North Korea: Fire, Fury And Fear
U.S. President Donald Trump said he'd be 'honoured' to meet North Korean
leader Kim Jong-un. (Reuters)
By Pepe Escobar, www.counterpunch.org
August 12th, 2017
Above Photo: U.S. President Donald Trump said he'd be 'honoured' to meet
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. (Reuters)
Beware the dogs of war. The same intel "folks" who brought to you babies
pulled from incubators by "evil" Iraqis as well as non-existent WMDs are now
peddling the notion that North Korea has produced a miniaturized nuclear
warhead able to fit its recently tested ICBM.
That's the core of an analysis completed in July by the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA). Additionally, US intel believes that Pyongyang now has access
to up to 60 nuclear weapons. On the ground US intel on North Korea is
virtually non-existent - so these assessments amount to guesswork at best.
But when we couple the guesswork with an annual 500-page white paper
released earlier this week by the Japanese Defense Ministry, alarm bells do
start ringing.
The white paper stresses Pyongyang's "significant headway" in the nuclear
race and its "possible" (italics mine) ability to develop miniaturized
nuclear warheads able to fit on the tips of its missiles.
This "possible" ability is drowned in outright speculation. As the report
states, "It is conceivable that North Korea's nuclear weapons program has
already considerably advanced and it is possible that North Korea has
already achieved the miniaturization of nuclear bombs into warheads and has
acquired nuclear warheads."
Western corporate media would hardly refrain from metastasizing pure
speculation into a "North Korea has miniaturized nuclear weapons" frenzy
consuming the cable news cycle/ newspaper headlines. Talk about hearts and
minds comfortably numbed by the fear factor.
The Japanese white paper, conveniently, also escalated condemnation of China
over Beijing's actions in both the East and South China seas.
So let's look at the agendas in play. The War Party in the US, with its
myriad connections in the industrial-military-media complex, obviously
wants/needs war to keep the machinery oiled. Tokyo, for its part, would much
appreciate a pre-emptive US military attack - and damn the inevitable,
massive South Korean casualties that would result from Pyongyang's
counterpunch.
It's quite enlightening that Tokyo, for all practical purposes, considers
China as a "threat" as serious as North Korea; Defense Minister Itsunori
Onodera went straight to the point when he said, "North Korea's missiles
represent a deepening threat. That, along with China's continued threatening
behavior in the East China Sea and South China Sea, is a major concern for
Japan." Beijing's response was swift.
Kim Jong-Un, demonized ad infinitum, is not a fool, and is not going to
indulge in a ritual seppuku unilaterally attacking South Korea, Japan or US
territory. Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal represents the deterrent against
regime change that Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi could not count on. There's
only one way to deal with North Korea, as I've argued before; diplomacy.
Tell that to Washington and Tokyo.
Meanwhile, there's United Nations Security Council Resolution 2371. It does
target North Korea's major exports - coal, iron, seafood. Coal accounts for
40% of Pyongyang's exports, and arguably 10% of GDP.
Yet this new sanctions package does not touch imports of oil and refined-oil
products from China. That's one of the reasons why Beijing voted in favor.
Beijing's strategy is a very Asian attempt to find a face-saving solution -
and that takes time. UNSC resolution 2371 buys time - and may dissuade the
Trump administration, for now, from going heavy metal, with horrible
consequences.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi cautiously stated the sanctions are a sign
of international opposition to North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons
programs. The last thing Beijing needs is a war right on its borders, also
bound to negatively interfere with the expansion of the New Silk Roads,
a.k.a. Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Beijing could always work on re-building trust between Pyongyang and
Washington. That's an order taller than the Himalayas. One just needs to
look back at the 1994 Agreed Framework, signed during Bill Clinton's first
term.
The framework was supposed to freeze - and even dismantle - Pyongyang's
nuclear program and was bound to normalize US-North Korea relations. A
US-led consortium would build two light-water nuclear reactors to compensate
for Pyongyang's loss of nuclear power; sanctions would be lifted; both
parties would issue "formal assurances" against the use of nuclear weapons.
Nothing happened. The framework collapsed in 2002 - when North Korea was
enshrined in the "axis of evil" by the Cheney regime. Not to mention that
the Korean War is still, technically, on; the 1953 armistice was never
replaced by a real peace treaty.
So what next? Three reminders.
1) Beware of an engineered false flag, to be blamed on Pyongyang; that would
be the perfect pretext for war.
2) The current narrative is eerily similar to the usual suspects blaring
since forever that Iran is a heartbeat away from "building a nuclear
weapon".
3) North Korea holds trillions of US dollars in unexplored mineral wealth.
Watch the shadowplay by candidates bound to profit from such juicy loot.