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THE BULLY IN THE CHINA SHOP
Understanding
Bush's
Korea Policy: U.S. Opposes
Korean Unity
Why Does North Korea Need its Nuclear Program?
by Edward Miller, MD, San Rafael, California
The Bush Administration's aggressive public
relations campaign against
North Korea is another example of the dangerous
immaturity of our President.
Making off-the-cuff remarks regarding the leader
of another country, and
calling names is behavior inexcusable even in a
local politician, and doubly
dangerous when it is the head of state that
lapses into such childishness.
The fact that our Washington-subservient
media
has cooperated in this
name-calling is but another reflection on the
lack of a really free press in our
country. Hidden from the American public in all
this bru-ha-ha, is the fact
that Washington, not Kim Jon II that is largely
to blame for what has become
a dangerous and unnecessary political and
military stand-off.
Kim Jon II, the present leader of North Korea's
communist government has been
brought up under an umbrella of real or
threatened nuclear warfare. When
Kim was only three, the atomic clouds from
Hiroshima and Nagasaki drifted over
his Korean peninsula. Eight years later when
Kim Jon was approaching his
teens, and toward the end of the Korean War
while the US with Un forces were
still ravaging Kim's country, our General
Dougles MacArthur requested
authority to use atomic weapons and submitted a
list of targets for which he
would need 26 A-bombs. These requested A-bombs
were to be employed against
North Korean targets as well as the Chinese, who
were gathering some 600,000
troops just north of the Yalu River to both
face off with MacArthur as well as
to protect China's several electric generator
plants in the Yalu which
served a good one/third of eastern China's
industrial and domestic needs.
MacArthur's successor, General Matthew Ridgeway
repeated MacArthur's
request but such weapons were never used.
Fortunately for us, President Truman
and his military advisors in Washington denied
the requests. However, the
newly-elected President Eisenhower, according to
author Don Oberdorfer (see
his book: THE TWO KOREAS) claimed that his own
threats in 1953 to use
nuclear weapons "played a major role in
bringing about a truce." When Clinton
took over as president there were still nuclear
weapons in the armament of US
occupying forces in South Korea. The Korean War
from US' point of view
started im 1950 and ended with an armistice on
the 27th of July, 1953. US
casualties totaled 54,200 and Korean casualties
(the majority civilian) over
3 million. North Korea was decimated and her
economy reduced towards
starvation levels.
Back in the mid 1940's during the Clinton years,
, North Korea, still
impoverished from the ravishes of the Korean War,
plus the limitations set by its
communist economy and sorely needing an energy
source to drive its
still-primitive industrial machine, had been
partially dependent on two small
atomic reactors, a 5 megawatt and a 30 megawatt,
built with the help of Russian
and Chinese engineers. Lacking the cash to
purchase even heating and
cooking oil for his people, Kim Jon's father
found himself forced to
dismantle his aging 30-megawatt atomic reactor
in order to refurbish its then
inefficient fuel rods. It was the abundant
uranium 237 present in those 8000
discarded fuel rods, that waved a red flag in
Washington and started the
first of several confrontations.
John Oberdorfer in his book THE TWO KOREAS says
that "North Korea's nuclear
debut dated back to 1982, when an American
surveillance
satellite...photographed what appeared to be a
nuclear reactor vessel under construction
...at Yongbyon...sixty miles north of the
capitral...Photographs taken in June
1984 clearly showed the reactor, its cooling
tower, and some limited power
lines and electric grid connections for local
transmission..."Old-style
reactors of the so-called "heavy-water" type
produce as a by-product of activity
large amounts of U-237 which is rather easily
converted into the plutonium
used in building atomic weapons. It was this
potential weapons use to
which the Clinton Administration, and now Bush,
Jr. has responded.
Had Washington dealt intelligently with the
situation, and offered Kim Jon
II, who had taken over the leadership from his
father, friendly advice and
assistance, things might well have different,
but instead, Washington
began accusing North Korea of planning nuclear
weapons and Clinton even
threatened Kim Jon II with nuclear reprisal,
and began running B-52 "trial runs"
over North Korea from US bases in both Okinawa
and Taiwan. Things got so
out of hand that ex-president Jimmy Carter and
ex- defense Secretary William
Perry volunteered to step in and diffuse the
situation.
The so-called "Agreed Framework" ironed out
with the help of Carter,
William Perry and Kim Jon II's government,
included three promises from
Washington: 500,000 barrels of fuel-cooking
oil/ year, a revision of the political
relations between the two countries, and the
construction by the year 2003
of two light-water, "Westinghouse-Type", 1000
megawatt atomic reactors by
the Unites States, to assist the North Koreans in
establishing an energy
base for their nascent economic recovery.
North Korea agreed not to process
plutonium from the 8000 rods in its aging 30
megawatt reactor.
Fast forward to October 2002. Bush junior, now
president, rather than
working towards the agreed "normalization of
political and economic relations" not
only neglects North Korea, but shortly after
assuming office publicly
humiliates South Korea's president Kim Dae Jung
(now ex-president) during Kim's
Washington visit, since the Korean president's
"sunshine policy" of Korean
reunification runs counter to Washington's need
for an excuse to keep the two
Koreas at loggerheads and so excuse those 37,000
US troops in Kim's country.
In the next move, Bush publicly announced that
North Korea had been
advanced from a "Rogue State" to join
Iraq
and
Iran
in Washington's "Axis of Evil".
By October of 2002 North Korea's Kim Jon II,
whose people have been waiting
since the 1994 "Agreed Framework" for much
needed electrical energy from the
promised two 1000 megawatt reactors, complained
that neither reactor had
been brought online, and in fact, only the
concrete foundation of one had been
constructed. In an understandable snitt, Kim
Jon II announced he would
reactivate his aging 30 megawatt reactor at
Pyongyang while publicly
acknowledging plans to extract some residual
plutonium from discarded rods. Kim
also removed the IAEA surveillance cameras and
slammed the door shut on further
UN inspectors. Bush originally raised the hype
on the plutonium-missile
issue to boost his own Star Wars program, but as
international attention was
drawn to Washington's absolute failure to keep
its part of the 1994 "Agreement
Framework", Bush temporarily quieted down. In
October 2002 North Korea openly
admitted they were restarting their weapons
program, a violation of the 1994
Agreement with Washington under which North
Korea agreed to freeze its
weapons activities.
The refusal of Bush to negotiate with Kim Jon
II places the North Koreans
in a dilemma. With a population in economic
collapse, and badly in need of
electric power, both to serve their cities as
well as support the Kaae Sung
Industrial Park under construction at their
border with South Korea,
Bush's refusal to move forward with the "Agreed
Framework" and deliver the two
promised atomic reactors can only fuel the North
Korean's anger. Add to
this the not-so-subtle hints from Washington of
a military strike against
their atomic facility by a US still nominally
at war with North Korea (the
US has refused to renegotiate the Armistice
signed in 1957), and you have
the potential for a dangerous confrontation.
To add fuel to the fire, the
Bush Administration has threatened to press
Japan to ban the millions of
yen North Koreans depend on from their Korean
relatives living in Japan. If
this weren't frustrating enough, the Asia Times
(July 12th) reported a
meeting of more than 100 defense and diplomatic
representatives from Australia,
France,
Germany,
Italy, Japan, Portugal, Spain,
the United Kingdom and the US
in Brisbane, to consider a Proliferation
Security Initiative (PSI) measure
aimed at to intercepting both ships on the high
seas as well as cargo
planes from those so-called "Axis of Evil"
countries, when carrying what the US
considers as "contraband" items such as missiles
or even drugs from North Korea
to either Yemen or Iran. This act which many
see as "international piracy"
will simply add fuel to the fire.
Kim Jon II's supposed "nuclear renewal"
threat beside attracting world
attention to Washington's abject failure to
honor its 1994" Agreed
Framework" has another interesting aspect.
North Korean officials have publicly
noted that the United States has felt free to
attack countries such as
Yugoslavia and Iraq which had no nuclear
arsenals, thus logic says the possession
of nuclear arms by their country could deter
the US from considering a
nuclear confrontation in the Asian theater.
While Bush may hope to achieve support for his
"Star Wars" initiative by
this nuclear confrontation with Kim Jon II, he
has gained no approval from
either Kim's Asian neighbors, the UN or our
European allies, all of whom are
pressing Washington to negotiate directly with
North Korea. Washington's
threat to seek a Security Council's condemnation
of North Korea has gone nowhere,
though Bush bought off China's threatened
veto by backing Beijing's
admission to the
WTO
(World Trade Organization)
despite China's abysmal human
rights record.
All in all, Washington's failure to honor the
"Agreed Framework", its
public inclusion of North Korea in the "Axis of
Evil," its threats of
military and even nuclear reprisal, and its
talk of both a blockade plus
international piracy both on the high seas and in
the air are alarming our Asian
friends, particularly the South Koreans. North
Korea has over 1 million
soldiers, and a massive artillery as well as
missile array just north of the DMZ
which is less than 30 miles from Seoul, a city
containing over 50% 0f South
Korea's population and not that far from the
Japanese islands. No wonder
Bush's hardline policy towards Kim Jong II
frightens our Asian friends. Even
Prime Minister Tony Blair, in Washington this
week cautioned Bush : "We need
to resolve the issue by peaceful and constructive
dialogue...with talks that
include South Korea and Japan as well as China
and America." Meanwhile South
Korea's president Ron Moo Hyun tried to play down
the international alarm over
North Korea's nuclear threats by praising the
United States for "Putting
pressure on Pyongyang, while maintaining a
"friendly attitude." (Independent
News. co.uk 21 July, 2003) The question is:
Will our bully listen?
As for the so-called North Korean missile crisis
, our own US military is
purchasing from at least five missile
manufacturers in the US and Britain:
Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon Systems,
Megatech, and British Aero-space,
as well as US firms which share manufacturing
with
Israel.
All these
companies are free to sell abroad except to
those "Axis of Evil" countries.
Trying by threats to limit Kim Jon II's
missile sales is foolish, as was
Washington's recent move to slap sanctions on
both a Chinese (NORINCO) and an
Iranian (SHAHID HERMAT) missile company for
"helping the Islamic government
in Tehran modernize and expand its missile
arsenal." Both companies also
provided missile-related items to North Korea.
(globalsecurity.org 21 july).
Washington's move was obviously instigated by
our Israeli lobby. Experience
has shown that both missiles and missile parts
can and are being smuggled
across borders anywhere in the world. The US is
by far the world's largest
seller of this military hardware.
20 July, 2003
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2003-08-09 Sat 22:25ct