North Korea

["Eli Stephens" <elishastephens@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Since the Counterpunch article by Benjamin Shephard led me to articles on
Worker's World Party positions on, among other things, North Korea, I'm
posting here an exchange of emails I had last week with Kurt Nimmo, another
occasional Counterpunch contributor who also writes a generally interesting
daily blog, "Another Day in the Empire" (http://www.drmenlo.com/nimmo/). In
writing about the current "North Korea crisis", Nimmo included the following
sentence (full article at the web site above, scroll to June 4 entry): "If
the demented neocons try to attack North Korea, there will be hell to pay --
North Korea has an estimated 11,000 pieces of artillery aimed at the South
Korean capital, Seoul, only 50 kilometers from the demilitarized zone. Kim
Jung-il is crazed enough to use them, too."

The exchange follows. Although these were private emails, Zimmo claims to
simply be restating his public positions, and I certainly don't feel like
I'm betraying any confidence in publishing them here:

----

Why do you doubt everything the ruling class (via the Administration and the
press) says about virtually everything, but accept the idea that Kim Jung-il
is "crazy"? It is PRECISELY this kind of demonization of foreign rulers
which allows the government to whip up the public against Hussein,
Milosovic, Castro, Gaddafi, or anyone else they care to "take down." Your
contributing to that demonization is NOT helpful.

And what exactly is crazy about trying to defend your country from an attack
by the US, and doing so by threatening a massive retaliatory strike against
the only target you're capable of hitting? Sounds 100% rational to me.

Eli

----

What's crazy about this leader is he's a Stalinist who has starved his
country, has tortured his own people, and lives in a faux communist la-la
land. I'm not going to defend this. He's the flipside of Bush and Crew,
albeit a bit more stark.

Pointing this out is not "demonization," it's the truth. Go back a few
months in the archive (situated on www.nimmo.blogspot.com) and read what I
have said about Kim and his repressive government.

I'm not going to defend totalitarianism, even if it supposedly plays into
Bush's hand.

Kurt

----

Without getting into a debate on the first paragraph, that is NOT what you
pointed out. What you "pointed out" was that he was "crazy enough" to
military defend his country by threatening retaliation to an attack. And
whatever you think of the way his country is led, THAT is NOT crazy, and it
IS demonization and "aiding and abetting" the aims of the Bushites. I doubt
that's what you intend, but it IS the result.

The criminals who deserve ALL your fire are the crazies threatening attack,
not the people announcing that they're prepared to defend their own country
from such an attack.

Eli

----

This is a blog; I have made reference to Bush's policy on North Korea
several times, and explained my position on Kim.

Finally, 9/10s of this blog is about heaping justly deserved scorn on Bush.
I take it you have not read much here.

Kurt

----

I read your writing regularly (on your blog and at Counterpunch); it's
excellent. However, I note that you're avoiding the question. Why do you
think it's "crazy" to threaten to retaliate if someone invades your country?
Because that is EXACTLY what you said - "he is just crazed enough to use
them"; "using them" referring to launching an assault on South Korea should
he be invaded or otherwise attacked by the US. That is a completely rational
response, particularly in light of the militaristic, adventuristic Bushites.
There is nothing "crazed" about it. But either you "misspoke" or else you
don't agree. Which is it?

Eli

----

Pyongyang warned that it would turn the South Korean capital of Seoul into a
"sea of fire." Last time I checked, a few million innocent civilians lived
in Seoul. Now maybe it's bluster, maybe it's not. Point is: like Bush, the
North Koreans apparently have no regard for innocent human life. In my book
this is craziness -- or more accurately, the declarations of a psychopath.

Kurt

----


Or, the completely rational response of a country that has no hope to defeat
the United States in battle but nevertheless wants to insure that it isn't
attacked, thereby SAVING the lives of thousands of ITS people.

I mean, isn't this the entire concept behind "MAD"? A concept which governed
the behavior of this country (and the Soviet Union and others) for 40 years
or so and no one claimed, despite the acronym, that the leaders of those
countries were "mad" or "crazy" (or psychopaths) during that time for using
that paradigm as a defense against nuclear attack. What North Korea is doing
is nothing more or less than that, only using massive conventional weapons
rather than nuclear weapons. What's the difference?

Eli

----

No response from Kurt. However, an interesting followup item occured a few
days later, when reports appeared in the press on the proposed relocation of
US troops in South Korea. It was noted in those reports that "the two sides
also agreed to relocate further south most of the estimated 7,000 troops
from the sprawling 8th U.S. Army headquarters in downtown Seoul, though the
headquarters itself will remain in the capital."

So, not only is the US exposed once again as total hypocrites (criticizing
Iraq for "positioning its troops in civilian areas" while doing exactly the
same thing), but it also becomes quite possible that the North Korean
targets in Seoul aren't randomly chosen civilian areas, but US military
forces.

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