In the waning hours of 2010, South Korea's president Lee Myung bak is beating a tactical retreat. Yesterday he threatened North Korea with a mighty military response should Pyongyang shell the South's drills along the NLL [Northern Limit Line] bordering on the DPRK's territorial waters. Today he has donned the lamb's coat of endorsing talks with the North over its nuclear programme. In other words, he is calling for an eventual resumption of the stalled six party talks in Beijing after more than a year. His 'turn around' is welcome, but ...
We wish apply the same burden of proof to Lee as he and the US ask of Kim Jong il. In other words, live up to your intentions by carrying out the full weight and intent of your words! To put it another way, GuamDiary slips into Reaganese. Ronald Reagan likes to repeat the Russian saying: 'Trust but verify'. Okay, Lee Myung bak, we hear your fine words and are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but now you have to prove you are sincere in wanting to talk with North Korea.
GuamDiary is well aware of the reason which nudged Lee in that direction. The North returned sally to the South's shelling of its territorial waters during the ROK's naval drills in November 2010, had given Lee much wool to thread concerning the South's adventure in brinkmanship and the South's military vunerability.
Saying this, GuamDiary is aware that although Lee is holding out an olive branch, he is whipping up war hysteria at home, which the global media barely mention in passing. He is floating the idea that the North has, say, a 'superior' military edge over the South does not. And thus, Seoul has to beef up its materiel and forces to meet a 'superior enemy'. With all this talk of military 'unpreparedeness', we see a misuse of the truth. It is true, the South does not have a million men or more under arms as the North does. It, however, does have a modern army with the latest materiel furnished, say, by the US and France, and of course on its soil are 28.000 US troops. Not only that, by treaty, it has the full might of the US should war break out again on the Korean peninsula.
Are we seeing a replay of the 'Quemoy Matsu' or the famous 'missile gap between the US and the USSR', to cite but two examples. Is it a 'skilful' manoeuvre to panic a dispirited South Korean public to clamour for a hike in the South's military budget?
Seoul, as the 12 largest economy in the world, has more than enough in its coffers to sustain a build up of its military budget. Lee knows this and is willing to harnass economic growth to the development of a industrial military complex.
It is easy to forget the reason why North Korea remains on a war footing and that military bedrock goes back at least 60 years, to the outbreak of the Korean War. And that war remains in abeyance by a 1953 Armistice Agreement. In brief, the war is not over. The shelling of North Korean waters during the South's military drills along the NLL last month, brought the two Koreas to the 'break' of reigniting that war.
Did Lee Myung bak learn the limits of his 'Drang nach Norden'? GuamDiary cannot say for sure, but for a moment, the North's quick reply in kind, gave him room for pause and a call for talking to the North.
Today, does Lee realise that the North cannot be pushed around easily through hollow displays of braggadocio. As president of a powerful economy, is willing to go beyond the edge of brinkmanship? Of late, he fancies himself as the man whose destiny is to reunify a divided Korea. By what means? Already, he is looking forwards to increasing his standing army's might and equip it with the latest materiel. If he had or still has dreams of defeating North Korea, the North's shelling of Yeonpyeong should serve as a wake up call to realty. Has it? GuamDiary cannot say for sure. What we can advance is that the US backs up Lee Myung bak's Northern policy to the hilt. Not only that, the Obama administration is now looking on South Korea as a replacement of Japan in its east Asian military policy. For Washington, Japan is an unsure ally since it is stalling on quashing a popular movement in Okinawa challenging the continued stationing of US military bases there.
From an historical perspective, the US is repeating the mistakes of the past. Anchoring its policy on a truncated, but economically strong, strategically weak South Korean ally, is an open challenge to China. Things could hardly be otherwise. And here the lessons of China's entry into the Korean War obtain. [GuamDiary strongly suggests the reading of Allen Whiting's Rand study 'China crosses the Yalu' as well as Bruce Cumings 'Korea: a history', for the fuller story.] Washington is forsaking an island arc of allies for a foothold on land within easy reach of China's border on the Yalu.
Already Lee's reckless strategy has caused friction with its Chinese trading partner and has strengthened Beijing's resolve to support with all means necessary the survival of North Korea. Plainly stated, China regards South Korea as a hostile power, and the last thing it wants on its borders is a hostile neighbour, for the same economic and strategic reasons that sent millions of its volunteers to 'roll back' MacArthur's US led UN troops to the 38 parallel.
Will the US encourage Lee Myung bak to walk tall along the road of diplomacy? GuamDiary wishes that it were so. Unfortunately, in policy circles in Seoul and Washington -- and among much of an uninformed South Korea and American public -- the old mantras of distrust and of brinkmanship prevail.
2011 is almost upon us, and GuamDiary does hope that sanity will previal. Instead of plotting to overthrow Kim Jong il & co., cooler heads will prevail. GuamDiary also hopes that renewed talks will open the door to a peace treaty. In 2009, GuamDiary suggested that a reconvened Geneva Conference on a 2, 4, & 6 power formula could deal with all outstanding matters for the last 60 years, including the nuclear question, between North Korea and the US, North Korea and China on one side and the US and South Korea on the other, and finally, North Korea and the other 5 countries making up the six party talks. All it takes is the political will and backbone!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Lee Myung bak's megaloAnd mania unchained!
"None so blind as those who will not see'.
Since assuming the powers of president of South Korea in 2008, Lee Myung bak baldly proclaimed that he was going to teach North Korea a lesson it wouldn't forget. He has held true to his promise. His friends and allies in the US, Europe, and Asia looked elsewhere and found the mote of blame in the eye of North Korea for trying to trip the wire of war on a tense divided Korean peninsula. The speck of dirt in the South's eye is, however, passed over in almost complete silence since it suited Seoul's US handler, to enrage Kim Jong il & co. Let's now look at the maddingly wild course that the South Korea president has embarked on. He began by abandoning the 'Sunshine Policy', followed by severe economic sanctions, a renewed propaganda war against the North, and increasing military exerices in an arrogant display of feckless courage which would meet no challenge. Confident that the world would turn a blind eye to his risky, aggressive course of action towards the North, Lee's inflated ego knew no bounds.
According to the diplomatic cables in the 'Guardian's' excellent database,the US embassy cable 'Trying to crack the North Korean nut', well captures the essence of Lee's lunatic course of confrontation with the North. ['Guardian, 29 November 2010]. In it, Lee is determined to seize in the current moment 'a genuine opportunity to push and further weaken the North, even if this might involve considerable brinkmanship'. And the cable further added that 'favoring the Lee administration stance, which calm to the point of apathy about the inter-Korean situation'.
GuamDiary has over time commented on the escalating sabre rattling policy of Lee Myung bek. He has reached a delusional stage in which he fancies himself as the reunifier of a divided Korean peninsula. Seated in the Blue House in Seoul, as he surveys the increasing number of military drills on what he figures is the North's underbelly along the NLL [Northern Limit Line] along North Korea's territorial waters; with each new exercises, aided and abetted by US forces -- stationed in South Korea since the Korean War -- Lee, with the flair of an amateur chess player, positions his pieces to antagonise to the utmost, and without serious consequences, taunts his nemesis Kim Jong il in Pyongyang.
North Korea called his bluff in November 2010 by riposting to the South's naval drills with live fire in and around the island of Yeonpyeong which is the home of a serious military installation, hardly 10 km from North Korea's territorial waters. Pyongyang had alerted Seoul that should any of the South's shells hit its territory, it would react, and react it did.
For the first time in 47 years since the signing of the 1953 Armistice North and South Korea traded shots which aroused fear of renewed fighting in the divided Korean peninsula. Any sane leader might have considered a change in policy, but not Lee Myung bak. He was hell bent in brazenly recreating the same November scenario which led to North Korea's shelling. Lucky for him, the American governor of New Mexico was in Pyongyang trying to calm very troubled waters. Bill Richardson's presence in the North offered the South Korean president, with the instincts of a coward, to thumb his nose at Pyongyang. Still, an American in Pyongyang abbreviated Lee's display of braggadocio to a mere 90 minutes.
Still, the South Korean president refused to lighten up on his dangerous game of trying to bell the North Korean cat. As a result, in a huge hall, with row after row of high and middle and lower ranking North Korean military officers, vice chairman of the military commission Kim Yong chun issued a warning to the South. If it continued on punishing to a dangerous warlike situation to the very limits of sanity, Pyongyang was, in other words, 'ready for a holy war, using its nuclear deterrent' to defend the motherland.
His very words got instant global media coverage. They confirmed in the US and western mind, among others, that North Korea was irrational and a maverick threatening nuclear holocaust. Yet, even general Kim's rhetoric could not deter Lee Myung bak from his offensive designs against the North. Upping the ante, the South Korean president heated up his own fiery unreasonable brand of sabre rattling in Tokyo. He 'vowed a fearless retaliation against North Korea', reported the 'NYT's' Martin Fackler from Tokyo. And as can be expected, the world media ignored the import of Lee's unflappable march to the brink of war. What is good for Seoul's goose is 'verboten' for Pyongyang's goose.
In the midst of this heated exchange of words, the US has remained curiously quiet, if not supportive of Lee Myung bak. Since a transition of power is going on in North Korea, especially since the stroke Kim Jong il suffered 2 years ago, Washington has smelt an opportunity to see not only the weakening of Pyongyang but the fall of North Korea. Subjectively, if not objectively, the US' policy towards North Korea is the glove into which fits Lee Myung bek's plan of action towards weakening, if not provoking the North towards recklessness.
As readers of GuamDiary long know, we have not skipped an occasion to bring up the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] report of US policy towards Korea. In its 60 pages, it reflects the same thinking that Lee Myung bek proclaims aloud. Simply put, it is the failed policy of 'roll back', of crushing North Korea by any means possible short of all out of war so far. Even the North's shelling of Yeonpyeong has deflected the Obama administration -- which has toughened up the Bush administration's go for broke approach towards North Korea -- from its anointed rounds of regime change in Pyongyang.
It is in this vein that the arrival in Seoul of US secretary of defence Robert Gates takes on significane. He is coming to show Washington's unqualified support of its ally Lee Myung bak. And it is in this same vein, too, that we are witnessing delusions of grandeur of Lee Myung bak and his handler the Obama administration, in open display of their feelings of omnipotence and grandeur.
It is little wonder, as GuamDiary observed, that Bill Richardson in an interview on American public television, appeared ill at ease. He sees the dangerous road of miscalculation that Lee Myung bak and Barack Obama are confidentally marching towards war. And his edginess simply affirms that the world remains blind to the megalomania of Lee Myung bak and the utter fatuousness and foolishness and failure of US policy towards North Korea.
Since assuming the powers of president of South Korea in 2008, Lee Myung bak baldly proclaimed that he was going to teach North Korea a lesson it wouldn't forget. He has held true to his promise. His friends and allies in the US, Europe, and Asia looked elsewhere and found the mote of blame in the eye of North Korea for trying to trip the wire of war on a tense divided Korean peninsula. The speck of dirt in the South's eye is, however, passed over in almost complete silence since it suited Seoul's US handler, to enrage Kim Jong il & co. Let's now look at the maddingly wild course that the South Korea president has embarked on. He began by abandoning the 'Sunshine Policy', followed by severe economic sanctions, a renewed propaganda war against the North, and increasing military exerices in an arrogant display of feckless courage which would meet no challenge. Confident that the world would turn a blind eye to his risky, aggressive course of action towards the North, Lee's inflated ego knew no bounds.
According to the diplomatic cables in the 'Guardian's' excellent database,the US embassy cable 'Trying to crack the North Korean nut', well captures the essence of Lee's lunatic course of confrontation with the North. ['Guardian, 29 November 2010]. In it, Lee is determined to seize in the current moment 'a genuine opportunity to push and further weaken the North, even if this might involve considerable brinkmanship'. And the cable further added that 'favoring the Lee administration stance, which calm to the point of apathy about the inter-Korean situation'.
GuamDiary has over time commented on the escalating sabre rattling policy of Lee Myung bek. He has reached a delusional stage in which he fancies himself as the reunifier of a divided Korean peninsula. Seated in the Blue House in Seoul, as he surveys the increasing number of military drills on what he figures is the North's underbelly along the NLL [Northern Limit Line] along North Korea's territorial waters; with each new exercises, aided and abetted by US forces -- stationed in South Korea since the Korean War -- Lee, with the flair of an amateur chess player, positions his pieces to antagonise to the utmost, and without serious consequences, taunts his nemesis Kim Jong il in Pyongyang.
North Korea called his bluff in November 2010 by riposting to the South's naval drills with live fire in and around the island of Yeonpyeong which is the home of a serious military installation, hardly 10 km from North Korea's territorial waters. Pyongyang had alerted Seoul that should any of the South's shells hit its territory, it would react, and react it did.
For the first time in 47 years since the signing of the 1953 Armistice North and South Korea traded shots which aroused fear of renewed fighting in the divided Korean peninsula. Any sane leader might have considered a change in policy, but not Lee Myung bak. He was hell bent in brazenly recreating the same November scenario which led to North Korea's shelling. Lucky for him, the American governor of New Mexico was in Pyongyang trying to calm very troubled waters. Bill Richardson's presence in the North offered the South Korean president, with the instincts of a coward, to thumb his nose at Pyongyang. Still, an American in Pyongyang abbreviated Lee's display of braggadocio to a mere 90 minutes.
Still, the South Korean president refused to lighten up on his dangerous game of trying to bell the North Korean cat. As a result, in a huge hall, with row after row of high and middle and lower ranking North Korean military officers, vice chairman of the military commission Kim Yong chun issued a warning to the South. If it continued on punishing to a dangerous warlike situation to the very limits of sanity, Pyongyang was, in other words, 'ready for a holy war, using its nuclear deterrent' to defend the motherland.
His very words got instant global media coverage. They confirmed in the US and western mind, among others, that North Korea was irrational and a maverick threatening nuclear holocaust. Yet, even general Kim's rhetoric could not deter Lee Myung bak from his offensive designs against the North. Upping the ante, the South Korean president heated up his own fiery unreasonable brand of sabre rattling in Tokyo. He 'vowed a fearless retaliation against North Korea', reported the 'NYT's' Martin Fackler from Tokyo. And as can be expected, the world media ignored the import of Lee's unflappable march to the brink of war. What is good for Seoul's goose is 'verboten' for Pyongyang's goose.
In the midst of this heated exchange of words, the US has remained curiously quiet, if not supportive of Lee Myung bak. Since a transition of power is going on in North Korea, especially since the stroke Kim Jong il suffered 2 years ago, Washington has smelt an opportunity to see not only the weakening of Pyongyang but the fall of North Korea. Subjectively, if not objectively, the US' policy towards North Korea is the glove into which fits Lee Myung bek's plan of action towards weakening, if not provoking the North towards recklessness.
As readers of GuamDiary long know, we have not skipped an occasion to bring up the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] report of US policy towards Korea. In its 60 pages, it reflects the same thinking that Lee Myung bek proclaims aloud. Simply put, it is the failed policy of 'roll back', of crushing North Korea by any means possible short of all out of war so far. Even the North's shelling of Yeonpyeong has deflected the Obama administration -- which has toughened up the Bush administration's go for broke approach towards North Korea -- from its anointed rounds of regime change in Pyongyang.
It is in this vein that the arrival in Seoul of US secretary of defence Robert Gates takes on significane. He is coming to show Washington's unqualified support of its ally Lee Myung bak. And it is in this same vein, too, that we are witnessing delusions of grandeur of Lee Myung bak and his handler the Obama administration, in open display of their feelings of omnipotence and grandeur.
It is little wonder, as GuamDiary observed, that Bill Richardson in an interview on American public television, appeared ill at ease. He sees the dangerous road of miscalculation that Lee Myung bak and Barack Obama are confidentally marching towards war. And his edginess simply affirms that the world remains blind to the megalomania of Lee Myung bak and the utter fatuousness and foolishness and failure of US policy towards North Korea.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Blaming Kim Jong eun for South Korea's thirst for war
The propaganda mills are churning fast and furious during the dying days of 2010. The South Koreans remain bitter and humiliated, the more so since they got as they gave North Koreans in November last during naval drills with live fire less than 10 km from the NLL [Northern Limit Line]. They dismissed the North's warning that should the South's shells land in North Korean waters, Pyongyang would respond. And respond, they did to the South's utter surprise and stunned.
You would think that naughty child that Lee Myung bak is, South Korea would calm the heated desire to teach North Korea a lesson it not only deserves, but one it won't forget. The propaganda presses are smoking from over use: they are spreading the rumours of war that in 2011, the DPRK 'could fire missiles at South Korea'.
Here, we have an example of disinformation. It is not the North that is banging furiously on the drums of war but the South. And to add the cherry to the cake of terror that Pyongyang is baking, the ROK is predicting a testing of yet another nuclear device at Yonbyon. The dogs of war are frothing at the mouth.
Deliberately spreading fear by lies and innuendo, in order to influence and frighten and panic South Korean public opinion, Seoul's practioners of distorsion and twisting the truth out of all proportion, have found a fall guy in the person of Kim Jong eun.
Kim Jong il, they reason, is aching for a quarrel and willing to risk war with the South, with one object in mind: to bolster the image and fill an empty 'curriculum vitae' of leadership of his chosen successor, his third and youngest son Kim Jong eun.
Bulldozer Lee Myung bak's minions cannot touch Kim Jong il so they fall back on trying to blacken Kim Jong eun. Of him, they know next to nothing.
Looking at his photo, he's the spitting image of his grandfather Kim Il sung, and that alone says something of his ability to win the favour and the affection of North Koreans. We know very little about this young man. We do know that he received part of his schooling in Switzerland, and so, he is not a stereotypical 'North Korea hermit' when it comes to speaking western languages and knowing something of the outside world. We do know that in September, he was promoted to a 4 star general, but he is not a member of the powerful military committee. We also know that he is going through a rigorous apprentice, an apprentice his father went through, and with, more or less, the same tutors. In brief, he is learning the ropes of leadership from the bottom up, and perhaps on an accelerated track, owing to his father's precarious health.
South Korea is turning its guns of falsehood on Kim Jong eun, out of weakness. The global media alas simply picks up and amplifies South Korea's propaganda. No one really cares that it is the South Korea of Lee Myung bak who revels in feckless bellicosity to 'teach Kim Jong il a hard lesson he will never forget'. A fair minded
reading of events will turn up a different story. And one which would pin the blame on Seoul for whipping up war fever on the Korean peninsula, and more than ably assisted and abetted by its proconsul, the US.
It would do the South and the US well to cool their heels. Reading the tea leaves will prove wrong, yet so deep is the South of Lee Myung bak's blindness and deafness to the real world, we can only fear for the worse. And you cannot blame Kim Jong en for the South of Lee Myung bak's weaknesses and irresponsible policies and the unquenchable thirst of hatred for the North.
You would think that naughty child that Lee Myung bak is, South Korea would calm the heated desire to teach North Korea a lesson it not only deserves, but one it won't forget. The propaganda presses are smoking from over use: they are spreading the rumours of war that in 2011, the DPRK 'could fire missiles at South Korea'.
Here, we have an example of disinformation. It is not the North that is banging furiously on the drums of war but the South. And to add the cherry to the cake of terror that Pyongyang is baking, the ROK is predicting a testing of yet another nuclear device at Yonbyon. The dogs of war are frothing at the mouth.
Deliberately spreading fear by lies and innuendo, in order to influence and frighten and panic South Korean public opinion, Seoul's practioners of distorsion and twisting the truth out of all proportion, have found a fall guy in the person of Kim Jong eun.
Kim Jong il, they reason, is aching for a quarrel and willing to risk war with the South, with one object in mind: to bolster the image and fill an empty 'curriculum vitae' of leadership of his chosen successor, his third and youngest son Kim Jong eun.
Bulldozer Lee Myung bak's minions cannot touch Kim Jong il so they fall back on trying to blacken Kim Jong eun. Of him, they know next to nothing.
Looking at his photo, he's the spitting image of his grandfather Kim Il sung, and that alone says something of his ability to win the favour and the affection of North Koreans. We know very little about this young man. We do know that he received part of his schooling in Switzerland, and so, he is not a stereotypical 'North Korea hermit' when it comes to speaking western languages and knowing something of the outside world. We do know that in September, he was promoted to a 4 star general, but he is not a member of the powerful military committee. We also know that he is going through a rigorous apprentice, an apprentice his father went through, and with, more or less, the same tutors. In brief, he is learning the ropes of leadership from the bottom up, and perhaps on an accelerated track, owing to his father's precarious health.
South Korea is turning its guns of falsehood on Kim Jong eun, out of weakness. The global media alas simply picks up and amplifies South Korea's propaganda. No one really cares that it is the South Korea of Lee Myung bak who revels in feckless bellicosity to 'teach Kim Jong il a hard lesson he will never forget'. A fair minded
reading of events will turn up a different story. And one which would pin the blame on Seoul for whipping up war fever on the Korean peninsula, and more than ably assisted and abetted by its proconsul, the US.
It would do the South and the US well to cool their heels. Reading the tea leaves will prove wrong, yet so deep is the South of Lee Myung bak's blindness and deafness to the real world, we can only fear for the worse. And you cannot blame Kim Jong en for the South of Lee Myung bak's weaknesses and irresponsible policies and the unquenchable thirst of hatred for the North.
US 'bubbe meise' handed down on North Korea
US policy makers, clerisy, and sundry other advisors and experts take nothing for granted when it comes to North Korea. They own the narrative and keep the lid on tight. [See,GuamDiary's 'Korea Society keeps a tight zipper on its lip'.]They have a single minded object to block out any other account other than their own. And, they have managed to ride roughshod to stifle any dissenting opinion. In the main, it is sad to say that they have succeeded.
So it is not surprising that a reader of GuamDiary should pose the question of 'how do we make sense of US policy on North Korea'?
The question goes to the heart of US memory and culture and history in a climate where American policy makers, clerisy, and sundry other advisors and experts do not want to read, see, and hear anything about North Korea than their own musings, books, and voices.
Consider Aidan Foster Carter, senior research fellow in sociology and modern Korea at Leeds University, to whom, say, the 'Financial Times of London' defer when its seeks an authoritive opinion on North Korea. Mentioning the very name of North Korea, at times, occasions an outburst of exasperation from him. It is on record in an 'opinion piece' in 'Asia Times Online' that Foster Carter, in a fit of temper, wrote that he simply wished that North Korea would simply go away. [Translation: disappear from the face of the earth.]
His anger is symptomatic of policy makers and the clerisy and sundry other advisors and experts who have but a single solution to the 'problem' that North Korea has raised for them since 1945: they preach a foolish and dangerous policy. In brief, Kim Jong il, like his father Kim Il sung before him, has to renounce violence and lay down his arms [diplomatic or military], and formally surrender to US terms.
We know North Korea won't. The US is simply proposing unconditional surrender, no more, no less.
American administrations seem to forget that between it and North Korea a suspended state of war exists. It is a frozen war thanks to the 1953 Armistice Agreement, which formally recognised the failure of the US led UN forces to drive the Communist North into the sea. For the last 57 years, there is no formal peace treaty between the Armistice'ss 3 signatory--the US, the DPRK [North Korea], and China. [South Korea which the US protected refused to sign the agreement, it is good to recall. Today, Syngman Rhee's veto is a cause of concern to a truncated half of a divided Korean peninsula with a strong, first world economy, but which in 1953 sold its birthright for a mess of an old man's pride and anger!]
Consequently the question is how to end the Korean War peacefully? The US and its hardline ally in Seoul, president Lee Myung bak do not see it in that light. As GuamDiary has often noted, a good guide to current US thinking on North Korea is the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] report on US policy towards Korea. Its conclusions mirror faithfully the US policy makers, clerisy, and sundry other advisors and experts thinking on 'rolling back' North Korea. Which is a restatement of a policy which failed during the Korean War and left that war in limbo with an armistic agreement.
The Korean War is called the 'forgotten war', for the plain and simple reason, the US failed to overthrow a Communist regime. And its immediate outcome was to let the war slip in oblivion, but not the animus towards North Korea. In the intervening 60 years, the US has fought and lost a war in Vietnam, and is engaged in two disastrous war in Asia - Iraq and Afghanistan - which is weakening it by their cost and skewing America's economic priorities and goals, so on and on. A lot has changed, too, on the Korean peninsula: the Clinton years brought a more flexible and pragmatic approach towards Pyongyang, and South Korea's Kim Dae Jung's 'Sunshine Policy' help smooth the way through measures, the sole object of which was to coax 'isolated' North Korea back into the comity of nations. With the arrival of George W Bush things changed drastically. GuamDiary suggests reading Mike Chinoy 'Meltdown: the inside story of the North Korean nuclear crisis', to get up to speed. Barack Obama has reinfoced Bush's feckless bellicosity towards North Korea.
The US has a very willing partner in the person of Bulldozer Lee Myung bak who once in off in 2008 scrapped the 'Sunshine Policy', and began an aggressive policy towards the North which saw its nadir in North Korea's response to South Korea's shelling of its territorial waters in November 2010. Thus, for the first time in 57 years, the divided Korean peninsula stood on the brink of reigniting the Korean War.
Did this military drill, with US participation, in and around the island of YeonPyeong give pause to revisit US policy towards North Korea? Maybe yes and then maybe no. Judging by Bill Richardson's account of his 4 days in Pyongyang, his assessment that North Korea is wanting and willing to engage diplomatically the US in talks has not received a welcome audience in Washington. There the pragmatists are in the minority, and the war party snug in determining policy.
The only US clerc who has written a meaningful book on Korea is Bruce Cumings. GuamDiary recommends its reading: 'The Korean War: a history'. This book has the merit of combining memory and culture with history, thereby furnishing a very good understanding of why the US North Korea policy remains at a dead point and the strong pull of nostalgia keeps drawing its back to towards picking and nitpicking fights with North Korea. Cumings makes a persuasive argument as to why North Korea has never gotten off its war horse and the memory of the utter destruction, dead, and ruin that the US led forces had left in North Korea before they were 'rolled back' to the 38 parallel. The context is always missing in the US narrative, and that may help explain why even though Cumings is a recognised scholar with many awards, he remains on the sidelines among the US clerisy and elite.
The US has never forgotten its being checkmated by the North Koreans and Chinese Volunteers during the short but not ended Korean War.
So it is not surprising that a reader of GuamDiary should pose the question of 'how do we make sense of US policy on North Korea'?
The question goes to the heart of US memory and culture and history in a climate where American policy makers, clerisy, and sundry other advisors and experts do not want to read, see, and hear anything about North Korea than their own musings, books, and voices.
Consider Aidan Foster Carter, senior research fellow in sociology and modern Korea at Leeds University, to whom, say, the 'Financial Times of London' defer when its seeks an authoritive opinion on North Korea. Mentioning the very name of North Korea, at times, occasions an outburst of exasperation from him. It is on record in an 'opinion piece' in 'Asia Times Online' that Foster Carter, in a fit of temper, wrote that he simply wished that North Korea would simply go away. [Translation: disappear from the face of the earth.]
His anger is symptomatic of policy makers and the clerisy and sundry other advisors and experts who have but a single solution to the 'problem' that North Korea has raised for them since 1945: they preach a foolish and dangerous policy. In brief, Kim Jong il, like his father Kim Il sung before him, has to renounce violence and lay down his arms [diplomatic or military], and formally surrender to US terms.
We know North Korea won't. The US is simply proposing unconditional surrender, no more, no less.
American administrations seem to forget that between it and North Korea a suspended state of war exists. It is a frozen war thanks to the 1953 Armistice Agreement, which formally recognised the failure of the US led UN forces to drive the Communist North into the sea. For the last 57 years, there is no formal peace treaty between the Armistice'ss 3 signatory--the US, the DPRK [North Korea], and China. [South Korea which the US protected refused to sign the agreement, it is good to recall. Today, Syngman Rhee's veto is a cause of concern to a truncated half of a divided Korean peninsula with a strong, first world economy, but which in 1953 sold its birthright for a mess of an old man's pride and anger!]
Consequently the question is how to end the Korean War peacefully? The US and its hardline ally in Seoul, president Lee Myung bak do not see it in that light. As GuamDiary has often noted, a good guide to current US thinking on North Korea is the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] report on US policy towards Korea. Its conclusions mirror faithfully the US policy makers, clerisy, and sundry other advisors and experts thinking on 'rolling back' North Korea. Which is a restatement of a policy which failed during the Korean War and left that war in limbo with an armistic agreement.
The Korean War is called the 'forgotten war', for the plain and simple reason, the US failed to overthrow a Communist regime. And its immediate outcome was to let the war slip in oblivion, but not the animus towards North Korea. In the intervening 60 years, the US has fought and lost a war in Vietnam, and is engaged in two disastrous war in Asia - Iraq and Afghanistan - which is weakening it by their cost and skewing America's economic priorities and goals, so on and on. A lot has changed, too, on the Korean peninsula: the Clinton years brought a more flexible and pragmatic approach towards Pyongyang, and South Korea's Kim Dae Jung's 'Sunshine Policy' help smooth the way through measures, the sole object of which was to coax 'isolated' North Korea back into the comity of nations. With the arrival of George W Bush things changed drastically. GuamDiary suggests reading Mike Chinoy 'Meltdown: the inside story of the North Korean nuclear crisis', to get up to speed. Barack Obama has reinfoced Bush's feckless bellicosity towards North Korea.
The US has a very willing partner in the person of Bulldozer Lee Myung bak who once in off in 2008 scrapped the 'Sunshine Policy', and began an aggressive policy towards the North which saw its nadir in North Korea's response to South Korea's shelling of its territorial waters in November 2010. Thus, for the first time in 57 years, the divided Korean peninsula stood on the brink of reigniting the Korean War.
Did this military drill, with US participation, in and around the island of YeonPyeong give pause to revisit US policy towards North Korea? Maybe yes and then maybe no. Judging by Bill Richardson's account of his 4 days in Pyongyang, his assessment that North Korea is wanting and willing to engage diplomatically the US in talks has not received a welcome audience in Washington. There the pragmatists are in the minority, and the war party snug in determining policy.
The only US clerc who has written a meaningful book on Korea is Bruce Cumings. GuamDiary recommends its reading: 'The Korean War: a history'. This book has the merit of combining memory and culture with history, thereby furnishing a very good understanding of why the US North Korea policy remains at a dead point and the strong pull of nostalgia keeps drawing its back to towards picking and nitpicking fights with North Korea. Cumings makes a persuasive argument as to why North Korea has never gotten off its war horse and the memory of the utter destruction, dead, and ruin that the US led forces had left in North Korea before they were 'rolled back' to the 38 parallel. The context is always missing in the US narrative, and that may help explain why even though Cumings is a recognised scholar with many awards, he remains on the sidelines among the US clerisy and elite.
The US has never forgotten its being checkmated by the North Koreans and Chinese Volunteers during the short but not ended Korean War.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Korea Society keeps a tight zipper on its lips
During the last two months of 2010, the two Koreas exchanged fire along the NLL [Northern Limit Line], a watery boundary in the Yellow Sea imposed by the US after the 1953 armistice, which the North never recognised but did not challenge.
For the first time in 47 years, salvos of shells hit the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong - which houses an important military installation and a small fishing community and which lies hardly 10 km from North Korea's territorial waters. The South naval drills conducted under live fire, with US participation, hit North Korea, in spite of Pyongyang's warning that heightened Southern military activity in and around the NLL, would riposte. It did to the utter surprise and consternation of Seoul and Washington.
GuamDiary, in plumbing the New York Korea Society's webpage, found no sense of alarm or urgency in the implication of such events. In fact, it discovered, in its programme commentary, this society of note is, in a leisurely fashion, sponsoring, in a leisurely fashion, a series of lectures entitled 'Korea in depth' beginning in mid February 2011. And the first gathering on 10 February 2011 will feature a lecture by an old, reliable friend, Charles Armstrong of Columbia University. He is scheduled to speak on 'North South Korean issues'.
In contrast, hardly 8 weeks after the sinking of the 'Cheonan', the Korea Society kicked off the publication of the CFR's [Council on Foreign Relations] recommandations for US policy towards Korea, calling for 'rolling back' North Korea. Among the 24 US North Korea clerisy who unanimously agreed with the report's finding was the Korea Society's CEO former ambassador Thomas Hubbard,now working for the influential law firm of Akin Gump.
Why has not Ambassador Hubbard requested the Korea Society's president former ambassador Mark Minton to call a meeting on the shelling which might have been a tripwire to reopening the Korean War?
The Korea Society has, over time, become more and more secretive. It has established a two or three tier structure of 'need to know' among its members. The real discussions do take place behind closed doors, and they become open when it is necessary to push the Administration's line of events on the Korea peninsula. Best examplied of this trend is the big hoopla in promulating the CFR's report on Korea.
But you would think that the crisis along the NLL would stimulate discussion by the Korea Society's member. Wrong! Discussion would challenge it's full support of 'rolling back' North Korea.
Otherwise, as GuamDiary has observed, the Korea Society has become more and more irrelevant. Films, exhibitions on old Hollywood war film posters, ancient Korean hats and locks, the influence of Christianity in Korea, or the building of a Tae Kwon Doh museum or modern Korean architecture are the meat and potatoes of a once vibrant and curious organisation about the political and military and economic events North and South.
As such, the Korea Society keeps total silence unless it receives its marching orders from Washington. It is a weather vane of the way the political winds are blowing by its funders and it lack of independent thought and its role of defender of the status quo.
For the first time in 47 years, salvos of shells hit the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong - which houses an important military installation and a small fishing community and which lies hardly 10 km from North Korea's territorial waters. The South naval drills conducted under live fire, with US participation, hit North Korea, in spite of Pyongyang's warning that heightened Southern military activity in and around the NLL, would riposte. It did to the utter surprise and consternation of Seoul and Washington.
GuamDiary, in plumbing the New York Korea Society's webpage, found no sense of alarm or urgency in the implication of such events. In fact, it discovered, in its programme commentary, this society of note is, in a leisurely fashion, sponsoring, in a leisurely fashion, a series of lectures entitled 'Korea in depth' beginning in mid February 2011. And the first gathering on 10 February 2011 will feature a lecture by an old, reliable friend, Charles Armstrong of Columbia University. He is scheduled to speak on 'North South Korean issues'.
In contrast, hardly 8 weeks after the sinking of the 'Cheonan', the Korea Society kicked off the publication of the CFR's [Council on Foreign Relations] recommandations for US policy towards Korea, calling for 'rolling back' North Korea. Among the 24 US North Korea clerisy who unanimously agreed with the report's finding was the Korea Society's CEO former ambassador Thomas Hubbard,now working for the influential law firm of Akin Gump.
Why has not Ambassador Hubbard requested the Korea Society's president former ambassador Mark Minton to call a meeting on the shelling which might have been a tripwire to reopening the Korean War?
The Korea Society has, over time, become more and more secretive. It has established a two or three tier structure of 'need to know' among its members. The real discussions do take place behind closed doors, and they become open when it is necessary to push the Administration's line of events on the Korea peninsula. Best examplied of this trend is the big hoopla in promulating the CFR's report on Korea.
But you would think that the crisis along the NLL would stimulate discussion by the Korea Society's member. Wrong! Discussion would challenge it's full support of 'rolling back' North Korea.
Otherwise, as GuamDiary has observed, the Korea Society has become more and more irrelevant. Films, exhibitions on old Hollywood war film posters, ancient Korean hats and locks, the influence of Christianity in Korea, or the building of a Tae Kwon Doh museum or modern Korean architecture are the meat and potatoes of a once vibrant and curious organisation about the political and military and economic events North and South.
As such, the Korea Society keeps total silence unless it receives its marching orders from Washington. It is a weather vane of the way the political winds are blowing by its funders and it lack of independent thought and its role of defender of the status quo.
Did Bill Richardson drop a stitch on PBS' News Hour?
On Christmas Eve 2010, fresh from his return from the DPRK, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson appeared for a 7 minute interview on PBS' [Public Broadcasting Service] award winning 'NewsHour'. Interviewed by the imperturbable senior correspondent Margaret Warner, the outgoing New Mexico governor appeared slightly edgy.
Introduced as having visited North Korea 16 times in the last 17 years, Richardson straightaway summed up his impression after 4 days in Pyongyang that 'tensions were the highest and feelings the most negative' he had even seen. What worried him the most was that the political and military unrest had the very dangerous potential for miscalculation leading to warfare. And his remarks and observations, should account for something in determining US policy towards Korea. But will they?
His ill ease is understandable in the light of the exchange of live fire between the South and the North, owing to the ROK's adventurous naval drills, ably assisted by the US, along the NLL [Northern Limit Line]North Korea's territorial waters.
As GuamDiary has observed, Richardson's presence in Pyongyang put a damper on South Korea's president Lee Myung bak's vindictive, single minded punishment of North Korea.[See, 'North Korea pragmatic, the US and South Korea irrational'] To the governor, he found the newer policy makers - civil and military - 'more pragmatic' and, in private, more open to suggestions for moving from the dead centre of the current status quo.
Propelled by the danger of an 'unacceptable danger' of a re ignited Korean War. Richardson is saying that it is time to seize this opportunity to talk to North Korea. As a self defined 'citizen diplomat', invited by the Kim Jong il regime,he did note that he was the first American to meet with North Koreans in the last 6 months. This, he thinks, is unacceptable. And, by inference the use of 'private citizens' to do the job of what the US government should be doing, this slick 'pis aller' is inadequate.
Richardson put on the table some 'arms control suggestions' which the North Koreans appeared to be open to, as GuamDiary wrote: a hotline, inviting back IAEA [International Atomic Engery Agency] monitors, and the sale of used enriched plutonium spent fuel rods to South Korea that would resell them to a third party, notably to the US.
Warner kept coming back to the oft repeated US mantra: Can we trust North Korea?
The North Koreans are doing nothing to show good faith. [Had Warner done her homework, she would have found a paper trail of North Korea's willingness to talk to the US. They remain ignored or unheard.]
Richardson, at this point in the interview, seemed more nervous. We know that he tilts towards talks with North Korea, which he very well might have counseled the Obama administration to do, but even such a modest suggestion as this might endanger a future post in the Obama administration? It, surely, goes against the grain of the war party in the White House, the department of State, and the Pentagon.
He is honest or quick enough to recognise that within the US government he found a confusion of opinion with its hard liners and its pragmatists, But, understated, in his visibly ill at ease posture, is the unwillingness of the US to continue the status quo, backed up with dangerous military braggadocio.
And it is the continued insistance for the North to 'prove its sincerity' that heightens the danger to military and political miscalculation.
Warner asked him to comment on vice president Biden's remarks that the current warlike posture in the North, is subject to the US logic that it is Kim Jong il's tack to bolster the image of his son and successor Kim Jong eun. Richardson limited himself to say that the danger to renewed confrontation requires dealing diplomatically with North Korea.
And at the closing moments of the PBS interview that Richardson dropped a stitch. He realised this but Warner was quick to pick up on his speaking without thinking. She caught it like the vulture that swops down on a fresh piece of political carrion.
Richardson remarked that in 'side bar discussions' with lower and middle level North Koreans, he detected dissatisfaction with the procession of succession. Warner ponced on this remark, as perhaps any journalist would as a 'scoop' of sorts. Hastily, Richardson tried to pick up his dropped remarked: he though, with a bead of sweat or two on the brow, affirmed that the drop of the hat, off the record, comments never put into doubt that the naming of Kim Jong eun as his father's rightful heir is a done deal and not open to revision.
Still, he remained firm in his belief that the moment was propitious for discussions with North Korea. Warner, with a twinkle in her eye, closed the interview, with the certain feeling, that things may not be what Richardson makes them out to be in North Korea.
Her attitude is in itself predictable, but worthy of comment since she is a mirror of the bankruptcy of US policy towards North Korea.
Introduced as having visited North Korea 16 times in the last 17 years, Richardson straightaway summed up his impression after 4 days in Pyongyang that 'tensions were the highest and feelings the most negative' he had even seen. What worried him the most was that the political and military unrest had the very dangerous potential for miscalculation leading to warfare. And his remarks and observations, should account for something in determining US policy towards Korea. But will they?
His ill ease is understandable in the light of the exchange of live fire between the South and the North, owing to the ROK's adventurous naval drills, ably assisted by the US, along the NLL [Northern Limit Line]North Korea's territorial waters.
As GuamDiary has observed, Richardson's presence in Pyongyang put a damper on South Korea's president Lee Myung bak's vindictive, single minded punishment of North Korea.[See, 'North Korea pragmatic, the US and South Korea irrational'] To the governor, he found the newer policy makers - civil and military - 'more pragmatic' and, in private, more open to suggestions for moving from the dead centre of the current status quo.
Propelled by the danger of an 'unacceptable danger' of a re ignited Korean War. Richardson is saying that it is time to seize this opportunity to talk to North Korea. As a self defined 'citizen diplomat', invited by the Kim Jong il regime,he did note that he was the first American to meet with North Koreans in the last 6 months. This, he thinks, is unacceptable. And, by inference the use of 'private citizens' to do the job of what the US government should be doing, this slick 'pis aller' is inadequate.
Richardson put on the table some 'arms control suggestions' which the North Koreans appeared to be open to, as GuamDiary wrote: a hotline, inviting back IAEA [International Atomic Engery Agency] monitors, and the sale of used enriched plutonium spent fuel rods to South Korea that would resell them to a third party, notably to the US.
Warner kept coming back to the oft repeated US mantra: Can we trust North Korea?
The North Koreans are doing nothing to show good faith. [Had Warner done her homework, she would have found a paper trail of North Korea's willingness to talk to the US. They remain ignored or unheard.]
Richardson, at this point in the interview, seemed more nervous. We know that he tilts towards talks with North Korea, which he very well might have counseled the Obama administration to do, but even such a modest suggestion as this might endanger a future post in the Obama administration? It, surely, goes against the grain of the war party in the White House, the department of State, and the Pentagon.
He is honest or quick enough to recognise that within the US government he found a confusion of opinion with its hard liners and its pragmatists, But, understated, in his visibly ill at ease posture, is the unwillingness of the US to continue the status quo, backed up with dangerous military braggadocio.
And it is the continued insistance for the North to 'prove its sincerity' that heightens the danger to military and political miscalculation.
Warner asked him to comment on vice president Biden's remarks that the current warlike posture in the North, is subject to the US logic that it is Kim Jong il's tack to bolster the image of his son and successor Kim Jong eun. Richardson limited himself to say that the danger to renewed confrontation requires dealing diplomatically with North Korea.
And at the closing moments of the PBS interview that Richardson dropped a stitch. He realised this but Warner was quick to pick up on his speaking without thinking. She caught it like the vulture that swops down on a fresh piece of political carrion.
Richardson remarked that in 'side bar discussions' with lower and middle level North Koreans, he detected dissatisfaction with the procession of succession. Warner ponced on this remark, as perhaps any journalist would as a 'scoop' of sorts. Hastily, Richardson tried to pick up his dropped remarked: he though, with a bead of sweat or two on the brow, affirmed that the drop of the hat, off the record, comments never put into doubt that the naming of Kim Jong eun as his father's rightful heir is a done deal and not open to revision.
Still, he remained firm in his belief that the moment was propitious for discussions with North Korea. Warner, with a twinkle in her eye, closed the interview, with the certain feeling, that things may not be what Richardson makes them out to be in North Korea.
Her attitude is in itself predictable, but worthy of comment since she is a mirror of the bankruptcy of US policy towards North Korea.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
North Korea pragmatic, the US and South Korea irrational
New Mexico's governor Bill Richardson on his way back to the US after spending days of 'high drama' in the DPRK, praised Pyongyang for its 'pragmatism'. It was his way of paying tribute to North Korea's party and military leadership for keeping a 'cool head' during South Korea's provocative military exercises with live fire and heavy air cover in and around the island of Yeonpyeong 10 km from North Korea's territory waters.
GuamDiary has to wonder: North Korea has, among US policy makers and clerisy, the reputation of skilfully playing its cards close to its chest. Maybe that's so, but if you follow the yellow brick road of the Bush and Obama administrations card playing, the US plays bad poker and any opponent, and not necessarily Pyongyang, can read its face and call it hand or bluff remaining Cold War superpower to fold.
Studying how the global media reported the last three quarters of 2010 coverage of US and its clients in South Korea and Japan, you have to come to the conclusion that you're seeing children playing in the sandbox in an adult world. Like spoilt young ones, they are sticking to a logic which defies reason or reality. And in this sense, the US is reckless and irrational when it comes to North Korea.
Dare we quote the old Helmsman Mao who at the drop of a hat would repeat the following tale: one's opponent has the habit of lifting a huge stone too heavy for his own strength, to pommel his adversary. Unfortunately, it lands on the thrower's his toe. In way, this is the outcome of Washington's bankrupt policy towards the North. In the end, the US has to backpeddle or find a face saving solution to an irrational policy, the logic of which almost led to a reignited Korean War.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Obama administration has its work cut out for it: Washington has to muzzle its client South Korea's president Lee Myung bek. The US, however, managed at least to pressure him to cut a repeat of the military show and tell to 90 odd minutes in an abbreviated display of tin soldier, which might have been on the short end of North Korean fire. Today, in the largest display of military might, South Korea is ostentatiously showing off at the DMZ. Obama has to sit on its client whose policy of 'rolling back' the North, he and George Bush encouraged and in which they are objectively in synch with. Nonetheless, US strong arm tactics will kick in and result in restraining its testy South Korean client, without damaging Lee's hurt pride.
Richardson's presence and fast talking and hard bargaining as a 'private citizen' in North Korea guaranteed that Pyongyang kept its sang froid. He managed to hammer out an agreement whereby North Korea will soon again allow UN inspection of its nuclear facilities and Yonbyon and work out an arrangement whereby Pyongyang will sell Seoul its spent plutonium rods and then Seoul will ship them to a third country [read: the US].
Suddenly the war tensions that the US and South Korea had been creating for the last 7 months at least, seemingly broke up and scattered to the winds for the moment.
Washington is jolly well puffing out its chest for a job well done. But is it something well done? Broadly speaking, it may be so. Nevertheless, many questions remain unanswered. The order is unimportant:
1. Will the US go into a diplomatic mode in dealing with North Korea? For months now, North Korea has been saying to, say, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter who turned up in Pyongyang as 'private citizens' on a mission to secure the release of American citizens - who illegally entered North Korea, and who were tried and sentenced to long periods of hard labour - that they were willing to return to six party talks in Beijing to discuss, among other topics, the North's nuclear programme. The US and South Korea and Japan remained deaf to Pyongyang's intentions. Consequently, if, as the Bush administration had devised the setting up of the six party talks in order to not deal directly with North Korea and to turn aside any meaningful discussions on its nuclear programme and reducing tensions on the divided Korean peninsula, how could Richardson, as a 'private citizen' skip in leaps and bounds over bureaucratic hurdles to come to an understanding with top North Korean civilian and military leaders?
Jimmy Carter let this cat out of the bag on National Public Radio, after he returned from North Korea with the released Aijalon Gomes. In Beijing, he ran into a very senior US diplomat who was on his way to a meeting on North Korea, but he was only going to 'pow wow' with South Korea and Japan. Carter logically asked if the US emissary had plans to go to Pyongyang? Negative came the reply. He had instructions to avoid contact with the North. [GuamDiary suggests that this is another example of the building of the war axis composed of Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo].
The answer he got struck Carter as dumb, the more especially since he was carrying back a message to the White House from North Korea expressing the desire to renewed contact.
2. Since the US can work out an agreement, albeit under the guise of using 'private citizens, what then is the need and the future of the six party talks?
3. The media tell us what the North Koreans agreed to do, but what engagements -- political, military, and/or economic -- have the Obama administration signed on to?
4. If South Korea is going to buy the North's spent plutonium rods, how much will they pay and what other obligations are they required to fulfill towards the North, i.e., in food, fertilisers, fostering business investment in the North, so on and on and on?
5. Is the US ready to take steps to ending the Korean War with a peace treaty? If so,
will South Korea be at the table since Syngman Rhee refused to signed the 1953 Armistice?
6. If a peace treaty is not in sight, will the US move to resume face to face talks with the North?
For the moment, the Washington is singing the same old refrain: 'the North has to prove to us by concrete actions that they are sincere'! Well, old darlings, the North can hum the same tune by questioning America's sincerity in wanting to reduce tensions and veer away from military confrontation in the divided Korean peninsula and instead turn its military arms into the plowshares of old fashioned diplomacy?
Judging by the vacuous exchange of idle chatter on the Charlie Rose show [20 December 2010] by Ian Bremmer, founder of the Eurasia Group, and old stalwart of the Hoover Institute, and David Sanger, the 'New York Times' chief Washington correspondent, and the darling of the Pentagon, nothing has really should change for them. The North blinked. Bremmer is in line with the US North Korea clerisy in drawing red lines in the sand beyond which he won't go. In his mind, he still envisages a North Korean attack of the South. He has strong opinions about Kim Jong il & co. which remain rigid in their Cold War form. Sanger has little or no trouble in mouthing Washington cant on North Korea coming from the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom [the State Department] or off the record chitchat from the White House.
These two 'experts' regurgitate the same old shopworn 'bubbe meises' or old wives tales which events are outdistancing.
Americans have a strong sense of self that they do believe they hold the truth on all matters. Sanger expressed surprise that neither Kim Jong il nor Kim Jong eun agreed to see Richardson. Well, old hooter of 'truth handed down from on high', as a lower level private citizen, he got the highest treatment possible for the 'officious' mission he was on. Still, an American is an 'open sesame' by his mere being and deserving of the highest treatment available!
Bremmer and Sanger are two worthy example of American exceptionalism. They are representative of a clerisy who kneels before the prevailing dieties when it comes to North Korea. They are too old to change. Where are diplomats, scholars, and chatting heads who are willing to take on the old sacred Cold War cows? They exist but the power elite elbows them out so that they have no mainstream platform to challenge hoary policy and philosophy on Korea.
Consequently, the public - informed or uninformed - has to rely on the poverty of such opinion. If Americans have grounded sense of self, they, on the whole, are confirmed in their ignorance. Consequently, they are fresh meat for the feral talking heads like Bremmer and Sanger and the feckless US clerisy and media.
GuamDiary now asks if a single 'private' citizen [wink, wink, wink]like Richardson can work 'miracles', isn't it plain as the nose on your face that diplomacy works better to resolve difference? It won't be the last time we raise that question!GuamDiary repeats: is diplomacy more efficient and lest costly in dealing with North Korea?
GuamDiary has to wonder: North Korea has, among US policy makers and clerisy, the reputation of skilfully playing its cards close to its chest. Maybe that's so, but if you follow the yellow brick road of the Bush and Obama administrations card playing, the US plays bad poker and any opponent, and not necessarily Pyongyang, can read its face and call it hand or bluff remaining Cold War superpower to fold.
Studying how the global media reported the last three quarters of 2010 coverage of US and its clients in South Korea and Japan, you have to come to the conclusion that you're seeing children playing in the sandbox in an adult world. Like spoilt young ones, they are sticking to a logic which defies reason or reality. And in this sense, the US is reckless and irrational when it comes to North Korea.
Dare we quote the old Helmsman Mao who at the drop of a hat would repeat the following tale: one's opponent has the habit of lifting a huge stone too heavy for his own strength, to pommel his adversary. Unfortunately, it lands on the thrower's his toe. In way, this is the outcome of Washington's bankrupt policy towards the North. In the end, the US has to backpeddle or find a face saving solution to an irrational policy, the logic of which almost led to a reignited Korean War.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Obama administration has its work cut out for it: Washington has to muzzle its client South Korea's president Lee Myung bek. The US, however, managed at least to pressure him to cut a repeat of the military show and tell to 90 odd minutes in an abbreviated display of tin soldier, which might have been on the short end of North Korean fire. Today, in the largest display of military might, South Korea is ostentatiously showing off at the DMZ. Obama has to sit on its client whose policy of 'rolling back' the North, he and George Bush encouraged and in which they are objectively in synch with. Nonetheless, US strong arm tactics will kick in and result in restraining its testy South Korean client, without damaging Lee's hurt pride.
Richardson's presence and fast talking and hard bargaining as a 'private citizen' in North Korea guaranteed that Pyongyang kept its sang froid. He managed to hammer out an agreement whereby North Korea will soon again allow UN inspection of its nuclear facilities and Yonbyon and work out an arrangement whereby Pyongyang will sell Seoul its spent plutonium rods and then Seoul will ship them to a third country [read: the US].
Suddenly the war tensions that the US and South Korea had been creating for the last 7 months at least, seemingly broke up and scattered to the winds for the moment.
Washington is jolly well puffing out its chest for a job well done. But is it something well done? Broadly speaking, it may be so. Nevertheless, many questions remain unanswered. The order is unimportant:
1. Will the US go into a diplomatic mode in dealing with North Korea? For months now, North Korea has been saying to, say, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter who turned up in Pyongyang as 'private citizens' on a mission to secure the release of American citizens - who illegally entered North Korea, and who were tried and sentenced to long periods of hard labour - that they were willing to return to six party talks in Beijing to discuss, among other topics, the North's nuclear programme. The US and South Korea and Japan remained deaf to Pyongyang's intentions. Consequently, if, as the Bush administration had devised the setting up of the six party talks in order to not deal directly with North Korea and to turn aside any meaningful discussions on its nuclear programme and reducing tensions on the divided Korean peninsula, how could Richardson, as a 'private citizen' skip in leaps and bounds over bureaucratic hurdles to come to an understanding with top North Korean civilian and military leaders?
Jimmy Carter let this cat out of the bag on National Public Radio, after he returned from North Korea with the released Aijalon Gomes. In Beijing, he ran into a very senior US diplomat who was on his way to a meeting on North Korea, but he was only going to 'pow wow' with South Korea and Japan. Carter logically asked if the US emissary had plans to go to Pyongyang? Negative came the reply. He had instructions to avoid contact with the North. [GuamDiary suggests that this is another example of the building of the war axis composed of Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo].
The answer he got struck Carter as dumb, the more especially since he was carrying back a message to the White House from North Korea expressing the desire to renewed contact.
2. Since the US can work out an agreement, albeit under the guise of using 'private citizens, what then is the need and the future of the six party talks?
3. The media tell us what the North Koreans agreed to do, but what engagements -- political, military, and/or economic -- have the Obama administration signed on to?
4. If South Korea is going to buy the North's spent plutonium rods, how much will they pay and what other obligations are they required to fulfill towards the North, i.e., in food, fertilisers, fostering business investment in the North, so on and on and on?
5. Is the US ready to take steps to ending the Korean War with a peace treaty? If so,
will South Korea be at the table since Syngman Rhee refused to signed the 1953 Armistice?
6. If a peace treaty is not in sight, will the US move to resume face to face talks with the North?
For the moment, the Washington is singing the same old refrain: 'the North has to prove to us by concrete actions that they are sincere'! Well, old darlings, the North can hum the same tune by questioning America's sincerity in wanting to reduce tensions and veer away from military confrontation in the divided Korean peninsula and instead turn its military arms into the plowshares of old fashioned diplomacy?
Judging by the vacuous exchange of idle chatter on the Charlie Rose show [20 December 2010] by Ian Bremmer, founder of the Eurasia Group, and old stalwart of the Hoover Institute, and David Sanger, the 'New York Times' chief Washington correspondent, and the darling of the Pentagon, nothing has really should change for them. The North blinked. Bremmer is in line with the US North Korea clerisy in drawing red lines in the sand beyond which he won't go. In his mind, he still envisages a North Korean attack of the South. He has strong opinions about Kim Jong il & co. which remain rigid in their Cold War form. Sanger has little or no trouble in mouthing Washington cant on North Korea coming from the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom [the State Department] or off the record chitchat from the White House.
These two 'experts' regurgitate the same old shopworn 'bubbe meises' or old wives tales which events are outdistancing.
Americans have a strong sense of self that they do believe they hold the truth on all matters. Sanger expressed surprise that neither Kim Jong il nor Kim Jong eun agreed to see Richardson. Well, old hooter of 'truth handed down from on high', as a lower level private citizen, he got the highest treatment possible for the 'officious' mission he was on. Still, an American is an 'open sesame' by his mere being and deserving of the highest treatment available!
Bremmer and Sanger are two worthy example of American exceptionalism. They are representative of a clerisy who kneels before the prevailing dieties when it comes to North Korea. They are too old to change. Where are diplomats, scholars, and chatting heads who are willing to take on the old sacred Cold War cows? They exist but the power elite elbows them out so that they have no mainstream platform to challenge hoary policy and philosophy on Korea.
Consequently, the public - informed or uninformed - has to rely on the poverty of such opinion. If Americans have grounded sense of self, they, on the whole, are confirmed in their ignorance. Consequently, they are fresh meat for the feral talking heads like Bremmer and Sanger and the feckless US clerisy and media.
GuamDiary now asks if a single 'private' citizen [wink, wink, wink]like Richardson can work 'miracles', isn't it plain as the nose on your face that diplomacy works better to resolve difference? It won't be the last time we raise that question!GuamDiary repeats: is diplomacy more efficient and lest costly in dealing with North Korea?
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