By its own definition
U.S. is the worst rogue state
By Leslie
Feinberg
The United States is the worst "rogue state" by its own
definitions, reasoned a May 20 signed article in Rodong
Sinmun--the official newspaper of the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea.
The term "rogue state" was invented by the Clinton
administration in an attempt to justify its targeting of any
country that stood up to U.S. imperialism on any front. The
term also served as a fig leaf that barely covered plans by
the U.S. military-industrial complex for expensive new
weapons of mass destruction.
The May 20 article from North Korea--itself in the
Pentagon's crosshairs--noted the grounds on which the U.S.
labeled other countries as "rogue states."
The first is the development of nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons and missiles. However, the article
explained, the U.S. ranks first in the world in the number of
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and missiles.
The quality and destructive capabilities of these U.S.
weapons systems far outstrip all other countries.
And it is Washington that inflicted the most terrible
massacres of people around the world by ordering the use of
these weapons.
No one can forget that it was the United States--the first
and only country in the world to use nuclear weapons against
humankind--that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of World War II. The death toll
was staggering.
Strategists from the bunkers of Pentagon war rooms to the
boardrooms of Wall Street thought their monopoly on this
mega-weapon would guarantee their political and economic
domination of the world, as well as their military
hegemony.
The war had so weakened most of the other imperialist
countries in Europe and Japan that the oppressed peoples of
Asia, Africa and the Middle East were emboldened to rise up
to fight for genuine independence.
In China, Korea and Vietnam, communist-led liberation
movements routed pro-imperialist puppet governments. They
formed an anti-imperialist world bloc together with the USSR
and the Eastern European regimes.
This new relationship of forces enraged the U.S. ruling
class and their military brass. Riding tall in the saddle
after World War II, the generals and admirals thought they
could steamroller these countries and reap the spoils of war.
By 1952, the U.S. sent hundreds of thousands of GIs into a
war to keep Korea in the capitalist orbit.
During that war, the May 20 article reported, the Pentagon
repeatedly tried to use nuclear weapons.
But the Korean people battled so heroically and stalwartly
against this Goliath that for the first time in its history
the U.S. military machine was fought to a standstill.
The real terrorists
The second criterion U.S. officials used in characterizing
countries as "rogue states" was that they "sponsor
terrorism," the Rodong Sinmun article continued.
But "the criminal sponsor of international terrorism is
none other than the United States."
Acting as if it were a "judge of terrorism," the article
stressed, "it lists other countries as 'terrorism-sponsor
states,' puts pressure upon them and uses armed forces
against them under this or that pretext."
Rodong Sinmun recalls the terror bombings the first Bush
administration rained down on the Iraqi people.
And the U.S.-led NATO war against Yugoslavia that hammered
the remnants of that socialist state with high-tech weaponry.
"Its military actions against Yugoslavia two years ago," the
article stated, "contravened the international law and norms
of international relations."
And the recent announcement by the newly-installed Bush
regime that it would not comply with the Kyoto protocol--a
modest accord to protect the environment of the planet--"is
the reckless act of a rogue country which unhesitatingly
commits any unjustifiable acts for its own sake.
"Such arbitrary and strong-arm practices of the United
States will not work in the present world," Rodong Sinmun
concluded. "Humankind will certainly bring the U.S. to the
court of history and severely punish it."
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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