[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Maybe We Should Take The North Koreans At Their Word

[Bill Totten]

by Tad Daley

Tikkun Magazine (May 28 2009)


Editor's introduction

It is hard to know how to react to the pious lecturing of the US media
and government to North Korea. The US has thousands of nukes and has
them positioned all around the world to enforce the will of the American
empire. The US is the only country on earth that has ever used nuclear
weapons in war. What exactly gives the US the moral right to be
lecturing North Korea or even Iran on who should or should not have
nuclear weapons - except our chutzpah and our military power? But why
does the media also continually speak in this same language of offended
righteousness, when it is the US, not North Korea, which has just caused
the deaths of over a million Asians in Iraq, the displacement into
refugee status of another three million, and many more who have been
wounded? This is not to say that anyone at Tikkun or the NSP has the
slightest sympathy for the regimes in North Korea or Iran - but neither
do we have much sympathy for other regimes like those in Pakistan or
Russia or Israel that have nuclear weapons already. Perhaps we might be
more effective in preventing proliferation of these weapons were we to
try the Strategy of Generosity instead of the strategy of domination.
And yes, it is the strategy of domination if the US agrees to
negotiations, but meanwhile proclaims 'we will not take ANY OPTION off
the table' meaning we may use our own nuclear power to back up an
assault on other countries if our negotiations don't give us what we are
asking for! We've tried the domination strategy with Bush, and it didn't
work. How about trying the Global Marshall Plan and the Generosity
Strategy?  - The Editor of Tikkun


Maybe We Should Take The North Koreans At Their Word

Pyongyang has consistently said that its nuclear weapons are intended to
deter aggression. And, indeed, they do.

by Tad Daley


Shortly after North Korea exploded its second nuclear device in three
years on Monday morning, it released a statement explaining why. "The
republic has conducted another underground nuclear testing successfully
in order to strengthen our defensive nuclear deterrence". {1} If the
Obama Administration hopes to dissuade Pyongyang from the nuclear course
it seems so hell bent on pursuing, Washington must understand just how
adroitly nuclear arms do appear to serve North Korea's national
security. In other words, perhaps we should recognize that they mean
what they say.