[Marxism] Long Live the North Korean Nuclear Program!

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

Sukla Sen: "But to brand nuclear weapon -  a weapon of deliberate mass
murder on a mind-boggling scale - as a weapon of 'defence' is nothing short
of criminal lunacy."

To deny the right of Third World countries, and especially one that has been
the victim of one of the most savagely genocidal imperialist wars ever, to
nuclear weapons is simply to defend the right of imperialism to a monopoly
of nuclear weapons. Especially when North Korea faces tens of thousands of
nuclear-armed US troops to its South.

Lest we forget, it was *precisely* the development of the Soviet nuclear
bomb that was a major factor in limiting Truman's actions during the Korean
War. WITHOUT the Soviet bomb, the US without a doubt would have nuked North
Korea's major cities and possibly beyond them. As it was, using
"conventional" genocidal firebombing with Napalm (which had been developed
at the end of WWII like the atomic bomb and for EXACTLY the same purpose, to
carry out genocidal terror attacks on civilian population centers), the U.S.
had destroyed at least half of each one of 18 or 22 major Korean cities, and
in most cases way more than half. Countless smaller cities, towns and
villages were also obliterated. OFFICIAL U.S. orders were EXPLICIT about the
genocidal, war-criminal intent, calling for population centers to be
eliminated, obliterated, wiped off the map and so on.

Nuclear weapons can be extremely effective defensive weapons. Crying about
nukes being "a weapon of deliberate mass murder on a mind-boggling scale" is
the sort of mushy-minded do-gooder liberal claptrap one would expect from
Medea Benjamin on a Code Pink mailing list, not here.

ALL military weapons are "weapons of deliberate mass murder," and all that
develop them hope their weapon will allow them to kill on such "a mind
boggling scale" as to allow their side to impose its will on its enemies. If
"criminal lunacy" is involved, it is in war itself, not the particular
weapon used. If you are going to take sides, let's not pretend that war can
be pretty or humane or even tolerable and even on the smallest scale. I've
seen it close up, a *tiny* bit. It is not.

But unless the entire human race is going to bend over for the imperialists,
then we are going to have war. Because imperialism specifically, and
capitalist-European colonial domination before it, has shown that war in
inherent to these as social systems. War is of the very nature of
imperialism, the very core essence of war, which is to force another social
formation to adopt or accede to rules, practices, etc. that benefit your
imperialist country to the detriment of the country being forced to comply. 

Imperialism as a system, in and of itself, is a perpetual state of war by a
small number of robber countries against the big majority of humanity. AND
MOST OF ALL the post-WWII variant of imperialism, characterized by formal
independence of most former colonies which, however, are still subject to
neo-colonial domination. Look over these last six and a half decades and try
to find when there were no direct imperialist or imperialist proxy wars
being waged somewhere in the Third World. 

Given this context, the FIRST question we have to answer is, which side are
you on?  On the side of imperialism or the side of its victims? Or are you
going to be "neutral" and say "a plague on both your houses," which is OK
but you should be conscious and not fool yourself that this is anything
other that being "neutral" on the side of the imperialists, for they have
the upper hand. 

Given this context, and the realities of who has which armaments, we have to
say that the campaign against "Weapons of Mass Destruction" is an
imperialist plot to disarm the Third World against imperialism. The nuclear
non-proliferation regime is not just an imperialist plot to leave most of
the world's population defenseless against imperialism but also to allow
imperialist firms to dominate non-military uses of atomic energy.

The campaign against land mines is another imperialist phony. Why don't
these imperialist do-gooders start with the military actions that actually
kill the most civilians, like the notoriously inaccurate artillery barrages
and aerial bombardment? If they're so concerned with fragmentation weapons
killing civilians, why don't they ban the use of cluster bombs, or, better
yet, grab a bunch of the American war criminal pilots that used them and
continue to do so in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their commanders, strap them
into electric chairs, and fry them?

When the United States and its imperialist pals get rid of their last atom
bomb, their last cluster bomb and their last canister of poison gas, THEN I
will listen to these liberal campaigns against the victims of imperialism. 

Until then I say, Long Live the North Korean nuclear program!

Joaquin





________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu