Kim testing a nuke!

Headlines today scream about the intention of North Korea to test an atomic bomb.

World opinion seems to be divided almost 50-50. Comments on the BBC World website are almost split evenly and CNN’s QuickVote shows a 52% No vs. 48% Yes vote on the question whether North Korea has the right to conduct a nuclear test.

People who say Kim Jong II has the right to test a nuke base their argument on fairness. No double standards! If the five permanent members of the UN Security Council have the right to possess nuclear weapons, plus a few other states which never signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (Israel, Pakistan and India), any other state also has the right to possess nuclear weapons.

Not so, say the nay-sayers. No state should be allowed to have nuclear weapons. The more states have them, the more dangerous the world becomes.

Let’s be crystal clear: nuclear weapons should all be destroyed so the world can be free of these horrible weapons of mass destruction. States which have signed the NPT have pledged to on the one hand prevent non-nuclear states to acquire nuclear weapons, but on the other hand those who already have them promised gradually to dismantle them.

One country, and only one, has ever inflicted the horrible destruction of nuclear weapons on the civilian population of another. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki rank amongst the most horrible war crimes ever committed. The U.S. possesses the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, is threatening to use them against non-nuclear states and continues to refuse to start dismantling them. Worse still, Washington continues to spend billions of dollars to develop new weapons of mass destruction to intimidate friends and foes to submit to the international dictatorship of American imperialism.

As long as nuclear weapon states refuse to start dismantling their arsenals, how can they deny other states to develop nuclear weapons for their own self-defense? Saddam’s regime was destroyed by the U.S. because ‘it could be done’. He didn’t have any WMD. Kim is not that stupid.

Final question: if North Korea has the Bomb, is it a threat to world peace and security. Nope, because Kim can only use his nuclear arsenal as a deterrent against a U.S. invasion, not as a offensive weapon. North Korea perhaps has an arsenal of six bombs, the U.S. has more than 11,000. No way North Korea can unleash a nuclear catastrophe without triggering its own destruction.

By the way, whatever Kim Jong Il may or may not be, he’s not a stupid guy. Nor a war criminal. George W. Bush is both.