{"id":97715,"date":"2017-09-04T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2017-09-04T11:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=97715"},"modified":"2017-09-01T09:34:09","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T08:34:09","slug":"north-korea-an-aggressor-a-reality-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/09\/north-korea-an-aggressor-a-reality-check\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea an Aggressor? A Reality Check"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2026 war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u2014 Howard Zinn (1922-2919),\u201dViolence Doesn\u2019t Work\u201d, The Progressive<\/em>, July 18, 2007<\/p>\n

\u201cAll war represents a failure of diplomacy.\u201d
\n<\/em>\u2014 Tony Benn MP., (1925-2014) Tony Benn: \u201cHis views on socialism, Europe, war and writing<\/a>\u201c, BBC News, March 14, 2014<\/p>\n

\u201cNo country too poor, too small, too far away, not to be threat, a threat to the American way of life.\u201d
\n<\/em>\u2014 William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World\u2019s Only Superpower, <\/em>Common Courage Press, October 1, 2005 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

24 Aug 2017 – <\/em>The mention of one tiny country appears to strike at the rationality and sanity of those who should know far better. On Sunday, 6th August, for example, The Guardian<\/em> headed an editorial: \u201cThe Guardian view on sanctions: an essential tool.\u201d Clearly the average of five thousands souls a month, the majority children, dying of \u201dembargo related causes\u201d in Iraq, year after grinding year \u2013 genocide in the name of the UN \u2013 for over a decade has long been forgotten by the broadsheet of the left.<\/p>\n

This time, of course, the target is North Korea upon whom the United Nations Security Council has voted unanimously to freeze, strangulate and deny essentials, normality, humanity. Diplomacy as ever, not even a consideration. The Guardian<\/em>, however, incredibly, declared the decimating sanctions: \u201cA rare triumph of diplomacy \u2026\u201d1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

As US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, the US\u2019 top \u201cdiplomat\u201d and his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong-ho headed for the annual Ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Manila on August 5th, a State Department spokesperson said of Tillerson: \u201cThe Secretary has no plans to meet the North Korean Foreign Minister in Manila, and I don\u2019t expect to see that happen\u201d<\/p>\n

Pathetic. In April, approaching his hundredth day in office, Trump said of North Korea: \u201cWe\u2019d love to solve things diplomatically but it\u2019s very difficult.\u201d No, it is not. Talk, walk in the other\u2019s psychological shoes. Then, there they were at the same venue but the Trump Administration clearly does not alone live in a land of missed opportunities, but of opportunities deliberately buried in landfill miles deep. This in spite of his having said in the same statement: \u201cThere is a chance that we could end up having a major, major conflict with North Korea. Absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bit of perspective: July 27th, 2017 marked sixty four years since the armistice agreement that ended the devastating three year Korean war. However, there has never been a peace treaty, thus technically the Korean war has never ended. Given that and American\u2019s penchant for wiping out countries with small populations which pose them no threat (think most recently, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya) no wonder North Korea wishes to look as if it has some heavy protective gear behind the front door, so to speak.<\/p>\n

Tiny North Korea has a population of just 25.37 million and landmass of 120,540 km\u00b2 (square kilometres.) The US has a population of 323.1 million and a landmass of 9.834 MILLION km\u00b2 (square kilometres.) Further, since 1945, the US is believed to have produced some 70,000 nuclear weapons \u2013 though now down to a \u201cmere\u201d near 7,000 \u2013 but North Korea is a threat?<\/p>\n

America has fifteen military bases in South Korea \u2014 down from a staggering fifty four \u2014 bristling with every kind of weapons of mass destruction. Two bases are right on the North Korean border and another nearly as close. See full details of each, with map here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

North Korea also has the collective memory of the horror wrought by the US in the three year conflict on a country then with a population of just 9.6 million souls. US General Curtis Lemay in the aftermath stated<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“After destroying North Korea\u2019s seventy eight cities and thousands of her villages, and killing countless numbers of her civilians \u2026 Over a period of three years or so we killed off \u2013 what \u2013 twenty percent of the population.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8.9 million people during the 37-month long \u2018hot\u2019 war, 1950 \u2013 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerence of another.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In context: \u201cDuring The Second World War the United Kingdom lost 0.94% of its population, France lost 1.35%, China lost 1.89% and the US lost 0.32%. During the Korean war, North Korea lost close to 30% of its population.\u201d <\/strong>(Emphasis added.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another \u2026\u201d, boasted Lemay.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gen. Douglas MacArthur said during a Congressional hearing in 1951 that he had never seen such devastation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI shrink with horror that I cannot express in words \u2026 at this continuous slaughter of men in Korea,<\/em>\u201d MacArthur said. \u201cI have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach, the last time I was there.<\/em>\u201d2<\/a><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Horrified as he was, he did not mention the incinerated women, children, infants in the same breath.<\/p>\n

Moreover, as Robert M. Neer wrote in Napalm, an American Biography<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\u201dPractically every U.S. fighter plane that has flown into Korean air carried at least two napalm bombs,\u201d Chemical Officer Townsend wrote in January 1951. About 21,000 gallons of napalm hit Korea every day in 1950. As combat intensified after China\u2019s intervention, that number more than tripled (\u2026) a total of 32,357 tons of napalm fell on Korea, about double that dropped on Japan in 1945. Not only did the allies drop more bombs on Korea than in the Pacific theater during World War II \u2013 635,000 tons, versus 503,000 tons \u2013 more of what fell was napalm \u2026<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, just two buildings were reported as still standing.<\/p>\n

In the unending history of US warmongering, North Korea is surely the smallest population they had ever attacked until their assault on tiny Grenada in October 1983, population then just 91,000 (compulsory silly name: \u201cOperation Urgent Fury.)<\/p>\n

North Korea has been taunted by the US since it lay in ruins after the armistice sixty five years ago, yet as ever, the US Administration paints the vast, self appointed \u201cleader of the free world\u201d as the victim.<\/p>\n

This month \u201cmassive land, sea and air exercises\u201d involving \u201ctens of thousands of troops\u201d from the US and South Korea began on 21st\u00a0 <\/sup>of August and continue until 31st. \u2018In the past, the practices are believed to have included \u201cdecapitation strikes\u201d \u2013 trial operations for an attempt to kill Kim Jong-un and his top Generals \u2026\u2019, according to the Guardian<\/em>3<\/a><\/sup> The obligatory stupid name chosen for this dangerous, belligerent, money burning, sabre rattling nonsense is Ulchi-Freedom Guardian. It is an annual occurrence since first initiated back in 1976.<\/p>\n

US B-1B bombers flying from Guam recently carried out exercises in South Korea and \u201cpracticed attack capabilities by releasing inert weapons at the Pilsung Range.\u201d In a further provocative (and illegal) move, US bombers were again reported to overfly North Korea, another of many such bullying, threatening actions, reportedly eleven just since May this year.<\/p>\n

Yet in spite of all, North Korea is the \u201caggressor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nuclear warheads of United States of America are stored in some twenty one locations, which include thirteen U.S. states and five European countries \u2026 some are on board U.S. submarines. There are some \u201czombie\u201d nuclear warheads as well, and they are kept in reserve, and as many as 3,000 of these are still awaiting their dismantlement. (The US) also extends its \u201cnuclear umbrella\u201d to such other countries as South Korea, Japan, and Australia. (worldatlas.com<\/a>)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who also attended the ASEAN meeting in Manila, did, of course, do what proper diplomats do and talked with his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong-ho. Minister Lavrov\u2019s opinion was summed up by a Fort Russ News<\/em> observer as:<\/p>\n

The Korean Peninsula is in a state of crisis not only due to constant US threats towards North Korea, but also due to various provocative actions, such as Washington conducting joint military exercises with Seoul amid tensions, and which Pyongyang considered a threat to its national security.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The \u201cprovocative actions\u201d also include the threatening over-flights by US \u2018planes flying from Guam. However, when North Korea said if this continued they would consider firing missiles into the ocean near Guam \u2014 not as was reported by some hystericals as threatening to bomb Guam \u2014 Agent Orange who occasionally pops into the White House between golf rounds and eating chocolate cake whilst muddling up which country he has dropped fifty nine Tomahawk Cruise missiles on, responded that tiny North Korea will again be: \u201c\u2026 met with fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which the world has never seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was barely noticed that North Korea qualified the threat of a shot across the bows by stating<\/a> pretty reasonably:<\/p>\n

(The US) \u201cshould immediately stop its reckless military provocation against the State of the DPRK so that the latter would not be forced to make an unavoidable military choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Cheryl Rofer continued<\/a>, instead of endless threats, US diplomacy could have many routes:<\/p>\n

We could have sent a message to North Korea via the recent Canadian visit to free one of their citizens. We could send a message through the Swedish embassy to North Korea, which often represents US interests. We could arrange some diplomatic action on which China might take the lead. There are many possibilities, any of which might show North Korea that we are willing to back off from practices that scare them if they will consider backing off on some of their actions. That would not include their nuclear program explicitly at this time, but it would leave the way open for later.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are, in fact, twenty-four diplomatic missions in all, in North Korea through which the US could request to communicate \u2014 or Trump could even behave like a grown up and pick up the telephone.<\/p>\n

Siegfried Hecker is the last known American official to inspect North Korea\u2019s nuclear facilities. He says<\/a> that treating Kim Jong-un as though he is on the verge of attacking the U.S. is both inaccurate and dangerous.<\/p>\n

Some like to depict Kim as being crazy \u2013 a madman \u2013 and that makes the public believe that the guy is undeterrable. He\u2019s not crazy and he\u2019s not suicidal. And he\u2019s not even unpredictable. The real threat is we\u2019re going to stumble into a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.<\/em><\/p>\n

Trump made his crass \u201cfire and fury\u201d threat on the eve of the sixty second commemoration of the US nuclear attack on Nagasaki, the nauseating irony seemingly un-noticed by him.<\/p>\n

Will some adults pitch up on Capitol Hill before it is too late?<\/p>\n

______________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist with special knowledge of Iraq. Author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of <\/em>Baghdad in the Great City series for World Almanac books, she has also been Senior Researcher for two Award winning documentaries on Iraq, John Pilger’s <\/em>Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq and <\/em>Denis Halliday Returns for RTE (Ireland.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 dissidentvoice.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Siegfried Hecker is the last known American official to inspect North Korea\u2019s nuclear facilities. He says that treating Kim Jong-un as though he is on the verge of attacking the U.S. is both inaccurate and dangerous. Trump made his crass \u201cfire and fury\u201d threat on the eve of the sixty second commemoration of the US nuclear attack on Nagasaki, the nauseating irony seemingly un-noticed by him. Will some adults pitch up on Capitol Hill before it is too late?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}