North
Korea's Bomb
By John Chuckman
13 October, 2006
Countercurrents.org
You
might think from all the political noise that something extraordinary
happened when North Korea conducted an underground nuclear explosion.
But let's put the test, apparently a small-yield, inefficient device,
into some perspective.
The United States has conducted
1,127 nuclear and thermonuclear tests, including 217 in the atmosphere.
The Soviet Union/ Russia conducted 969 tests, including 219 in the atmosphere.
France, 210, including 50 in the atmosphere. The United Kingdom, 45,
with 21 in the atmosphere. China, 45, with 23 in the atmosphere. India
and Pakistan, 13, all underground. South Africa (and/or Israel) one
atmospheric test in 1979.
From a purely statistical
point of view, North Korea's test does seem a rather small event. You
must add the fact that my title, North Korea's Bomb, is aimed at being
pithy and is thereby unavoidably inaccurate. Having a nuclear device
is not the same thing as having a bomb or warhead, much less a compact
and efficient bomb or warhead. North Korea still has a long way to go.
But North Korea's test is
magnified in its effect by several circumstances. First, war in the
Korean peninsula has never formally ended, and American troops might
well be vulnerable to even a school bus with a nuclear device. Just
that thought is probably horrifying to many Americans who are not used
to being challenged abroad, but I'm sure North Korea has already been
warned that that would constitute national suicide.
Two, the test comes when
Bush has been exploring military means to end Iran's work with nuclear
upgrading technology. There is no proof that Iran intends to create
nuclear weapons, but, being realistic, I think we have to say it's likely.
Iran faces nuclear-armed countries, hostile to its interests, in several
directions. Security of its people is an important obligation of any
state.
I doubt Bush intends invading
Iran - invasion's extreme advocates, neo-con storm troopers like David
Frum and Richard Perle having proved totally wrong about Iraq - but
that doesn't exclude some form of air attack. Iran has deeply buried
its production sites, so the usual American bombers and cruise missiles
will be ineffective. There has been talk of using tactical nuclear warheads,
but I think there would be overwhelming world revulsion to this. The
Pentagon may be considering non-nuclear ICBMs, there having been talk
of arming a portion of the American fleet with non-nuclear warheads
to exploit the accuracy and momentum of their thousands-of-miles-an-hour
strikes for deep penetration. But Russia's missile forces are on hair-trigger
alert against the launch of any American ICBM, and the time for confirming
error with shorter-range sea-launched missiles is almost nonexistent.
Bombardment of Iran may now
be more questionable, something we may regard as a good outcome of the
North Korean test. How do you justify an attack to prevent the development
of nuclear weapons in one country when you have done nothing of the
kind in another that actually has them? This is even more true because
Iran, while not Arabic, is Islamic, and public relations for America
in the Islamic world already are terrible.
Third, what many analysts
fear most from North Korea is its selling weapons or technology to terrorists.
North Korea sells a good deal of its limited military technology to
others, although this does not make the country in any way special,
the world's largest arms trafficker by far being the United States.
Many would argue that American weapons have supported terror, those
used in Beirut, for example, ghastly flesh-mangling cluster bombs dropped
on civilians. The answer to this fear about North Korea brings us to
the simple human matter of talking. The U.S. must give up its arrogant,
long-held attitude against talking and dealing with North Korea, for
here it is certainly working against its own vital interests.
It is an interesting sidelight
on North Korea's test that at least portions of its technology came
from A. Q. Kahn's under-the-table operations in Pakistan, America's
great ally in its pointless war on terror. Perhaps Kim Jong Il should
volunteer troops for Iraq. This would undoubtedly change America's view
of him dramatically. Cooperation won a lot of benefits for the dictatorship
in Pakistan regarded by America as a rogue nuclear state just a few
years ago.
All completely rational people
wish that nuclear weapons did not exist, but wishing is a fool's game.
Efforts for general nuclear
disarmament are almost certainly doomed to failure at this stage of
human history. Why would any of the nuclear powers give up these weapons?
They magnify the influence and prestige of the nations that have them.
And why should other nations, facing both the immense power of the United
States and its often-bullying tactics, give up obtaining them? Moreover,
technology in any field improves and comes down in cost over time, and
it will undoubtedly prove so with making nuclear weapons.
The entire Western world
has conspired to remain silent on Israel's nuclear arms, even when Israel
assisted apartheid South Africa to build a nuclear weapon. If nuclear
weapons are foolish and useless, why does little Israel possess them?
Why did South Africa want them? Why did the Soviet Union, despite a
great depression and horrible impoverishment after the collapse of communism,
keep its costly nuclear arsenal?
If Western nations can understand
the dark fear that drives Israel, why can they not understand the same
thing for North Korea? The United States has refused for years to talk
and has threatened and punished North Korea in countless ways. When
the U.S., under Clinton, did agree to peaceful incentives for North
Korea to abandon its nuclear work, it later failed utterly to keep its
word.
Bush has treated the North
Koreans with the same dismissive contempt and threatening attitude he
has so many others. How on earth was this approach ever to achieve anything
other than what it now has produced?
We keep hearing that North
Korea is irrational and unstable, but I think these descriptions are
inaccurate. A regime that has lasted for more than half a century can
be called many things, but not unstable. Soviet-style regimes were very
stable. It was when such governments attempted reforms and loosened
their absolute hold on people's lives that they toppled, but there seems
little likelihood of a Gorbachev assuming power in North Korea.
North Korea has done some
bizarre things over the last fifty years, but I do not think a careful
speaker would describe the nation as irrational. North Korea has been
isolated and ignored by the United States. It is American policy that
frequently has been irrational, Bush's mob having been especially thick
in their behavior towards the country.
I may be exaggerating when
I write of bizarre North Korean acts, for since World War II, what nation
has done more bizarre, damaging things than the United States? Over
forty years of costly hostility and terror against Cuba? The insane,
pointless war in Vietnam? The insane, pointless invasion of Iraq?
Harsh sanctions against North
Korea, already advocated by the emotionally-numb Bush, are a foolish
response. North Korea's rulers would not suffer any more than did Saddam
Hussein under American-imposed sanctions against Iraq after Desert Storm.
Only ordinary people would be driven to misery and starvation, just
as they were in Iraq where tens of thousands of innocents died.
How much easier and more
productive just to talk.
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