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Waiting to happen.

There’s a lot of Trump news this week, but I wanted to return to the subject of Korea since that has such enormous potential for disastrous loss of life. The North test launched four ballistic missiles, setting off a firestorm of media coverage and a torrent of speculation from military and diplomatic spokespeople. As usual, most of it misses the mark by a mile. The New York Times articles on the developing crisis mention only in passing the massive join military exercises currently underway by the U.S. and South Korea. One wonders how many rounds, missiles, etc., are typically expended in such exercises.

North Korea's war memoriesUPI reports that there will actually be two joint exercises underway over the coming weeks; one a ground, air, and naval exercise that will include landings (i.e. mock invasions of the north). The other is more a command exercise involving the new THAAD anti-missile system the U.S. is installing in South Korea. So think about this – a practically constant stream of large scale drills, and now a missile battery that threatens to negate what Pyongyang likely thinks of as its nuclear deterrent. Got that? Now combine that with something utterly unknown to Americans – the kind of paranoia that stems from having been invaded and bombed out of existence six decades ago. That may have something to do with these missile launches.

How will the Trump administration react to these tests? It’s hard to say, but if I were to guess I would suggest that their reaction might be similar to the tack taken by the last GOP administration. Dubya (Bush 43) put North Korea on the “Axis of Evil” short list for invasion, perhaps just to make Reverend Moon happy, but I’m not certain of that. That in and of itself might have been the best argument for developing a deterrent. Combined with other factors relating to our long history with Pyongyang, it’s a compelling case. I don’t condone their nuclear weapon design and production programs, but it’s not hard to work out why they might want such weapons. Deterrence, and a prompt to get the United States to a negotiating table. They don’t want six party talks, or three party talks … they want one on one with America, because we are their principal adversary.

This standoff should have ended decades ago. The fact that it’s happening while Trump is president is testament to that very painful truth.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Flyover country.

I’m going to take a break from my wall-to-wall election 2016 coverage to talk about one of those very serious issues that were already septic when Obama took office in 2009 and have remained that way throughout his presidency. One of the big ones is Korea, which this president is handling pretty poorly, though perhaps marginally better than his predecessor, who chose to include North Korea in his “Axis of Evil”.

Scare tactic Obama hasn’t gone that far, but with all that’s at stake on the Korean peninsula, it is reckless merely to follow the same path as even some of your more sane predecessors in office. It’s late in the game, but a real effort should be made to defuse this confrontation before someone makes a mistake. Mistakes in Korea can cost hundreds of thousands of lives in a very short time; no policy of either containment or rollback is worth that level of risk.

I raise this now because over the last week, Obama flew some nuclear-capable stealth fighters over South Korea in an obvious demonstration of our willingness to “go there” – this in response to a missile test by Pyongyang. I guess the annual joint exercises we do with South Korea every March is not enough, though the well-rehearsed maneuvers are designed to mock an amphibious invasion of North Korea. With something like 50 U.S. military installations in South Korea, effective operational control of Seoul’s armed forces by the U.S., and plenty of American war planes and troops on the premises, it’s little wonder that North Korea wants a deterrent.

It’s probably wise to recall that the North was bombed to a fare-the-well during the Korean War. They have a living national memory of what it is like to be annihilated. It’s a large measure of what makes them kind of crazy. I know we have a tendency to shrug off other nations’ concerns about our saber-rattling, but in this case we’re dealing with a country that has already been blown up by us once. When we fly nuclear-capable aircraft over the peninsula, the intended threat has some resonance. Their dispute is more with us than with the South. When they go out of their way to get attention, it’s to get OUR attention. Given all that’s at stake, we should talk to them … like, now.

Next week: Scalia and the election.

Political Rants

Great satan.

The draft agreement with Iran represents a step away from yet another war in the greater Middle East / Southwest Asia region, but it is being presented and discussed squarely within the same imperial context that has defined our relationship with the Islamic Republic for my entire adult life. It is a little hard to see how Obama can inch this country away from its delusions about Iran without departing from them himself, at least in a small way. He has always been an incrementalist when it comes to human progress. Often, as the drones fly, I feel like we’re moving incrementally in entirely the wrong direction, but even where I agree that we should have this kind of agreement with Iran, it is with the realization that we are still reaching substantially beyond anything that should be considered our legitimate concern.

One reason Iran doesn't like us.Before anyone accuses me of it, I am not a fan of the clerical regime in Iran. The Iranian people have, however, been subjected to sustained attack by the United States since we expanded our empire during and after World War II. We have caused them immense suffering, through the overthrow of their democratically elected government in 1953, through the imposition of our close ally, the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, through our support of Saddam Hussein in his murderous war against Iran, through decades of draconian sanctions. There are many Americans – some friends, even – who will list for me the strikes against Americans attributed to Iran (all in the context of various military adventures on our part), but in all honesty, they pale in comparison to what we have done to them.

It’s a stretch to say that Iran was interested in developing nuclear weapons, but frankly, it wouldn’t come as any surprise. The regional nuclear arms race various American politicians – from Obama to the G.O.P. – have been warning us about is already underway. With an arsenal of hundreds of warheads in Israel and nuclear-capable assets deployed in the region by the U.S., who can blame anyone in Iran’s position for wanting some kind of deterrent, particularly since we have demonstrated in very practical terms our willingness to invade non-nuclear states and our reluctance to attack those who maintain an atom-powered arsenal.

Let’s get past this obsession with our own “great satan” and stop being afraid of this country we’ve been threatening for 35 years. If this agreement is the first step, I’m all for it.

luv u,

jp