[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [WBPF] North Korea’s Nuclear Test - Gowans

[Morton K. Brussel]

>
This makes sense.  --mkb
> North Korea’s Nuclear Test
>
> by Stephen Gowans
>
> October 16, 2006
>
>
> There were immediate reasons, and more distant causes, that  
> compelled north Korea to undertake a nuclear test earlier this  
> month. All of them, I think, are related to the need of north Korea  
> to deter the United States from carrying out its threats of war.  
> According to the DPRK foreign ministry, the test was conducted to  
> protect north Korea’s “sovereignty and right to existence from the  
> daily increasing danger of war from the United States.”
>
> Washington says it has no intention of attacking or invading north  
> Korea, so north Korea’s claim that it is simply reacting to US  
> threats and intimidation is dismissed as pure paranoia, but anyone  
> who claims north Korea isn’t being threatened either isn’t paying  
> attention or is playing at propaganda.
>
> North Korea has been trying for over 50 years to arrive at some  
> kind of peaceful co-existence with Washington, and its overtures of  
> peace have been repeatedly spurned. For example, not so long ago,  
> then US Secretary of State Colin Powel rejected one north Korean  
> offer of peaceful co-existence by saying “we don’t do peace  
> treaties, non-aggression pacts, things of that nature.” And it’s  
> true. The US doesn’t do that. It tries to get what it wants by  
> intimidation.
>
> So, Washington declares north Korea to be part of an “axis of  
> evil,” invades and occupies another of the declared “axis of evil”  
> countries, Iraq, and then John Bolton, at the time US  
> undersecretary of state for arms control, warns north Korea and  
> Syria and Iran to draw “the appropriate lesson.”
>
> North Korea has a history of being subjugated, plundered and  
> exploited by larger and more powerful countries. As a result, it is  
> fiercely anti-imperialist and committed to independence. It did  
> draw the appropriate lesson -- only it wasn’t the one Washington  
> wanted it to draw, though it was one history predisposed north  
> Korea to make.
>
> No Danger
>
> The only danger north Korea poses is the danger of disrupting US  
> plans to attack the country. It is not an offensive threat.
>
> First, it’s not clear that Pyongyang even has a workable nuclear  
> device. There’s some question the nuclear test was successful.  
> Second, it has no reliable means of delivering a warhead. Its  
> ballistic missile tests have not been particularly successful.  
> Third, it faces the considerable technical challenge of making its  
> bomb, if it is workable, small enough to fit into a missile warhead  
> or an artillery shell or aerial bomb.
>
> Still, there’s sufficient ambiguity about north Korea’s nuclear  
> capabilities to make Washington think twice about an attack.
>
> North Korea is very weak militarily. The US military budget is  
> somewhere around $500 billion per year. North Korea’s is somewhere  
> around $5 billion per year -- one percent of the US budget. Its  
> combat pilots get only two hours of flying time a month, because  
> they don’t have enough aviation fuel for their planes. Their  
> equipment is old and inferior compared to that of south Korea and  
> the US forces stationed on the peninsula. And while it has a  
> million-man army, half of the army is engaged in agriculture and  
> construction.
>
> The latest United Nations Security Council Resolution seeks to make  
> north Korea weaker still, by banning the sale to north Korea of  
> military equipment – battle tanks, artillery systems, warships.  
> That’s not to undermine north Korea as an offensive threat, because  
> it isn’t one, but to make it ripe for an easy invasion.
>
> So, is north Korea a danger? As Bruce Cumings, perhaps the top US  
> expert on Korea, put it in the New York Times on October 12, north  
> Korea’s “not going to commit suicide by attacking South Korea or  
> Japan with nuclear bombs. It knows it will lose. Their fundamental  
> orientation is being hunkered down for defense.”
>
> Consequences
>
> The US will use the nuclear test to bolster its missile defense  
> shield plan, which will please the class of corporate rich in the  
> US, who will rake in huge profits, and Japan will use the nuclear  
> test to shred its pacifist constitution and take another step along  
> the road to resurrecting its militarist past.
>
> A month before he became Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe  
> wondered aloud about building the capability to launch pre-emptive  
> strikes on north Korea.
>
> It’s clear Abe would like to make-over the Japanese military from a  
> self-defense force to one capable of operating beyond its borders,  
> in the manner of the imperialist big boys, and in the way it used  
> to, when it was locked in a battle with the US over who would  
> control the Pacific during WWII. He’s whipping up fear over north  
> Korea to put the military apparatus in place to build a robust  
> Japanese imperialism.
>
> Crisis Authored in Washington
>
> Washington has repeatedly subjected north Korea to nuclear threat.  
> After the Korean War, it introduced battle-field nuclear weapons  
> into south Korea, to be used in the early stages of any war against  
> the DPRK.
>
> North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in  
> the early 90s (but later re-joined) after the US announced that it  
> was re-targeting some of the strategic nuclear missiles it once had  
> targeted on the Soviet Union on north Korea.
>
> In 1998, the US simulated long range nuclear attacks on north  
> Korea. At the same time, a Marine General said Washington was  
> planning to overthrow the north Korean government and install a  
> south Korean puppet regime in its place, possibly using a pre- 
> emptive strike.
>
> In its 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, Washington announced it  
> reserved the right to use nuclear weapons against north Korea.
>
> One of the cardinal rules of non-proliferation is that nuclear  
> countries don’t threaten non-nuclear countries with nuclear  
> weapons. The US has repeatedly broken the cardinal rule.
>
> The Security Council
>
> The UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, was once called a  
> thieves’ kitchen, which is a pretty good description of the UN  
> Security Council. UNSC resolutions against north Korea are  
> formulated to disarm and weaken the country, so it can be easily  
> subjugated and plundered. In fact, you can generalize to other weak  
> countries. UNSC resolutions don’t benefit the world as a whole,  
> they benefit the permanent members of the UNSC, usually at the  
> expense of the bulk of humanity.
>
> Beyond Hypocrisy
>
> If the US, Britain, France and others can have nuclear weapons, why  
> can’t north Korea? The answer, of course, is that the rich  
> countries want to preserve their nuclear monopoly so they can  
> easily push around weaker countries. Other countries can’t have  
> nuclear weapons, because that creates the threat of potential self- 
> defense. US-led anti-proliferation efforts have nothing to do with  
> safeguarding the world from nuclear war, but safeguarding  
> Washington’s ability to intimidate and get its way by force.
>
> Moreover, Washington isn’t really against proliferation, only  
> proliferation involving countries that refuse to be subjugated. The  
> US is talking about transferring nuclear technology to India, and  
> India isn’t part of the non-proliferation treaty. France  
> transferred nuclear technology to Israel, which Israel used to  
> create an arsenal of hundreds of nuclear weapons. Washington wants  
> to use India as a proxy against China, and Israel acts as a US  
> proxy in the Middle East, so it’s all right, from Washington’s  
> perspective, to proliferate in favour of these countries. But north  
> Korea, which has sought to remain free from domination by other  
> countries, is to be denied an effective means of self-defense.
>
> The Real Threat
>
> The real threat is not north Korea. Indeed, the idea that north  
> Korea is a danger is laughable, if not, in its tenuous connection  
> with reality, insane.
>
> The real threat is the whole rotten system of imperialism, by which  
> a handful of rich countries seek to dominate the majority of  
> countries representing the bulk of humanity for the benefit of oil  
> companies, investment bankers, defense industry contractors and the  
> corporate rich.
>
> That’s what should really concern people; not north Korea’s efforts  
> to throw a spanner into the works of a more than five-decades-long  
> US effort to take over from Japan as master of the entire Korean  
> peninsula.
>
> The longer north Korea holds out, the better for the rest of us.  
> For this reason, north Korea deserves our solidarity and support,  
> in the same manner Belgium, the Netherlands, France, the Soviet  
> Union and so on deserved our solidarity and support when they were  
> menaced by another serial aggressor hell-bent on dominating the world.
>
> To be notified of updates, send an e-mail to sr.gowans at sympatico.ca  
> and write "subscribe" in the subject line.
>
> posted by Stephen Gowans
>
> Original at:
> http://gowans.blogspot.com/2006/10/north-koreas-nuclear-test.html