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<a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/10/north-koreas-justifiable-anger/">http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/10/north-koreas-justifiable-anger/</a><br>
<br>
<br>
Does Obama Want More War?
<h1 class="yiv3786979728article-title">North Korea’s Justifiable
Anger</h1>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal"
style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;
line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;">by STANSFIELD
SMITH</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">The corporate media reduces the DPRK
(North Korea) to the Kim family and prefaces their names with
the terms
“madman”, “evil” and “brutal”. Such vilifications of foreign
leaders are used
here not only to signify they are target for US overthrow. They
are meant to
intimidate and isolate anti-war activists as being out in left
field for ever
wanting to oppose a war against countries ruled by “madmen” – be
they Saddam,
Fidel, Hugo Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Qaddaffi.</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">Yet to a sensible person, it is
crazy that the US, with nuclear weapons thousands of miles from
home, in South
Korea, denies North Korea has a right to have its own nuclear
weapons on its
own land – particularly when the North says it is developing
nuclear weapons
only as a deterrent because the US won’t take its own weapons
out of the Korean
peninsula.</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">Missing in what passes for discourse
on the DPRK in the corporate media is that the US was conducting
month-long war
maneuvers last March in Korea, now extended into April, using
stealth bombers,
undetectable by radar, capable of carrying nuclear weapons. And
this year these
are not “deterrent” war maneuvers, but “pre-emptive war”
maneuvers.</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">Would the US government and people
get a little “irrational” if a foreign country that previously
had killed
millions of our people, sent nuclear capable stealth bombers off
the coasts of
New York City, Washington DC, Houston, Miami, Los Angeles, San
Francisco, there
to fly around for a month in preparation for a possible nuclear
attack on us?
For what is called, in warped US language, war “games”?</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">The US may have killed 20% of the
population of Korea, said General Curtis Lemay, who was involved
in the US air
war on Korea. If so, that is a higher rate of genocidal
slaughter than what the
Nazis inflicted on Poland or the Soviet Union. The Korean War
may be unknown
ancient history to us, but it is no more ancient history to
Koreans than the
Nakba is to Palestinians.</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">North Korea knows that history, and
it is warning the US they know what to expect and are arming
themselves to
prevent it. Are the DPRK leaders “paranoid” or taking
justifiable precautions?</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">What kind of deranged people call
war preparations a “war game”? North Korea doesn’t think it’s a
“game.” Over 4
million died in the last war to reunify their country that the
US divided. If
men had an annual rite called “group rape games” wouldn’t we
think it a
criminal misogynist pathology, and wouldn’t women be justified
in being
outraged and arming themselves in self-defense?</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">An accurate reading of the events
leading up to the present situation shows that North Korea is
responding to US
military escalation, and in particular to US refusal to
negotiate. This
includes a peace treaty to end the Korean War, any steps towards
reunifying
Korea, the end to the US occupation of South Korea and ending
the annual
month-long US-South Korean war maneuvers. Even today, it
includes US refusal to
talk in order to lower the tensions.</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">North Korea was hit with US/UN
Security Council sanctions for a missile launch last year. South
Korea sent off
a missile this year; were there any sanctions?</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">Since World War II there have been
9000 missile launches. 4 were by the DPRK. There have been 2000
atomic bomb
tests. 3 were by DPRK. No country was sanctioned by the UN
Security Council for
this. No country except the DPRK. Why wouldn’t the North Koreans
be incensed by
this double standard, especially when the US has nuclear weapons
in South
Korea?</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">The US kill rate in the 1950-53
Korean War equaled more than one 9-11 every day, day after day,
for the whole
1100 day war. US people had a scar from one 9-11. So what kind
of war scars do
Koreans have?</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">Korea is divided because our country
invaded and divided it after the Japanese surrender. The leaders
of the DPRK
had been fighting the Japanese since the early 1930s, and
200,000 had lost
their lives. When Korean liberation was at hand in 1945, the US
intervened and
blocked it.</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">The US was supposed to leave in
1948, along with the Soviet Union, but because Kim Il Sung was
likely to win
planned nation-wide elections, the US made the division
permanent and blocked
national elections, just as it did later in Vietnam. This lead
to the Korean
War, the cause of the present militarization: A foreign country
divided and
occupied their country against their will.</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">We should play our part to improve
the human rights situation in Korea, not only in the North but
in the South as
well. Both societies are more closed and controlled than our
own. Whether being
occupied by foreign troops, threatened with war and war
maneuvers, or subjected
to harsh economic sanctions, this does not facilitate free and
open societies.</span></div>
<div class="yiv3786979728MsoNormal" style="line-height:normal;"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;">If we really want more rights for
the people of the DPRK then we should stop pointing a gun at
their head. If we
listened to Kim Jong Un’s message delivered a month ago, ignored
by President
Obama, “We don’t want war. Let’s talk,” that would only foster a
more open
society there – and in South Korea, just as we know it would
here in the US.</span></div>
<b><i><span style="font-size:12.0pt;">Stansfield Smith</span></i></b><i><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;
"> is an anti-war and Latin America solidarity activist in
Chicago who recently returned from a trip to North Korea
[Democratic Peoples
Republic of Korea (DPRK)], with Koryo Tours. He can be reached
at: <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank"
href="mailto:stansfieldsmith@yahoo.com"><span
style="color:blue;">stansfieldsmith@yahoo.com</span></a></span></i>
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