The first batch of US diplomatic cables which Wikileaks are releasing over the next fortnight, lifts the veil on US North Korea policy.
It simply confirms what GuamDiary has long suspected through its parsing of the world press: the US has forsaken diplomacy for displays of brute force and covert action.
American administrations - Republican or Democrat - have embraced sabre rattling and muscular military display, based on the shaky analysis that North Korea will sooner or later implode. In this illusion, they are willinglly joined in the pursuit of this mad passion by South Korea's Lee Myung bek.
The on going joint military exercises along the NLL [Northern Line Limit] bear this out.
The Obama administration's cool reception of China's call for an emergency meeting on rising tensions on the divided Korean peninsula confirm its intentions. Beijing is not playing the role Washington wants: to sit firmly on Kim Jong il.
Curiously enough in the Wikileaks data, we see how little in touch with geopolitical realities the US is when it dazzles before China's eye the vision of a non aggressive united Korea on its borders - a unified and united Korea under regressive forces in Seoul and Washington.
Predicated on the implosion more or less in the current future, the US' North Korean clericy have stood history on its head.
GuamDiary finds no hint that the US is wanting or desiring a peace treaty which would end the Korean War now frozen by a 1953 Armistice. Nor does GuamDiary detect that American analyses have feet planted firmly in reality. Let's suppose for a moment, the clerisy do. They dare not break the ranks of hoary consensus without risking loss of funding and becoming a political outcast from the circles of influence and power.
GuamDiary suggests reading again a CIA analyst's Rand study published in 1960: Robert Whiting's 'China crosses the Yalu'. Whiting clearly documents the reasons that Chinese volunteers entered the war. Combined with revivified North Korean forces, they steamrolled a US led UN army back to the 38 parallel which effectively stalemated America's Cold War objective of overthrowing the Communist regime in North Korea.
American administrations thought by using China as its 'honest broker foil', Beijing could make North Korea dance to the US' tune. Wrong!
China's analyses do not foresee that the US nor South Korea have peaceful intentions in restoring peace on the Korean peninsula. To Beijing, based on history, the existence of North Korea guarantees safer borders and a stability that neither Washington nor Seoul can guarantee.
The US has no intentions of ending the Korean War and for that simple and plain truth, its policy towards North Korea is doomed to failure.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Seoul-Washington-Tokyo axis trying to stymie China's NK initiative
After conferring with Russia, China, today [28 November 2010], hastily called for a press conference in Beijing of all parties in the stalled six party talks, to meet in an emergency consultations, in order to defuse the mounting tensions on the divided Korean peninsula.
South Korea's immediate response was negative, but it quickly back tracked by saying that it would study the proposal. Its refusal would have shown a poor light on Seoul who is claiming the high moral ground on the recent exchange of gunfire between the South and the North. Japan took administrative cover: it will first discuss China's call with its allies in Washington and Seoul and then decide. The US, which has been leaning heavily on China to rein in its ally North Korea, remained silent.
In the background, today began a four day major joint military South Korea and US exercises a safe 120 km from the NLL [Northern Limit Line] and the island of Yeonpyeong. A mini armada of ships composed of the USS George Washington aircraft carrier and other naval battle stations joined three South Korean naval formations. They are engaging in a blustery military display of 'might'. This pretense of bravery is yet another warning to North Korea to change its behaviour, without a hint of changing their own hostile actions toward Pyongyang.
Typically the US and South Korea with Japan in tow will hardly deviate from its proven policy of the last few years of bringing North Korea to its knees. This goal has not escaped GuamDiary's eye in parsing Lee Myung bek's government revised response to China's proposition: North Korea has to make goodwill gestures in downgrading and dismantling its sophisticated nuclear programme. Seoul's position is, in substance and form, aligned with US demands.
Seoul's weary repetition of 'sine qua non' non negotiable conditions leads GuamDiary to conclude that the Seoul-Washington-Toyko axis will undermine China's proposal for renewed talks and negotiations, yet nonetheless will go through the motions to quiet renewed fears of war in Korea.
Let's look at what were the six party talks. Under the Clinton administration, discussions between the US and North Korea on Pyongyang's nuclear programme made headaway, albeit unevenly. When George Bush came to the White House, his cohort branded North Korea an 'axis of evil', in order to show that as the only superpower, small fries like North Korea should not challenge its will.
The mad men who dreamed up this course of action did not succeed either in isolating the North or stopping its nuclear programme. Concurrently with a hard line tack towards North Korea, the Bush administration also so disliked the Kim Dae Jung and Noh Moo hyung governments in Seoul, who persisted in pursuing the 'Sunshine Policy' towards the North, it did everything to treat it more like a conquered colony than an ally.
Nonetheless, looking to close down North Korea's nuclear facility at Yongbyon, the more especially since Pyongyang exploded a nuclear device thanks to the Bush perverse policy, the US came up with the idea of a six party discussion: China, Russia, Japan, the US, South and North Korea would meet in Beijing to find ways to denuclearise the Korean peninsula. This idea was so devised that it would look as though it were North Korea's neighbours and not the US who were suing for an end to North Korea's nuclear ambitions. How could the mighty US deign to talk directly to an 'axis of evil' state?
It also contained the germ for stalemating the talks, thereby allowing the US to escape its historical responsibility arising from a frozen Korean War, of dealing with North Korea. For the six parties would split into two groups: on one side, the US, South Korea, and Japan, and on the other, China, Russia, and North Korea. The Washington-Seoul-Tokyo axis would opt for such stringent proposals that Pyongyang would be forced to quit the talks. Which North Korea did.
With the arrival of the Lee Myung bek government in 2008, the Bush administration found an ideal partner for bashing North Korea. And the on again, off again six party talks in Beijing adjourned 'sine dia'. Consequently, the Washington and Seoul drew a line in the sand which Pyongyang dismissed by not recognising it.
Thus, matters lay in limbo until the sinking of the South Korean corvette the 'Cheonan' in March 2010, and joint US and South Korean military exercises began taking place, based on a calculus to force North Korea to commit a warlike action.
Last weekend Pyongyang responded to the shelling of its waters by South Korea which set the region on edge and sent shock waves throughout the world. It again war was possible in Korea 57 years after guns there were silenced by an Armistice Agreement.
So, in a round about way, GuamDiary is led back to conditions imitiating conditions on the eve of the Korean War in 1950. It, therefore, uncovers the thinking that lay behind the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] special study by 23 American North Korean clercs, who called for the revival of the US military policy of 'roll back' which wipe North Korea off the map.
China and Russia would not go along. What is clear is the duplicity of the Obama administration which on one hand is pressuring China to corral North Korea and on the other, encourages South Korea to pursue its ever aggressive policy towards the North.
Either way, the US is engaging in in a confused political and military policy which may spell disaster and end in serious military confrontation.
US policy is absurdly inefficient and dangerous. It is trying to farm off its responsibilities to solve long standing differences with the North stemming from the Korean War. It derogates its responsibility, too, to seek an ending to that war and negotiate a peace treaty directly with North Korea and its Chinese ally, and find ways for the North to denuclearise which Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong il have in word and in written statement affirmed.
South Korea's immediate response was negative, but it quickly back tracked by saying that it would study the proposal. Its refusal would have shown a poor light on Seoul who is claiming the high moral ground on the recent exchange of gunfire between the South and the North. Japan took administrative cover: it will first discuss China's call with its allies in Washington and Seoul and then decide. The US, which has been leaning heavily on China to rein in its ally North Korea, remained silent.
In the background, today began a four day major joint military South Korea and US exercises a safe 120 km from the NLL [Northern Limit Line] and the island of Yeonpyeong. A mini armada of ships composed of the USS George Washington aircraft carrier and other naval battle stations joined three South Korean naval formations. They are engaging in a blustery military display of 'might'. This pretense of bravery is yet another warning to North Korea to change its behaviour, without a hint of changing their own hostile actions toward Pyongyang.
Typically the US and South Korea with Japan in tow will hardly deviate from its proven policy of the last few years of bringing North Korea to its knees. This goal has not escaped GuamDiary's eye in parsing Lee Myung bek's government revised response to China's proposition: North Korea has to make goodwill gestures in downgrading and dismantling its sophisticated nuclear programme. Seoul's position is, in substance and form, aligned with US demands.
Seoul's weary repetition of 'sine qua non' non negotiable conditions leads GuamDiary to conclude that the Seoul-Washington-Toyko axis will undermine China's proposal for renewed talks and negotiations, yet nonetheless will go through the motions to quiet renewed fears of war in Korea.
Let's look at what were the six party talks. Under the Clinton administration, discussions between the US and North Korea on Pyongyang's nuclear programme made headaway, albeit unevenly. When George Bush came to the White House, his cohort branded North Korea an 'axis of evil', in order to show that as the only superpower, small fries like North Korea should not challenge its will.
The mad men who dreamed up this course of action did not succeed either in isolating the North or stopping its nuclear programme. Concurrently with a hard line tack towards North Korea, the Bush administration also so disliked the Kim Dae Jung and Noh Moo hyung governments in Seoul, who persisted in pursuing the 'Sunshine Policy' towards the North, it did everything to treat it more like a conquered colony than an ally.
Nonetheless, looking to close down North Korea's nuclear facility at Yongbyon, the more especially since Pyongyang exploded a nuclear device thanks to the Bush perverse policy, the US came up with the idea of a six party discussion: China, Russia, Japan, the US, South and North Korea would meet in Beijing to find ways to denuclearise the Korean peninsula. This idea was so devised that it would look as though it were North Korea's neighbours and not the US who were suing for an end to North Korea's nuclear ambitions. How could the mighty US deign to talk directly to an 'axis of evil' state?
It also contained the germ for stalemating the talks, thereby allowing the US to escape its historical responsibility arising from a frozen Korean War, of dealing with North Korea. For the six parties would split into two groups: on one side, the US, South Korea, and Japan, and on the other, China, Russia, and North Korea. The Washington-Seoul-Tokyo axis would opt for such stringent proposals that Pyongyang would be forced to quit the talks. Which North Korea did.
With the arrival of the Lee Myung bek government in 2008, the Bush administration found an ideal partner for bashing North Korea. And the on again, off again six party talks in Beijing adjourned 'sine dia'. Consequently, the Washington and Seoul drew a line in the sand which Pyongyang dismissed by not recognising it.
Thus, matters lay in limbo until the sinking of the South Korean corvette the 'Cheonan' in March 2010, and joint US and South Korean military exercises began taking place, based on a calculus to force North Korea to commit a warlike action.
Last weekend Pyongyang responded to the shelling of its waters by South Korea which set the region on edge and sent shock waves throughout the world. It again war was possible in Korea 57 years after guns there were silenced by an Armistice Agreement.
So, in a round about way, GuamDiary is led back to conditions imitiating conditions on the eve of the Korean War in 1950. It, therefore, uncovers the thinking that lay behind the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] special study by 23 American North Korean clercs, who called for the revival of the US military policy of 'roll back' which wipe North Korea off the map.
China and Russia would not go along. What is clear is the duplicity of the Obama administration which on one hand is pressuring China to corral North Korea and on the other, encourages South Korea to pursue its ever aggressive policy towards the North.
Either way, the US is engaging in in a confused political and military policy which may spell disaster and end in serious military confrontation.
US policy is absurdly inefficient and dangerous. It is trying to farm off its responsibilities to solve long standing differences with the North stemming from the Korean War. It derogates its responsibility, too, to seek an ending to that war and negotiate a peace treaty directly with North Korea and its Chinese ally, and find ways for the North to denuclearise which Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong il have in word and in written statement affirmed.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Lee Myung bek step down! Your time is over!
When Lee Myung bek became president of South Korea in 2008, he said that he was not going to play patsy to North Korea. The gloves were off. Tough love was in.
Immediately, he scuppered Kim Dae Jung's 'Sunshine Policy'. Purse strings drawn tight, food supplies to a North on the verge of famine severely diminished, and no fertilizers to improve the yield of the North's crops...all that and more had gone the way of the flesh.
Militarily, Mr. Lee took up the sword and rattled his sabre. He encouraged right wing evangelical Christians and the more extreme right to disparge the North and whip up attacking Kim Jong il personally.
Furthermore, he aligned his policy with George W Bush's simplistic ideological approach to North Korea. Which, certainly, in the light of Kim Jong il's fragile health, invited a dogmatic belief that if Seoul and Washington showed no quarter to Kim Jong il & co.,North Korea would have to ultimately yield to their demands at worst or implode at best, it was hoped.
In faith, this creed has something of the sulphurous odour of medieval theology to it. This consequential faith in regime weakening or change in Pyongyang had the perverse consequence of being unachievable and has resulted in today's military escalation and momentary confrontation between the South and the North,along the NLL [Northern Limit Line] a breath away from North Korea's territorial waters. [Read GuamDairy's 'Do not rush to blame North Korea...' and 'President Obama's response to the shelling...']
Beyond the cliches of North Korea as, for example, 'the world's most God awful regime on earth'...shape and distort policy making in Washington and Seoul alike, resulting in but one option: the rekindling of the Korean War frozen in place by the 1953 Armistice Agreement. As we have seen as we watched the damages and victims of the North's shelling of the island of Yeonpyeong, that houses the South's military installation and a small civilian population -- a group of civilians that Seoul uses as a cover in order to carry out live fire joint military exercises with the US hardly 10km from North Korea's waters. Thus, a North Korean reliatory reply would bring immediate global condemnation on Pyongyang as 'the aggressor'.
We can trace this trail to reckless display of military power to Lee Myung bek trashing the 'Sunshine Policy', which was predicated, in the words of Winston Churchill, on belief that the pragmatic policy of 'jaw, jaw, jaw', is preferable to 'war, war, war!'
Today, we are witnessing the consequences of Mr. Lee's--and Mr. Obama's--perverse theology: apologetics for not engaging North Korea diplomatically but on a playing field cleared for war!
Step down Lee Myung bek! For you time has gone!
Immediately, he scuppered Kim Dae Jung's 'Sunshine Policy'. Purse strings drawn tight, food supplies to a North on the verge of famine severely diminished, and no fertilizers to improve the yield of the North's crops...all that and more had gone the way of the flesh.
Militarily, Mr. Lee took up the sword and rattled his sabre. He encouraged right wing evangelical Christians and the more extreme right to disparge the North and whip up attacking Kim Jong il personally.
Furthermore, he aligned his policy with George W Bush's simplistic ideological approach to North Korea. Which, certainly, in the light of Kim Jong il's fragile health, invited a dogmatic belief that if Seoul and Washington showed no quarter to Kim Jong il & co.,North Korea would have to ultimately yield to their demands at worst or implode at best, it was hoped.
In faith, this creed has something of the sulphurous odour of medieval theology to it. This consequential faith in regime weakening or change in Pyongyang had the perverse consequence of being unachievable and has resulted in today's military escalation and momentary confrontation between the South and the North,along the NLL [Northern Limit Line] a breath away from North Korea's territorial waters. [Read GuamDairy's 'Do not rush to blame North Korea...' and 'President Obama's response to the shelling...']
Beyond the cliches of North Korea as, for example, 'the world's most God awful regime on earth'...shape and distort policy making in Washington and Seoul alike, resulting in but one option: the rekindling of the Korean War frozen in place by the 1953 Armistice Agreement. As we have seen as we watched the damages and victims of the North's shelling of the island of Yeonpyeong, that houses the South's military installation and a small civilian population -- a group of civilians that Seoul uses as a cover in order to carry out live fire joint military exercises with the US hardly 10km from North Korea's waters. Thus, a North Korean reliatory reply would bring immediate global condemnation on Pyongyang as 'the aggressor'.
We can trace this trail to reckless display of military power to Lee Myung bek trashing the 'Sunshine Policy', which was predicated, in the words of Winston Churchill, on belief that the pragmatic policy of 'jaw, jaw, jaw', is preferable to 'war, war, war!'
Today, we are witnessing the consequences of Mr. Lee's--and Mr. Obama's--perverse theology: apologetics for not engaging North Korea diplomatically but on a playing field cleared for war!
Step down Lee Myung bek! For you time has gone!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The real substance of Dr. Siegfried Hecker's remarks on North Korea's nuclear facility
Reading the intitial media hoopla of Dr. Siegfried Hecker's remarks on North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear site, you would get the impression that North Korea with its thousands of new nuclear reactors was churning out nuclear weapons in series.
Wrong!
Now, it turns out from Professor Hecker's remarks in Washington, his North Korean hosts shown him, yes, reactors, which the former head of Los Alamos National Laboratory, found to his amazement, modern and highly sophisticated. The North Koreans showed him 'light water nuclear reactors'. This is significantly different from the level red reporting we have been seeing in the press or the puffed up warlike rhetoric coming from the government and the chattering class.
Dr Hecker does not deny that uranium enrichment can be used for a nuclear programme but that is not what he saw.
In fact, to modernise its infrastructure, North Korea is building light water reactors. Is it embarrassing to mention that the Clinton administration agreed to build light water reactors and then did not?
Is it also impolite to confront the US with another unpleasant fact? Were it not for the perverseness of George W. Bush's policy, North Korea might not have exploded a nuclear device when it did and uninvited jointed the restrained club of nuclear nations?
So as in the past, the war party in Washington has cherry picked Dr. Hecker's words and 'invented' a narrative for its own designs and nefarious purposes.
Wrong!
Now, it turns out from Professor Hecker's remarks in Washington, his North Korean hosts shown him, yes, reactors, which the former head of Los Alamos National Laboratory, found to his amazement, modern and highly sophisticated. The North Koreans showed him 'light water nuclear reactors'. This is significantly different from the level red reporting we have been seeing in the press or the puffed up warlike rhetoric coming from the government and the chattering class.
Dr Hecker does not deny that uranium enrichment can be used for a nuclear programme but that is not what he saw.
In fact, to modernise its infrastructure, North Korea is building light water reactors. Is it embarrassing to mention that the Clinton administration agreed to build light water reactors and then did not?
Is it also impolite to confront the US with another unpleasant fact? Were it not for the perverseness of George W. Bush's policy, North Korea might not have exploded a nuclear device when it did and uninvited jointed the restrained club of nuclear nations?
So as in the past, the war party in Washington has cherry picked Dr. Hecker's words and 'invented' a narrative for its own designs and nefarious purposes.
President Obama responds to North Korea's shelling
Barack Obama is sending the US aircraft carrier, the 'George Washington', into the NLL [Norther Limited Line] as a show of force and support for South Korea's Lee Myung bek.
Additionally, it is bruited that for the first time in 20 years, he will introduce again nuclear weapons into South Korea.
It becomes more and more obvious that the war party is in control of US Korea policy. By taking such steps, Mr. Obama, who is hardly known for grit and good management, has embarked on a slippery slop which could result on reheating the frozen Korea War.
The US media has been pounding the war drums, too. Consider the Pentagon's favourite 'New York Times' correspondent, David Sanger. His articles mimic the Obama position and conveniently omits mentioning that along the NLL, joint US and South Korean military exercises using live ammunition had been taking place, or that North Korea had issued a warning that if any shell fell on its territory on land or sea, it would respond or that Yeonpyeong island is the home of a South Korean military installation.
The American president's decision to up the military ante is yet another example of the bankruptcy of the US' policy towards North Korea.
The usual talking heads of America's North Korea clericy have taken to the airways. They fulminate and speculate and tirelessly regurgitate the same old tired hoary analyses and half truths.
The game is stacked for no one will hear another side unless he or she surfs the foreign press or listens on the web Korea watchers who tell another narrative.
And GuamDiary watches the Obama administration's vain attempt to get its way. It is not, and in the face of its own decisions which are limiting the scope of its options, we have everything to fear.
Additionally, it is bruited that for the first time in 20 years, he will introduce again nuclear weapons into South Korea.
It becomes more and more obvious that the war party is in control of US Korea policy. By taking such steps, Mr. Obama, who is hardly known for grit and good management, has embarked on a slippery slop which could result on reheating the frozen Korea War.
The US media has been pounding the war drums, too. Consider the Pentagon's favourite 'New York Times' correspondent, David Sanger. His articles mimic the Obama position and conveniently omits mentioning that along the NLL, joint US and South Korean military exercises using live ammunition had been taking place, or that North Korea had issued a warning that if any shell fell on its territory on land or sea, it would respond or that Yeonpyeong island is the home of a South Korean military installation.
The American president's decision to up the military ante is yet another example of the bankruptcy of the US' policy towards North Korea.
The usual talking heads of America's North Korea clericy have taken to the airways. They fulminate and speculate and tirelessly regurgitate the same old tired hoary analyses and half truths.
The game is stacked for no one will hear another side unless he or she surfs the foreign press or listens on the web Korea watchers who tell another narrative.
And GuamDiary watches the Obama administration's vain attempt to get its way. It is not, and in the face of its own decisions which are limiting the scope of its options, we have everything to fear.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Don't be so quick to blame North Korea: war drums along the NLL
Today, 23 November 2010, on the 47 anniversary of JFK's assassination, North and South Korea exchanged fire near Yeonopyeong island, close to the NLL [Northern Line Limit], on the fringe of the North's territorial waters. Three South Korean marines were killed, six others seriously injured, and some 13 islanders wounded and two dead. And fire claimed some houses. Immediately, the civilian population went into hidding.
And from an underground bunker, South Korea's president Lee Myung bek threatened a barrage of missiles should North Korea lob shells again against the South's navy.
It looked as though the field were cleared for a resumption of the frozen Korean War. Panic seized the world bourses; they plummeted.
Seizing on the moment, Mr. Lee looked for ways to disadvantage his nemesis Kim Jong il. He appealed to third party countries to soundly condemn North Korea's adventurism. And many probably will. China called for calm. Russia expressed troubled concern. The US although looking to put the damper on war fever, pushed for more sanctions and putting another leper's bell of exclusion from the world community, around Kim Jong il's neck. Japan trembled and feared the worse.
Tempers were running high. The US media, marching in lock step with the Obama administration, gave no quarter on the matter.Outside the US, the media took a more nuanced tone.
GuamDiary prefers to review the facts it knows and as they unfold hour by hour. Let's begin with the NLL, a disputed sea boundary drawn at the time of the Korean War [1950-1953], which the North never recognised since it left islands - like Seonpyeong - within South Korea's territory and within a few kilometres from its own territorial waters.
Seonpyeong houses not only a small population which makes a living from the sea, but more importantly it is home to a South Korean military installation, one of whose functions is to closely monitor North Korea.
GuamDiary thinks that it is too early to assert that North Korea is to blame for today's exchange of gunfire.
South Korea admitted that it was conducting yet another series of military exercises in the area. And what's more, its navy, ably assisted by the US, was using live fire. Seoul denies that this live fire was directed towards North Korea. But we only have its word for it. Assuming that that might be the case, live fire by the South in close proximity to North Korean waters,bodes ill and unwelcome intentions, the more especially since the Lee Myung bek government, since its installation in the Blue House, has vigorously pursued a no holds bared policy towards the North beginning with the scrapping of Kim Dae Jung's 'Sunshine Policy'. Since 2008, a relative detente with Pyongyong has been replaced by an ever increasing hard line policy. Not only that, Mr. Lee scrapped an accord signed by his predecessor Roh Moo hyun and Kim Jong il, to turn the NLL into a non military zone and peacefully resolve any differences.
The tensions between both sides took on an increasing menacing tone since the sinking of the South's corvette, the 'Cheonan' in March 2010, resulting in the loss of 46 crew. GuamdDiary has very much commented on this incident and raised doubts as to the culpability of North Korea in this act and showed the missing links of logic in the South's and US' brief against the North. [Readers are encouraged to read our postings on the matter.]
South Korea and the US began a war of propaganda to brand the North the aggressor of the sunken 'Cheonan'. They waged their war on four fronts: political, economic, an organised and selective use of [dis]information, and military. The crowning glory of their efforts was to have the UN Security Council not only condemn North Korea for the torpedoing of the 'Cheonan', but also to strange it economically through sanctions and diplomatic isolation.
The reasoning of this tack is not difficult to measure: for Washington and Seoul, the North is a failed state; its leader Kim Jong il is reportedly seriously ill; its people on the edge of starvation. By pursuing a Cold War against the North, they reasoned, it would bring down the much hated and dreaded Kim dynasty.
South Korea and the US miscalculated. They failed to persuade the Security Council;for China and Russia refused to follow their lead.
So, with the political and diplomatic fronts quieted,propaganda efforts floundered, owing to the stubborn facts that the 'Cheonan' officers were drunk at the time of the incident and that the corvette may have dredged up a torpedo lying dormant possibly from the second world war or the Korean conflict which exploded and ripped the ship in half. Equally damaging was the lack of forthrightness by the South Koreans and the Americans and their delay up to six months in publishing the findings of the incident which even then raised more questions than it answered. No one bothered to read North Korea's dossier nor listen to their firm denial of culpability. And by the time the full report became available,the rest of the world lost interest.
The only option left to Seoul and Washington was the military which they used to the hilt and tried to provoke North Korea to engage in warlike actions. And after a few tries, they finally got for what they wished during the 4 or 5 joint military exercises very near to the NLL. Seen through this lens, Seoul and Washington were aching for a military incident. It does not take much to realise that South Korea felt humiliated and insulted by the sunken 'Cheonan'. For the US, naval and air manoeuvres offered it the opportunity to harass and provoke Kim Jong il. Both allied countries felt that North Korea deserved punishment, and that violence not diplomacy is best served to resolve heightening tensions.
In spite of Lee Myung bek's threat to retaliate with missiles the next time North Korea fires at its ship tiptoeing dangerously near its territorial waters along the NLL, he cannot carry it out. For on the DMZ, North Korea has stationed more than a million troops and a mighty arsenal which could quickly flatten Seoul and bring the mighty South Korean economy to its knees. The US has ruled out a resort to war the more especially North Korea is a nuclear power!Furthermore, the Obama administration is knee deep in two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More pertinently, China will not condone the destruction of North Korea and might intervene to save it as it 'rolled back' the US led UN troops during the Korean War to the 38 parallel. War in Korea would wreak havoc in the world's fragile finance market, triggering a deep global depression and might provoke revolution here and there and everywhere. In brief, Seoul and Washington have taken an uninvited road to war without truly weighing the consequences.
Diplomacy looks as though it is the sensible approach to take. But the US North Korea man,Stephen Bosworth, whilst preaching calm, rules out talking to North Korea. Translation: the US has boxed itself in a political and diplomatic cul de sac without an viable option. South Korea has an equally shaky grasp on working out differences and lessening tensions with the North. Japan is stuck in its own refusal to engage North Korea. Which leaves China and Russia: these two countries have serious doubts about Seoul's and Washington's motives; they, however, will labour diplomatically to cool hot tempers and try to prepare the ground for returning to the six party talks in Beijing. The real obstacle to this solution is the Obama administration which has enshired the hostile Bush North Korea policy into an object of slavish veneration.
So, in the end, the situation is not as neatly drawn as Seoul and Washington would have it. Will they change horses in midstream on dealing with North Korea? Or will they push the envelope of military confrontation in spite of the fact that they have much to lose by playing that card. Only time will tell...if that
And from an underground bunker, South Korea's president Lee Myung bek threatened a barrage of missiles should North Korea lob shells again against the South's navy.
It looked as though the field were cleared for a resumption of the frozen Korean War. Panic seized the world bourses; they plummeted.
Seizing on the moment, Mr. Lee looked for ways to disadvantage his nemesis Kim Jong il. He appealed to third party countries to soundly condemn North Korea's adventurism. And many probably will. China called for calm. Russia expressed troubled concern. The US although looking to put the damper on war fever, pushed for more sanctions and putting another leper's bell of exclusion from the world community, around Kim Jong il's neck. Japan trembled and feared the worse.
Tempers were running high. The US media, marching in lock step with the Obama administration, gave no quarter on the matter.Outside the US, the media took a more nuanced tone.
GuamDiary prefers to review the facts it knows and as they unfold hour by hour. Let's begin with the NLL, a disputed sea boundary drawn at the time of the Korean War [1950-1953], which the North never recognised since it left islands - like Seonpyeong - within South Korea's territory and within a few kilometres from its own territorial waters.
Seonpyeong houses not only a small population which makes a living from the sea, but more importantly it is home to a South Korean military installation, one of whose functions is to closely monitor North Korea.
GuamDiary thinks that it is too early to assert that North Korea is to blame for today's exchange of gunfire.
South Korea admitted that it was conducting yet another series of military exercises in the area. And what's more, its navy, ably assisted by the US, was using live fire. Seoul denies that this live fire was directed towards North Korea. But we only have its word for it. Assuming that that might be the case, live fire by the South in close proximity to North Korean waters,bodes ill and unwelcome intentions, the more especially since the Lee Myung bek government, since its installation in the Blue House, has vigorously pursued a no holds bared policy towards the North beginning with the scrapping of Kim Dae Jung's 'Sunshine Policy'. Since 2008, a relative detente with Pyongyong has been replaced by an ever increasing hard line policy. Not only that, Mr. Lee scrapped an accord signed by his predecessor Roh Moo hyun and Kim Jong il, to turn the NLL into a non military zone and peacefully resolve any differences.
The tensions between both sides took on an increasing menacing tone since the sinking of the South's corvette, the 'Cheonan' in March 2010, resulting in the loss of 46 crew. GuamdDiary has very much commented on this incident and raised doubts as to the culpability of North Korea in this act and showed the missing links of logic in the South's and US' brief against the North. [Readers are encouraged to read our postings on the matter.]
South Korea and the US began a war of propaganda to brand the North the aggressor of the sunken 'Cheonan'. They waged their war on four fronts: political, economic, an organised and selective use of [dis]information, and military. The crowning glory of their efforts was to have the UN Security Council not only condemn North Korea for the torpedoing of the 'Cheonan', but also to strange it economically through sanctions and diplomatic isolation.
The reasoning of this tack is not difficult to measure: for Washington and Seoul, the North is a failed state; its leader Kim Jong il is reportedly seriously ill; its people on the edge of starvation. By pursuing a Cold War against the North, they reasoned, it would bring down the much hated and dreaded Kim dynasty.
South Korea and the US miscalculated. They failed to persuade the Security Council;for China and Russia refused to follow their lead.
So, with the political and diplomatic fronts quieted,propaganda efforts floundered, owing to the stubborn facts that the 'Cheonan' officers were drunk at the time of the incident and that the corvette may have dredged up a torpedo lying dormant possibly from the second world war or the Korean conflict which exploded and ripped the ship in half. Equally damaging was the lack of forthrightness by the South Koreans and the Americans and their delay up to six months in publishing the findings of the incident which even then raised more questions than it answered. No one bothered to read North Korea's dossier nor listen to their firm denial of culpability. And by the time the full report became available,the rest of the world lost interest.
The only option left to Seoul and Washington was the military which they used to the hilt and tried to provoke North Korea to engage in warlike actions. And after a few tries, they finally got for what they wished during the 4 or 5 joint military exercises very near to the NLL. Seen through this lens, Seoul and Washington were aching for a military incident. It does not take much to realise that South Korea felt humiliated and insulted by the sunken 'Cheonan'. For the US, naval and air manoeuvres offered it the opportunity to harass and provoke Kim Jong il. Both allied countries felt that North Korea deserved punishment, and that violence not diplomacy is best served to resolve heightening tensions.
In spite of Lee Myung bek's threat to retaliate with missiles the next time North Korea fires at its ship tiptoeing dangerously near its territorial waters along the NLL, he cannot carry it out. For on the DMZ, North Korea has stationed more than a million troops and a mighty arsenal which could quickly flatten Seoul and bring the mighty South Korean economy to its knees. The US has ruled out a resort to war the more especially North Korea is a nuclear power!Furthermore, the Obama administration is knee deep in two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More pertinently, China will not condone the destruction of North Korea and might intervene to save it as it 'rolled back' the US led UN troops during the Korean War to the 38 parallel. War in Korea would wreak havoc in the world's fragile finance market, triggering a deep global depression and might provoke revolution here and there and everywhere. In brief, Seoul and Washington have taken an uninvited road to war without truly weighing the consequences.
Diplomacy looks as though it is the sensible approach to take. But the US North Korea man,Stephen Bosworth, whilst preaching calm, rules out talking to North Korea. Translation: the US has boxed itself in a political and diplomatic cul de sac without an viable option. South Korea has an equally shaky grasp on working out differences and lessening tensions with the North. Japan is stuck in its own refusal to engage North Korea. Which leaves China and Russia: these two countries have serious doubts about Seoul's and Washington's motives; they, however, will labour diplomatically to cool hot tempers and try to prepare the ground for returning to the six party talks in Beijing. The real obstacle to this solution is the Obama administration which has enshired the hostile Bush North Korea policy into an object of slavish veneration.
So, in the end, the situation is not as neatly drawn as Seoul and Washington would have it. Will they change horses in midstream on dealing with North Korea? Or will they push the envelope of military confrontation in spite of the fact that they have much to lose by playing that card. Only time will tell...if that
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Korea Society explains G20 or the moon is made of green cheese
Korea Society convoqued its general membership to gather and hear a 'blue ribbon panel' comment on the following topic: 'After the G20: Issues & Outlook'.
Its members could have spared the trouble to plunk down us$20 or us$30 for salty beef,sticky rice, some kimchi, and three meagre slice of lotus root. They would have had more substance to chew on if they had read the 'Financial Times of London' or the 'New York Times' or the 'Wall Street Journal'.
The format of the meeting was pretty typical. On the dais of the Samsung conference room sat the moderator former ambassador Thomas Hubbard who is now senior director at McLarty Associates and chairman of the Korea Society. To his right ambassador Kim Young mok ROK consul general in New York, William Rhodes senior advisor to Citigroup and advisor to the Lee Myung bek government, and James Glassman managing director and senior economist at JPMorgan Chase. They all attended the G20 in Seoul.
Facing them a sea of some 60 Koreans, Korean Americans, and Americans and a lone British. They represented the financial, business, and the media to a large measure.
The presentation had free flow of ideas which Plato would easily recognise as an 'idea of self'. It had the feeling that the panel was trying to smooth out the crumpled lack of a clear direction that came out of the G20.
The participants also spoke of the empty bags that president Obama returned with from Seoul. Not only did he not find 'common ground' on the US Federal Reserves' 'quantative easing', but he failed to get South Korea to sign the long awaited and hoped for FTA [Free Trade Agreement].
Among the panel reigned the spirit of a self admiration society. So the audience was regaled with agreement on principles and a long term strategy to elaborate a plan of action and monetary reform. In other words, there was a large element of play acting.
The quality of the speakers' accounts of the G20 would hardly rate a passing garade in Economics 101. It could only be defended by the true believers and the credulous.
Let's cut to the chase of the 'substance' of the Korean Society lunch hour meeting:
it is an open secret that the two bankers and two ambassadors preached the gospel that the private sector will save us all. For business now has the certainty and the self assurance to dig the world out of a global recession. [Read: the high rate of savings in east Asia must needs be tapped for rescue the US.]
The fly in this ointment is that it was a government bailout which narrowly saved the banks from complete collapse and restore a degree of muscle to global finance.
Needless to say, this salient point was hardly bruited. In fact, the two US bankers haughty dismissed the Fed chairman Ben Bernanke as a mere professor who had little understanding of finance and economics.
Ambassador Kim held his fire the more especially of the strong role of the South Korean government in the economy and with which its liberal hand distributes tax breaks and give aways to Korea's business and banking community.
It was not a stretch for Rhodes and Glassman to urge an extension of the Bush era tax cuts for the rich and the tiresome mantra to the restoration of a more right conservative economic orientation.
They argued for coherence and private authority. They never for once took responsability for the disastrous policy that finance capitalists like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase,visited on the world, thereby triggering the serious world recession. That was ancient history and with a wave of a magician's wand, they tried to transorm a crisis of finance capitalism into a crisis that government policy occasioned.
The discussion on the FTA was brief. Ambassador Kim was diplomatic in not reminding the audience that the US had tried to weasel out of agreed terms, and hence Mr. Obama's returning home empty handed. Rhodes and Glassman skated over this annoying fact, with a certainty that within a short time the ink would dry at the bottom of the FDA.
During the Q&A session, no Korean asked a question. It feel to a group of bankers who knew the panelists. Their questions lacked punch; they were lobbed for easy answers.
Judging by the journalists eyes, no one was fooled by viewing 75 minutes of a B film.
Its members could have spared the trouble to plunk down us$20 or us$30 for salty beef,sticky rice, some kimchi, and three meagre slice of lotus root. They would have had more substance to chew on if they had read the 'Financial Times of London' or the 'New York Times' or the 'Wall Street Journal'.
The format of the meeting was pretty typical. On the dais of the Samsung conference room sat the moderator former ambassador Thomas Hubbard who is now senior director at McLarty Associates and chairman of the Korea Society. To his right ambassador Kim Young mok ROK consul general in New York, William Rhodes senior advisor to Citigroup and advisor to the Lee Myung bek government, and James Glassman managing director and senior economist at JPMorgan Chase. They all attended the G20 in Seoul.
Facing them a sea of some 60 Koreans, Korean Americans, and Americans and a lone British. They represented the financial, business, and the media to a large measure.
The presentation had free flow of ideas which Plato would easily recognise as an 'idea of self'. It had the feeling that the panel was trying to smooth out the crumpled lack of a clear direction that came out of the G20.
The participants also spoke of the empty bags that president Obama returned with from Seoul. Not only did he not find 'common ground' on the US Federal Reserves' 'quantative easing', but he failed to get South Korea to sign the long awaited and hoped for FTA [Free Trade Agreement].
Among the panel reigned the spirit of a self admiration society. So the audience was regaled with agreement on principles and a long term strategy to elaborate a plan of action and monetary reform. In other words, there was a large element of play acting.
The quality of the speakers' accounts of the G20 would hardly rate a passing garade in Economics 101. It could only be defended by the true believers and the credulous.
Let's cut to the chase of the 'substance' of the Korean Society lunch hour meeting:
it is an open secret that the two bankers and two ambassadors preached the gospel that the private sector will save us all. For business now has the certainty and the self assurance to dig the world out of a global recession. [Read: the high rate of savings in east Asia must needs be tapped for rescue the US.]
The fly in this ointment is that it was a government bailout which narrowly saved the banks from complete collapse and restore a degree of muscle to global finance.
Needless to say, this salient point was hardly bruited. In fact, the two US bankers haughty dismissed the Fed chairman Ben Bernanke as a mere professor who had little understanding of finance and economics.
Ambassador Kim held his fire the more especially of the strong role of the South Korean government in the economy and with which its liberal hand distributes tax breaks and give aways to Korea's business and banking community.
It was not a stretch for Rhodes and Glassman to urge an extension of the Bush era tax cuts for the rich and the tiresome mantra to the restoration of a more right conservative economic orientation.
They argued for coherence and private authority. They never for once took responsability for the disastrous policy that finance capitalists like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase,visited on the world, thereby triggering the serious world recession. That was ancient history and with a wave of a magician's wand, they tried to transorm a crisis of finance capitalism into a crisis that government policy occasioned.
The discussion on the FTA was brief. Ambassador Kim was diplomatic in not reminding the audience that the US had tried to weasel out of agreed terms, and hence Mr. Obama's returning home empty handed. Rhodes and Glassman skated over this annoying fact, with a certainty that within a short time the ink would dry at the bottom of the FDA.
During the Q&A session, no Korean asked a question. It feel to a group of bankers who knew the panelists. Their questions lacked punch; they were lobbed for easy answers.
Judging by the journalists eyes, no one was fooled by viewing 75 minutes of a B film.
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