The Tibet Card

29 March 2008.

• Today's Information Clearing House - one of the most essential organs for anyone with the English language at his or her disposal who wishes to remain à jour with what is happening behind that which seems to be happening in our little world - has published a must-read article, entitled The Tibet Card by Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich. Her article being so brief, I permit myself in the following to quote from it extensively :

  During the Vietnam era, the United States eagerly supported the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem, a man who brutally oppressed the Buddhists; yet today our government has risen in defense of the Dalai Lama and Tibet. Has our sordid history finally led to compassion for the people of Tibet? One must wonder which people we want to protect for there are 41 races in Tibet, including Tibetan, Menpa, Luopa, Han Chinese, Hui, Sherpa, Deng, and so on; although by far, the majority are Tibetans. Perhaps the US is reaching out to the Dalai Lama - again?

  It would seem, however, that the risk that the United States government will dispatch its «ally», the Dalai Lama, as readily as it dispatched Ngo Dinh Diem when the latter couldn't deliver the goods is very small ; after all, the task assigned to Tenzin Gyatso is much less arduous than that assigned to Ngo Dinh Diem, who was to keep the southern half of Vietnam safely within the Empire's grasp. All the former has to do is help to keep the present Chinese government off balance, and draw attention from the egregious human rights violations being actively committed by the United States (and its «coalition of the willing» around the globe. At this, the Dalai Lama seems to be quite adroit - at least for readers and, not least, watchers of our corporate media, which have projected into our minds an image of an ancient Shangri-La which is being pillaged and ravished by the dastardly Chinese (by which is meant the majority, Han, population of China ; in the so-called «Western» media, none of the non-Han «minority peoples» are to be regarded as Chinese, whatever their contribution to the civilisation we subsume by that name. As can be expected, this mythical version of a peaceful paradise hardly stands up to scrutiny (which, of course, is why it almost never receives such scrutiny) ; as pointed out in Michael Parenti's brief essay, Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth,

  A reading of Tibet’s history suggests a somewhat different picture. “Religious conflict was commonplace in old Tibet,” writes one western Buddhist practitioner. “History belies the Shangri-La image of Tibetan lamas and their followers living together in mutual tolerance and nonviolent goodwill. Indeed, the situation was quite different. Old Tibet was much more like Europe during the religious wars of the Counterreformation.” 5 In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet. Here is a historical irony: the first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army.
  
  His two previous lama “incarnations” were then retroactively recognized as his predecessors, thereby transforming the 1st Dalai Lama into the 3rd Dalai Lama. This 1st (or 3rd) Dalai Lama seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity. The Dalai Lama who succeeded him pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying many mistresses, partying with friends, and acting in other ways deemed unfitting for an incarnate deity. For these transgressions he was murdered by his priests. Within 170 years, despite their recognized divine status, five Dalai Lamas were killed by their high priests or other courtiers. 6
  
  For hundreds of years competing Tibetan Buddhist sects engaged in bitterly violent clashes and summary executions. In 1660, the 5th Dalai Lama was faced with a rebellion in Tsang province, the stronghold of the rival Kagyu sect with its high lama known as the Karmapa. The 5th Dalai Lama called for harsh retribution against the rebels, directing the Mongol army to obliterate the male and female lines, and the offspring too “like eggs smashed against rocks…. In short, annihilate any traces of them, even their names.” 7
  
  In 1792, many Kagyu monasteries were confiscated and their monks were forcibly converted to the Gelug sect (the Dalai Lama’s denomination). The Gelug school, known also as the “Yellow Hats,” showed little tolerance or willingness to mix their teachings with other Buddhist sects. In the words of one of their traditional prayers: “Praise to you, violent god of the Yellow Hat teachings/who reduces to particles of dust/ great beings, high officials and ordinary people/ who pollute and corrupt the Gelug doctrine.” 8 An eighteenth-century memoir of a Tibetan general depicts sectarian strife among Buddhists that is as brutal and bloody as any religious conflict might be. 9 This grim history remains largely unvisited by present-day followers of Tibetan Buddhism in the West.[For the references, and more on Tibet during the first half of the last century, which may strike some as more relevant to our discourse, as they touche on the present, 14th (or 12th, depending upon how one wishes to count) Dalai Lama, please see both Ms Sepahpour-Ulrich's and Professor Parenti's orginal articles, accessible via the links above.]

  Let us return to Ms Sepahpour-Ulrich's article. She has the temerity to indicate that other interests than «human rights» may play a role in the concern exhibited by the US and certain other countries for the plight of one group among the population of Tibet :

  What is the reason behind America’s sudden interest in Tibet, the Buddhist ideology of 1649 Dalai Lama preserving animal and nature (we certainly could be preserving nature at home) or is it what is under nature? Tibet has the world’s largest reserve of uranium, and in addition to gold and copper, large quantities of oil and gas were discovered in Qiangtang Basin in western China's remote Tibet area[iii]. A friendly Dalai Lama would help reimburse the CIA subsidies, and much more.

  While it is certainly true that the government of the United States (and that of its «allies») would very much like to gain control over these resources - and moreover, has shown itself more than willing to go to war to secure assets of this type, I think, as also Ms Sepahpour-Ulrich seems to do (see below), that this is not the major factor in determining the present policy ; it seems unlikely that the rulers of the United States would prove as successful in splitting China and installing client states on the periphery of the rump as they were in the case of the Soviet Union, and my best guess is that they are very much aware of this fact. (This is not to say, however, that any opportunities in that direction will be overlooked....)

  There are other more important factors. Israel’s interest is undeniable. In fact, they have been helping this ancient green land with ‘agriculture techniques’ in recent years[iv]. Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor, is recruiting fellow Nobel winners to press China on Tibet. Other notables such as Spielberg have already cooperated, and Sarkozy is considering boycotting the Olympics. One has to ask why these humanitarians are not concerned with the well-being of 1.4 million Palestinians described by the UN and the ICRC as being subjected to worst possible human disaster witnessed.
  
  China has always shown reluctance to impose sanctions on Iran. From an Israeli and American perspective, China became a veritable short-term liability (versus a long term power challenging the US) when Iran and China engaged in talks to allow for a military base for China in one of Iran’s Persian Gulf ports. This was in response to Sarkozy making an announcement that France and the UAE were negotiating a deal in which France would have a small base in that region. Such a cooperation between Iran and China would make Iran less vulnerable to an attack by Israel and/or the United States.

  
  I do not wish here to deny that some people may be genuinely concerned with the fate of Tibetan people(s) and convinced that what we there are witnessing (through the rather biased eyes of our corporate media) is a Manichaean struggle beween the forces of light - represented by the Dalai Lama and his group and certain monks in Tibet, backed by such idealistic practitoners of human rights as the guide to policy as George Walker Bush, Richard Bruce Cheney, and Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsao (not to mention assorted Hollywood actors, who know - or whose managers know - a good publicity stunt when they see one) on the one hand, and the forces of darkness, represented by the Chinese government (and behind that goverment, die gelbe Gefahr, the great mass of the Chinese people. But these well-meaning people are not the «movers and shakers» behind the policies which may yet again cause more suffering on the «Roof of the World» ; they are merely, as always, those in whose name these policies are carried out....
  
  
  Below, in any event, my brief response to Ms Sepahpour-Ulrich's article. as posted to Information Clearing House and my StumbleUpon page :

It is indeed a pleasure to read an article in which historical precedents are marshaled so skilfully - and so accurately - to allow us to sweep away the veil of rhetoric and spin which infests our corporate media and analyse the motivations of the players, obvious and hidden, who figure in the recent events in Tibet and the various reactions to them seen in differing countries around the world. Alas, the term «human rights» has become so debased by the strange selective nature of the conflicts to which it is applied that it has lost its original meaning, and merely become synonymous with the political interests of the US empire and its satellites and satrapies. Much thanks are due Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich for writing, and not least ICH for publishing, this essay....

The repository of political virtue

• Professor Ira Chernus' article, originally published the day before yesterday under the title Will we suffer from the Iraq syndrome? Beware of the boomerang on Tom Dispatch and a day later under the truncated title Beware the Iraqi boomerang on the Asia Times website, provides us with a brief, but thought provoking analysis of the what may be the future development of a polymorphic «Vietnam syndrome», one in which the so-called «backlash» is far more powerful than the «syndrome» itself. Professor Chernus writes :
  ...
  
  The very idea of such a «syndrome» implied that what the Vietnam War had devastated was not so much the Vietnamese or their ruined land as the traumatized American psyche. As a concept, it served to mask, if not obliterate, many of the realities of the actual war. It also suggested that there was something pathological in a post-war fear of taking our arms and aims abroad, that America had indeed become (in Richard Nixon's famous phrase) a «pitiful, helpless giant», a basket case.
  
  ...
  
  Iraq -- both the war and the «syndrome» to come -- could easily evoke a similar set of urges: to evade a painful reality and ignore the lessons it should teach us. The thought that Americans are simply a collective neurotic head-case when it comes to the use of force could help sow similar seeds of insecurity that might -- after a pause -- again push our politics and culture back to a glorification of military power and imperial intervention as instruments of choice for seeking «security».
  
  What put an end to the US war on Indochina was not a sudden revulsion on the part of the citizens and residents of the United States for the death and destruction wreaked in their name on the peoples of Indochina, but a gradually increasing unwillingness to accept the growing costs of the war upon themselves, and the realisation on the part of their leaders that the war, which by that time had long since attained its primary objective - that of making excruciating clear to all the costs of pursuing a course of development opposed by the economic and political of the United States - was now destroying the country's army and indeed, the elite's ability to manipulate public opinion. «Cutting and running» - after placing the responsibility for maintaining an illusory balance of power on an equally illusory Government of the Republic of Vietnam, etc, and dropping extra plane-loads of bombs and napalm on the Indochinese peoples to give further expression to US displeasure - became the better part of valour, and we saw those shots of helicopters departing in unseemly haste from the symbolic places of US power in Vietnam. But as in Germany after WWI, the elite could not accept the fact that their reach had, however slightly, exceeded their grasp - and a new, US version of the old stab-in-the-back theory was launched, the more easily believed by a people who have been carefully taught to believe that the US exercise of power, in particular military power, in foreign lands is always an act of virtue, and that virtue - the good guys - always wins in the end, unless its purpose is subverted by traitors - the bad guys - at home. And so, as Professor Chernus writes, «[t]he desire to 'cure' the Vietnam syndrome became a springboard to unabashed, militant nationalism and a broad rightward turn in the nation's life»....
  
  If all this sounds distressingly familiar, it should, and it tends to demonstrate the validity of the aphorism that the only thing we learn from history is the fact that we learn nothing from history. Is it our primate genes that make us constitutionally incapable of controlling our greed and our lust for power, our self-serving gullibility, and our propensity for violence on a scale unknown to other species ? I do not know, but here below the letter I sent to the Asia Times (with a copy, as usual, to StumbleUpon) regarding Professor Chernus' article :

The residents and citizens of the USA and the rest of the world are doomed to repeat the events of recent history, until either the former learn to accept that the United States is not the unique repository of global political virtue or until a general conflagration puts and end to human life on the planet - whichever happens first. You pays your money and you takes your choice....

Death in Lebanon : Spinning an assassination....

25 November 2006.

• Yesterday, Information Clearing House published an article entitled Syria is a convenient fallguy for Gemayel’s death in which Jonathan Cook took the liberty of calling attention to what should be the obvious fact that none of the journalists, including himself, who pontificate on the recent assassination of the Phalangist politician and Minister of Industry in the Lebanese coalition government, Pierre Gemayel, know for a fact who it was that lay behind the Mafia-style murder (unless, of course, they maintain unusually close connexions with the perpetrators). Unlike many of his colleagues, however, Mr Cook does not claim to know who did the deed, but he does offers a «few impolite thoughts» regarding who benefits from it. He points out that neither Syria nor Hezbollah (nor the Lebanese people, of course) stand to gain from the situation resulting from the assassination, which nudges Lebanon further to the brink of civil war (here, I cannot help but reflect over the fact that the US «intervention» has resulted in something that certainly resembles a civil war. There are those, of course, who claim that this is an unforeseen and undesired consequence of the invasion ; there are also those who believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy). Which states then, do stand to gain from the assassination and its aftermath ? Mr Cook is not coy about indicating a possible answer :

  Conversely, civil war may pose serious threats to Syrian interests -- and offer significant benefits to Israel. If Hizbullah’s energies are seriously depleted in a civil war, Israel may be in a much better position to attack Lebanon again. Almost everyone in Israel is agreed that the Israeli army is itching to settle the score with Hizbullah in another round of fighting. This way it may get the next war it wants on much better terms; or Israel may be able to fight a proxy war against Hizbullah by aiding the Shiite group’s opponents. Certainly one of the main goals of Israel’s bombing campaign over the summer, when much of Lebanon’s infrastructure was destroyed, appeared to be to provoke such a civil war. It was widely reported at the time that Israel’s generals hoped that the devastation would provoke the Christian, Sunni and Druze communities to rise up against Hizbullah.

  The Litani River remains, no doubt, a major (if not the ultimate) strategic goal for Israeli expansionism ; a civil war in Lebanon could, perhaps be perceived by its strategists as providing yet another opportunity to attain that for which the Israeli state has been straining but never quite achieved (despite a 20-year occupation of southern Lebanon) during the whole of its 60 years of existence. In any event, Mr Cook's voice is one to which we should be wise to listen ; below the response I posted to the International Clearing House thread and to StumbleUpon, upon reading his article :

Somehow, I doubt that we shall be given the opportunity to read Jonathan Cook any time soon in the New York Times, for example, or the Washington Post, or, for that matter, in the Independent or the Guardian. But we very much need to hear more from him, and of his carefully reasoned, dispassionate analyses of the latest spin on the latest atrocity taking place in Southwest Asia. We are thus all indebted to Information Clearing House for publishing Mr Cook's work....

Eye on Pyongyang - APEC meets in Ha Noi....

18 November 2006.

• This week a series of meetings have been taking place in Vietnam's capital Ha Noi under the auspices of an organisation known as APEC, an acronym for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Reports from the meeting of the heads of state of the 21 states that are members of this forum indicate that most of the talk taking place there concerns another state, both Asian and Pacific, but whose voice is not allowed to be heard in the forum. Ironically, the recent history of that state, North Korea, resembles to a great degree that of the state, Vietnam, hosting the forum this year, in that both of these states were subjected to a colonial war on the part of a United States that intended to gather all the remnants of the Japanese empire that collapsed in 1945 in its own far-flung empire. The results of these two wars were disappointing to the leadership of the United States - the first ended in 1953 with a divided Korean peninsula, the second in 1975 with a unified Vietnam. But for reasons which would require far more space to analyse than that available here, successive US administrations have found the first defeat even more difficult to accept than the second, which has lead to the fact that even today, more than 53 years after the armistice ending major hostilities in Korea was signed in 1953, a peace treaty finally bringing the war to a formal end is yet to be concluded between the United States and the Democratic Republic of Korea. (Readers with good memories might here observe that a peace treaty between Russia and Japan formally ending the hostilities of WW II has never been signed, despite the passage of more than 60 years, but all must agree that relations between these two countries proceed on a far different basis from that which governs those obtaining between the US and the DPRK.) Given the total success in the case of North Korea that the extreme demonisation of opponents so characteristic of US psychological warfare has enjoyed, Stephen Gowans' article reviewing the history of the conflict, published first on his blog What's Left under the title Understanding North Korea, and republished by Global Research in an article with the same title, provides a necessary antidote to the «common [lack of] knowledge» concerning that state and its history. But as the Chinese saying goes, 良药苦口, and I fear that many of my readers will find it extremely difficult to swallow the bitter pill of this knowledge, no matter how salubrious its effects would be upon their view of the world. Here below, in any event, the response I posted to StumbleUpon after reading Mr Gowans' article :

What do you know about North Korea - aside from, of course, that it is the very epitome of inhumanity and repression, the linchpin that holds the «Axis of Evil» in place ? You've learned - unfortunately, somewhat post festum - to be suspicious of the US administration's picture of the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan, and you realise that the image of Vietnam propagated by another US administration as an excuse to make war on that country and that region, with approximately three million premature deaths as a result, was false. But when King George and his loyal courtiers - loyal to whom and to what, it might be asked, but alas, all too often is not - present their view of North Korea, it remains almost completely unchallenged. Who remembers that the US war in Korea was, just like the war in Vietnam which started at the same time (1945, under French auspices) but which was, unlike that in Korea which ended - at least for the time being - in 1953, to continue for another three decades), part of an attempt to pick up the pieces of the erstwhile Japanese empire that WW II had brought to an end and incorporate them in a new, larger US empire ? Stephen Gowans, a Canadian writer and activist, is to be commended for publishing this brief but well-researched review of Korean history from 1945 on his blog, and Global Research for bringing it to the attention of a wider readership....

War and civil courage in our times....

5 November 2006.

• Seldom do I find myself disturbed by articles I read in the press or online, but I must confess that I found Elizabeth de la Vega's article on Ricky Clousing, Move Over G.I. Joe and Han Solo : Sgt. Ricky Clousing, Peace Action Hero, published a few days ago on Tom Engelhardt's Tom Dispatch, deeply disturbing. To summarise, Mr Clousing is a 24 year-old man who, after joining the US military after the 11 September 2001 attacks and undergoing intensive language training found himself posted to Iraq as an interrogator. On patrol there he experienced an event, hardly uncommon, which seems to have marked his young life indelibly :

  Ricky was on patrol when he saw a boy, "probably 18 years old, a small maybe high-school age kid" turn down a road his unit was attempting to secure. The teenager, Ricky said, was quite visibly terrified at the sight of "a whole bunch of Americans with big weapons" staring him in the face. He started turning the car around, but didn't get very far. This is how Ricky described what happened next:
  
  

  One of the soldiers in the turret of the humvee behind me just opened up fire on the machine gun on the vehicle. As the vehicle was turning away, all I heard above my head was "pop, pop, pop, pop." This was my first deployment, my first combat experience was that moment right then, and just the sound of machine guns going off over my head. He popped about five or six rounds in the side of the vehicle. Myself and two of the other guys ran over to the vehicle, smashed the window, and pulled the guy out to provide first aid on him… I was looking down at this kid who had just been shot in the stomach for no reason really -- he was trying to leave…I was still just standing there in shock, looking down at this kid, and he looked right up at me. And his mouth was foaming. His stomach was falling out in his hands… I was looking down at this kid, this young boy who was just trying to drive around town and took a wrong turn and tried to go the other direction, was shot at and killed, and I'm looking down at him now. And we made eye contact for about five seconds, and he just looked at me with the most empty, terrified look in his face that will never leave me in my whole life I'm sure.

  
  
  That Iraqi boy died on the way to the hospital. I think the boy in Ricky Clousing died that day as well, but what an extraordinary man he has since become. Deciding he would be haunted forever if he kept silent about such an egregious violation of the rules of engagement, Sgt. Clousing notified the unit's Platoon Sergeant, who did not "take kindly" to his advice.

  
  Further attempts to take up the matter with his superiors led to his being variously advised to effect a discharge from the US army by saying he was gay, or claiming he was suffering from PTSD, or filing as a conscientious objector, none of which, he felt applied to him, or at least avoid another tour in Iraq by serving in the US. But neither was that an acceptable alternative :

  I felt that my involvement in the army, whether it be directly or indirectly, whether in Iraq or training guys to go to Iraq, I was still that piece of machine in the system that was still allowing this war to take place and still supporting that. My actions, whether or not they were on the front line or back safely at home, were still part of the body of the machine that's occupying [Iraq]. So I ultimately felt that the only thing I could do was to leave, so I packed my stuff last June and I went AWOLI felt that my involvement in the army, whether it be directly or indirectly, whether in Iraq or training guys to go to Iraq, I was still that piece of machine in the system that was still allowing this war to take place and still supporting that. My actions, whether or not they were on the front line or back safely at home, were still part of the body of the machine that's occupying [Iraq]. So I ultimately felt that the only thing I could do was to leave, so I packed my stuff last June and I went AWOL.

  
  Mr Clousing turned himself in on 11 August 2006 and is currently serving a three-month sentence in a military brig. Why I was so disturbed by this article and what this particular incident has to say about the nature of war and civil courage in our times I leave to the reader to decide, but this is the letter (with one minor modification) I sent to Tom Englehardt (and posted to StumbleUpon) after reading Ms de la Vega's article :

What the hell, Tom ! I was beginning to become, if not comfortable with, at least inured to the cynicism and misanthropy, in particular with respect to your country, which recent events have contributed so richly to calling forth and maintaining in my mental life. Now you, Ms de la Vega, and in particular, Ricky Clousing, bust it all up and show that there do exist alternatives to cynicism and misanthropy, even if they do not seem to be so popular. For some reason this just makes the whole thing worse - the fact that alternatives to «le meilleur monde possible» as defined by Bush/Cheney and their ilk do exist makes the coming catastrophe all the harder to view with equanimity....

Henri

One thread in a tangled web : US foreign policy and North Korea

30 October 2006.

• *Gregory Elich's analysis of the present US administration's policy toward North Korea was published yesterday on Global Research's website. To my mind, the title of the Global Research article, Why Bush is seeking confrontation with North Korea is somewhat misleading ; rather than analysing the motives behind this policy - something I attempt to deal with in my own review of the article in my posting to StumbleUpon, infra, wherein, however, I do not touch upon the little-remarked but not unimportant fact that the US administration is here trying to effect regime change not only in North Korea, but in South Korea as well, by ensuring the failure of the Roh government's «Sunshine Policy» towards the North - Mr Elich analyses in great detail the steps by which this disastrous policy is in the process of being implemented). He details how, after a statement of principles on nuclear disarmament was signed between the US and North Korea at the six-party talks on 19 September 2005, the U.S. immediately violated one of the agreement's main points :

  Although the U.S. was required under the agreement to begin normalizing relations with North Korea, on literally the very next day it announced the imposition of sanctions on North Korean accounts held in the Macao-based Banco Delta Asia, allegedly because they were being used to circulate counterfeit currency. The Bush Administration, however, viewed its signature on the agreement as only a tactical delay. During negotiations it had firmly rejected the statement, and was brought around only when the Chinese delegation warned that it would announce that the U.S. was to blame were the six-party talks to collapse.

  Moreover, which may well come as a surprise to readers who rely mainly upon mainstream media for their information on the crisis, Mr Elich shows that no evidence for this accusation has been presented, while much evidence indicates that this may be a psyop run by US agencies themselves :

  German counterfeit expert Klaus Bender believes that since U.S. currency is printed on specially made paper in Massachusetts, using ink based on a secret chemical formula, “it is unimaginable” that anyone other than Americans “could come by these materials.” The printing machines that North Korea obtained three decades ago, Bender says, are “outdated and not able to produce the USD supernote, a high tech product.” He strongly implied that the CIA could be the source of the counterfeit currency as it “runs a secret printing facility equipped with the sophisticated technology which is required for the production of the notes.” That the CIA has the capacity to print money does not prove that it has done so. It would, however, have a motive, and the source has not been traced. Wherever the counterfeit supernotes came from, the Bush Administration was ardently using the issue as a pretext to take action against North Korea. Despite that, Bender reports, “the opinion of experts” is that the U.S. allegation against North Korea “is not tenable.” (1)

  The consequences for North Korea's foreign trade were drastic and immediate :

  he measures taken against Banco Delta Asia deprived North Korea of a major access point to foreign exchange, and served also as a mechanism for magnifying the effect of sanctions. By blacklisting Banco Delta Asia, the U.S. caused other financial institutions to curtail dealings with the bank, until it was forced to sever relations with North Korea. The campaign soon took on global significance. The U.S. Treasury Department sent warning letters to banks around the world, resulting in a worldwide wave of banks shutting down North Korean accounts. Fearing U.S. retaliation, banks felt it prudent to close North Korean accounts rather than risk being blacklisted and driven out of business. U.S. Treasury Under Secretary Stuart Levey observed that sanctions and U.S. threats had put “huge pressure” on the DPRK, leading to a “snowballing…avalanche effect.” U.S. actions were meant to undermine any prospect of a peaceful settlement. From now on, a senior Bush Administration official revealed, the strategy would be: “Squeeze them, but keep the negotiations going.” But talks, the official continued, would serve as nothing more than a means for accepting North Korea’s capitulation. A second U.S. official described the goal of talks as a “surrender mechanism.” Indeed, even before the signing of the September 19 agreement, the U.S. had already decided “to move toward more confrontational measures,” claims a former Bush Administration official. (4)
  
  As general manager of Daedong Credit Bank, a majority foreign-owned joint venture bank operating in Pyongyang and primarily serving importers, Nigel Cowie was in a position to witness the effect of the Treasury Department’s letters. “We have heard from foreign customers conducting legitimate business here, who have been told by their bankers overseas to stop receiving remittances from the DPRK, otherwise their accounts will be closed.” To illustrate the lengths to which U.S. officials were prepared to go, Cowie described an operation that involved his own firm, from which, he said, “you can draw your own conclusions.” An account was opened with a Mongolian bank. Arrangements were made for legal cash transactions. But when the Daedong Credit Bank’s couriers arrived in Mongolia, they were detained by Mongolian intelligence officials, and their money confiscated. Accusations were made that the couriers were transporting counterfeit currency from North Korea. A leak to the news media from an unidentified source led to reports charging that “North Korean diplomats” had been arrested for smuggling counterfeit currency. After two weeks, the Mongolian “intelligence officials in a meeting with us finally conceded that all the notes were genuine; the cash was released.” In the final meeting, Mongolian intelligence officials “appeared rather embarrassed that they had been given incorrect information.” It requires little imagination to guess the source of that incorrect information. (5)
  
  ...
  
  Concerned over the direction events were heading, Selig Harrison, director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, visited the DPRK and reported on what he saw. “I found instances in North Korea authenticated by foreign businessmen and foreign embassies in which legitimate imports of industrial equipment for light industries making consumer goods have been blocked. The North Koreans understandably see this as a regime change policy designed to bring about the collapse of their regime through economic pressure.” Harrison said the message he heard from North Korean officials was essentially, “We want the U.S. to show us it is ready to move toward normal relations in accordance with the September 19 agreement. If the U.S. won’t lift all of the financial sanctions, all at once, then it should show us in other ways that it has got its act together and is giving up the regime change policy.” (8)

  The consequences this policy had upon the talks, which ostensibly deal with the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, are not hard to guess :

  North Korean officials were understandably miffed at the Bush Administration’s immediate violation of the September 19 agreement on principles. As the U.S. continued to tighten the screws, North Korea announced that it would not return to the six-party talks until the U.S. honored the agreement it had signed. Sanctions would have to be lifted. At a minimum, dialogue should take place on resolving any questions surrounding the accusation of counterfeiting. U.S. officials said the sanctions were not up for discussion, and demanded North Korea’s return to the six-party talks. The image presented to the American public was of North Korean obdurate behavior and refusal to negotiate. Unmentioned was how the Bush Administration had deliberately torpedoed the talks.
  
  South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun visited Washington in September 2006, asking for the U.S. investigation into Banco Delta Asia to be brought to a speedy conclusion. Roh said it was also important that the U.S. refrain from imposing further sanctions since such actions made the resumption of six-party talks impossible. (9) Predictably, his requests were rebuffed. Instead, the U.S. State Department allocated $1 million to three radio stations to broadcast hostile programs into the DPRK. (10) “I think our sanctions have had real impact,” Stuart Levey claimed in a speech before the American Enterprise Institute just one month before the DPRK’s nuclear test, “but the real goal, I think, is to see a real change in North Korea. So we are not satisfied with what has happened so far.” (11)
  
  Any hope for a resumption of the six-party talks had vanished. The Bush Administration wanted regime change in North Korea and could be expected to increase tensions. The North Koreans had earned a reputation for their proclivity for responding in kind: by negotiating when approached diplomatically, and with toughness when threatened. North Korea decided to proceed with a nuclear test so as to discourage any thoughts in Washington of military action. A statement was issued by the DPRK Foreign Ministry, in which it was said that the U.S. was trying to “internationalize the sanctions and blockade against the DPRK.” A nuclear test would be a countermeasure “to defend the sovereignty of the country” against the Bush Administration’s “hostile actions.” (12)

  As a brief analysis of how one particular thread in the tangled web of US foreign policy has been woven, Mr Elich's article must be one of the very best I have seen. Global Research is to be thanked for its publication. One can only wish - in vain, of course - that all those who can overcome the difficulties placed in their way and who succeed in voting in the up-coming US Congressional elections could read it. Below, in any event, my response in a posting to StumbleUpon :

Since WW II - and during the last six years in particular - US foreign policy has been, at least in its more public manifestations, predicated upon demonisation, i e, the denomination of an object which is claimed to embody all the world's Evil, against which the Forces of Light - led, of course, by the United States, with rear support from God - are engaged in an eschatological struggle, which, it is said, should mainly be carried out by military means. The appeal of this strategy to certain elements in the United States who view the world in Manichaean terms is obvious, but the government of that country, despite a subservient media, has not always been able to implement it in the real world. After its experience in Indochina, the US government found it necessary to introduce certain real-world constraints on its policies ; military adventures were limited to opponents whose prospects of defending themselves were minimal - remember how Ronald Reagan defended «freedom» by attacking Grenada and Panama ? At the same time the US began a rearmament programme which has led to a military budget which exceeds that of the rest of the world combined. Thus encouraged, the United States was able to attack Iraq, weakened by eight years of internecine war with Iran (in which the US helped both sides), then that major Balkan power, Jugoslavia, then that Central Asian hegemone, Afghanistan, and finally (?) Iraq, now further weakened by 12 years of sanctions under the aegis of the UNO, again. Now, as if to celebrate its success in bringing «democracy» to Afghanistan and Iraq, the court of King George has turned its eye toward North Korea, that constant thorn in the side of US policy makers (who have never allowed the 1953 armistice to be replaced by a peace treaty). No adventures here either : as the North Korean state has shown itself both willing and able to defend itself, an immediate military attack does not seem to be in the cards ; rather sanctions, designed on the Iraqi model to weaken the country by strangling its trade to the point where its ability to resist a military invasion - with or without the participation of Korea's former colonial master, Japan - no longer constitutes a problem, are to be applied first, and only thereafter will that appeal to arms for which the chicken hawks have so great a predilection be made. Gregory Elich here provides us with a detailed and well-documented account of this latest episode of Imperial smoke and mirrors....

*Here the notes accompanying the those portions of Mr Elich's article reproduced in my review :

1. “Sharply Increased US Sanctions are Based on the USD Supernote Accusation against North Korea. But Counterfeit Experts Say the Accusation is Baseless,” European Business Association (European Chamber of Commerce in Pyongyang), April 2006. “An der ‘Supernote’ Stimmt Fast Alles,” Associated Press, April 19, 2006.

4. Christian Caryl, “Pocketbook Policing,” Newsweek, April 10-17, 2006. Joel Brinkley, “U.S. Squeezes North Korea’s Money Flow,” New York Times, March 10, 2006.

5. Nigel Cowie, “US Financial Allegations – What They Mean,” Nautilus Institute, May 4, 2006.

8. Selig S. Harrison, “N.K. Nuclear Test Depends on U.S.,” Hankyoreh (Seoul), October 2, 2006.

11. “U.S. Not Yet Satisfied with Impact of N.K. Sanctions: Levey,” Yonhap (Seoul), September 9, 2006.

12. “DPRK Foreign Ministry Clarifies Stand on New Measure to Bolster War Deterrent,” KCNA (Pyongyang), October 3, 2006.

The autumn leaves of war ?

29 September 2006.

• In a perceptive and informed article entitled War in October, Geov Parrish published an analysis yesterday on his Working for Change website of the US regime's latest moves in the burgeoning «Iran crisis» which it has worked so hard to manufacture. In addition to exposing the falsity of the rhetoric that King George's speech writers have brought to bear on the issue :
  

  Bush purportedly spoke "directly" to the Iranian people, another favorite rhetorical device of war-conscious American presidents. Bush, in this case, assured all Iranians that their leader was betraying their trust by pursuing weapons of mass destruction, and, like them, all Bush wants is peace and democracy and freedom blah blah blah. It all sounded dreadfully familiar. (How's that peace and democracy and freedom workin' out for ya, Iraqis?) Iranians, of course, generally don't share the religious fundamentalism of Ahmadinejad and the other hardliners now running things in Tehran, but they are wildly supportive of the country's nuclear program. So Bush's real audience was not Iranians (or Iraqis or Afghans, who he also "addressed"), but us. You and me. Americans. And his message to us: when I launch this war, it is only to give Iranians what they all crave.
  
  Iranians, apparently, have a unique affection for having cluster bombs dropped on them.
  
  Bush also, in his U.N. speech, pledged himself as determined to find a negotiated way to end the problem. That's actually another bad sign. When Bush gets around to talking about negotiations, it usually means he's arrived at the point where the formality of intentionally futile diplomatic gestures must be deployed prior to attack. That message was exactly what Bush was saying for months in 2002-03, well after he'd determined to invade Iraq. It was a lie then, and, judging by the actions of his own military, it's a lie now.

  
  Mr Parrish also points out concrete measures which indicate, behind the rhetoric, what the court may really be planning :
  

  The second, disturbing report to surface last week is that, as Dave Lindorff of The Nation writes,
  
  "...the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have moved up the deployment of a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast. This information follows a report in the current issue of Time magazine, both online and in print, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1."
  
  The Eisenhower Strike Group has been ordered to leave next week, at least a month ahead of schedule, after having been docked for refurbishment for several years. It will take a week to reach Iran's western coast, heavily fortified with Silkworm antiship missiles. That in itself indicates the Eisenhower group's deployment is not simply a provocation or bluff. You don't put such valuable vessels within range of enemy fire unless you're there for a reason. Bush would surely love to have the Iranians fire first, but even if Tehran doesn't take the bait, all signs are that Bush is giving himself the option of launching a military strike against Iran in October.

  
  None of us, including King George himself (Mr Cheney might have an idea), knows, of course, exactly what the month of October will bring to Iran, the USA, and the rest of the world, but here below is the response to Mr Parrish's article I posted to StumbleUpon :

The ability to fool fellow members of one's own species would seem to be much older than H sapiens sapiens - in addition to ourselves, it is found, so ethologists tell us, in our cousins, P troglodytes. Smart as we are, we have found certain algorithms to use in attempting to discern our fellows' deceit : «Follow the money !», «Cherchez la femme !», and not least, «Observe how the military (or the police or the gang members) have been deployed !» The fact that the Eisenhower Strike Group has been ordered to the Persian Gulf is not a hopeful sign, for all King George's protestations of a desire to work through diplomacy ; while it may, of course, be an attempt to bluff the Iranians to abjure their rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - to which both they and the United States are parties - it may also, given the sinking prospects of the Republican Party with regard to the fall elections in the US, be the first element of that old Republican favourite, the October Surprise. After all, King George's courtiers have, through the use of military means succeeded in their project to destroy Iraq ; all that now stands in their way (they seem to believe) to complete hegemony over Southwest Asia's (with the Israeli state in the role of proconsul) oil and gas resources - and thereby control over potential rivals, such as China - is Iran. The temptation to go to war to obtain this objective, at the same time that they thereby (they think) save themselves from an electoral debacle at home, must be very strong, indeed ! How far these people are willing to go is impossible for outsiders to determine, but one fact is clear, the more informed and aroused the people of the United States are, the greater the costs to the neo-con clique of attempting to realise their dream of a «New American Century». Don't expect any help from us Euro-weenies in stopping this madness ; as the pitiful example of the egregious Mr Blair shows, our so-called «leaders» will always, to greater or lesser degree, follow the US, no matter which madman is in charge - they don't possess the imagination to conceive of another world....

Follow the money

3 September 2006.

• Yesterday, Global Research published an article entitled Behind the plan to bomb Iran by Professor Ismael Hossein-zadeh. As befits an economics professor, his analysis of a US foreign policy which on the surface seems so counter-productive (how much more democracy have you seen in Southwest Asia lately ?) is based upon tracing who they are that enjoy the profits which accrue from a policy of continual warfare. A better system for transferring wealth from the public domain to (certain) private pockets has, of course, never been devised than that of scaring the Hell out of people and convincing them that to remain safe, they require an ever more powerful military and ever better (dearer) armaments. And the nice thing about this particular device is that it doesn't seem to be limited by any negative feedback. Beyond a certain point, people learn that despite an inbuilt physiological need for food, eating more is not going to increase their well being, but even with a military budget (referred to, of course, as «defense») that far exceeds that of the rest of the world combined (and which is held artificially low by the use of such incredible tricks as not including the cost of on-going wars in the budget, but financing them separately by means of special appropriations), more security, which means a still larger military budget, is always needed. Below, my reflections on the article, as posted to StumbleUpon :

Professor Hossein-zadeh here provides us a well-reasoned and balanced analysis of why the present administration so egregiously pursues a policy which not only is not in the interests of a majority of people in the world as a whole, but also directly inimical to the interests of a majority of the citizens and residents of the United States itself. «Follow the money !» is always good advice in trying to understand the motives which underly the actions of the powerful ; indeed, it's almost as good a rule as «Cherchez la femme !»...