No gadgets for Kim

The U.S. Ministry of Commerce is publishing a list of goods banned from being exported to North Korea. (CNN: U.S. takes gadgets away from Kim; The Washington Post: Hitting Kim Jong Il Right in the Cognac). It is supposed to implement a clause in U.N. Security Council resolution 1718, which calls on member countries to stop the export of luxury goods to North Korea. Included is cognac, iPods, Rolex watches, plasma TVs, Segway scooters, cigarettes, Harley Davidson motorcycles and jetskis, among other goodies.

Japan has its own luxury list including beef and tuna. The United Nations, for its part, has refrained from defining what luxury goods are or to provide a list.

The measure is totally ridiculous. As even CNN observes, the Bush administration is acting like a scolding parent, taking away Kim Jong Il's toys. It is probably another move by the U.S. to torpedo the resumption of the six party talks. When the North Koreans agreed in December 2005 to stop their nuclear weapons program, Washington instigated a blockade of North Korean funds in foreign banks. Result: Pyongyang kept away from the negotiating table for almost a year. Now that they are willing to talk again – having detonated a nuclear bomb in the meantime – Washington is pulling another trick out of its hat which is sure to anger Kim.

CNN calls it “the U.S. government's first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president”. It may very well result once more in the North Koreans boycotting the negotiations.

The point is Washington doesn't want to negotiate, but wants to put all the blame on the North Koreans.

Whether it is wise, stupid or criminal for Kim to spend millions on cognac and Mercedes-Benz cars while many North Koreans are starving is irrelevant. You don't treat nations like that, at least if the purpose is to get a desirable outcome. Moreover, the black market will ensure that Kim still gets what he wants.

Inviting Kim Jong Il to the White House would do more to solve the North Korean problem than taking away his toys.

Besides, is eating a tuna sandwich while listening to your iPod a 'luxury'? 

Cognac boat drama

According to UN Security Council resolution 1718, countries who chose to do so, may board North Korean vessels carrying tanks or fighter planes, or components of weapons of mass destruction, or, well… hmmm bottles of Hennessey cognac.

Let’s stick with the cognac for now, after all we don’t need no tanks or WMD, but a nice vintage bottle of cognac…

The navies of the UN members states may now impound the crates of cognac found on a North Korean vessel, transfer them to their helicopters hovering overhead and deliver them to Downing Street 10, the Elysee, the White House or the Wetstraat. Perhaps not the Wetstraat, the Belgian navy doesn’t have anything that could take on a North Korean merchant vessel.

Never mind, you get the picture. This is a pure cognac-flambéed recipe for disaster. Professor of History at Tufts University Gary Leupp writes on the CounterPunch.org website that such actions could lead to resistance by the North Korean crews and furthermore could “mushroom into a very ugly situation”. And he wisely adds “Maybe that’s the intention”.

Resolution 1718 is intended to provoke a situation where the U.S. navy sinks a North Korean freighter, leading to naval clashes, leading to all-out war. Preferably before November 7, because Bush needs a war to win the mid-term elections.

China sensibly said it wasn’t going to do inspections of North Korean vessels on the high seas. But it could have vetoed the resolution. It gave Washington an excuse to start yet another war.

There is one consolation: the U.S. will certainly lose. They lost in Vietnam and Iraq, they will lose in North Korea and Iran. Because the law of imperialism says it can only pick up a stone to drop on its own foot (dixit Chairman Mao).

But once again hundreds of thousands of innocent people will die. Thanks to the Texas cowboys. 

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.