COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
"US wants North
Korea nuclear talks, says Rex Tillerson"
Sounds reasonable, if you don't know much.
It is the US which has always refused even to speak directly
with North Korea.
It is the US which maintains a sizable army at North Korea’s
border.
It is the US which regularly puts on threatening war game
displays offshore and in South Korea.
It is the US, during the Korean War, which conducted a horrific
bombing campaign against North Korea. This is seldom discussed in the West, but
North Korean cities were nearly levelled the bombing was so intense.
It is the US which keeps nuclear weapons - against Japanese
law - in Okinawa.
It is the US which has been on a 15-year rampage through the
Middle East, killing about 2 million people, setting an example to the contemporary
world of arbitrary and brutal use of power.
It is the US which has ramped up a new Cold War in Europe,
sending tanks, planes, and troops right up against Russia’s border, expanding
NATO membership aggressively, building THAAD anti-missile systems, while making
lots of provocative statements and periodically sending spy planes towards
Russia with their transponders turned off, a dangerous practice – all this
while declaring various economic sanctions for no sound reason.
It is the US which is placing the THAAD system in South
Korea, something both China and Russia oppose.
This missile system is a much more provocative act than many
understand because the ostensible purpose of the system is said to be
defensive, and for several reasons.
The THAAD missile tubes and radars can be used covertly for
entirely different kinds of missiles such as short-range ground-to-ground
nuclear-armed ones. Just this possibility so near to China or Russia is
inherently destabilizing.
They can also be used with other types of anti-missile missiles
covertly substituted, to bring down ICBMs in their most vulnerable phase of
early take-off. This always means the possible threat of launching a nuclear
assault coordinated with neutralizing any response.
Even in John Kennedy’s time, the Pentagon was advocating detailed
plans for a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Russia. He once left a Pentagon briefing
saying it made him sick to his stomach. Does anyone believe that kind of thinking
has just melted away?
Of course, both Russia and China are taking
counter-measures, and they have many that they can take, but does anyone in his
or her right mind think we need an arms race?
You do not have to like North Korea's government to understand
their fears and why it is they have "gone nuclear."
I think it fair to say, too, that North Korea's reasons are
precisely the same as those of Israel.
But, in the case of North Korea the US periodically gets
worked up to possible warfare while in the case of Israel, it just pretends the
nuclear weapons do not exist.
There is simply no rationality or balance or respect for
others in US foreign policy.
