The problem with this article is that the premise is that there was a missile
launch to begin with. Anyone remember the supposed attack on a US destroyer in
the Gulf of Tompkin that was rationale for the Vietnam war, never any evidence
that it happened. Anyone remember the supposed rocket strikes in Israel that
was rationale for the invasion and occupation of Gaza, never any evidence that
the rockets existed. Anyone remember the "weapons of mass destruction" that
were used as rationale for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, never any
evidence of those either. So now we are supposed to believe our right wing
controlled media that there is a North Korean ICBM pointed at every Burger King
in the US? Nope sorry not interested in this bunk.
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Saturday, December 2, 2017 10:25 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] US Hysteria Blooms in Wake of North Korean Missile
Splashdown
US Hysteria Blooms in Wake of North Korean Missile Splashdown By William
Boardman, Reader Supported News
30 November 17
Suppose an opportunity for peace arrived - could the US see it?
The most dangerous thing about the North Korean missile launch is the reaction
of the unprincipled, under-informed, white identity extremist sitting in the
Oval Office. If there's a nuclear war coming out of this manufactured "crisis,"
the buck will have stopped with him. Not that President Trump doesn't have
other fools egging him on to risk global chaos and destruction in response to
an imaginary, inflated threat from an impoverished nation of 25 million people.
Sadly, this is not a surprising development after more than sixty years of
aggressive US behavior toward North Korea.
But first, what about that November 29 missile launch, widely and dishonestly
played as showing that that North Korea could hit any point in the US, even
Washington or Mar-a-Lago? That meme is a speculative fear-tactic. In the fine
print, none of the experts, not even hawkish defense secretary General Jim
Mattis, one of the last supposed grown-ups in Trumplandia. The North Korean
missile went higher - roughly 2,800 miles - than any previous North Korean
missile, but it didn't go very far, about 600 miles, landing in the ocean short
of Japan.
Based on this scant information, mostly provided by the North Korean
government, experts like David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists
extrapolated the missile's potential range from the actual 600 miles to an
estimated 8,000 miles. This is not a scientific measurement but a speculative
conjecture based on science as well as the unknown assumptions that the tested
missile was carrying an actual warhead. Wright allowed for the possibility that
the missile's high performance was because it carried a dummy warhead of almost
inconsequential weight. Wright concluded, according the New York Times, that
"the distance traveled, while impressive, does not necessarily translate into a
working intercontinental ballistic missile that could deliver a thermonuclear
warhead." That's something of a non-threat threat lurking in a hypothetical
future. For General Mattis, the projected possible threat, free of historical
or strategic context, was all too real in his hyperbolic projection:
The bottom line is, it's a continued effort to build a threat - a ballistic
missile threat that endangers world peace, regional peace, and certainly, the
United States.
This isn't General Mattis prematurely overreacting to just one unevaluated
missile test. General Mattis engages in the standard military operating
procedure of threat-inflation on a regular basis, which does not distinguish
him from two generations of other official military and executive branch
fearmongers scaring us with apparent North Korean intentions, even while
driving those intentions with real, constant American threatening. As General
Mattis put it in late October:
North Korea has accelerated the threat that it poses to its neighbors and the
world through its illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear weapons
programs.. I cannot imagine a condition under which the United States would
accept North Korea as a nuclear power..
He said, "unnecessary." He must know that's absurdly Orwellian. The United
States and North Korea have been in a state of war since 1950. The armistice of
1953 suspended the fighting but did not end the war. From then until now, North
Korean sovereignty has been irrelevant to American leaders. So here we are,
with North Korea already a nuclear power and the US refusing to accept a new
reality, never mind US responsibility for creating that new reality through
decades of open bellicosity. The times called the most recent missile launch "a
bold act of defiance against President Trump," which is a laughably unaware
acceptance of the American assumption that it has any right to any authority
over another sovereign state.
American denial of the North Korean perspective is the driving force in this
largely artificial confrontation. North Korea has already been overrun by
American forces once in living memory, in a war with largely unexamined
American atrocities (we've propagandized their atrocities to a fare thee well).
Overrun by Americans, only to be counter-overrun by the Chinese, North Koreans
might well want to be left alone. The US and its allies, especially South Korea
and Japan, have maintained unrelenting hostility to North Korea, whose best
friend is an unreliable China. Why wouldn't North Korea want a nuclear
deterrent? Deterrence is the American justification for a nuclear arsenal that
dwarfs all others but the Russians'.
But American leaders insist on calling North Korea a threat. North Korea was a
threat in 1950. and that turned out very badly for them. Today, North Korea is
a credible threat to no one except perhaps its own people. A North Korean
attack on anyone would be met with overwhelming force up to and possibly
including nuclear obliteration. North Korea is in check, and any honest
observer knows that. Some even say so. Defense Dept. spokesman Colonel Robert
Manning, in striking contrast to his shrill boss General Mattis, said:
We are working with our interagency partners on a more detailed assessment of
the launch.. the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North
America, our territories or our allies.. We remain prepared to defend ourselves
and our allies from any attack or provocation.
That is so rational and basic that it should hardly need saying. We don't live
in a time when basic and rational get much attention. American arrogance and
paranoia toward North Korea are longstanding, untreated pathologies that
continue to worsen. As our Trump tweeted in early October, with his usual
fact-free, threatening bombast:
Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25
years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid ... hasn't worked,
agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S.
negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!
Our Trump coyly avoided saying what he thought that one thing was, but his
Secretary of State still says, "Diplomatic options remain viable and open for
now." Not that anyone pays much attention to Rex Tillerson these days as he
guts the State Dept. of effective, experienced personnel. Much greater play
goes to the crazy ranters who are already blaming the victims if it turns out
we have to attack them (sounds like domestic violence, doesn't it?). Case in
point is Lindsey Graham, who plays a deranged Republican Senator from South
Carolina, saying:
If we have to go to war to stop this, we will. If there's a war with North
Korea it will be because North Korea brought it on itself, and we're headed to
a war if things don't change.
Or as the battering husband puts it: "She just wouldn't listen to me!"
Echoing the blame-the-victim mantra, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (famous for
saying "women don't care about contraception") told the UN Security Council the
missile launch was an act of "aggression" with serious potential
consequences:
. make no mistake the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed.. The
dictator of North Korea made a decision yesterday that brings us closer to war,
not farther from it. We have never sought war with North Korea and still today
we do not seek it.
But they just won't listen!
In North Korea, after the missile launch, leader Kim Jong Un said that his
country has "finally realized the great historic cause of completing the state
nuclear force." A nuclear deterrent, in other words. This may or may not be
entirely true. But they may or may not be beside the point. As writers in Japan
Times note, this missile launch and its accompanying official statements could
be an olive branch:
[North Korea] then said its pursuit of the "strategic weapon" had been intended
to "defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country from the
U.S. imperialists' nuclear blackmail policy," and emphasized that it would "not
pose any threat to any country and region as long as the interests of the DPRK
(the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) are not infringed upon.. The DPRK
will make every possible effort to serve the noble purpose of defending peace
and stability of the world."
Does it matter whether this is true as long as everyone acts like it's true?
Our Trump has a random relationship with truth, and his spokeswoman says it
doesn't matter whether his racist tweets are real or fake news. So what we have
here is an excellent opportunity for the mocker-in-chief of his Asian allies to
seize the opportunity to make white identity extremism great again
and- oh, never mind.
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print
journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He
has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to
republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported
News.
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