Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

‘Grave terrorist attack’: North Korea seeks probe into mysterious raid on its mission in Spain

RT | March 31, 2019

North Korea called on Spain to conduct a thorough investigation into a raid on its mission in Madrid, which was said to be done by FBI-linked dissidents, now hiding in the US.

Pyongyang asked Spain to investigate the “grave terrorist attack” and “flagrant violation of international law,” state-run KCNA news agency reported. “This kind of act should never be tolerated,” the statement read.

It was the first time North Korean officials have commented on the mysterious break-in at its mission in Madrid on February 22. A group of intruders subdued and tied up the staff before stealing a number of electronic devices and a trove of documents from the building. They also reportedly tried to persuade a North Korean attaché to defect. A video, allegedly filmed during the break-in, shows men taking down portraits of North Korean leaders and smashing them on the ground.

Spanish media say that 10 suspects fled to the US and a court in Madrid issued arrest warrants against them. The leader of the group was named as veteran dissident and anti-Pyongyang activist Adrian Hong Chang, who is a Mexican national and a US citizen. Two of the other suspects were named as US nationals.

An unexpected twist came several weeks later when the Spanish paper El Pais cited court documents and police sources as saying that the suspects tried to obtain information on the North Korean nuclear program and contacted the FBI after arriving in the US.

The details were partially confirmed by dissident group ‘Cheollima Civil Defense / Free Joseon’, which claimed responsibility for the raid. Its members shared “certain information of enormous potential value” with the FBI, on the Bureau’s request, the group claimed on its website.

The US has denied any involvement with the break-in, and the FBI has refused to comment on the incident.

March 31, 2019 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Trump Reportedly Takes Helm in US-DPRK Negotiations as MSM Cries Foul

Sputnik – 21.03.2019

In the aftermath of the failed Hanoi summit between the US and North Korea, US President Donald Trump has reportedly taken the helm in denuclearization negotiations with Pyongyang. Meanwhile, Seoul now sees the ball as having landed in its court to convince its neighbor to give up its weapons and rocket programs.

According to Trump administration officials who spoke with Time for a Monday article, the US president is “sidelining” his special envoy to North Korea, Stephen Biegun, and “dismissing the warnings of top intelligence and foreign policy advisers” who dissent from his continued policy of negotiation with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Time reports that Trump has shut down attempts by Biegun to establish a back channel to Pyongyang via the socialist country’s United Nations mission in New York, citing US and South Korean officials, and is focusing on attempts to negotiate a deal with Kim instead of bowing to the advice of his advisers to press North Korea harder with sanctions — or to abandon negotiations altogether.

Trump and Kim met late last month in Hanoi, Vietnam, for a second round of denuclearization talks to follow up on a June 2018 summit that laid the groundwork for peace on the Korean Peninsula. While Pyongyang has made considerable progress with the South toward that end, negotiations with Washington have stalled, as the two sides reached a point where neither was willing to budge any further until the other side gave something first.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has made several good faith moves toward reducing tensions, including the halting of weapons tests and the destruction of key missile and nuclear program sites. However, Kim was unwilling to make further concessions before Washington lowered at least some of its economic sanctions blocking international trade in many items with his country. The US has refused to lower any of those sanctions until Kim produces “verified denuclearization.” The Hanoi summit failed to surmount this impasse.

Trump administration officials such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton have used Pyongyang’s red line to argue that Kim is intransigent and not cooperative. The mainstream media has also largely adopted this position, as the articles by Time, CNN and The Hill on these developments show.

Indeed, ever since Trump agreed to meet with Kim last spring, the mainstream media has been devoted to producing stories that undermined Trump’s attempts at peace, and hawkish foreign policy think tanks have produced report after report claiming Kim has violated the terms of the negotiations. Their reports are often based on outdated or undated evidence, supposition or otherwise unverifiable claims, Sputnik has reported.

One example, from Time’s Tuesday article, tries to juxtapose Trump’s supposedly delusional belief that “Kim is his ‘friend,'” according to an administration official, with the “unanimous assessment by multiple agencies that Kim remains wedded to his nuclear program,” and thus is incapable of responding to a carrot, understanding only the stick.

Indeed, such has been the common refrain by US state officials for decades, going back to George F. Kennan’s eponymous telegram about how the US should handle the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and even further to the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in imperial China at the turn of the last century.

Meanwhile, South Korean President Moon Jae In has continued his rapprochement with Kim, despite US-DPRK failures.

“We’re in a deep agony over how to take advantage of this baton that has been handed over to us,” said a Moon administration figure earlier this week, according to South China Morning Post.

“We agree with the view that no deal is better than a bad deal… However, in reality, it is difficult to achieve complete denuclearization at one stroke. I think we need to reconsider the so-called all or nothing strategy,” the official said.

Seoul aims to get Pyongyang to “agree with a broad road map aimed to achieve the overarching goal of denuclearization,” the official said, noting that “we should make further efforts to turn a small deal into a deal that is good enough. In order to achieve meaningful progress, we need one or two early harvests for mutual trust-building to move on toward the final goal.”

Still, in the aftermath of Hanoi, Moon’s popularity fell in his country from a high of 70 percent last summer to a measly 45 percent earlier this month, Sputnik reported.

The metaphor of the “harvest” presents a timely parallel as North Korean officials have pressed the UN to step up its food and medical aid to DPRK in the coming year due to bad harvests last year and projected shortages in 2019, Sputnik has reported.

“Although Security Council sanctions clearly exempt humanitarian activities, life-saving programs continue to face serious challenges and delays,” Tapan Mishra, the UN’s resident coordinator in the DPRK lamented earlier this month. “While unintended consequences of sanctions persist, these delays have a real and tangible impact on the aid that we are able to provide to people who desperately need it.

US and other international sanctions bar many useful medical items from being imported by DPRK, too. For example, a paper published last December by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey looked at scientific projects in which North Korean scientists had partnered with scholars from other countries, noting that roughly 100 of the 1,300 they examined had “identifiable significance for dual-use technology, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or other military purposes.”

That means that even though DPRK doctors might be studying epidemiology, their work could be subject to weapons sanctions. “When you study infectious diseases, which are a big burden in North Korea, you have to grow bacteria,” Harvard Medical School neurosurgeon Kee Park, director of DPRK Programs for the Korean American Medical Association, told NPR at the time. “That’s the kind of technology that goes into creating biological weapons.”

The problem is that “virtually all technology you can possibly think of is dual use,” professor and author Tim Beal told Sputnik.

Time reports that Trump administration officials fear the US president might try and strike a deal with Pyongyang and lift some sanctions in exchange for a pledge to continue their freeze on weapons development and testing, which Trump has said he considers to be more important to maintain than the total removal of nuclear weapons and delivery systems from North Korean possession. However at the same time, it seems to be the consensus among administration officials that any such deal wouldn’t actually make progress at all, only “remove much of the leverage” on the DPRK that they believe compels the country to negotiate in the first place.

March 20, 2019 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

CIA May Be Behind February Attack on North Korean Embassy in Madrid – Reports

Sputnik – 13.03.2019

Spanish police and intelligence officers, who are investigating the attack on the North Korean embassy in Madrid in February, believe that US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) may be behind the incident, El Pais newspaper reported on Wednesday.

According to El Pais, at least two out of 10 attackers were identified to have connections with US intelligence services. Spanish investigators have already requested the CIA about their involvement in the incident.

According to the publication, the CIA denied their guilt, but the response to the request was “unconvincing.”

This incident may eventually lead to diplomatic friction between Madrid and Washington, the newspaper said. Sources in the Spanish government believe that if the CIA’s involvement in the attack is confirmed, it will be regarded as “unacceptable” actions by the ally. According to the publication, this would mean that US intelligence services acted in Spain without permission and violated international agreements protecting diplomatic missions.

The reports come after in February, El Confidencial newspaper reported, citing sources in the Spanish Interior Ministry, that a group of unidentified men broke into the North Korean embassy in Madrid, restrained the diplomatic staff for several hours and stole computers. According to the newspaper, the incident occurred on February 22. One of the employees managed to escape and report to the police.

March 13, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , | Leave a comment

Intelligence Contractors Make New Attempt To Provoke Tensions With North Korea

By William Craddick | Disobedient Media | March 8, 2019

It’s the second, but no less ludicrous, attempt in one week to sway the opinion of the public and President Donald Trump against the concept of denuclearization and peaceful dialogue with North Korea.

A March 8, 2019 report from National Public Radio (NPR) follows another by NBC News with sensational and misleading claims that satellite imagery released by private corporations with contractual ties to government defense and intelligence agencies show imminent preparations by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to engage in missile testing or the launch of a satellite from their facilities in Sanumdong, North Korea. An examination of the photos provided shows absolutely no indication of such activity.

I. Satellite Footage Of Sanumdong Facility Shows No Sign Of Imminent Launch

Images provided to NPR by private contractor DigitalGlobe consist of two low resolution images, one of a building in the Sanumdong complex and the other of a train sitting along a rail line. In neither photo is there any discernible amount of unusual activity.

Credit: Image ©2019 DigitalGlobe, Inc. Graphic: Alyson Hurt/NPR

The first image of a “production hall” bears a striking resemblance to a similar photo run by the Washington Post in July 2018 where unnamed intelligence officials claimed that North Korea was building one or possibly two liquid fueled ICBMs which appear to have never materialized or been used in any launch. The claims came one month after President Trump met with Chairman Kim Jong Un in Singapore for a historic summit between the United States and the DPRK.

NPR claims that the imagery shows “vehicle activity” occurring around the facility. Yet close inspection shows that the “activity” consists of a few inert vehicles, which appear to be a white pickup and white dump truck or flatbed parked in a permanent position next to piles of metal. The scene does not appear to be different from any number of sleepy yards of businesses that can be examined by members of the public on Google Maps.

Credit: Image ©2019 DigitalGlobe, Inc. Graphic: Koko Nakajima/NPR

The second image, according to NPR, shows rail cars sitting “in a nearby rail yard, where two cranes are also erected.” The photo simply shows a train car sitting inert with empty flatbed cars and hopper cars that are either filled with coal or empty. A second rail line similarly holds a number of hoppers and flatbed cars. Hopper cars in particular are totally unsuitable for the transportation of military technology such as missiles.

The tracks in the lower left corner are covered in snow, meaning that the train sat for many months through the winter or was backed into its position. Considering that US and international sanctions have caused an extreme scarcity of fuel in the DPRK it is likely that the trains have not moved for quite some time, unless their diesel engines were converted to burn coal or wood.

In short, there is absolutely no indication that several low resolution photos of a facility in North Korea have any activity in them outside of a few rusting vehicles that have sat without moving for some time.

II. NPR’s Sources Of Satellite Imagery Are Contractors For The CIA And Pentagon

The report by NPR lists two sources of satellite imagery – DigitalGlobe, Inc. and Planet Labs, Inc. As Disobedient Media has previously reported, DigitalGlobe is an American vendor of satellite imagery founded by a scientist who worked on the US military’s Star Wars ICBM defense program under President Ronald Reagan. DigitalGlobe began its existence in Oakland, CA and was seeded with money from Silicon Valley sources and corporations in North America, Europe and Japan. Headquartered in Westminster CO, DigitalGlobe works extensively with defense and intelligence programs. In 2016, it was revealed that DigitalGlobe was working with CIA chipmaker NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services to create an AI-run satellite surveillance network known as Spacenet.

Planet Labs is a private satellite imaging corporation based in San Francisco, CA that allows customers with the money to pay for an opportunity to gain access to next generation surveillance capabilities. In February 2016, Federal technology news source Nextgov noted a statement from former CIA Information Operations Center director and senior cyber adviser Sue Gordon that Planet Labs, DigitalGlobe and Google subsidiary Skybox Imaging were all working with the Pentagon’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to provide location intelligence. Planet Labs’ own website also lists press releases detailing past contracts for subscription access to high resolution imagery with the NGA.

The pervasive involvement of intelligence agencies and defense contractors in attempts to undermine negotiations with North Korea does not create confidence in the already shaky claims made by NPR regarding alleged preparations by the DPRK to participate in a missile launch. These contentions are not supported in substance by any tangible facts. As claims and pressure continue to build on President Donald Trump to abandon the peace process, there are multiple factions of the United States government who are running a real risk of behaving in manners which could be interpreted as open sedition or refusal to carry out the stated goals and policies of the President.

March 10, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bolton’s Act of Sabotage

By David Macilwain | American Herald Tribune | March 8, 2019

Across the Western world, there has been discussion and argument and consternation over the apparent failure to make progress on disarmament at the recent talks in Hanoi. Examination of the reasons for that failure has been replaced by speculation about the DPRK’s next move and suspicions about its motives, without any similar skepticism or doubts about the US intent and strategy. But such speculation is entirely misguided, and only possible because of ignorance of one key detail in the discussions in Hanoi.

Thanks mostly to the efforts of Australia’s former ambassador to South Korea and Vietnam, Richard Broinowski, whose diplomatic contacts in Canberra relayed inside information about the discussions, the alarming truth on why the talks suddenly fell apart was revealed to the SBS TV network, and to its listeners in the evening news broadcast on March 1st.

While media around the world, apparently including those not allied to the US, broadcast the press briefing by Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo laying the blame on North Korea for demanding all the sanctions be lifted, only SBS listeners got to hear what really happened, and thenceforth to see things in an entirely different light. As Richard Broinowski explained several days later writing on John Menadue’s influential blog Pearls and Irritations :

… “a well-informed senior Asian diplomatic source in Canberra has added another reason for the Summit’s breakdown: that Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, persuaded Trump to add another demand, without notice, that led to North Korean refusal and a premature end to the summit even before negotiations had begun.”

“The Asian diplomat recalled that John Bolton had been scheduled to visit Canberra at the end of February. But the visit was cancelled when he suddenly went to Hanoi instead, whether at Trump’s directive or on his own initiative being unclear. The diplomat’s understanding is that Bolton suggested to Trump that as well as demanding a complete inventory of North Korea’s nuclear weapons and delivery systems, Trump should also request details of the country’s chemical and biological arsenal, a demand Kim found unexpected, and for which he was unprepared, and refused. Trump then broke off the meeting before substantive negotiations had even begun.”

We may all too easily forget the anticipation before these crucial talks between Trump and Kim Jong Un, where it at least looked possible that Trump might “do a deal” on a basis that the North Koreans could accept. The early signs were more than promising, with Kim Jong Un assuring that he would not have been there had he not sought progress on denuclearisation, and Trump prepared to take him at his word. While “substantive negotiations” had not begun, the North Koreans had already suggested they would make very significant concessions in return for the lifting of some sanctions and some other commitments by the US to reduce tensions – “security guarantees” in other words.

It’s worth noting in this context that Sergei Lavrov, speaking at a parallel meeting of the Valdai Club in Ho Chi Minh city had stated quite clearly that the US must make significant concessions, rather than demanding that the DPRK completely denuclearise before lifting sanctions. As always it’s worth reading Lavrov’s wide-ranging and straightforward remarks on the poor state of the world and the destabilizing and destructive role being played by the US.

The necessity for lifting some sanctions on the DPRK is further emphasized by the news that their food production this year is severely restricted by the worst climatic conditions for a decade, making food imports and relief urgent. Their demands for sanctions relief in Hanoi concerned this issue rather than anything connected with the nuclear program.

The truth of the story of Bolton’s demands, which look very much like a planned act of sabotage, is beyond doubt and endorsed in statements from South Korea’s former unification minister Chong Se-Hyun published in Korean newspapers and reported elsewhere. The Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian also covered the story on the following Monday, but this was a temporary blip on their normally unchallenging sympathy for the official US viewpoint. Australia’s other State broadcaster the ABC, however, made no mention of it, simply repeating Trump’s cover-up claim on the sanctions removal.

These media along with their Western partners in officially approved disinformation are now once again adding to the rumor mill on “North Korea’s ongoing nuclear threat” with suspect stories about the renewal of a missile launching site. Satellite photos taken only hours after the failure of the talks claim to show such activity.  The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which has close links to government, has meanwhile warned that moves to scale down the annual war games proposed belatedly as a “goodwill gesture” by the US, are “dangerous and will embolden the North”.

Putting things into a wider perspective, former Australian ambassador to the UN and nuclear disarmament negotiator Richard Butler added his weight to the subject the following day with this footnote on Broinowski’s article:

“This report has now been confirmed by a report published in the March 4th edition of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which cites a statement by the DPRK Foreign Minister, Ri Yong-Ho, in Hanoi, that “John Bolton disrupted the talks by demanding that North Korea disclose its chemical and biological arsenal as well as its nuclear arsenals”. This would seem to answer the question I posed in my article on whether or not a spanner had been thrown into the works and if so, by whom? Not unusually, there seems to have been no report of this highly salient fact by western mainstream media.”

What matters here however is not simply to expose the misinformed and fraudulent claims made about the failure of the Hanoi talks. Bolton and his allies – whoever they are – evidently sought to sabotage the talks and the possibility of agreement and détente, against the intention of Donald Trump. The last thing they want is to lose the pretext for maintaining and expanding missile systems in the region aimed at threatening or “countering” China. An informative report from the East Asia Forum think-tank also makes this suggestion:

For many in the US security community the ‘no deal’ comes as a relief. There were concerns that Trump would be eager to rush into a deal, no matter what the costs of the concessions, to claim the diplomatic achievement for his administration. This seemed an over-urgent goal due to the impending report by FBI special prosecutor Robert Mueller on the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia and possible obstruction of justice, as well as the heat on Trump from his former fixer Michael Cohen’s damning testimony last week to Congress.

So far from returning to the US with an extra feather in his golden cap, Donald Trump came home to face the music, and not just from the Russia-gate witch-hunt. Even though he had called off the talks with Kim Jong Un, he had already engaged in friendly exchanges and pleasantries that some found offensive, inviting media to repeat the tired nonsense about his dealings with President Putin – that “Trump takes the advice of “dictators” over that of his own intelligence community”. (perhaps not an unwise move under the circumstances!)

The story of his brief meeting with Kim then immediately focussed on how Trump had “taken Kim’s word” over the case of Otto Warmbier, the detained American student allegedly killed by mistreatment in a North Korean hospital. The grotesque demand of the DPRK for $500 million compensation for his death from a US court illustrates the problem that many in the US seem to have in relating to those with a different viewpoint and different attitude. If similar suits were brought against the US government by relatives of the millions of North Koreans who have died over the last sixty-five years as a direct or indirect result of US aggression and sanctions, the US would be bankrupted.

It’s hard not to conclude that the man who was considered “too extreme” to join the regime of George W Bush because of his preference for armed attacks and even nuclear strikes over diplomacy has now launched a soft coup against his own President. Immediately following the Vietnam venture, Bolton was making threats of military action against Venezuela’s President Maduro which had a strange resonance. The demand that Venezuela’s democratically elected President be replaced by an unknown and unelected puppet selected and launched like a missile into Caracas by the US and its European allies is now being copied by the self-selected “Interim President of the United States”, John Bolton.

And a world under this new de facto President with his choice of puppet might just make us look back on the Golden Age of Trump if we are lucky enough to survive it.

March 8, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Regime Change Reality Checks: Lessons from Hanoi, Caracas, and Beyond

Lessons from Hanoi: North Korea and the US

By Maximilian C. Forte | Zero Anthropology | March 7, 2019

The first Kim-Trump Summit, which took place in Singapore a mere eight months ago, seemed so hopeful—a real breakthrough, a new landmark, new history being made. Of course it was due to Trump’s extreme threats—to totally destroy North Korea with fire and fury—that inflated the value of the first summit in the first place. Trump now likes to assert that had he not been elected president, the US would now be at war with North Korea. One cannot prove such an assertion right, or wrong, since it is impossible to prove “what would have been”. We can, however, assume that if, (a) the prior state of relations had continued untouched (unlike Trump, who actively went about making North Korea into the kind of problem he never mentioned during his electoral campaign), and, (b) without any threats from the US (and certainly without any of Trump’s extreme threats), then it is likely that, like before, open war would not have been on the horizon. Trump put in an extra effort into magnifying “the problem of North Korea,” and then made a special effort to “fix” the problem—only he has not fixed anything really, and now Trump is hostage to whatever North Korea decides to do, a fact that could mean North Korea could do something to negatively affect Trump’s chances of getting re-elected by reminding the US electorate of just how badly Trump failed. Meanwhile, North Korea has in fact achieved all of the extra time which analysts said it needed in order to finally complete development of its nuclear weapons program. No longer being published are articles suggesting that North Korea is not quite ready to strike the US mainland, and to do so over and over. As I wrote in an end-of-year review essay in 2018:

“It would be one of the most striking of ironies if Trump, who campaigned against globalism, were to lose his next electoral campaign thanks to the impact of foreign forces, regardless of whether they are China, North Korea, Iran, or others. On the other hand, it should serve as a reminder that as long as US presidents style themselves as ‘war presidents’ or ‘foreign policy presidents,’ then it should be expected that they will be vulnerable to the influences of developments beyond their borders. And it’s a fitting outcome, given the extent to which the US interferes in other nations…”.

Was the second Kim-Trump summit, in Hanoi, a “failure”? Some analysts seem confused about this question, and are very reticent to call it a failure. How does one define failure? In this case, the meeting failed to produce an agreement. The meeting failed to produce an advance toward any of the stated goals of the last meeting—even the value of simply talking was called into question by Trump walking out and thus ceasing to talk. The result was the same as if the two sides had chosen not to meet, only worse, because they had in fact met and now for the expended effort they had little or nothing to show. Now the two sides do not even know if they will meet again.

Trump did his best to downplay the significance of his walking out, but by blaming events such as the congressional testimony of his former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen—which was truly riveting—Trump seemed to suggest that the summit had indeed been a failure. Had it not been a failure, then there would be no need to blame anyone for anything.

Trump reaped the fruit of his labour, and that of his predecessors, in Hanoi. There are lessons to be learned here (which means that thanks to the “mindless inertia of history,” nothing will be learned). The Hanoi summit produced the kinds of results which were foreseen by some, like Patrick Lawrence who argued that, “it is clear what would produce a breakthrough if Trump truly wants one”: first, exempting the extensive North-South Korean development plans from sanctions; second, relaxing the untenable US demand that North Korea surrender everything before any sanctions can be lifted—that the US in effect would concede nothing at all, until it got everything. That is not a negotiating position; rather, it is a demand for unconditional surrender. Such a position also erroneously implies that North Korea has no cards on its side of the table—when clearly it does—and thus the failure of the summit bites the US. But there is even more that can be learned from this failure.

Regime change, sanctions, and violations of international law all came back to haunt Trump. The US president could not do and say things in one arena, and then turn around in another and pretend that the big smile on his face would make people forget. Such a strategy assumes that all people, like Americans presumably, are incapable of connecting the dots and seeing how one side of a face contradicts the other side. In terms of international law, Trump—and his predecessors—had already established the fact that any agreement reached with the US might not be worth the paper on which it was printed. Trump tore up the JCPOA (the Iran nuclear agreement), even though Iran had violated none of its provisions, and all the other parties to the agreement defended its value. Likewise, Obama attacked Libya after his predecessor had promised benefits in return for Libya disarming itself. There is already too much painful evidence that the US uses disarmament agreements as a maliciously destructive trick—evidence enough for North Korea not to play the role of the sucker, especially when people like John Bolton openly talked about a “Libya model” with reference to North Korea. Expecting the North Koreans to simply ignore all of this is to assume that they are either beyond desperate, or just stupid, or both. Then there is the problem that the US Congress might not ratify any agreement secured by Trump—a fact that allowed Trump to walk out of the JCPOA. Note how the US Congress has yet to even begin talking of ratifying the USMCA, the successor to NAFTA. The US record of respecting international law is utterly abysmal, whether it is dismissing negative judgments by the International Court of Justice (on Nicaragua and Iran), or by the UN Human Rights Council on Venezuela, or its unlawful acts of aggression against Iraq, Libya, and Syria, or its commission of torture, extrajudicial executions, extraterritorial sanctions, violation of diplomatic missions, propaganda inciting violence, and so forth. In other words, North Korea has been given very little reason to trust the US.

Sanctions clearly stood in the path of achieving anything of substance at the Hanoi summit. Once the US imposes sanctions, it never seems to know how to scale down. Sanctions become effectively permanent, an end in themselves. In place of removing sanctions, US officials, politicians, and the media elevate trivial and basic courtesies to the level of grand concessions: they thus inflate the value of a mere handshake, a photo, or a phone call. They therefore confuse the symbolic with the material, hence the insufferable US fretting about “optics” (image management). North Korea is dealing with a dangerously armed adversary that is also narcissistic, superficial, and dishonest—an ugly combination. What also stands out are the drastically differing visions of “total denuclearization of the Korean peninsula”. The US seems to think this means that North Korea would totally destroy all of its nuclear weapons manufacturing facilities and surrender all of its nuclear weapons. A different, more balanced view, is that the US should also dismantle its ability to threaten North Korea with nuclear destruction—or else how can one argue that the Korean peninsula has been “denuclearized”? What Trump walked out on was an entirely reasonable proposition offered by North Korea: the partial destruction of its nuclear facilities, in return for the partial termination of US sanctions (those that most hurt civilians). The US knew that North Korea would not surrender the keys that ensured regime survival. Even Trump himself did not expect full “denuclearization” to be an outcome, so what did he expect? Trump misrepresenting the North Korean offer does not help matters for the future. Furthermore, well before the Hanoi summit, Kim Jong-un made it plainly clear that he expected the US to make concessions in return for concessions on his side. Intelligent arguments that even peace without disarmament would be a great achievement, were simply ignored. After all, Nixon’s deal with China did not require China to disarm, nor did Reagan’s agreements with Russia. The longer that the US continues maintaining the absurd position that a peace declaration is itself a concession, the longer such talks will continue to fail.

Regime change: when at the very same time that the US continues to threaten Iran and Venezuela, and the US president has committed himself to a war on socialism both at home and abroad, then why would a communist leader of the DPRK sit down with Trump and expect a balanced relationship of mutual respect? North Korea is dealing with the same US where Trump’s friends, including influential senators like Marco Rubio, wave pictures of a brutally murdered Muammar Gaddafi and publicly take lusty pride in regime change atrocity. Trump’s monologues in Twitter, where he fantasized about how much North Korea could be transformed (thanks to US capital investment), is basically a veiled desire by an acknowledged plunderer to steal North Korea out from under its people. Until the US formally and officially renounces regime change, permanently, it can continue to expect more failures like we witnessed in Hanoi.

The US might not be willing to learn these lessons, but North Korea certainly has: even before the summit there was news suggesting that North Korea was moving forward with its nuclear weapons program, and after the summit came more news that North Korea is rebuilding missile facilities.

Lessons from Caracas: One Failed Test after Another

The US is facing the distinct prospect that President Maduro will outlast President Trump, the latter becoming even more vulnerable to domestic efforts that seek to remove him from office by impeaching and/or imprisoning him—and in any case Trump’s re-election is far from certain. It’s one of the ironies to be discussed later, that Trump—the target of a domestic regime change movement—should align himself with his opponents in seeking the overthrow of a foreign leader. Can Americans ever make these connections?

There are a number of foreign leaders that the US tried to overthrow, for decades, leaders the US commanded “must go” and whose “days” were supposedly numbered. One of them, Fidel Castro, outlived and/or outlasted US presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama, before finally passing away naturally at a very advanced age. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad was told to go by Obama, who also said his days were numbered—Obama is gone, Assad is still firmly in power. The succession from Kim Il-sung to Kim Jong-un in North Korea is one that outlasted as many US presidential administrations as Cuba has done. Having the “mighty US” as a determined opponent is no guarantee that a government will simply collapse. On the other hand, having the US as a “friend” is no guarantee against the US one day deciding to assassinate or abduct a proxy.

The US-led regime change effort in Venezuela, by most accounts, is coming apart. Certainly, the sanctions are doing what they were intended to do: to inflict maximum hardship on all Venezuelans, regardless of their political affiliations. The legitimate government of Venezuela, however, has already shown an ability and determination to continue, in spite of those sanctions—so the sanctions are failing, just as they have always failed everywhere else to bring about regime change. The US then established two key tests by which to measure success in its efforts to overthrow President Maduro: one was the failed attempt to force entry for fake “humanitarian aid” from the US, and the second was the failure of daring the Venezuelan authorities to arrest Juán Guaidó when he recently returned to Venezuela after ignoring a court-ordered travel ban. It turns out that Guaidó does not matter enough to be arrested—he can travel freely in or out of Venezuela, because who cares.

The US had threatened Venezuela, obliquely, with an unspecified “strong and significant response” should Guaidó be arrested. That was the US engaging in projection: we dare you to arrest Guaidó, because we want you to arrest him. The Venezuelan authorities instantly sniffed out the bait—it was a clumsy attempt by the US to fabricate a provocation, while simultaneously inflating Guaidó’s value as an opposition “leader,” “interim president” even. It was thus an effort by the US to turn a joke into something serious and substantial. The likes of John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Mike Pence would have gladly “martyred” Guaidó for the cause, if this could advance US aims—and if Guaidó were smart (doubtful proposition), he would be looking over his back in two different directions at once. As it turns out, however, not even an arrest warrant was ever issued for Guaidó.

It’s not surprising then to already see a number of articles and interviews outlining the failures, the incompetence, the sheer frivolity, the lumbering foolishness, and disarray into which US regime change has fallen. This is added to the failed US-backed coup attempt against President Hugo Chávez in 2002. American frustration is palpable.

Lessons from Ottawa: Fix Your Own Damned House

They were already preparing their excuses, with fear-mongering from state media about “Russian meddling” in upcoming Canadian elections. The ruling Liberals, under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—unable to free Canada from continuing US tariffs, despite caving in to Trump on NAFTA, were still pushing the Russia conspiracy theories (Russia, which never slapped tariffs on Canada, unlike our “friends”). But is it “Russian meddling” even when Canada furnishes RT.com with such a delicious opportunity to trounce Trudeau as this one? (See Danielle Ryan’s excellent, “Surprise! ‘Progressive hero’ Justin Trudeau is a fraud and a hypocrite”.)

More than once, but much more so now, Justin Trudeau has been exposed as a fraud, an empty, virtue-signalling hypocrite who, behind the masks of “diversity” and “inclusion,” panders as a minor technocrat in the service of transnational capitalists and powerful financial donors to his Liberal Party. In an ongoing saga of his abuse of power, unfolding still as this is being written, Trudeau has been revealed as attempting to pervert the course of justice in a series of moves that look increasingly corrupt.

Explosive truths were revealed by the former Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould, who resigned (starting a series of high-profile resignations). She resigned in protest against Trudeau’s attempts to pressure her to change the course of the prosecution against the firm SNC-Lavalin (whose executives, by the way, once sat on the Board of Governors of Concordia University). One immediate result was that Trudeau lost any “moral authority” to govern Canada. Having demanded that President Maduro in Venezuela get out of office, now Trudeau faced the same domestic curse suffered by other regime changers before him, including Nicolas Sarkozy, Hillary Clinton, David Cameron, and possibly Trump. Now the calls were all about demanding that Trudeau himself go, that he immediately resign, and that early elections should be called in Canada. (At least the Conservatives are being tragically consistent: they want regime change both at home and in Venezuela.)

When all of the sordid details are played out, over and over again, during the upcoming electoral campaign, and the Liberals lose, they will likely cry about “Russian interference”. In other words, they will lose like losers. Can Canadians ever make such connections?

Lessons from Tel Aviv: Also Fix Your Own Damned House

At the same time as Justin Trudeau’s collapse in Canada, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has been formerly indicted on corruption charges. Netanyahu, who endorsed regime change in Iraq, Libya, Iran, Syria, and most recently Venezuela too, instead faces domestic regime change.

Who exactly are these people? Where do such persons come from? I mean these figures who presume to wag a finger at others, to lecture and even hector them, commanding the removal of this leader and demanding the resignation of the other leader, when just behind them are closets full of skeletons?

Lessons

Among the lessons of these recent episodes, or what I call “reality checks” for regime change, are the following, pretty basic ones (perhaps that is one reason why they are so easily forgotten or overlooked:

  • Impunity: Can Western leaders afford to govern imperiously, as if they could afford to rule with impunity? No, there are always consequences, and the less powerful and the more vulnerable the leader, the greater the impact of those consequences. Having worked to establish regime change as acceptable in the international sphere, they cannot escape its domestic applications and translations. Having interfered in the domestic affairs of other nations, they invite other nations to do the same in return.
  • Limits to power: one can sanction, threaten, demand, petition, smear or even invade a target state, but there is little guarantee that what will result is regime change. Not even being opposed by the world financial centre equipped with the most powerful military, means that regime change is a certain outcome.
  • Loss of credibility: loss of legitimacy inevitably follows from the loss of credibility. It means there is a loss of persuasive authority. A Western leader of a liberal democracy, who threatens and demands the resignation of another country’s leader, better have all his ducks in a row at home. If it is discovered that you routinely lied about your behind-the-scenes actions at home, why should anybody believe you when you start preaching about those abroad?
  • Authoritarian liberalism: we live in a period where supposed liberals, acting putatively in the name of saving “liberalism” and “liberal democracy,” resort to the most illiberal means. Liberals today are more likely to be reactionary, orthodox, authoritarian, and even violent. Whatever checklist of contemporary “threats” and “dangers” you might be keeping, feel free to add liberals to it.
  • The power of elections: while I cannot do this subject any justice in just a few words, we have to beware the seductive belief that elections will result in real change. For example, in the US, it is very doubtful that elections themselves will end the regime change addiction that pervades American society, American moralism, and American exceptionalism. Right now, those who can be counted on—unreliably—as standing against regime change, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Even if any one of them ever won presidential office, the big question we should be asking (especially since 2016), is whether they would even be allowed to effectively govern. American politicians are notorious flip-flopping fabricators of fables, so even those who seem to be against regime change one day, are likely to disappoint the very next day. It will have to be something beyond elections that impedes the US will to engage in regime change.

March 8, 2019 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

A Stumble at Hanoi, but Negotiations Remain on the Agenda

By Gregory Elich | Zoom in Korea | March 4, 2019

President Trump’s hasty decision to pull the plug on the Hanoi Summit ahead of schedule came as a stunning surprise. The feeling of disappointment in those who were hoping for success contrasted with the sense of relief in the U.S. foreign policy establishment, which remains steadfastly opposed to any improvement in relations.

The widespread assumption going into the summit was that the Trump administration would be able to buy off North Korea with diplomatic trinkets. It was thought that among these would be limited sanctions exemptions, such as allowing humanitarian organizations greater latitude to operate in North Korea. It was also anticipated that a document would be signed which would recognize that the Korean War had ended in 1953. While a peace declaration would have a symbolic “feel good” value, it would change no facts on the ground, and leave the North Koreans essentially empty-handed.

By all accounts, the North Koreans have been more clear-eyed about what they need in talks with U.S. negotiators than they had been given credit. Symbolic measures will not suffice. The North Koreans have serious and well-founded security concerns, given the various wars and military interventions the United States has launched around the world and its decades-long hostility to North Korea.

The Trump administration’s current campaign to destabilize Venezuela and substitute its handpicked lackey as that country’s president can only have further clarified thinking on security matters for the North Koreans.

A more immediate concern for North Korea is the impact of economic sanctions, which have as their aim the collective punishment of the entire population. According to a senior U.S. State Department official, during discussions on sanctions relief with their North Korean counterparts, U.S. negotiators “did our own calculations, and [the damage] tallies up to the tune of many, many billions of dollars.” North Korea’s GDP may be difficult to assess with precision, but it is estimated at around $30 billion. That places it below Vermont, which ranks dead last among U.S. states in terms of GDP. Given the economic damage/GDP ratio, it is obvious that the sanctions war is inflicting enormous hardship on the North Korean people.

According to North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, “Our proposal was that, if the U.S. lifts some of the UN sanctions, or in other words those aspects of the sanctions that impede the civilian economy and the people’s livelihood, we will completely and permanently dismantle the production facilities of all nuclear materials, including plutonium and uranium, in the Yongbyon complex, through a joint project by technicians from our two countries, in the presence of American experts”

“They were willing to give everything, including all the facilities at Yongbyon,” revealed an unnamed source. “Not just one physical reactor, but the whole complex. They were also willing to present their willingness to fully dismantle in the form of an official document. They were getting down to business pretty seriously. And then Mr. Trump and the American side turned down the proposal and left,” to the dismay of the North Koreans.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged the president to reject the North Koreans’ proposal, as facilities outside of Yongbyon were not included, and nuclear weapons and missiles would remain untouched. National Security Advisor John Bolton may have added objections as well, given his well-known aversion to anything other than unilateral disarmament by North Korea.

“The President in his discussions challenged the North Koreans to go bigger,” a State Department official announced. “The President encouraged Kim to go all in, and we were… prepared to go all in as well.” Trump wanted the North Koreans to put their entire program on the table in exchange for relief on economic sanctions.

From the North Korean standpoint, complete dismantlement of its nuclear program cannot come without a security guarantee. According to Foreign Minister Ri, that guarantee is “even more important” than lifting sanctions. After all, it was for security reasons that North Korea developed its nuclear program, and its security will need to be assured through other means if it denuclearizes. “Given the current level of trust between our two countries,” Ri explained, the dismantlement of the Yongbyon facility is “the biggest step toward denuclearization that we can take at the present moment.” Trump’s proposed grand bargain failed to provide a secure basis for the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear program. Also unaddressed is the concept of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, which is habitually interpreted in a one-sided manner in the West as applying solely to North Korea. The meaning of that term needs to be clarified through further negotiations.

The U.S. side, however, remains wedded to the idea of maximum punishment as a negotiating tool and is unwilling to grant relief on economic sanctions without North Korea’s complete denuclearization. That is the essence of the current impasse between the two sides. In an interview broadcast on Fox News, Trump said, “The sanctions are there, and I didn’t want to give up the sanctions unless we had a real program.”

It seems clear that if both parties can agree on timing and sequencing, the possibilities for progress are there, starting with a partial lifting of economic sanctions in exchange for partial denuclearization.

Although the Hanoi Summit failed to produce a concrete result, it would be incorrect to say that it failed. Diplomacy is a process, not a single event. The summit did not end in rancor, and both sides have pledged to continue negotiations. KCNA, the North Korean news agency, reported that the summit “offered an important occasion for deepening mutual respect and trust,” and it noted that President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un “agreed to keep in close touch” and “continue productive dialogues for settling the issues discussed at the Hanoi Summit.”

“They were constructive discussions,” points out a State Department official. “There’s room to continue talking.” In Mike Pompeo’s assessment, “There have been lots of things that we’ve moved forward on, and I think we have a set of shared common understandings. I’ve seen enough congruence between what the two sides are trying to accomplish. I saw the goodwill between the two leaders.”

Despite the lack of agreement, Kim reiterated his commitment to maintain a freeze on nuclear and ballistic missile testing, while the U.S. is renaming and reducing the scope of its annual Foal Eagle and Key Resolve military exercises.

The main impediment to progress is U.S. bi-partisan opposition to dialogue and any reduction of tensions in East Asia. An often-repeated charge is that last year’s Singapore Summit produced no tangible result. However, the Singapore Summit was a short meeting meant to establish an agreement on intent, in which not only did North Korea promise to work toward denuclearization, but both sides committed to improve relations and build a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. After decades of hostility and confrontation, the summit redirected the relationship to one of dialogue. That is no small thing. Critics who argue that detailed steps should have been drawn up in that initial meeting are, of course, intentionally distorting the nature of the meeting in an attempt to discredit the concept of U.S.-North Korea negotiations.

Similarly, those who wish to block progress can be expected to argue that the lack of an agreement at Hanoi proves that it is a mistake to meet with the North Koreans and talks must come to a halt. Nevertheless, U.S. and North Korean leaders remain invested in the process, and the less influence opponents have on U.S. negotiating strategy, the more chance of success. Moreover, although there is internal opposition from conservative forces in South Korea, the detente process between the two Koreas has developed its own momentum, which can be expected to exert a positive influence on the U.S. position. For now, there is certainly more reason for hope than despair.

Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute associate and on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute. He is a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People, and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language. He is also a member of the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea and Militarism in Asia and the Pacific.

His website is https://gregoryelich.org

Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich

March 4, 2019 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US & South Korea agree to scrap major military drills to foster denuclearization – Seoul

RT | March 3, 2019

Washington and Seoul will no longer be conducting large-scale Foal Eagle and Key Resolve war games, the South Korean defense ministry said Sunday. It comes several days after US President Trump complained about the drills’ cost.

The cancellation of the annual wargames, initially scheduled to kick off in spring, was announced by the South Korean military, as it made public the details of a call between Acting US defense chief Patrick Shanahan and his South Korean counterpart, Jeong Kyeong-doo, Yonhap reported.

Seoul said that the move to call off the exercises was in support of the diplomatic efforts to pursue a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. The drills have been paired since 2001 and traditionally take place in February-March. North Korea saw the allies’ annual saber-rattling as preparation for invasion.

“The minister and secretary made clear that the alliance’s decision regarding the adjustment of the exercise and drills reflects both countries’ expectation to back diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions and achieve the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through a final, full verified method,” the ministry said in a statement.

By ditching the costly wargames the US and South Korea are not eliminating joint exercises completely, though: they are planning new command post drills and will continue to carry out field maneuvers. However, these are expected to be conducted on a significantly lower scale. In the run-up to the announcement, unnamed officials told CNN that Washington and Seoul might instead carry out drills “at a small unit level” that would feature “virtual training.” NBC News reported, also citing officials, that the large-scale war games would be replaced by “mission-specific training.”

The scaling-down was widely expected, since Trump has repeatedly bemoaned the drills’ hefty price tag the US has to cover. Following the first Trump-Kim summit in June 2018, Trump said that the US would halt joint drills with South Korea, while calling them “quite provocative,” stirring unease among his own military.

Shortly after that, Washington and Seoul suspended large-scale Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercises scheduled for August.

In November, then Pentagon chief James Mattis stated that the Foal Eagle drills were “being reorganized a bit to keep it at a level that will not be harmful to diplomacy.”

Speaking in the wake of his Hanoi summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un this week, Trump said the drills with South Korea were “fun and nice” but a “very, very expensive thing,” and that he “gave that up quite a while ago.”

Foal Eagle typically sees some 11,500 US troops taking part alongside 290,000 South Korean military forces in the drills that include air, ground and naval field operations. Key Resolve is a computer-simulated exercise that also used to draw in a large number of troops from both sides, including about 12,200 Americans and 10,000 South Koran servicemen.

March 3, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Here’s why US-North Korea talks will continue to fail

By Darius Shahtahmasebi | RT | February 28, 2019

US President Donald Trump’s failure to make any meaningful progress with North Korea was an expected outcome of the recent summit, but not for the reasons the mainstream media and regular talking-heads want you to believe.

The so-called summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Hanoi this week was a predictable flop. According to the US President himself, he ended up walking away from the summit because “it was all about sanctions.”

“Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that,” US President Donald Trump stated.

As Trump also eloquently noted, “sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times.” Though, that being said, he did explain that it “was a friendly walk.” Apparently, the two leaders exited the venue of their talks without even attending a planned lunch together. I’m not sure how friendly the walk can be if you walk in the opposite direction from each other, but if there’s one thing I know about Trump it’s that he is a friendly guy.

Given the current media climate on the issue of North Korea, I can’t say I’m all the surprised with the outcome of the summit. Despite Trump and Kim’s grandiose and laughable compliments towards each other, and despite the fact that NBC reported the US was considering waiving its demand for full accounting of Pyongyang’s nuclear program, we all knew at the end of the day that little could be achieved between these two nations because of the core issues at stake here. Some of us just disagree on the real reasons why this relationship was doomed from the outset (and some of us are just plain lying to you).

For example, former national security adviser under Barack Obama, Susan Rice, has just written an article published in the New York Times (NYT) entitled: “Can Trump Avoid Caving to Kim in Vietnam?” In her opinion piece, and I am not making this up, she actually cites the idea of “further concessions to the North Korean dictator,” like a “peace declaration” as being one of the two main risks of the Hanoi summit, unless the US receives irreversible concessions in return.

Say, what? In what universe is a “peace declaration” a risk, even if there are no concessions made in return? And what does that even mean? If peace is declared, that is a concession in itself, is it not?

Oh, but we need to ensure that North Korea dismantles all of its nuclear weapons and delivery systems first before we can even possibly discuss peace. Or as Rice puts it, not dismantle, but actually “eradicate.”

“To move the needle,” the warmongering hawk writes, “the United States and North Korea will need to agree on a series of incremental, reciprocal steps that would build mutual confidence as part of a road map to full denuclearization. Such steps could combine verifiable constraints on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs with limited sanctions relief and movement toward achieving a final peace agreement. Reasonable constraints would include opening up declared North Korean facilities to international inspectors, halting further production of fissile material and ballistic missiles, codifying Mr. Kim’s announced testing freezes and nonproliferation pledge and obtaining firm commitments from North Korea to declare the totality of its nuclear and missile infrastructure.”

Where have we heard all of this before? It seems as though – and correct me if I am wrong – but that we have already tried these strategies multiple times with varying degrees of ruination. Most famously, the US tried to convince the world that Iraq needed to disarm its non-existent nuclear weapons, only to get increasingly impatient when Iraq couldn’t do the literal impossible and reduced the country to rubble. The same also took place in Libya, a nation which previously held the highest standard of living out of any country in Africa.

In fact, North Korea cites Libya as an example of why it will never give up its nuclear weapons supply. If you dig deeply enough, you will even find proof that the US and the UK, actually gave Libya a “script” indicating what the North African nation needed to do and say in order to rehabilitate itself into the global community. Fast forward just a few years later, and Barack Obama and his NATO cohorts were bombing Libya.

Speaking of concessions, even irreversible concessions, it is actually now quite well-documented (yet hidden from plain sight) that North Korea would make huge concessions in rolling back its nuclear program – but on one condition. As MIT Professor Noam Chomsky once explained, the reason is “that it calls for a quid pro quo. It says in return the United States should put an end to threatening military maneuvers on North Korea’s borders, which happen to include under Trump, sending of nuclear-capable B-52s flying right near the border.”

“Maybe Americans don’t remember very well,” Chomsky also stated, “but North Koreans have a memory of not too long ago when North Korea was absolutely flattened – literally – by American bombing. There was literally no targets left.”

Just so we are clear, Chomsky is not exaggerating that last point in the slightest.

The reason we don’t hear about North Korea’s willingness to make meaningful concessions often can be found in almost any major media outlet, though let’s just use the Washington Post as an example, with statements such as:

“[North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un] has shown no interest in talks — he won’t even set foot in China, his biggest patron. Even if negotiations took place, the current regime has made clear that ‘it will never place its self-defensive nuclear deterrence on the negotiating table, as one envoy recently put it.”

Even a recent NBC scoop appeared to be quite dumb-founded when it advanced the notion that the “Trump administration is hoping to get a significant concession from North Korea on Yongbyon [the Yongbyon nuclear reactor], but it’s unclear if the U.S. can offer something in exchange that Kim would accept.”

It seems to me that there are a lot of things that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un would accept, so it baffles me that the mainstream media are unable to even discuss this issue properly. Though, if you do happen to read far enough some articles here and there, you will find a vague mention of it, as in this piece which says: “While the United States has long demanded that North Korea give up all of its nuclear and missile programmes, the North wants to see the removal of a US nuclear umbrella for its Asian allies such as South Korea and Japan.”

Why are we having a US-North Korea summit anyway? What exactly is the threat that North Korea has demonstrably proven to be? That it fires missiles into the sea on occasion? Trust me, I feel for the fish and the environment, but as far as international human rights conventions are concerned, which as we know the US government loves to pride itself on its ability to attack other nations for a lack of upholding, North Korea’s so-called “rogue” behavior barely even pales in comparison to that of the United States.

So why does the media continue to pander to this idea that the US war machine is in any way, shape or form, bringing North Korea to the table of etiquette and decorum and why does the media give voices to those people who undermine any meaningful progress on the question of avoiding war with Pyongyang?

It pays to remind ourselves that if we are going to hold North Korea to these ridiculous standards, that it has in fact conducted no nuclear or intercontinental ballistic missile tests since 2017. The US, on the other hand, is still assisting Israel in its destruction of Gaza, is still assisting Saudi Arabia in its destruction of Yemen, is still bombing the rest of the Middle East into oblivion and is currently threatening war against Venezuela, Iran, all the while reigniting a new and revamped Cold War with Russia and China, just to name a few.

Even as I type, two supposed US allies who do have known and ready nuclear weapons appear to be throwing stones at each other, yet denuclearization seems to be nowhere to be found in media discourse when we examine the history of the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan.

Still, to all those in the corporate media decrying that the Hanoi-based summit was a waste of time, they need not fret. While in Vietnam, the Trump administration managed to ink a deal with Vietnam for 110 Boeing planes worth billions of dollars. Seems to me like it was a very lucrative and fruitful time in Vietnam, particularly for the people who matter the most: corporations that thrive as part of the US war machine.

Coincidentally, these are the same people who benefit the most when any chance of a US-North Korea peace process fails miserably. Go figure.

March 1, 2019 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

N. Korea offered to halt nuclear, long-range rocket testing for partial relief of sanctions – FM

RT | February 28, 2019

North Korea offered a “realistic proposal” to halt nuclear and missile tests in exchange for partial sanctions relief, Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho told reporters in Hanoi after the failed Trump-Kim summit.

North Korea demanded the partial lifting of sanctions that “that hamper the civilian economy and the livelihood of our people.”

In exchange for partial lifting of sanctions by the US, North Korea would permanently remove plutonium and uranium processing facilities and Yongbyon, in the presence of US experts, Ri said, adding that the “US was not ready to accept our proposal.”

The North Korean official said Washington demanded “one more” measure beyond dismantling Yongbyon, which went too far for Pyongyang.

“Our proposal will never change although US proposes negotiations again in the future,” said Ri, who then left without taking questions from the press.

Wednesday’s summit in Hanoi began on a high note but ended early and without a deal.

“It was about the sanctions basically,” US President Donald Trump told reporters after parting ways with Kim Jong-un. “They wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety and we couldn’t do that. Sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times.”

February 28, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

No deal, but Kim Jong-un promised no missile tests – Trump

RT | February 28, 2019

Despite no formal deal being reached, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said that he wouldn’t test weapons or anything nuclear-related, US President Donald Trump told reporters after the aborted Hanoi summit.

Pressed by reporters about potential fallout over the failure to reach a denuclearization agreement with the North Korean leader, Trump stated that he had received assurances that Pyongyang will continue to halt weapons development.

“He said the testing will not start,” Trump said of Kim. “He said he’s not going to do testing of rockets or missiles or anything having to do with nuclear. And all I can tell is that’s what he said, and we’ll see.”

Trump and Kim’s Hanoi, Vietnam summit came to an abrupt end on Thursday after the two sides failed to reach a consensus on appropriate steps Pyongyang must take in order for US sanctions to be lifted. Kim reportedly promised to dismantle a nuclear facility at Yongbyon in exchange for the lifting of all sanctions – but Washington wanted more concessions, including the destruction of a purported uranium enrichment plant.

The US president said that while the talks were constructive, “Sometimes you have to walk and this was one of those times.”

February 28, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

‘Exercising is fun but very expensive’: Trump explains freeze on US military drills in Korea

RT | February 28, 2019

Donald Trump cited exorbitant costs as the reason for halting “fun and nice” US military drills on the Korean Peninsula – exercises which Pyongyang viewed as a serious provocation.

Speaking at a press conference after his Hanoi summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the US president told journalists that US military drills in the region would not resume for now.

“I gave that up quite a while ago because it costs us $100 million every time we do it. We fly these massive bombers in from Guam,” Trump said.

“Exercising is fun and it’s nice they play their war games – and I’m not saying it’s not necessary, because on some levels it is – but on other levels it’s not. But it’s a very, very expensive thing.”

The US president added that he “hated to see” how “hundreds of millions of dollars” were spent on the drills.

“I thought it was unfair, and frankly I was of the opinion that South Korea should help us with that. We’re protecting South Korea.”

Trump then claimed that Seoul was just one of many nations which were taking advantage of Washington’s generosity.

“We’re spending a tremendous amount of money on many countries, protecting countries that are very rich – that can certainly afford to pay us and then some. And those countries know it’s not right but nobody’s ever asked them before, but I’ve asked them, and we’re gaining a lot of money.”

The Pentagon announced that a number of joint drills with South Korea were put on hold after landmark talks between Trump and Kim in Singapore last June. However, the Pentagon said that routine joint exercises would continue, but not on such a large scale.

The drills have been seen as a major barrier to brokering a denuclearized, peaceful Korean Peninsula. Moscow and Beijing have suggested that Pyongyang suspend its nuclear weapon and missile tests in exchange for Washington giving up joint exercises with South Korea. However, Washington flatly rejected the proposal.

Trump said on Thursday that Kim told him North Korea will continue to halt missile testing, even though no formal deal was signed after their Vietnam summit.

February 28, 2019 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »