EDITORIAL
ALERT: U.S. warships off Korea
While the attention of the anti-war movement continues to be
riveted on the violence of the U.S. colonial occupation in
Iraq, the danger of a military confrontation in north Asia
involving the Pentagon has suddenly increased.
Ships of the U.S. 7th Fleet were to arrive in the waters
east of the Demo cratic People's Republic of Korea--North
Korea--on Oct. 1 in a provocative threat to that country's very
existence. The flotilla includes destroyers equipped with Aegis
missiles and the equipment to "monitor and track any ballistic
missile launches from 'roguenations.'" (navytimes.com)
The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense, despite its name, is
part of a new offensive system begun after the Bush
administration withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
in 2001. That treaty, signed by the Nixon administration and
the USSR in 1972, viewed a missile defense system as
essentially offensive, since it could lead to a situation where
a country possessing such a shield would feel invulnerable
enough to launch a missile attack with impunity.
At the time that Bush withdrew from the treaty, Tom Daschle,
Democratic leader in the Senate, said he was concerned it could
"rupture relations with key countries around the world" and
raise serious questions about future arms races involving other
countries. But he has since been silent on this issue.
This is the first time since Washington scuttled the treaty
that U.S. Navy ships have been deployed for "missile
defense."
The Aegis missiles are just one project of the recently
created Missile Defense Agency, whose budget has doubled in the
past four years. Next year's appropriation for the agency is
$10 billion, almost twice that of the U.S. Coast Guard. The MDA
estimates its program will cost $53 billion through 2009, "but
it has underestimated costs in the past." (The New Yorker, Oct.
4)
Lucrative contracts have gone to Lockheed Martin, Raytheon,
Orbital Sciences Corp., Northrop Grumman and EADS Space
Transportation, among other favored corporations.
This huge outlay of money and resources by the U.S.
government is supposed to be in response to the "nuclear
threat" posed by North Korea and Iran, primarily. But that is a
total fraud.
There is no military threat to the United States. Quite the
opposite. Most of humanity sees the threat of war as coming
from the U.S., which has such a huge killing machine that its
destructive capacity is greater than the military strength of
most of the rest of the world combined.
North Korea--the DPRK--in particular has reason to fear U.S.
aggression. Millions of Koreans were killed after the U.S.
invaded the peninsula in the early 1950s. Korea remains divided
because over 30,000 U.S. troops occupy the south.
The U.S. has never signed a peace treaty to officially end
the Korean War. That means there is a constant threat that the
White House could order an attack on the DPRK. It wouldn't even
require any special legislation. And the Bush administration
has declared the DPRK to be a "terrorist nation," a "rogue
state" and part of an "axis of evil." All of this is war
propaganda to prepare the population for an act of aggression
against the DPRK.
The Democratic Party is, if anything, even more belligerent
than the Bush administration on Korea. Again and again in his
election campaign, John Kerry has criticized Bush for being too
preoccupied with Iraq and not tough enough on North Korea.
Furthermore, the Bush administration has declared its right
to take "preemptive action" if it deems there is a threat. It
used just such an excuse for launching a war against Iraq,
supposedly over weapons of mass destruction that everyone now
knows did not exist. It could do so again over what it calls
the "nuclear threat" from Korea.
Does the DPRK have nuclear weapons? Possibly. Vice Foreign
Minister Choe Su Hon, in New York to attend the General
Assembly of the United Nations, told reporters on Sept. 27 that
the DPRK had "reprocessed 8,000 wasted fuel rods and
transformed them into arms," according to the Associated Press.
He said these weapons were to "serve as a deterrent against a
possible nuclear strike by the United States."
Choe said "the ever-intensifying U.S. hostile policy and the
clandestine nuclear-related experiments recently revealed in
South Korea are constituting big stumbling blocks" and make it
impossible for North Korea to participate in the continuation
of six-nation talks on its nuclear program.
This statement by a high-ranking official of the DPRK got
very little attention in the media, which seems to be waiting
to see what the Bush administration is going to do. Will it
pull an October Surprise by hitting out at the DPRK in order to
look strong before the election? Anything is possible, and the
DPRK must know that.
Thus it seems that the DPRK has become one more developing
nation that has had to divert a significant portion of its
scarce resources to building nuclear weapons because of the
constant threat of a U.S. attack. When U.S. allies like Israel
or South Africa--when it was under apartheid--develop these
weapons, there is no hue and cry. But when a country that the
U.S. has been trying to crush for decades takes similar action,
it is presented as a grave threat to humanity by the corporate
media.
The anti-globalization movement has popularized the slogan
"Another world is possible." A world where cooperation replaces
confrontation, where all the nations can sit down together,
discuss and solve the tremendous problems caused by modern
technology on the basis of equality and mutual respect. It is
the only hope. But the first step to changing the world is
realizing where the problem lies.
It does not lie with those who have been oppressed, invaded,
colonized and exploited. The problem is the imperialist ruling
classes that are willing to unleash the dogs of war to protect
their grip on the world's wealth.
Progressives need to stand up and resist the demonization of
Iraqis today, Koreans tomorrow, Iranians the day after that. We
say no to imperialist war and aggression and extend a hand of
friendship to all who are under attack.
Reprinted from the Oct. 7, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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