Bush's East Asian baby, or how to build a nuclear bomb by remote control...

6 November 2006.

• Given my obvious shortcomings as a theologian (and the difficulties of adducing evidence on the matter), I am reluctant to pontificate upon the adequacy of the view attributed to the 3rd century religious reformer, known to us only by his title Mani, of the universe as the transitory result of an attack from the realm of darkness on the realm of light, created by the Living Spirit, an emanation of the light realm, out of the mixture of light and darkness. But as a guide to human affairs, views which postulate a dichotomy between an Axis of Good on the one side, and one of Evil on the other, are bound to lead us astray, no matter on which side of the divide we happen to find ourselves. As always, and not least in our times, this Manichaean view of human conflict is promoted mainly by those who have most to hide themselves ; thus a certain George W Bush has felt it incumbent upon himself to pronounce upon what he (or rather his speechwriter) has dubbed the «Axis of Evil». One of the charter members of this so-called «axis» is North Korea, a country almost totally destroyed by a US-led war from 1950 - 1953 and with which the latter power has been unwilling to conclude a treaty of peace, despite the passage of more than half a century. Recently, this country, under constant threat of military attack by a superpower whose nuclear arsenal includes tens of thousands of weapons and whose military budget is greater than that of the rest of the world combined, had the temerity to conduct a test of what it claimed was a nuclear weapon. All the Chicken Littles of the world, both the sincere who are concerned with the real threats to our existence, and the less sincere, who are very selective concerning which threats they allow to exercise them, threw their hands into the air, crying that the world had become a much more insecure place and that the United Nations Organisation(yes, indeed, I kid you not - indeed, His Excellency John Bolton, whose dislike of and contempt for the organisation were his primary qualifications for his appointment as US ambassador to it, led the choir), must do something about this disgusting breach of etiquette. I briefly addressed this anomaly on this page in a review, supra, of Gregory Elich's Global Research article last week ; the publication of Tim Beal's carefully documented North Korea's Nuclear Test—Bush's Godchild? in the latest number of Japan Focus has provided me with the occasion to return to the matter in a posting to StumbleUpon, which I take the liberty of reproducing, infra. Japan Focus is to be thanked for publishing this article detailing one particular aspect of US foreign policy under the reign of King George on the eve of the US 2006 mid-term elections; would that that portion of the US electorate which is allowed by the guardians of order to cast a ballot would read it before doing so ! But alas, I fear the Living Spirit has not yet progressed that far....

Readers who have forced their way through my review last week of Gregory Elich's Why Bush is seeking confrontation with North Korea are aware that, despite assiduous efforts towards this end, I find it difficult to share the Manichaean view of the world with USA in the role of Light and North Korea in that of Darkness that for the obvious reasons is de rigeur when discussing why the former is allowed to possess thousands of nuclear warheads and a military doctrine which insists on the «right» to first use and «pre-emptive war», while the latter is excoriated for perhaps possessing as many as five warheads and a doctrine which permits their use only if the country is under attack. Alas, Tim Beal's carefully researched Japan Focus article does nothing to reduce my skepticism in this respect - quite the contrary. As Mr Beal, Senior Lecturer at Victoria University in Wellington, points out,

... Since it is a small country targeted by the world's superpower, which, though hemorrhaging and perhaps in relative decline, still possesses such formidable political, economic and military power that no country, or international civil servant for that matter, dares openly speak up, even if they so desired. Politicians have hastened to express moral outrage even if, and perhaps especially if, they come from countries which have many nuclear weapons and have conducted tests. Journalists have been having a field day, many delighting in the opportunity to write lurid stories unencumbered by the need to check facts and qualify opinions. Under the circumstances, it is more necessary than ever before to keep a clear head and try to disentangle fact from fantasy, to unearth what has been going on, and what is likely to happen.

The only thing I should like to add to Mr Elich's and Mr Beal's analyses is that the present US policy vis-a-vis North Korea does not, it should be noted, aim at regime change only in that country, but also, and not least, in South Korea, where one of the most important US policy objectives is to discredit the Kim/Roh «Sunshine Policy» towards the North and bring the country back to the state of a loyal US vassal it found itself in before Kim Daejung's election to the presidency in December 1997. To the United States, North Korea is undoubtedly far more important as a tool for keeping South Korea under its thumb than it is in its own right....