Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2010 8:09 am Post subject: North Korea South Korea
here's what Zbigniew Brzezinski has to say about it in the F.T. One dangerous, dangerous bastard. Be interesting to see what Pilger makes of it all ..
America and China’s first big test
By Zbigniew Brzezinski
Published: November 23 2010 22:52 | Last updated: November 23 2010 22:52
We are faced today with the second provocative warlike act committed in recent times by North Korea. The first of these, the torpedoing of a South Korean warship, was covert: the origin was deliberately disguised. But the consequences were overt and painful. This current action is clearly overt. The origin of Tuesday’s attack is identified beyond a shadow of doubt. It is an outrageous action that could qualify even as an act of war.
This raises fundamental questions. If these actions are deliberate it is an indication that the North Korean regime has reached a point of insanity. Its calculations and its actions are difficult to fathom in rational terms. Alternatively it is a sign that the regime is out of control. Different elements in Pyongyang, including parts of the military, are capable of taking actions on their own perhaps, without central co-ordination. That is an even more ominous possibility.
So what is the world to do with a problem that has long vexed the major powers without a hint of resolution? Here we enter another realm of uncertainty because it is increasingly apparent that we are dealing with a clash of two alternative historical perspectives between the two major powers indirectly involved and actively engaged, namely the US and China.
In the case of China we are dealing with a regime that is historically self-confident. It perceives tectonic shifts in the distribution of global power as ultimately favourable to its prospects. It senses its power is growing and this leads to a posture of great self-restraint, even passivity and reluctance to rock the boat.
The other major power concerned with these events – the US – is in a rather different historical phase. Public discussion is increasingly dominated by the perspective that historical trends are against America. And so Washington is preoccupied with the need to mobilise a collective response and is frustrated by the relative unwillingness of others to share with it cumbersome responsibilities.
Making matters worse, America is bogged down largely alone in a prolonged decade-long misadventure in an area ranging from the Middle East proper to south-west Asia. More recently, some major US diplomatic efforts to bring peace to the Middle East were successfully defied by a state totally dependent on America.
In these circumstances there is a real risk we may find ourselves in a situation where the Chinese favour an under-reaction that will simply lead to further acts of provocation, and where America may be inclined to push for a response that the Chinese will see as a dangerous overreaction.
It is important that President Barack Obama displays cool, firm and globally visible personal leadership in working with China and the other major parties in the six-party talks. If I were back in the situation room in the White House asking myself what I would advise the president, this is what I would do.
The president has to take the initiative. Provocation of this kind cannot be dismissed lightly or left in the hands of diplomats. He should call President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea to reassure him personally and directly of US support. Then he should call President Hu Jintao of China and express serious concern. He should call Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan, as America’s prime ally in the Pacific and given its proximity to the Korean conundrum. He should also call President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia. Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, should then follow up on these calls and set in motion convening the United Nations Security Council.
North Korea has been defiantly challenging the international community in a way that Saddam Hussein was not, at least overtly, and which the Iranians are not quite doing. The Iranians are maintaining, maybe mendaciously, that they are not seeking nuclear weapons. That is a different kind of challenge in which our response has to be the insistence that they prove their case. The North Koreans, however, are defiant, boasting their nuclear prowess and now openly provocative.
One of the things we have to discuss in these conversations is the possibility of a selectively punitive embargo on North Korea in the area of high-tech and energy. This would be a tempest in a teapot were it not for the fact that Pyongyang has nuclear weapons and some manifestations of insanity in the regime.
Critically, however, our approach to China should not be adversarial. It is not in America’s nor China’s interest to create massive popular hostility. Governmental disagreements can be managed: they are the stock of international affairs. But if you arouse public emotions, such crises become harder to control and dangerous.
A call from Mr Obama to Mr Hu should be a call between leaders who share a concern. It should not be an American demand, nor an admonition. It should be an affirmation that our respective interests are endangered and so we have a common stake in an effective response.
The writer was US National Security Adviser from 1977-1981
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as a footnote, the US had arranged "sea manoevers" with S Korea for this week months ago. I smell a rat.
Sarah Palin: "We gotta stand with our North Korean allies"
A painful slip of the tongue for former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin on Wednesday when she accidentally mixed up North and South Korea during a radio interview.
Palin has recently said she is considering a run for the presidency and told ABC News that she believes she can beat Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential elections. On Wednesday, Palin was asked during a radio interview with Glenn Beck how she would handle the current situation on the Korean peninsula.
"This is stemming from, I think, a greater problem when we are all sitting around [and] asking; oh no, what are we going to do?" Palin said. "We aren't having a lot of faith that the White House is gonna come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea is gonna do."
But a few seconds later, Palin got the countries mixed up. "But obviously we gotta stand with our North Korean allies," she said. "We are bound to treaties," Palin continued, before Beck corrected her.
The mistake set off an immediate firestorm on the Internet. "Please [keep] doing interviews. Each one provides more evidence that you are utterly clueless," one user wrote on Twitter. Others were less critical about the small mistake. "She misspoke, it happens all the time, this is a slip up that can be easily made," another user commented.
Palin was U.S. Senator John McCain's vice presidential nominee during the 2008 presidential elections. And while she seemed a good choice at first, reports later indicated that it was very different behind the scene.
In the book 'Game Change', political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin said that Palin had to be taken through World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Cold War and the War on Terror.
"After the [Republican] convention was over, she still didn't really understand why there was a North Korea and a South Korea," Heilemann said during an interview, while adding that Palin believed Iraq's Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.
This kind of idiocy has to be deliberate. It must make those Americans, who don't even know where North Dakota is, feel better and therefore more likely to vote for her!
Kewl! Thanks! I don't remember if I've seen it, so I'll watch it just in case. lol My hubster was born in South Korea so he may want to watch this with me as well.
The North Korean ambassador to Germany was caught poaching fish in a Berlin river this week – but waved away police who found him, and carried on with a grin, citing diplomatic immunity. “My colleagues are extremely frustrated – we catch a diplomat committing a crime and cannot do anything,” Klaus Eisenreich, regional head of the GdP police union, told daily newspaper BZ.
The paper reported on Friday that Ri Si Hong had been caught fishing in the Havel River in Spandau in the west of the city – but had not only failed to produce a fishing license, but refused to stop. He told the police officers who challenged him he was the North Korean ambassador, and was so convincing that they got a photo sent to them by colleagues, and confirmed he was who he claimed to be. Even when they asked him to stop, the BZ said, he refused to pack up his fishing gear, but smiled and waved them off, reminding them that they could not arrest him due to his diplomatic status.
The river is popular with anglers who often find perch and bass there. A police spokesman told The Local, “I can confirm that there was an incident of illegal fishing, but cannot say anything about the identity of the person concerned.” Convicted poachers can face a jail sentence of up to two years in Germany.
The North Koreans have refused to comment on the matter: A spokesman for the embassy told a BZ reporter that “all journalists are dirt” before hanging up.
I've been to South Korea many times for work in the past. Almost went to the DMZ once for a tour, but decided to see a temple instead. I'm unlikely to go again, as my job changed. Probably not a bad thing. I don't think I'd feel very comfortable there now. These N. Korean politicians and servicemen look like a dangerous bunch of deluded nutters and it seems there is a real chance that one of them is going to push a button some day.
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