."
-
- Regardless of what Rumsfeld says about fighting two simultaneous
wars, the North Koreans do not jump when the Bush Crew rattles the saber.
Kim Chong-il is calling Dubya's bluff. This is obviously an endless source
of irritation for the neocons, especially after the Bush administration
backed down on the North Korea to Yemen Scud missile fiasco. Or does it
jive with the script devised by the Project for the New American Century
(Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense
Policy), which declares unambiguously that the US will have "to intervene
abroad even when we cannot prove that a narrowly construed 'vital interest'
of the United States is at stake." In other words, when nations such
as North Korea do not actually pose a threat they become, as Chalmers Johnson
explains, "a useful whipping boy," a "rogue regime"
of convenience. Not all whipping boys, however, sit passively by and allow
themselves to be thrashed without a fight.
-
- As I write this North Korea is moving hundreds of fuel
rods to the reactor at Yongbyon. It will take several months to restart
the reactor and possibly begin to extract weapons-grade plutonium. Meanwhile,
in Seoul, South Korean President Kim Dae-jung is accusing North Korea of
"nuclear brinkmanship." Roh Moo-hyun, who will become president
of South Korea in February, wants to begin talks with North Korea soon
in order to defuse the situation. But the Bush neocons are not interested
in talk or the "multilateralism" of the Clinton and Bush Senior
years. "American policy must be to change the North Korean regime,
not simply to contain it and coexist with it," William Kristol testified
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 7, 2002.
-
- Either Bush talks, or takes out the nukes in unabashed
Israeli fashion. If he talks, the neocons will accuse of him of betraying
his principles -- which are, in fact, the principles of the neocons. If
he attempts to take out the nukes and depose Kim Chong-il, missiles may
very well rain down on South Korea. If he follows the latter course, he
will have to fight two simultaneous wars -- and imperial overreach will
stretch the US military at the seams. Dread the thought, the use of "mini-nukes"
on Pyongyang and the people of North Korea may then actually become an
option, as spelled out in the ruthless NPR document which Bush and his
cronies in the Pentagon have taken to heart.
-
- No matter how you cut it, Dubya has painted himself into
a corner. He may yet go on record as the most ill-advised and murderous
US president.
-
- For the people of Asia, let's hope not.
-
- Kurt Nimmo is a photographer and multimedia developer
in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Visit his excellent online gallery. He can be
reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
-
- We recommend regular visits to Nimmo's website http://www.counterpunch.org/nimmo1227.htm
-
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Jim
- Italicsmyn@aol.com
- 12-28-2
-
- Jeff,
- Regarding Kurt Nimmo's 12 27 02 article: North Korea
- Calling Dubya's Bluff, why should North Korea expect to be treated any
differently than we in the States?
-
- Since this administration took control we now have every
computer subject to State monitoring, more telephone eavesdropping than
Romanian dictator Ceausescu, neighbors spying on neighbors//government
surveillance of every credit card purchase//snooping through every book,CD,
video purchase and borrowed library book to profile perceived unAmerican
activity. Shhhh. Jail terms if you tell.
-
- Not enough to ferret out terrorists? They are now developing
a machine that can sniff out our unique body scents. Fee fie foe fum.
-
- Still not enough? Fear no more!! Roadblocks everywhere
to check for whatever (p.s. be real nice to the armada of peacekeepers;
they are your friend). Federalized airport security tellers who have
been granted special rights to feel up shapely boobs, snoop through wallets,
and finger foreskins in search of uhhh drugs and terrorists. Better not
shout, better not cry, better not pout because the consequence of thinking
you had civil rights to question authority could be daily gang bangs by
unclean thugs for up to 20 years.
-
- Still not enough to protect the American people? A couple
months ago this administration had a conniption fit that voters in Nevada
might cast their ballot to allow people to smoke pot, and the full force
of their might made right. It's OK to test atomic bombs and dump nuclear
waste, but Uncle Sam says NO! to drugs. Go more and one of John Auschcroft's
detention centers could be home, perhaps for ever now that the administration
is beginning to associate pot smoking with the evil terrorists who hate
us for our freedom and democracy. Unfortunately no one will know you're
in such a place because there is no right to an attorney to represent "enemy
combatants". No matter, you wouldn't be there if you weren't a lawbreaker!
-
- Some say they can't wait for their chance to vote these
scoundrels out of office. But if the right to vote has not been "temporarily"
rescinded in a time of war, for whom shall one vote? The Democrats? Their
new stratagem is to accuse Bush of not going far enough in his anti-terrorism.
And you can be sure that the first thing Democrats would do is use the
elephantine machine to get the smokers.
- But even if free elections are still allowed, the "fool
proof" electronic voting machines, will guarantee GOP victories until
the end of time (unless the donkeys outsmart the system). But then, even
if they did, heck, what's a Supreme Court for?
- Jim
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