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Meanwhile, in North Korea…

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A reader, who had been in the US military stationed near the Korean border, wrote me recently taking issue with my description of North Korea as a “small” country. In fact, North Korea is, by almost any measurement you could devise, a “small” country — a land without true allies, economically at rock bottom, agriculturally wrecked, with a food-deprived populace, and not fuel or electricity to run its industrial plant, no less turn on the heaters in winter. By only one standard, as this reader made quite clear, is North Korea not a “small” country. It is a fully militarized, heavily armed, militarily mobilized, now nuclear or near-nuclear nation, and its regime, should it find itself in imminent peril of being taken out, Axis-of-Evil-style, would be quite ready, I believe, to go down firing, which is hideous news, largely at this point for the poor South Koreans

Our own regime of gamblers, heavily armed, militarily mobilized, extremely nuclear and evidently itching to find ways of using such weaponry, clearly consider a thorough thrashing of Saddam Hussein’s regime the only effective diplomacy around for dealing with the North Korean situation. According to Murray Hiebert in the most recent Far Eastern Economic Review (“North Korea, A Costly Delay”),

“Bush administration officials say they plan to confront North Korea after Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq has been toppled. ‘Presumably when Iraq is behind us [North Korea] will be the No. 1 priority,’ says a senior administration official. Standing up to Iraq ‘will have demonstrated U.S. willingness to stand down weapons of mass destruction threats,’ he says. ‘We’ll have more diplomatic leverage after Iraq.'”

This is chilling stuff. Of all the countries you wouldn’t have wanted to push into membership in the nuclear “club,” North Korea would probably be at the top of my own list. Beyond the onrushing catastrophe in Iraq — a country that, propaganda aside, is incapable of harming us — lies a potential situation with, at least regionally, the sorts of dangers previously associated with the Cuban Missile Crisis. The guys who are running our country are like so many kids happily playing with high explosives in the neighborhood garage.

Below, you’ll find the most recent column of San Francisco Chronicle
columnist Ruth Rosen, a tiny, futuristic parable/warning about where our present moment could lead. I also include the second article in a two-part Asia Times series on North Korea by Mark Erickson. It lays out the nature of North Korea’s military heft. He briefly summarizes the first piece in the series, “Can catastrophic Korean war be avoided?” but if you want to read the whole thing, click here.

Finally, just for your amusement, I include an older piece from the Guardian by Tim Dowling, “Singalonga-Kim,” because it catches something of the nature of North Korea today. Tom

Meanwhile, in North Korea. . ..
Ruth Rosen
March 13, 2003
San Francisco Chronicle

This is chilling stuff. Of all the countries you wouldn’t have wanted to push into membership in the nuclear “club,” North Korea would probably be at the top of my own list. Beyond the onrushing catastrophe in Iraq — a country that, propaganda aside, is incapable of harming us — lies a potential situation with, at least regionally, the sorts of dangers previously associated with the Cuban Missile Crisis. The guys who are running our country are like so many kids happily playing with high explosives in the neighborhood garage.

Below, you’ll find the most recent column of San Francisco Chronicle
columnist Ruth Rosen, a tiny, futuristic parable/warning about where our present moment could lead. I also include the second article in a two-part Asia Times series on North Korea by Mark Erickson. It lays out the nature of North Korea’s military heft. He briefly summarizes the first piece in the series, “Can catastrophic Korean war be avoided?” but if you want to read the whole thing, click here.

Finally, just for your amusement, I include an older piece from the Guardian by Tim Dowling, “Singalonga-Kim,” because it catches something of the nature of North Korea today. Tom

Meanwhile, in North Korea. . ..
Ruth Rosen
March 13, 2003
San Francisco Chronicle

Host: Good evening. This is GNN, Global News Network, with another edition of “Interview with History.” GNN is committed to recovering our hidden history, lost during the Dark Decades. Tonight, our guests are retired Army Gen. Samuel Spears, who served two tours of duty in Persian Gulf War II and commanded the U.S. forces in Korean War II. He answers questions from his grandson, Adam Spears, a senior at Lowell High School. Adam, why don’t you begin?

Adam: Well, we’re studying the causes of the second Korean War and I just don’t get it.

Gen. Spears: As I’ve explained before, Adam, President George W. Bush was obsessed with Saddam Hussein, not to mention with Iraq’s oil reserves. He managed to convince most Americans that Iraq was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington. So, people just weren’t paying much attention to the North Korean threat.

To read more Rosen click here

Miscalculation the greatest Korea war risk
By Marc Erikson
Asia Times
March 14, 2003

Numerous, perhaps most, wars in history have started as the result of misestimation of enemy intentions and strength, uncontrolled and reckless escalation of tension, or sheer accident. Should war break out again on the Korean Peninsula, it will be no different.

As I wrote in the first installment of this two-part effort at defining war risk, the stage for any and all of the above factors to come into play is set by the – as currently stated – irreconcilable aims of the United States and North Korea in their five-month standoff. The US, feeling betrayed by North Korea’s flagrant and admitted violations of the 1994 nuclear-freeze-for-food-and-energy Agreed Framework, seeks total North Korean nuclear disarmament.

To read more Erickson click here

Singalonga-Kim
Tim Dowling reads from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea official songsheet

By Tim Dowling
March 3, 2003
The Guardian

North Korea’s Communist party newspaper urged the country’s people on Monday to redouble their courage and sing the song “Long Trip for Army-based Leadership” more loudly at a time of tension with the United States. – Reuters

Top 10 Songs for the Duration of the Staunch Struggle

1. Good Riddance to the Expelled Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Commission. This should be sung sonorously in order to bolster spirits for the coming conflict. Be advised that verse four, which begins, “Nuclear reprocessing is our birthright,” goes up a half-step. Do not forget this.

2. Your Evil Food Aid Cannot Destroy Our Faith In Juche. To be sung twice through while abstaining from lunch. Our cherished philosophy of self-reliance must burn vigilantly in our hearts at this testing time. Second chorus is ladies only.

To read more Dowling click here