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North
Korea could
nuke California but do we really have to cite recent
polls showing the increasing popularity of the GOP in
the Golden State to deter the President from writing us off?
The
North Korean challenge to this administration far surpasses
anything we have faced in the post-cold war era. The widely
hailed talks that supposedly signified the North Koreans kowtowing
to the U.S. in the wake of the Iraq invasion proved to be
a new platform for the harlequinesque Kim Jong Il's nuclear
brinkmanship. Not content to merely wield a nuclear stick,
the Stalinist troglodytes of Pyongyang openly threaten
to export their nukes far and wide, as the Washington
Post reports:
"At
one point, one U.S. official said, Li Gun, deputy director
of American affairs for North Korea's Foreign Ministry, pulled
aside Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly and in effect
told him: 'We've got nukes. We can't dismantle them. It's
up to you whether we do a physical demonstration or transfer
them.'"
A
physical demonstration on Tokyo? Or on U.S. troops in South
Korea?
The
North Korean jack-in-the-box is popping up just as the neoconservatives,
pumped up with testosterone-laced
triumphalism, are completing their conquest of the American
foreign policy establishment and celebrating our Pyrrhic victory
in Iraq. In other words, it couldn't have come at a more dangerous
time.
The
illusion of victory is not yet dissipated in the minds of
our policymakers, and their deluded camp followers in the
media: they really believe their own rhetoric about spreading
"democracy" by the sword, and their smug complacency
is unassailable. But while the neocons rhapsodize
on about the glories of "democratic" imperialism,
and engage in an orgy of self-congratulation, the real consequences
of their policies and the insufferable arrogance with which
they are enunciated threaten the peace in a way we have
not seen since the Cuban
missile crisis.
The
eruption of the North Korean crisis into nearly full-blown
proportions underscores the central objection to the bellicose
policies and rhetoric of this administration: they haven't
made us any safer. If the purpose of government is to protect
its citizens from harm, then the "axis of evil"
bombast emanating from Washington is, by any measure, an abject
failure. There are some 30,000 American hostages to nuclear
blackmail south of the demilitarized zone, and more in Japan.
I wouldn't want to be a U.S. soldier stationed at Okinawa
right now. And I don't feel much safer in California, come
to think of it
.
A
strategic doctrine that put America first, and not some abstract
idea, would never have left American GIs hanging in South
Korea or Japan, for that matter exposed to the shifting
moods of Kim Jong Il. The Korean stand-off is a relic of the
cold war, one that should have melted away with the last of
the Marxist frost. But the Bushies
nixed a deal based on peaceful, voluntary re-unification
and instead opted for confrontation. And now they have it
.
The
U.S. was counting on China to broker an agreement that would
allow the North Koreans to save face, but the
quarantining of the Chinese delegates at the talks, supposedly
due to the SARS scare, is not a hopeful sign. In addition,
a major intelligence failure one that may dwarf that of
9/11 in terms of the death toll – seems to have occurred.
Recall
that we were told by this administration that Pyongyang was
on the verge of churning out nukes, and now they are
telling us the process is already begun. Not only that, but
Pyongyang is hinting strongly that a test of their nuclear
capability is imminent.
The
U.S. has developed a plan to bomb North Korea's nuclear facilities,
which just goes to show that Kim Jong Il is not the only lunatic
involved in this crisis scenario. As United Press International
reports:
"The
Pentagon hardliners said to be behind the plan reportedly
believe the precision strikes envisaged in it would not lead
to North Korea initiating a general war it would be certain
to lose."
That
is one pretty huge assumption and the question is, how much
is this administration willing to bet on it?
This
crisis is firmly rooted in the interventionist foreign policy
of the United States, which mandated a troop presence in South
Korea long after both sides of the DMZ began to cry out for
rapprochement and normalization of relations. That particular
outpost of empire should have been abandoned the moment the
Berlin Wall fell, but it was not to be. As we postured and
preened as the new hegemon on the block, humiliating the Arab
world and threatening Syria and Iran, the North Korean crisis
was put on the backburner. Now the pot is not just boiling
over, but is looking like it's going to explode.
War
on the Korean peninsula may be unavoidable, given the ideological
orientation of this administration and the peculiarities of
this particular moment in history. A rational American leadership
would recognize the grim reality and beat a strategic retreat.
What good are American troops doing in South Korea or in
Japan, for that matter? The answer is: none. Withdrawal of
all U.S. troops from North Asia is no longer an increasingly
popular policy proposal it is an absolute necessity.
But
more needs to be done. The U.S. has a responsibility to the
people of South Korea, and Japan, to ensure the peace: ex-White
House speechwriter David Frum's "axis of evil" phraseology
started this, and there is only one way to finish it that
won't involve the deaths of hundreds of thousands, possibly
millions. What possible objection could any rational human
being have to the U.S. signing a non-aggression pact with
Pyongyang, pledging no first strike on North Korean soil?
The
U.S. has announced a policy of preemption, a doctrine that
enshrines our role as the world's policeman in holy non-negotiable
writ. But North Korea is calling our bluff and it is
a bluff. It just isn't possible that our rulers are ready
to go to war with another nuclear power, however nascent,
in order to prop up their imperial pretensions is it?
There
is only one way out. Washington needs to negotiate directly
with the man in charge: Kim Jong Il. Colin Powell is right
not to rule out a
visit to Damascus, but I say: Pyongyang first, if you
please. The "more humble
foreign policy" George W. Bush touted as a candidate
needs to make a last minute reappearance, and quick, if catastrophe
is to be narrowly avoided. As hard as that will be for our
vainglorious neocon policymakers to swallow, perhaps a cold
draught of humility will wake them up to the danger of having
to answer for losing Korea, Japan – and Los Angeles.
NOTES
IN THE MARGIN
Murray
Rothbard was not only a social philosopher and economist whose
ideas provided a sound basis for libertarianism, he was also
a talented humorist and a short play, "Mozart Was A Red,"
recently posted on Lew Rockwell's site, had me rolling on
the floor when I first read it. A short introduction by yours
truly puts the subject the Ayn Rand cult in context. Check it out.
The
foam-flecked Stephen Schwartz, a.k.a.
Suleyman
Ahmad, a.k.a. "Comrade
Sandalio," has vomited up yet another screed
supposedly linking me to people I've never met nor heard of,
and causes I've never embraced, thereby proving a) that David Horowitz
will post any libel against me on his website, provided it
is scurrilous enough, and b) that Schwartz/Suleyman/Sandalio
is a danger to himself
and others when he isn't taking his meds. As an example of
unintentional humor (the best kind), Schwartz's bile reveals
more about the author than about his ostensible subject.
Schwartz's
piece was posted a few days ago, and this morning
there is yet more, this time apparently from one of his
lobotomized interns, purporting to link me to an obscure website
that pushes neo-Nazism and Satanism (!) The piece also falsely
claims that I am a "columnist" for one of several websites
claiming to be the "real" "Pravda." For the record: I have
no connection to either site. But the degeneration of Horowitz's
"Frontpage" website into a compendium of outright slander,
without even a minimal regard for facts, is worth noting as
a reflection of his very public slide down the slippery slope
into sheer lunacy. Apparently he believes that any
methods, no matter how foul or obviously deranged, are justified
in order to smear those he perceives as his enemies. Horowitz's
evolution into the Julius Streicher
of the War Party, however, discredits only himself.
–
Justin Raimondo
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