Re: [Marxism] Long Live the North Korean Nuclear Program!

["Joaquin Bustelo" <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxx>]

David (Nada) says: "I think Joaquin has it quite wrong. It's not a question
of a "deny the right of Third World countries" to nuclear weapons. I think
most can agree here (not all) that that right is one of sovereignty,
especially when no one questions the right of China or Russia (actual
neighbors of N. Korea) or the U.S. on it's Pacific Fleet have nuclear
weapons. For me this is not the issue "

My disrespect for "dear great respected and beloved leader comrade kim il
sung, father of the XX millions socialist people of the north and XX million
patriotic people of the south, who with his great idea of juche and
one-the-spot-guidance-and-advice," etc., has been virtually boundless since
I first strayed across the "People's Korea" newspaper back in the early
1970's. And this goes for his progeny, too.

But the American imperialists above all (with a little help from their
Japanese friends) are the ones who are overwhelmingly responsible not just
for "bombing north korea back to the stone age" (in then strategic air force
commander general Curtis LeMay's winged phrase) and blockading it ever since
but also thereby making possible, and perhaps likely or inevitable, that the
Korean regime would suffer tremendous shortcomings. 

But RIGHT NOW what is going on is a big imperialist-inspired media campaign
against North Korea. Stuff American media outlets would normally not
countenance printing or saying now gets routinely published -- with those at
the very top of media organizations specifically approving and even ordering
it.

Thus, every day, we're confronted with reports of a new "provocative" North
Korean missile test.

What is the SOURCE? An obscure South Korean news agency, Yonhap. And what is
THEIR source? They claim usually "an informed intelligence source," a "South
Korean Government official" or some such.

If you read their articles, they are *mostly* quite improbable speculation.

"SEOUL, May 29 (Yon hap) -- North Korea has launched a short-range missile
from its Musudan-ri rocket launch site on the country's east coast, a South
Korean government official said Friday.

"'What the North has launched this time appears to be different from what it
had launched (previously),' the official said. 'It is a new type of a
land-to-air missile,' the official said."

THAT is the item --tne entire item-- that was "breaking news" all over CNN
and Fox yesterday. Two sentences. Without the least bit of credibility.

First, a short range missile test from the site specified would not be seen
from South Korea or nor international waters. It might be detectable by
radar, assuming no jamming or countermeasures were used, which North Korea
is routinely accused of using. It might have been detected by a spy
satellite, assuming it was looking at just the right place at exactly the
right time. But since such a missile almost by definition is launched from a
mobile platform, that would be surprising. A missile testing range is
usually quite a large affair, hundreds or thousands of square kilometers,
and I see no reason to suspect that the North Korean one instead is the size
of a soccer stadium. But unless the entire frame encompassed such an area,
the chance that a spy satellite could detect a launch and provide useful
intelligence on it are very small. 

Then there's the part about a "new kind" of missile. Apart from satellite
pictures, which no matter how good would lack the resolution to show this,
the only way this *might* be ascertained is from radar-derived telemetry or
intercepted north korean data. Almost certainly the latter is excluded, for
revealing any information from such a source in anything close to real time
violates the most elementary norms of intelligence source security. But
assuming the information is radar derived and the accusations against north
korea of blocking or jamming radars are true, then also you wouldn't want to
reveal any details about your data.

On the face of it, and considering Yonhap's attitude towards North Korea,
the report is not credible. It is doubly not credible when Yonhap's source
is an anonymous South Korean government mouthpiece who doesn't even give a
hint of how they could possibly know.

But even more than that, on its face, by any normal journalistic criteria,
the report is not newsworthy. It is simply NOT NEWS that a country tests its
military hardware, especially a very routine item like a surface-to-air
missile. 

And on top of that, there is the *spin* being put on the supposed test. That
this is a *conscious*  provocation by North Korea. That it is meant to
rattle South Korea and "the West." That it shows their defiance and contempt
for the UN Security Council. And so on.

Let's assume all this is true. WHY has the South Korean government NOT
arrested the North Korean government agent using his status as a South
Korean government official to announce North Korean provocations? 

Or, alternatively, assuming the "missile tests" are all conscious
provocations, meant to show defiance in the face of international pressure,
why does North Korea not *announce* the tests itself. 

If it is meant to send a message, then you hardly want to do it in secret or
rely on the likes of an anticommunist news agency to spread the word for
you.

So, on  a week like this week, when every day at work I see a new
imperialist-inspired blast of propaganda against People's Korea, and all of
it based on the flakiest and most incredible of sources, people who have
every motive to lie about North Korea and face absolutely no consequences if
they do, and then putting that story in the news I produce gets crammed down
my throat from upstairs (no wonder I got throat cancer!) and then I come
home and check out the list and see all of a sudden it's been declared
international beat up on  North Korea week, all in the name of "nuance" and
the terrible state of the North Korean economy and the tremendous
differences between how Fidel handled things and these guys and so on, my
imperialist capitulationist bullshitometer starts sending out alarms.

Oh happy coincidence! Some Marxmailers are having A two-days-hate against
Kim Jung Il just when the imperialists are having it.

Count me out. Call me the least nuanced and so on, but THIS WEEK, all I have
to say is i am on North Korea's side. That's my position and I'm sticking to
it.

SOME OTHER WEEK I may not have had so little to say about the politics of
the Korean peninsula. But THIS week?

I'm on North Korea's side. That's ALL I have to say THIS week. Well, that
and how everything CNN and the rest are saying is bullshit.

Joaquin


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