We started this week with some news flash about North Korea expanding its uranium enrichment capability. NBC talking heads were all on the job, rolling out the standard script on how the North Korean commies can’t be trusted, how they’ve done this with successive U.S. administrations from Clinton forward, and how they’ve rolled a feckless president Trump by flattering him, gaining a massive concession – essentially, the prestige of a summit with the U.S. president – in exchange for nothing. There’s broad agreement on this point on MSNBC, for example, meaning that everyone on the network who detests Trump, from National Review editors to Democratic party strategists, are saying roughly the same thing.
What emerges is the same bipartisan consensus that has driven bad foreign policy decisions through administrations of both parties for as long as I’ve been alive (and, in truth, longer). It feels to me very much like the assholes vs. the fuckers, and while I certainly don’t want the fuckers running everything, it’s hard to support the assholes and maintain my self-respect. Now, before someone accuses me of Jimmy Dore-like animus toward strategic voting (note: I always vote strategically, specifically to avert the avoidable and wholly predictable disaster that’s unfolding right now), I do have a slight preference for the assholes. But what we need is a radically new approach to national security and international relations – one that would make all of those pundits shake their heads.
This means more than simply not getting ourselves into “stupid” wars. This involves a deeper realization that we do not have the right to launch wars of choice under any circumstances. Radical change means a foreign policy that focuses on what’s good for people both inside and outside of our national borders, not just what’s good for U.S. based corporations and the rich people who own them. It means saying goodbye to the notion of an American empire and winding down the military machine, diverting resources to domestic economic security and international disaster relief efforts. It means owning the darker chapters of our history and being accountable for them as a nation.
Whatever we do in the short term to stanch the bleeding of this increasingly autocratic administration, we must keep a sharp vision in mind of where this country should go and seek to articulate that vision to our friends, our families, our co-workers, our neighbors, and strangers we meet. If we overcome our short-term problems in part by making common cause with people we disagree with, it’s essential that we keep our eye on a better future … one that they may not want at all.
luv u,
jp
As Bruce Cumings and others have pointed out for many years, the South Korean military is essentially under the command of U.S. generals. That is, in the event of a war, South Korean commanders would take orders directly from our military. Add to that the fact that the U.S., South Korea, and North Korea have technically been in a state of war since 1950, and you have a sense of how this works. Think about it – what does it say about South Korea’s sovereignty that they are not in control of their military? Recall, too, that the country was under the rule of generals and assorted dictators into the 1980s, all backed by the U.S. So when a president threatens the sanctity of “military exercises”, essentially admitting that they are, in fact, war games and, as such, “provocative,” as Trump accurately described them, national security reporters and consultants on every network start spinning like crazy.
Bolton appears to have leveraged the fact that our credibility is shot in order to foment this crisis. The world doesn’t need reminding that in Libya, we talked Qaddafi out of his nuclear arsenal, then supported an uprising against him that ended with this murder. They don’t need reminding that both Iraq and Afghanistan, non nuclear states, were both invaded by us and are still under the partial control of our military. So, they know that we are liable to attack if you don’t have nuclear weapons … or if the U.S. manages to talk you into relinquishing your arsenal. What lessons would you draw from this kind of behavior?