Is Trump threatening to attack North Korea? Or is it a Sino-US-NK ménage-à-trois dance? China Rising Radio Sinoland 170413
Dispatch from Beijing
With Jeff J. Brown
Pictured below, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un overseeing a massive military and patriotic parade (Image by Xinhuanet)
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http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1042215.shtml. There were surely discussions between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his good friend and Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, before the vote, with Russia vetoing it.
I think several factors are at work here. Chinese President Xi just got back from his “Citrus Summit” with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Florida http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/04/09/xi-v-trump-the-real-story-of-their-florida-meeting-with-godfree-roberts-china-rising-radio-sinoland-170409/ . There were surely some quid pro quos promised. Syria is in Russia’s home court. Korea is China’s. Vetoing with Russia may have violated an agreed quid pro quo. Korea is hot right now, with the North continuing to test their missiles and the US installing THAAD.
Also, for Russia, the demonization, hysteria, propaganda, Orwellian media lies and outright hatred of all things Slav cannot get any worse. Thus, I think the Russians told the Chinese that it was not necessary to burn a diplo-chip, when the West is so fanatically and rabidly insane anyway.
Bolivia also joined Russia in the no vote and China, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan abstained. That is essentially five of the 15 Security Council members not voting with the West. Just six weeks ago, China joined Russia to veto another Western kangaroo court UNSC resolution, demanding that Assad step down as well as against sanctions, on February 28 https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-pledges-veto-un-sanctions-resolution-syria-050054387.html. These two brothers in arms also vetoed a third Western Monty Python resolution in December https://www.rt.com/news/369274-russia-china-unsc-aleppo-resolution/. They have been jointly vetoing Western propaganda resolutions going back to the beginning of the Western instigated civil war in Syria https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/04/assad-obama-resign-un-resolution.
https://www.rt.com/news/384554-us-armada-china-korea-menace/. Xi is continuing to play it lowkey http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0413/c90000-9202075.html. But with Trump changing his words and deeds like the wind, who knows? Yesterday’s quid pro quos may be old promises after just one week, which is very un-Chinese, indeed. Let’s also hope that Trump get the story straight about the Chinese supposedly amassing troops on the North’s border, which is the kind of psyops propaganda that the CIA excels in http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1042177.shtml. The situation on the Korean peninsula has gone from dull to exceedingly dangerous in a hurry. Xi cannot afford to be distracted by Syria right now, which is Russia’s core interest, nor give Trump any pretext to bomb North Korea.
Here is my hopeful scenario. Like the bogus charade US bombing of the Syrian airbase this week, that was set up to make Trump look imperial and in charge http://thesaker.is/a-multi-level-analysis-of-the-us-cruise-missile-attack-on-syria-and-its-consequences/ & http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/04/12/trump-xi-syria-and-gold-guest-jeff-j-brown-on-rory-halls-the-daily-coin-170413/, the same Kabuki theater could be playing out in a ménage-à-trois with Trump, Xi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un following a carefully scripted choreography. North Korea has just announced to the West to “expect something big” https://www.longroom.com/discussion/427702/foreign-journos-in-north-korea-told-to-expect-something-big-as-china-issues-warning-to-pyongyang. Japan is doing its bit part as Colin Powell at the UN, holding up a vial of talcum powder, claiming it was a nerve agent, which ushered in America’s failed invasion and occupation of Iraq, except now it is Prime Minister Shinzo Abe barking about sarin gas tipped Kim missiles http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-japan-idUSKBN17F0HJ. You can’t make this stuff up. Trump just announced that he is now backpedaling on one of his big campaign promises, to declare China a currency manipulator http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1042239.shtml. There one half of a quid pro quo.
We could have a repeat of the US bombed Syrian airfield stunt, where North Korea has plenty of time to vacate a military target, Trump lobs some missiles into the Potemkin targets, becoming a national hero for standing up to those menacing red gooks north of the 38th parallel. Kim pounds the drums of war, scaring the bejeezus out of the whole region, while bolstering his standing with his citizens. China plays the white hat and rides to the diplomatic rescue, to calm everything down and prevent a war. America can convert more golf courses in South Korea into military bases, and occupy even more land. All three countries get to satisfy their hawks by signing rafts of military arms contracts.
All this, to make Trump look like a global Caesar, saving the “free world” from crazy commies. As Xi would say, it’s win-win-win.
Don’t laugh. This is not as farfetched as it seems. False flags are how humanity has been manipulated and controlled for thousands of years. But as in the past, it is fraught with danger, since the slightest deviation from the script could see it all unwind into a serious conflagration. If true, I have full confidence in China’s end of the bargain and its control over North Korea https://www.greanvillepost.com/2017/03/19/china-north-korea-and-the-upcoming-international-sanctions-china-rising/. That makes two out of the three dancers pirouetting with safe hands. The US? That’s the crazy wildcard nut job partner we should all be worried about. Unlike Xi and Kim, Trump is not in control of his military.
Then again, maybe Trump is enthralled with all his new killer military toys and drunk with the power of the American presidency. We will find out one way or the other, sooner than later. Time to button up yer bungholes for an anus-clenching false flag or geopolitical (mis-) adventure. Ye-haw! Ride ‘em cowboys!
ABOUT JEFF BROWN
Jeff J. Brown—TGP’s Beijing correspondent— is the author of 44 Days (2013), Reflections in Sinoland – Musings and Anecdotes from the Belly of the New Century Beast (summer 2015), and Doctor WriteRead’s Treasure Trove to Great English (2015). He is currently writing an historical fiction, Red Letters – The Diaries of Xi Jinping, due out in 2016. In addition, a new anthology on China, China Rising, Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations, is also scheduled for publication this summer. Jeff is commissioned to write monthly articles for The Saker and The Greanville Post, touching on all things China, and the international political & cultural scene
In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx, the Bookworm Literary Festival, the Capital M Literary Festival, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774, with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at international schools in Beijing and Tianjin.
Jeff grew up in the heartland of the United States, Oklahoma, and graduated from Oklahoma State University. He went to Brazil while in graduate school at Purdue University, to seek his fortune, which whet his appetite for traveling the globe. This helped inspire him to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia in 1980 and he lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, China and Europe for the next 21 years. All the while, he mastered Portuguese, Arabic, French and Mandarin, while traveling to over 85 countries. He then returned to America for nine years, whereupon he moved back to China in 2010. He currently lives in Beijing with his wife, where he writes, while being a school teacher in an international school. Jeff is a dual national French-American.
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China Rising Radio Sinoland Outlets
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Why contributing to the Greanville Post is urgent and makes sense.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER
What will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?
Here is my hopeful scenario. Like the bogus charade US bombing of the Syrian airbase this week, that was set up to make Trump look imperial and in charge http://thesaker.is/a-multi-level-analysis-of-the-us-cruise-missile-attack-on-syria-and-its-consequences/ & http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/04/12/trump-xi-syria-and-gold-guest-jeff-j-brown-on-rory-halls-the-daily-coin-170413/, the same Kabuki theater could be playing out in a ménage-à-trois with Trump, Xi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un following a carefully scripted choreography. North Korea has just announced to the West to “expect something big” https://www.longroom.com/discussion/427702/foreign-journos-in-north-korea-told-to-expect-something-big-as-china-issues-warning-to-pyongyang. Japan is doing its bit part as Colin Powell at the UN, holding up a vial of talcum powder, claiming it was a nerve agent, which ushered in America’s failed invasion and occupation of Iraq, except now it is Prime Minister Shinzo Abe barking about sarin gas tipped Kim missiles http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-japan-idUSKBN17F0HJ. You can’t make this stuff up. Trump just announced that he is now backpedaling on one of his big campaign promises, to declare China a currency manipulator http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1042239.shtml. There one half of a quid pro quo.
We could have a repeat of the US bombed Syrian airfield stunt, where North Korea has plenty of time to vacate a military target, Trump lobs some missiles into the Potemkin targets, becoming a national hero for standing up to those menacing red gooks north of the 38th parallel. Kim pounds the drums of war, scaring the bejeezus out of the whole region, while bolstering his standing with his citizens. China plays the white hat and rides to the diplomatic rescue, to calm everything down and prevent a war. America can convert more golf courses in South Korea into military bases, and occupy even more land. All three countries get to satisfy their hawks by signing rafts of military arms contracts.
All this, to make Trump look like a global Caesar, saving the “free world” from crazy commies. As Xi would say, it’s win-win-win.
Don’t laugh. This is not as farfetched as it seems. False flags are how humanity has been manipulated and controlled for thousands of years. But as in the past, it is fraught with danger, since the slightest deviation from the script could see it all unwind into a serious conflagration. If true, I have full confidence in China’s end of the bargain and its control over North Korea https://www.greanvillepost.com/2017/03/19/china-north-korea-and-the-upcoming-international-sanctions-china-rising/. That makes two out of the three dancers pirouetting with safe hands. The US? That’s the crazy wildcard nut job partner we should all be worried about. Unlike Xi and Kim, Trump is not in control of his military.
Then again, maybe Trump is enthralled with all his new killer military toys and drunk with the power of the American presidency. We will find out one way or the other, sooner than later. Time to button up yer bungholes for an anus-clenching false flag or geopolitical (mis-) adventure. Ye-haw! Ride ‘em cowboys!
Jeff J. Brown—TGP’s Beijing correspondent— is the author of 44 Days (2013), Reflections in Sinoland – Musings and Anecdotes from the Belly of the New Century Beast (summer 2015), and Doctor WriteRead’s Treasure Trove to Great English (2015). He is currently writing an historical fiction, Red Letters – The Diaries of Xi Jinping, due out in 2016. In addition, a new anthology on China, China Rising, Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations, is also scheduled for publication this summer. Jeff is commissioned to write monthly articles for The Saker and The Greanville Post, touching on all things China, and the international political & cultural scene
In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx, the Bookworm Literary Festival, the Capital M Literary Festival, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774, with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at international schools in Beijing and Tianjin.
Jeff grew up in the heartland of the United States, Oklahoma, and graduated from Oklahoma State University. He went to Brazil while in graduate school at Purdue University, to seek his fortune, which whet his appetite for traveling the globe. This helped inspire him to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia in 1980 and he lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, China and Europe for the next 21 years. All the while, he mastered Portuguese, Arabic, French and Mandarin, while traveling to over 85 countries. He then returned to America for nine years, whereupon he moved back to China in 2010. He currently lives in Beijing with his wife, where he writes, while being a school teacher in an international school. Jeff is a dual national French-American.
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Why contributing to the Greanville Post is urgent and makes sense.
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What will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?
Trump threatens China with war on North Korea
Peter Symonds, Senior Analyst
WSWS.ORG
Dateline: 4 April 2017
Ahead of his meeting this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Trump issued a blunt, menacing warning to Beijing to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear and missile programs … or else. Speaking to the Financial Times, he declared: “If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all that I am telling you.”
Trump outlined the ultimatum that he intends to deliver to Xi: “China has great influence over North Korea. And China will either decide to help us with North Korea, or they won’t. And if they do that will be very good for China, and if they don’t it won’t be good for anyone.”
Trump’s threats have only one meaning: if the Chinese government is not prepared to economically cripple or oust the Pyongyang regime, the US is prepared to use every means at its disposal, including its massive military might, against North Korea. As US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson emphasised during his trip to Asia last month, all options, including war with North Korea, are on the table.
Whatever measures the US might initially take, Trump made absolutely clear that he was prepared to attack North Korea and could do so with no notice. “I am not the United States of the past where we tell you where we are going to hit in the Middle East,” he told the newspaper. “Where they say … ‘We will be attacking Mosul in four months.’ … Why are they talking? There is no reason to talk.”
Behind closed doors, the Trump administration has been preparing for a war with North Korea that will not only be catastrophic for the Korean people on the divided peninsula but could drag in other major powers, including China, Russia and Japan.
The White House has just completed a review of US policy towards North Korea ahead of Xi’s meeting with Trump. While the options reportedly include heavy sanctions not only against North Korea but also Chinese firms doing business with Pyongyang, the Trump administration would not stop there.
During his recent trip, Tillerson declared that the Obama administration’s policy of incrementally increased sanctions—dubbed “strategic patience”—had failed. He also ruled out any immediate negotiations with Pyongyang. All of the remaining options—cyber warfare, provocations and covert operations to destabilise the North Korean regime and military action of various forms—threaten to rapidly plunge the region into war.
Trump’s irrationality is a product of the profound crisis of American and global capitalism and the determination of the US ruling class for whom he speaks to exploit its current military dominance to arrest its historic decline—whatever the outcome.
The Financial Times asked Trump: “Do you think you can solve it [North Korea] without China’s help?” His utter recklessness is summed up in his one word reply: “Totally.” Asked the same question again, he responded: “I don’t have to say any more. Totally.”
The incalculable consequences of war on the Korean Peninsula were summed up by Obama’s defence secretary, Ashton Carter, who has long been a supporter of military strikes on North Korea. Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Carter declared that he was not optimistic about pressuring China to take action against North Korea.
Carter insisted that the military option had to remain on the table then, with callous indifference to the human suffering involved, sketched what would happen in the wake of a US pre-emptive strike on North Korea. “It is quite possible that they [Pyongyang] would … launch an attempted invasion of South Korea. As I said, I’m confident of the outcome of that war, which would be the defeat of North Korea.
“But I need to caution you. This is a war that would have an intensity of violence associated with it that we haven’t seen since the last Korean War. Seoul is right there on the borders of the DMZ [border with North Korea], so even though the outcome is certain, it is a very destructive war,” Carter declared.
Carter knows of what he speaks. As assistant defence secretary in the Clinton administration, he was deeply involved in planning for the war with North Korea in 1994 that was called off at the last minute when the Pentagon conservatively estimated the likely outcome—300,000 to 500,000 South Korean and American military casualties, not counting the death toll in North Korea and civilian dead and injured.
The death toll in the Korean War between 1950 and 1953 ran into the millions. Casualties in a war today in which North Korea as well as the US have nuclear weapons and could use nuclear weapons would be far higher. US Defence Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis has already warned that any attempt by Pyongyang to use its nuclear weapons would be met with an “effective and overwhelming response”—that is, nuclear annihilation.
The Korean War was the only time that China and the United States directly fought a war. The strategic position of the Korean Peninsula in North East Asia has made it a focus for invasions and wars for more than a century—involving not only the United States and China, but also Japan and Russia. The danger is that a new war would rapidly drag in other military powers, including those armed with nuclear weapons.
The danger of world war arises not simply as a result of the erratic and reckless behaviour of Trump. Rather, his irrationality is a product of the profound crisis of American and global capitalism and the determination of the US ruling class for whom he speaks to exploit its current military dominance to arrest its historic decline—whatever the outcome. A quarter century of military provocations and invasions in the Middle East and Central Asia are now coalescing into a confrontation with major US rivals—above all, China and Russia.
The reaction of the North Korean regime to the growing threat of war is utterly reactionary. Its missile and nuclear tests play directly into Washington’s hands by providing a pretext for war. Moreover, Pyongyang’s nationalist bombast and bloodcurdling threats against the US, Japan and South Korea only heighten the danger of war and sow divisions in the international working class.
Unlike the criminal US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 or the more recent wars in the Middle East, the countdown to war against North Korea is not being made public. Nevertheless it is proceeding with a relentless logic. Workers around the globe cannot afford to wake up one morning to find that the US has bombed North Korea and the world stands on the brink of a nuclear war.
The only means for halting the drive to war is to put an end to its source—the bankrupt profit system and its division of the world into rival nation states—through the building of a unified anti-war movement of the working class based on socialist internationalism.
ABOUT THE AUTHORPeter Symonds is a senior political analyst with wsws.org, a socialist organization.
Why contributing to the Greanville Post is urgent and makes sense.
DISCLAIMER
EDITOR’S NOTE: No material by this author or any other author published on this site should be read as a defense of Donald trump and his policies. For us Trump, the GOP and the Democrats are all part of the same malignant threat to Democracy, world peace, truth and honesty in fiscal affairs afflicting the US and the rest of the world, and emanating from the irrepressible dynamics of global capitalism, whose main citadel is currently in the United States.
What will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?
How China Bought Trump
Michael I. Niman
DAILY PUBLIC
Dateline: Mar. 21, 2017
Candidate Trump was pretty hard on China, terming the country a “currency manipulator,” which, arguably, it appears to be. He promised that on day one of his presidency, he’d officially label the country as such, which would be his first step toward placing a 45 percent import tariff on Chinese goods. Once in office, Trump took his rhetoric up a notch and shocked the diplomatic world by also threatening to end the United State’s One China policy, which was instated by Richard Nixon as a condition of normalizing relationships between the US and China.
The policy is rhetorical, viewing China and Taiwan as one nation. On the ground, however, the policy is essentially meaningless, with the US still conducting trade with and supplying military aid to Taiwan. For China, however, who still views Taiwan as a breakaway province, this rhetorical concession is the foundation beneath our friendship—and it’s also the third rail running through our relationship. Mess with it and we rewind the clock to 1970.
Obama’s terrible, terrible deal
Trump apologists in the Republican Party were quick to walk back his threats to blow up the One China policy, explaining that their leader was just doing what he does best, throwing out an opening salvo and maneuvering into position for negotiating and deal-making—his signature skill. Our trade relations with China, born in the Nixon administration and amped up and refined under the free-trading Ronald Reagan’s tutelage, are, according to the amnesiac Trump, a “terrible deal” cooked up by “worst president in history,” Barack Obama. Trump’s apocalyptic moves to release military and economic chaos between the US and China, we’re supposed to believe, actually belied skillful bargaining to pressure China to walk back “Obama’s” terrible, terrible deal. An unbelievably bad deal.
But then, after breathing fire in China’s direction for months, that odd little mouth that seems to crawl all over Trump’s face uncharacteristically and unexpectedly ceased its Sinophobic fury. When it opened again, the negotiator-in-chief was quietly reversing course, recognizing and committing to support the One China policy while seeming to forget about his 45 percent tariff promise.
Trump made his move. He came to the chessboard with a machete but China didn’t lay down their king. After bringing US-China relations to the brink of destruction, where was the deal? What did we finally get from China that was worth this risk? If the deal Trump struck with China is not self-evident, it’s because our question—“What did we get from China?”—is flawed. We get nothing from China. Trump, however, between his anti-China bloviating and his ultimate retreat, seems to have gotten quite a bit for himself. We were never anything more than pawns in this game.
Trump vs. Dong
It unfolds like this. Trump claimed in 2015 that the trademark value of the Trump name was worth $3.2 billion, roughly the same as Fanta or Chipotle. This represents about one third of his claimed net worth. That number could have been significantly higher if Dong Wei, a Chinese citizen, didn’t oddly also own specific business rights to the Trump name in China, the world’s second-largest and fastest-growing economy. Trump had spent much of the past 10 years fighting Dong over the name in Chinese courts, to no avail. Like Trump, China also seems to know how to negotiate.
After Trump reversed his position and promised Chinese President Xi Jinping that he would support the One China policy and recognize Taiwan as a province of China, Chinese courts, in a surprise February ruling, also reversed course and granted Trump, and not Dong, a 10-year trademark for exclusive rights to use the Trump name on construction projects. As a one-party state without the checks and balances common to Western democracies, the Chinese government appears to have a strong influence over its courts and their rulings, making this unexpected decision more of a government policy statement than what we would recognize as a legal deliberation. Coming on the heels of Trump’s reversal on the One China policy, this decision appears to be a quid pro quo settlement of a debt, only on a nation-to-person (or nation-to-family) rather than nation-to-nation basis.
Trump is a good deal-maker, at least when it comes to making deals to enrich himself and his family. At the time of his unexpected Chinese court victory last month, the Associated Press reported that Trump also had 49 other trademark applications pending in China. In early March, however, Chinese officials issued a wholesale preliminary approval for 38 of these Trump requests, covering potential businesses from security services to hotels and golf resorts. The Guardian cites a Hong Kong-based intellectual property consultant, Dan Plane, who remarked that he never saw so many applications approved so expeditiously in China, saying, “It’s weird.” Plane speculated that officials from the ruling Communist Party were monitoring these dealings, surmising that the decisions were “just way over your average trademark examiner’s pay grade.”
As with the court ruling in favor of Trump over Dong, these quick and favorable decisions appear to be part of the same quid pro quo deal where Trump risked our national security to negotiate a personal business deal to enrich himself and his family. This is exactly what the emoluments clause of the US Constitution was designed to prohibit.
Trump luxury toilets and a son-in-law deal
In addition to these new trademarks, and the other 11 that are still pending, the Trump family also holds another 77 currently registered Chinese trademarks. These trademarks are scheduled to come up for renewal during Trump’s scheduled presidency, giving China more currency to bid on US foreign policy deals. Meanwhile, a plethora of Chinese companies with no relation to Trump, such as luxury toilet manufacturer, Shenzhen Trump Industrial Company, continue to use the Trump name on their branded products, leaving the door open for years of Trump family litigation in Chinese courts.
Business negotiations with the Chinese government aren’t limited to Trump’s nuclear family, but appear to also enrich his extended kinship network. The family of Trump’s son-in-law and senior presidential adviser, Jared Kushner, just secured a sweetheart deal from a Chinese company which the US government had previously suspected with having close ties to the Chinese government. In a deal that Bloomberg Business Week’s sources term as unusually favorable for the Kushner family, the Kushners get out from what they describe as a problematic real estate investment and receive over $400 million from the Chinese company, the Anbang Insurance Group.
Also benefiting from this sudden influx of Chinese cash, according to Bloomberg, is the Vornado Realty Trust, which partnered with the Kushners and others on the same troubled real estate investment. They’re scheduled to receive a 1,000 percent return on their investment in the office portion of the property and a 100 percent return on the retail portion. Bloomberg reports that Vornado is President Trump’s partner in his two highest-valued properties. Vornado’s CEO, Steve Roth, is an infrastructure investment adviser in the Trump administration. To move forward, the China Kushner Vornado deal will need federal approval, which you can bank on it receiving.
Yes, we are in uncharted territory. But there’s really no great mystery behind Trump’s policy-making decisions, especially when they align with his family’s business needs. The Trump corporate footprint extends all over the world. So many excellent countries. So many tremendous trademarks.
Why contributing to the Greanville Post is urgent and makes sense.
DISCLAIMER
EDITOR’S NOTE: No material by this author or any other author published on this site should be read as a defense of Donald trump and his policies. For us Trump, the GOP and the Democrats are all part of the same malignant threat to Democracy, world peace, truth and honesty in fiscal affairs afflicting the US and the rest of the world, and emanating from the irrepressible dynamics of global capitalism, whose main citadel is currently in the United States.
What will it take to bring America to live according to its own self image?
US threats against North Korea and the danger of war in Asia
Andre Damon, wsws.org
Dateline: 18 March 2017
With extreme recklessness, the Trump administration is charting a course toward war in the Asia-Pacific. From the response in the US media and political establishment, however, one would have no idea how dangerous the situation is, nor how incalculable the consequences.
The latest in the escalating war of words came from US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said at a press conference in Seoul, South Korea on Friday that “all options are on the table” in dealing with North Korea. The comments came in advance of Tillerson’s visit today to China, North Korea’s main ally.
“Let me be very clear: the policy of strategic patience has ended,” the former CEO of ExxonMobil said, in what was widely interpreted as a rebuke to the Obama administration’s preference for economic sanctions in relation to North Korea. When asked about the possibility of a military response, Tillerson replied, “If they elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level that we believe requires action then that option is on the table.”
Echoing Tillerson’s threats, US President Donald Trump tweeted, “North Korea is behaving very badly. They have been ‘playing’ the United States for years. China has done little to help!”
If words have any meaning, the statements from Tillerson and Trump make clear that the US is preparing “pre-emptive” war, justified by North Korea’s reported plans to test an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the continental United States.
North Korean poster showing the national attitude toward criminal US imperialism, which is indeed very real.
There is a staggering disconnect between the terrible consequences of such a war and the way it is being treated in the US media. Tillerson’s comments were greeted with a shrug on the network news programs Saturday evening. The Democrats have remained silent.
What would come from a US strike on North Korea? Would the crisis-ridden North Korean regime respond by firing missiles against Seoul or Tokyo? Would it use one of its nuclear weapons? Would a war against North Korea spiral into a direct conflict between the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China? These questions cannot be answered for certain, but all scenarios are possible.
Responsibility for this policy does not end with the White House. Whatever their differences, all factions of the political establishment are agreed on the basic strategic imperative of world domination. As for the pseudo-left organizations, which take their line from the Democratic Party and ooze with the complacency of the upper-middle class layers for which they speak, one would never know from reading their publications that world war is an imminent possibility.
Exxon chief R. Tillerson has also proved himself to be pathetically out of his depth, unable or unwilling to influence Trump in the direction of commonsense, and continuing the tradition of imbecilic and reckless imperialist policies by US Dept. of State secretaries. Imperialism does not leave much room to maneuver.
One of the few comments addressing the character of a US war with North Korea came from retired Army Major Mike Lyons, a senior fellow for the Truman National Security Project. Writing in the Hill on Friday, Lyons said that US allies in the Pacific should begin “taking inventory of your military capability” and planning for a military operation that “could cause immediate casualties and destruction the world hasn’t seen since WWII.”
“We would have to literally blanket the sky for hours with air strikes,” Lyons wrote. The attack “would not focus on just military targets—there would be civilian casualties in the hundreds of thousands as well.” He further warned, “The war won’t go as planned for many reasons—if the North is successful in launching a nuclear weapon that destroys part of Seoul,” the US would likely be impelled to retaliate.
In other words, a war is being contemplated that could lead to the first combat use of nuclear weapons since the end of World War II.
Any military action in the tinder box of North East Asia can have far-reaching consequences, whatever the immediate intentions of the US may be. In recent weeks, the US and South Korea have engaged in large-scale military exercises; North Korea’s ambassador to the UN has warned that the “the Korean Peninsula is again inching to the brink of a nuclear war;” North Korea has test-fired missiles in the direction of Japan; and the US has begun deployment of an anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea that is directed primarily at China.
On Tuesday, Japan announced plans to dispatch its largest warship on a tour of the South China Sea, prompting protests from China.
The German newspaper Die Zeit commented earlier this week on escalating geopolitical tensions throughout the world: “Whether on purpose or accidentally, Trump could quickly get into a great war. Whether the United States, or anyone else, could emerge victorious from it, is doubtful.”
The recklessness of US actions testifies to the fact that the root of the spiraling conflict is not to be found in the Asia-Pacific, but rather in the United States, which is facing an unparalleled series of crises.
Despite its increasingly provocative threats against China and North Korea, the US alliance system in Asia is showing severe signs of strain. The impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye was seen as a blow to US interests in the region. Meanwhile the Philippines, a key US ally, has reoriented toward China at the expense of the US.
Washington’s European alliance system faces an even more dramatic breakdown. The same day that Tillerson made his threats against China, Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel held a press conference in which the NATO allies addressed each other effectively as adversaries.
At the same time, the Trump administration has proposed a budget that calls for cuts to domestic spending of over 30 percent in some departments, while adding some $52 billion to US military spending. The White House is pushing a health care overhaul that would gut Medicaid, the health care program for the poor and disabled, and cause more than 20 million people to lose health care coverage.
The imposition of these policies will lead to growing social discontent within the United States, which is already beset by record social inequality.
There is an element of madness in the Trump administration’s policies, but it is a madness rooted in the contradictions of American capitalism. The American ruling class depends upon constant war—both as a means of diverting social tensions outward, and as the principal mechanism for maintaining its global position under conditions of economic decline.
Responsibility for this policy does not end with the White House. Whatever their differences, all factions of the political establishment are agreed on the basic strategic imperative of world domination. As for the pseudo-left organizations, which take their line from the Democratic Party and ooze with the complacency of the upper-middle class layers for which they speak, one would never know from reading their publications that world war is an imminent possibility.
The greatest danger is that the working class, which does not want war, is unaware of the gravity of the situation and is not politically organized and mobilized to prevent it. Policies that will have catastrophic consequences for workers in the United States and internationally are being carried out behind their backs. This plays into the hands of the conspiratorial cabal in Washington.
The development of a socialist, anti-war movement in the United States and throughout the world is the most urgent political task.
Andre Damon is a senior editorialist with wsws.org, a socialist organization.
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The Curious Story of Kim Jong Nam’s Death
by STANSFIELD SMITH
In the West, even among people who consider themselves not susceptible to government-corporate media propaganda, any wild story about North Korea can be taken as credible. We should ask ourselves why that is the case, given what we know about the history of government and media fabrications, often related to gaining our acquiescence to a new war.
The corporate media reports North Korean agents murdered Kim Jong Nam with a banned chemical weapon VX. They fail to add that the US government is one of the few countries with a stockpile of this banned weapon. They rarely note the Malaysian police investigating the case have not actually said North Korea is connected to his death.
The story of his death or murder raises a number of serious questions. North Korea says Kim Jong Nam was not murdered, but suffered from heart problems, high blood pressure and diabetes, required constant medication, and this caused his death. The North Korean diplomat in Malaysia Ri Tong-il “cited the postmortem examination conducted by Malaysian health authorities, claiming that the postmortem showed Jong-nam died of a heart attack.”[1]
MAIN IMAGE: North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un inspecting air force facility. By default any North Korean leader is a Fall Guy for any story of chicanery, brutality or sordid crime. Literally no questions asked.
Malaysian authorities conducted two autopsies, the second after the first said to be inconclusive in identifying a cause of death, before announcing well over a week later that VX was involved.
What was going on here? And why weren’t the autopsies made open to others besides Malaysian officials?
Why was the South Korean government the first country to come out quickly after Kim’s February 13 death to blame North Korea for murdering him with the VX nerve weapon – before Malaysia had determined anything? The Malaysian autopsy was not complete until February 23, ten days later.
Why did these two women charged with murder travel several times to South Korea before this attack occurred?
Why was the only North Korean arrested in the case released for lack of evidence?
The departed Kim Jong Nam: The logical suspects are not in North Korea but in Seoul.
The two women did not wear gloves, but had the liquid directly on their hands. “The police said the four North Korean suspects who left the country the day of the killing put the VX liquid on the women’s hands.”[2] They later washed it off. Why did none of them die or even get sickened by it? No reports say they went to the hospital.
“Malaysian Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Khalid said the women knew they were handling poisonous materials during the attack…. leading forensic toxicologists who study murder by poison… question how the two women could walk away unscathed after deploying an agent potent enough to kill Kim Jong Nam before he could even make it to the hospital.”[3]
“Tens of thousands of passengers have passed through the airport since the apparent assassination was carried out. No areas were cordoned off and protective measures were not taken.”[4]
Why, if a highly deadly VX used to kill Kim, did the terminal remain open to thousands of travelers, and not shut down and checked for VX until February 26, 13 days later?
Health Minister Subramaniam Sathasivam said “VX only requires 10 milligrams to be absorbed into the system to be lethal,” yet he added that there have been no reports of anyone else being sickened by the toxin.[5]
DPRK’s Ri Tong-il said in his statement, “How is it possible” the two ladies survived? “How is it possible” no single person in the airport got contaminated? “How is it possible” no nurse, no doctor, no police escorting Kim after the attack were affected?[6]
Why does Malaysia, which acknowledges Kim Jong Nam is Kim Jong Un’s half-brother, make the outrageous demand that Kim’s body won’t be released to North Korea until a close family member provides a sample of their own DNA?[7]
From what we are told, the story does not add up.
Ri Tong-il asked in his same statement “Why is South Korea trying so hard [to blame the DPRK] in this instance? They have a great political crisis inside South Korea [which is quite true] and they need to divert people’s attention,” noting also that the two women involved traveled to South Korea and that South Korea blamed the North for murder by VX the very day it happened.
Stephen Lendman also gives a plausible explanation:
“Here’s what we know. North Korean senior representatives were preparing to come to New York to meet with former US officials, a chance for both sides to discuss differences diplomatically, hopefully leading to direct talks with Trump officials.
The State Department hadn’t yet approved visas, a positive development if arranged.
Reports indicate North Korea very much wanted the meeting to take place. Makes sense. It would indicate a modest thaw in hostile relations, a good thing if anything came of it.
So why would Pyongyang want to kill Kim Jong-nam at this potentially sensitive time, knowing it would be blamed for the incident, talks likely cancelled?
Sure enough, they’re off, Pyongyang accused of killing Kim, even though it seems implausible they planned and carried out the incident, using agents in Malaysia to act as proxies.”[8]
Is possible that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un decided to murder his apolitical brother, choosing to do so by using a banned highly toxic agent in public, under video cameras in a crowded airport of a friendly country? Instead of say, doing it by easier means in the North Korean Embassy’s guesthouse in Kuala Lumpur, where the New York Times said his brother sometimes stayed[9]?
We are not supposed to doubt what we are spoon fed, that Kim Jong Un is some irrational war-mongering madman who has instituted a reign of terror. A safer bet is this is a new attempt to beat the drums of war against North Korea and its allies.
The author’s previous articles on North Korea are at https://chicagoalbasolidarity.wordpress.com/category/north-korea/
Notes.
[3] http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/malaysia-death-determined-north-korean-45624916
[6] http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/03/02/it-was-a-heart-attack-not-poison-says-n-korea/
[7] http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/17/asia/kim-jong-nam-murder-questions/
[8] http://www.globalresearch.ca/suspicious-killing-of-north-korean-leaders-half-brother/5576814?print=1
[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/world/asia/kim-jong-nam-assassination-korea-malaysia.html
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