Another phantom - HEU

At last there is some progress on the North Korean nuclear issue. IAEA inspectors have verified that the North has shut down its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon. But that's only one part – although an important one – of North Korea's expected full declaration of its nuclear activities. Diplomats are now hammering out the next steps at a meeting in Shenyang, China. (The Financial Times: “Next step for N Korea nuclear disclosure”)

The American neocons can still sabotage the whole ongoing process by chasing the Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) chimera. U.S. officials claim that in 2002, the DPRK's vice foreign minister Kang Sok-ju admitted that the country was making HEU. The DPRK government later retracted this statement, either because the U.S. were lying and it was never made, because Kang bluffed and shouldn't have, or because what he said was true but should have been kept secret.

It is difficult to know the truth. But let's assume for a minute that one of the first two possibilities is true, that the DPRK really does not has a HEU program, just like Saddam Hussein didn't have weapons of mass destruction (WMD). You can prove that you have something by showing it, but you can never convincingly prove that you don't have something. Maybe you do, but you have hidden it very well. The North Koreans could prove that they were busy with plutonium enrichment – because they were and that's why they could dismantle it. But HEU? If it was bluff, they cannot prove the program doesn't exist.

It's not excluded that the neocons will grab this ghost to claim that North Korea did not fully disclose its nuclear program – playing the same trick they played on Saddam as a pretext to invade Iraq.

The North Koreans may not be the world's most open jolly good fellows, but put before the hard choice of believing the North Koreans or the American neocons – in the absence of hard proof – I'd believe the former.

North Korean shut-down

North Korea has shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon after having received the first shipment of 6,200 tons of fuel oil. Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have verified the shut-down and installed monitoring equipment to ensure that the reactor is not being restarted. (The Guardian: “Nuclear distraction”), (The New York Times: “Inspectors Check North Korean Nuclear Reactor”), (The Independent: “A better way to defuse Pyongyang's nuclear bomb”)

I have always argued that North Korea has the right to develop nuclear weapons as long as those nations which already possess nuclear weapons do nothing to reduce and finally eliminate their arsenals. But it is not because you have a right to do something, that you also have to do it. The shutdown of the Yongbyon reactor is a welcome development. But it is of course only the beginning and not the end of the process. Will North Korea declare its (perhaps non-existent) uranium enrichment program? Will it give up the atom bombs it has already developed.

Some say the reactor shut-down is a success for the Bush diplomacy. Nothing is further from the truth. Clinton was already negotiating with the North Koreans and even contemplating a visit just before he stepped down as president. The problem could have been solved years ago, without the North Koreans developing nuclear weapons. And even if Kim Jong-il turns out to be willing to give up his nukes, he will surely exact a high price.

The only thing you can say is that in this case Bush did not try to solve the problem by going to war. The reason is he couldn't because of the vicinity of China. He was forced by the circumstances to use diplomacy, not because he choose to do so. In the end, a peace treaty will have to be signed to formally end the Korean War. The American president will have to shake hands with the North Korean chairman. That at least is a duty Bush will be happy to leave to his successor.

Korea's beating heart

History was being written today along the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. For the first time since 1951, two trains crossed from the North to the South and from the South to the North, carrying altogether 150 passengers in a symbolic trip of 25 kilometers one way. South Korea had to pay 80 million dollar the North to make it happen and for now it was only a one-off event. Regular passenger and cargo services crossing the DMZ are still some way off in the future. (CNN: Koreas make tracks toward peace)

The South Koreans would love to send trains across their North Korean neighbor to link up with the Trans-Siberian railroad in Russia or China, because by rail the time it takes cargo to reach Europe would be shortened considerably compared to a long sea voyage.

Symbolic or not, South Korea's Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung was ecstatic, saying “It is not simply a test run. It means reconnecting the severed bloodline of our people. It means that the heart of the Korean peninsula is beating again.” The now 80-year old Han Chun-ki was a conductor on the last train crossing the area in 1951. “I never thought this day would come,” he commented.

Well, it did. “Stuff happens”, Rumsfeld would say. Only this time, it's good stuff, and the Americans had nothing to do with it.

Lacking momentum...

A deadline agreed upon two months ago for North Korea to shut its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon has slipped today. The U.S. is – surprise, surprise – of course blaming the People's Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"We don't have a lot of momentum right now. That is for sure," U.S. assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill told reporters in Beijing before meeting his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei. The U.S. blocked USD25 million in accounts at the Banco Delta Asia in Macao and the DPRK wants its money back before implementing the nuclear deal. The 25 million was blocked, unblocked, free to pick up, too hot to handle...

Former U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage said North Korea was “using the excuse that the haven't actually gone to Macao to pick up the money yet”. First of all, Armitage should shut up. According to U.S. laws he is a criminal for leaking the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame. Second, not even the Bank of China dares to handle the money out of fear for U.S. retribution. No longer a “communist” bank, the Bank of China's shares on the New York Stock Exchange may suffer if the White House farts. Third, if Washington really wants to put some momentum in solving North Korea's nuclear conundrum, why doesn't it put 25 million dollar in the pockets (or suitcase if his pockets aren't deep enough) of Bill Richardson who visited Pyongyang this week?

The U.S. is spending 12 million dollar every HOUR on the war in Iraq. The price of two hours and a couple of minutes of Iraq warfare could put some “momentum” in the North Korean process. Doesn't this prove that the U.S. simply doesn't want a peaceful solution to the North Korean stand-off?

Washington failed to resolve the bank issue within 30 days as promised. Why should the DPRK keep its end of the bargain?

Uranium hoax

The past five years, the Bush administration has accused North Korea of pursuing an uranium enrichment program, in addition to harvesting plutonium from its Yongbyon nuclear reactor. (The New York Times: U.S. Had Doubts on North Korean Uranium Drive)

It was the uranium claim which led to the nuclear crisis, to North Korea retreating from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, to making a bomb and testing it. The accusation now turns out to be false. Without the accusation, IEAI-inspectors would still be in North Korea and it would not have a bomb. This is to say that North Korea's bomb was actually manufactured in the White House.

Read what Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post has to say about this: “It now appears that the White House in 2002 used dubious claims of North Korean uranium enrichment as an excuse to break a Clinton-brokered deal, thereby allowing North Korea's poisonous dictator to build up a stockpile of plutonium, which in turn led to the building of as many as a dozen nuclear weapons, one of which he exploded in a nuclear test last year.”

The claim of an uranium program was sexed up by the Bush administration to engineer a pretext for war. Now they have to admit they lied, because thanks to the Six party talks, inspectors will soon return to North Korea and find out there is no uranium enrichment program.

This once more proves that the gravest threat to international security is the Bush administration.

It's a deal

Negotiators at the Six Party Talks finally reached a settlement. But putting things on paper is one thing, getting them implemented quite another. According to a Chinese diplomat, what the North Koreans want most is “money and respect”. (CNN: China diplomat: North Korea gets 'money and respect').

Money there is plenty of, more than USD300 million in aid, including 50,000 tons of heavy fuel, if North Korea shuts down its plutonium production facility and allows international monitors. Another 950,000 tons will follow if it disables the reactor and declares all its nuclear programs. It can keep the atom bombs it has produced so far.

The first question is whether the North Koreans will ever get anything. In the 1994 Agreed Framework, they were promised two light-water reactors which never materialized. Respect is something they are never going to get from the Bush administration. In fact, the Neocons, led by John Bolton, are already lambasting the agreement as giving in too much to the North Koreans and undermining the sanctions they had pushed through the U.N. Security Council four months ago.

The deal seems to have split the Neocons: Bush says it's good, Bolton says it's bad. Opponents of the deal are likely to create an incident, so the U.S. doesn't has to keep its side of the agreement.

The U.S. wants North Korea to give up its few nuclear bombs and shut down its nuclear reactor. Washington is prepared to play games to get what it wants. Pyongyang is happy to play along to try to retain as much as possible. So that's what it is: playing games. If the U.S. would be really serious in solving the problem, it would stop its hostile policy and establish diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. The deal could have been reached several years ago if Washington wanted it. Today the Bush administration still doesn't want it. But with preparations for a nuclear attack on Iran in full swing, Washington has to keep the North Koreans quiet for the time being.

Condoleezza Rice has said that the deal would not have been possible if they hadn't swung the Chinese over to the U.S. side. Now that is definitely a bad development.

"The smiling assassin"

“He's always cordial, but he is pretty effective. Sometimes you may not realize what's happening, but it's just him getting the job done”, an official said. And so they call Kim Kye-gwan “the smiling assassin”. (CNN: Pyongyang's nuke envoy dubbed 'the smiling assassin') Isn't anybody getting a diplomatic job done, doing a lot better than Condi Rice? And besides assassinating the lies of the Bush administration, exactly how many real people has Kim assassinated?

The bottom line is, the U.S. diplomats are no match for Comrade Kim. They lose and so they get pissed off. The U.S. violated every commitment it ever made to North Korea. It promised to provide light-water reactors to produce electricity. Nothing ever materialized. When the DPRK agreed at the six party talks to dismantle its nuclear program, the U.S. invented a story about fake dollars to torpedo the talks. Even if..., if..., North Korea would have been clever enough to print fake dollars, what has this got to do with nuclear arms?

The policy of the U.S. is sabotage. The third member of the 'Axis of Evil' is holding out. Iraq is a bloody mess, Iran will be a fatal disaster. Maybe the U.S. itself will collapse before it can attempt to invade North Korea.

In the meantime, smiling Kim Kye-gwan is doing his job. Assassinating nobody. While Bush isn't doing his job of protecting the 'homeland' and playing genocide in Iraq. Bush can only smirk. Kim can smile.

Who is to 'get serious'?

After five days of talking (mostly past each other) the six parties called it quits without even a joint statement or a date for the resumption of the talks. It is clear the Six Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear program are achieving nothing, except perhaps a better understanding between the U.S. and China, and again perhaps that is not such a bad thing.

But the talks are certainly not leading to the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which is supposedly their aim.

U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill called on the North Koreans “to get serious”. But in fact it is the U.S. which has “to get serious”. At the end of the last phase in the talks in December 2005, the DPRK agreed in principle to dismantle its nuclear weapons program. But a few days later the U.S. began pushing other countries to freeze North Korean funds. For a year the DPRK refused to return to the negotiating table and in the meantime tested a nuclear weapon. During the past five days, the DPRK negotiators only wanted to talk finance, not nuclear arms.

By bringing up the so-called 'money problem', it is the U.S. which is deliberately undermining the talks. The result is that the DPRK can keep its bomb and make even more bombs in the meantime. And perhaps even conduct another test. It is the attitude of the U.S. which is not 'serious'. 

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'? 

Another ignominious veto

John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador at the UN, is on the way out. With a Democrat majority in Congress there is no way he is going to get confirmed once his recess appointment expires at the end of the year. Even some Republicans now admit he is the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But before leaving the Security Council with his tail between his legs, he had to raise his dirty hand again to veto a UN resolution condemning the massacre of 19 Palestinians at Beit Hanoun by the Israeli Zionists.

According to Bolton the resolution was “unbalanced and politically motivated”. What about the resolution condemning North Korea’s nuclear test? Wasn’t it also “unbalanced and politically motivated”?

Following the September 11 attacks, Bush said he would make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them. The Palestinians are equally entitled to make no distinction between the Zionists murdering their women and children and the U.S. backing them all the way.

The U.S. gave the green light to the Zionists to perpetrate more massacres. Can anyone blame the Palestinians if they plan to hit American targets? By its despicable foreign policy the U.S. is raising and nurturing what it prefers to call ‘terrorists’ every day, every hour, every minute. 

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. 

Preaching N-Armageddon

Washington Post Op-ed columnist Charles Krauthammer is preaching the nuclear annihilation of North Korea. At the first available opportunity that is, when a terrorist group detonates a nuke. Because he is certain it would have been sold to them by the North Koreans. Never mind the ‘terrorists’, Uncle Sam will level North Korea, flat. Return to sender.

Unless of course, if there are two nuclear ‘rogue’ states, because then it becomes difficult to know who sold the stuff to the terrorists. Therefore, Iran must be kept from going nuclear. At least before North Korea is annihilated by a U.S. nuclear holocaust. “One rogue country is tolerable because it can be held accountable,” concludes Krauthammer (and presumably annihilated by American nukes). “Two rogue countries guarantees undeterrable and therefore inevitable nuclear terrorism.”

We’d better run to our nuclear shelters. Because if North Korea is a nuclear rogue country, there are already two in the world. Including the U.S., that is.

How much more sick and deranged can a man’s mind get?

Everybody is entitled to his or her opinion, but nobody should be allowed to preach nuclear armageddon.

Denying a previous holocaust is not allowed. And rightly so, although maybe it shouldn’t be written into law. Nobody is put into prison for claiming that the world is flat.

But is seems to be acceptable - at least in the American press - to advocate a future holocaust. 

Big Bang & diplomacy?

So Kim Jong Il detonated his nuke. I already argued that he had every right to do so and still practically the whole world was deeply shocked. Especially the Chinese government, which had been pushing for a resumption of the six-party talks.

The Chinese sternly condemned the test, mainly because they lost face. Making the Chinese loose face is always dangerous. Of course Kim knew this, but he still went ahead.

What’s next? Even if China would condone limited sanctions in a U.N. resolution, sanctions are a dead-end street. The only thing sanctions will achieve is to push the North Koreans even more on the path of escalation. Pressure or sanctions will never achieve their intended purpose of tempering the behavior of the recipients of pressure and sanctions.

China is still advocating diplomacy, but ’standard’ diplomacy probably won’t work. The U.S. are still opposed to bilateral talks and the North Koreans are not really in the mood to listen.

Only a major diplomatic initiative could make a difference. With an idiot occupying the White House, nothing positive is expected to emerge from Washington.

In the waning days of his presidency, Bill Clinton made plans to travel to Pyongyang. Time ran out then. Maybe he could still go. I am sure he will like Kim Jong Il’s ‘Pleasure Brigade’… 

U.S. hypocrisy laid bare

Christopher Hill, the top U.S. negotiator at the six-party talks announced that “the U.S. will not accept a North Korea armed with nuclear weapons”.

Blatant disgusting hypocrisy! So what if North Korea will “not accept a United States armed with nuclear weapons”?

And Hill continued: “North Korea must choose either to have a future or to have nuclear weapons, but it cannot have them both.” So why would the U.S. have a future AND more than 11,000 nukes and North Korea no future and perhaps 6 to 10 nukes?

Maybe because Bush is claiming to speak in the name of God? Well, so does Iran’s president, but presumably not the same God. Which may prove there are at least two Gods, which is anathema to both Bush and Ahmadinejad. But of course, I almost forgot, Bush is the Devil! At least according to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Maybe he forgot about Dick Cheney?

Pretty murky business. Let’s keep it simple. There is no God, but… No, no, no but!

A nuclear armed North Korea is unacceptable to the U.S.; Iran developing the peaceful use of nuclear energy is unacceptable to the U.S.; well, who has the right to decide what is acceptable or unacceptable in this world? 

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.