Let me start today with Boston Globe columnist James Carroll’s latest on the Korean nuclear crisis and memory, his reminder of how much that we face in the world today as “enemy” actually escaped from our own moral backyard. It’s a point worth considering as we try to imagine what horrors may be escaping from that backyard now for the world to face tomorrow.
With that in mind, I also include a piece from Peter Popham of the Independent (picked up off the Common Dreams website now that the Independent has gone over to a subscription only webservice) on a dispirited and dispiriting conference on nuclear nonproliferation just now opening in Geneva to dismal nuclear news in Asia and to an American administration hell-bent on leading us into a brave new world of proliferating nuclear arsenals and nuclear powers. Nayan Chanda, editor of YaleGlobal online, then offers a grim sense of the dangers on (and around) the Korean peninsula, though you might also take a look at Julian Borger’s and Jonathan Watt’s Guardian account, North Korea offers new peace deal for a somewhat more hopeful sense of the “deal” the North Koreans (but not the Bush administration) is imagining.
In the meantime, back in Iraq, David Isenberg of Asia Times reports in There’s no business like security business, “As they say in show business, you ain’t seen nothing yet. If you thought Afghanistan was noteworthy for the use of private military companies (PMCs) after the fighting was over, stay tuned. The roles and opportunities for PMCs have just gotten much bigger and more lucrative.” DynCorps International, a private rent-a-cop, rent-a-mercenary outfit bought last year by Computer Sciences Corp., has just been “awarded a contract from the US State Department to provide up to 1,000 civilian advisors to help the government of Iraq organize effective civilian law enforcement and judicial and correctional agencies.” This is part of the privatizing of the Pentagon itself and so another step in the privatizing (and undoubtedly the prospective further looting) of Iraq. But here’s a curious little twist. According to Isenberg, “Officials have asked Congress to fund the $25 million law-enforcement project and plan to seek more money – perhaps up to $250 million – to support the effort. Some of the $25 million will be diverted from an anti-drug program for Afghanistan.”
The officials, of course, swear that the Afghan money will be quickly replenished, but hey, Afghanistan, who remembers where that is? Just another half-forgotten victory stop in the war on terrorism. As Danny Schechter in Bush and His Press Corps Celebrate Victory informs us,
“According to media monitor Andrew Tyndall, the Afghanistan story, in network parlance, has all but ‘gone away.’ He reports,’The war in Afghanistan received 306 minutes of coverage on the newscasts in November 2001, but that dropped to 28 minutes by February 2002, and last month it was one minute.'”
So, really, in tight times, why not strip the Afghan drug budget to beef up the Iraqi policing one, and oh yes, while we’re at it, why not do the same sort of thing here. It’s in this light — and with other kinds of weapons of mass destruction in mind — that I include below a fine Ruth Rosen editorial from the San Francisco Chronicle, “At home, no superpower,” on what’s being privatized in the United States, or rather what’s being transferred from a safety net society into the hands of well, you know Tom
Memory and moral awareness in Korea
By James Carroll
The Boston Globe
April 29, 2003
So, really, in tight times, why not strip the Afghan drug budget to beef up the Iraqi policing one, and oh yes, while we’re at it, why not do the same sort of thing here. It’s in this light — and with other kinds of weapons of mass destruction in mind — that I include below a fine Ruth Rosen editorial from the San Francisco Chronicle, “At home, no superpower,” on what’s being privatized in the United States, or rather what’s being transferred from a safety net society into the hands of well, you know Tom
Memory and moral awareness in Korea
By James Carroll
The Boston Globe
April 29, 2003”Forgetfulness is the way to exile,” the legend reads at Yad Vashem. ”Remembrance is the way to redemption.” Yad Vashem is the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, and today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Jews everywhere pause to think of the Six Million, and in Israel itself everything stops for a long moment of silence. If Jews have a reason to remember what happened in the heart of Europe between 1933 and 1945, how much more so do non-Jews. Remembrance can advance narrow agendas — revenge, exceptionalism, victimhood, guilt — but remembrance can also lead to understanding and change. Memory is a main source of moral awareness, a way of finally coming to terms with what we do without meaning to, a way of facing the truth that even apparently virtuous action can be grounded in prejudice or selfishness.
To read more Carroll click here
Nuclear War Risk Grows as States Race to Acquire Bomb
By Peter Popham
The Independent
April 29, 2003A conference on nuclear non-proliferation began in Geneva yesterday, in the shadow of North Korea’s departure from the global treaty and with the bleakest prospects for progress in the pact’s 33-year history.
John Wolf, US Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Non-proliferation told a news conference on the first day of the meeting that Iran has “an alarming, clandestine program.” to get hold of nuclear technology. “Iran is going down the same path of denial and deception that handicapped international inspections in North Korea and Iraq,” he said.
But disarmament experts said that American lack of commitment to non-proliferation was as damaging as the behavior of the proliferators.
Representatives of 187 countries are attending the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This is the second of three sessions that will be held before the Review Conference in 2005.
To read more Popham click here
China’s Mediation Backfires on North Korea
Pyongyang’s nuclear weapon claim moves the country closer to the brink
Nayan Chanda
YaleGlobal online
April 28, 2003The collapse of US-North Korea talks in Beijing last week extinguished a slim hope that conflict could be avoided. The next likely US move – to pass a UN resolution censuring North Korea – may well bring a nuclear test or some other demonstration of strength, paving the way for a dangerous confrontation. North Korean brinkmanship may also provide grist to the mill of Washington’s policy of regime change.
In an ironic twist, Washington’s recent military victory in Iraq and diplomatic success in garnering Chinese support to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambition may have pushed Pyongyang to shed all ambiguity in favor of a defiant nuclear posture. While the stunning US victory in Iraq confirmed North Korean fear about Washington’s muscular policy in dealing with the ‘Axis of Evil’, some analysts believe North Korea’s wakeup call came eleven days before the first bombs hit Baghdad.
Nayan Chanda, is editor of YaleGlobal Online.
To read more Chanda click here
At home, no superpower
By Ruth Rosen
The San Francisco Chronicle
April 28, 2003To most of us, national security means protection from external enemies — other countries or terrorists. But there is another kind of national security — the well-being of a country’s citizens.
And how do we rank in terms of our domestic national security?
Poorly.
Consider American mothers and their children. Among other industrialized nations, we have the highest rates of maternal and child poverty. The mortality rate of our children under the age of 5 is shared by Croatia and Malaysia. We are 54th when it comes to access to health care for women and children. And only four other industrial countries fail to guarantee paid leave from work to new mothers.
In other words, when it comes to mothers and children, we don’t even rank among the top 10.