2008 Woodie Awards
Nuclear hypocrisy
Does North Korea have the right to develop nuclear weapons?
Lauren Freer, International Socialist Club
Issue date: 10/16/06 Section: Opinions
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Page 1 of 1
Who's the crazy guy with all the nukes?
Behind door number one: an eccentric dictator with a bouffant, platform shoes and a taste for Hennessy. Behind door number two: a coke-snorting, C-average frat-boy who can't pronounce the word 'nuclear.' Which one do you trust with the tools for nuclear holocaust?
By all accounts, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is not the ideal person to control the most fantastically destructive radioactive substances known to humankind. He is a cruel and unpredictable Stalinist dictator, whose globally condemned torture practices enforce the tightly controlled repression in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. His country's population is widely afflicted by famine and is denied even the most fundamental of social freedoms.
But how much more of a 'madman' is he than the dishonorable George W. Bush, a man who has baselessly invaded two sovereign nations in the last five years, the champion of pre-emptive war? He has roughly 10,000 nuclear warheads at his fingertips. And he's the president of the only country ever to have detonated them-60 years ago under the orders of President Truman-devastating the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So, take a step back from the racist media hype that portrays all foreign, brown-skinned men as delusional terrorists, and ask: who is the bigger threat to global security?
The United States is fueling the nuclear arms race, not North Korea. While the United States picks fights with other nations because of their alleged 'weapons of mass destruction,' it sits on the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world and violates its own non proliferation treaties by developing more. 'Nuclear bunker-busters' are the latest aspiration of U.S. weapon technologists and have been in development since 2002, possibly earlier.
The hypocrisy is mind-blowing. The United States, the global superpower with unrivaled military dominance over the rest of the world, poses an obvious threat to just about every other nation. So, imagine that you're Kim Jong-Il, sipping on some cognac, wearing your big sunglasses, watching history unfold. You see the leader of the American empire cut off diplomatic relations with your nation, publicly denounce you as a "pygmy," and declare your country part of a so-called "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran. Then you watch as he invades Iraq and begins focusing the crosshairs on Iran. And the U.S. Navy-armed with nukes-is stationed off your shores as a permanent threat to your regime. What do you do? Turn the other cheek? Bend over?
Naturally, North Korea wants to deter the U.S. from doing to it what it did to Iraq. Punitive sanctions from the United Nations, put forward by the U.S., are rife with contradiction and hypocrisy and will only encourage conflict with the embattled, isolated nation. Real disarmament must start from the primary proponent of hostility, militarization, and insecurity in the world-the U.S. government.
isoatuic@yahoogroups.com
- Page 1 of 1
Behind door number one: an eccentric dictator with a bouffant, platform shoes and a taste for Hennessy. Behind door number two: a coke-snorting, C-average frat-boy who can't pronounce the word 'nuclear.' Which one do you trust with the tools for nuclear holocaust?
By all accounts, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il is not the ideal person to control the most fantastically destructive radioactive substances known to humankind. He is a cruel and unpredictable Stalinist dictator, whose globally condemned torture practices enforce the tightly controlled repression in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. His country's population is widely afflicted by famine and is denied even the most fundamental of social freedoms.
But how much more of a 'madman' is he than the dishonorable George W. Bush, a man who has baselessly invaded two sovereign nations in the last five years, the champion of pre-emptive war? He has roughly 10,000 nuclear warheads at his fingertips. And he's the president of the only country ever to have detonated them-60 years ago under the orders of President Truman-devastating the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So, take a step back from the racist media hype that portrays all foreign, brown-skinned men as delusional terrorists, and ask: who is the bigger threat to global security?
The United States is fueling the nuclear arms race, not North Korea. While the United States picks fights with other nations because of their alleged 'weapons of mass destruction,' it sits on the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world and violates its own non proliferation treaties by developing more. 'Nuclear bunker-busters' are the latest aspiration of U.S. weapon technologists and have been in development since 2002, possibly earlier.
The hypocrisy is mind-blowing. The United States, the global superpower with unrivaled military dominance over the rest of the world, poses an obvious threat to just about every other nation. So, imagine that you're Kim Jong-Il, sipping on some cognac, wearing your big sunglasses, watching history unfold. You see the leader of the American empire cut off diplomatic relations with your nation, publicly denounce you as a "pygmy," and declare your country part of a so-called "axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran. Then you watch as he invades Iraq and begins focusing the crosshairs on Iran. And the U.S. Navy-armed with nukes-is stationed off your shores as a permanent threat to your regime. What do you do? Turn the other cheek? Bend over?
Naturally, North Korea wants to deter the U.S. from doing to it what it did to Iraq. Punitive sanctions from the United Nations, put forward by the U.S., are rife with contradiction and hypocrisy and will only encourage conflict with the embattled, isolated nation. Real disarmament must start from the primary proponent of hostility, militarization, and insecurity in the world-the U.S. government.
isoatuic@yahoogroups.com
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