Plugges, of natures varying

The Centre for Research on Globalisation is an excellent site, and is perennially short of funding, but particularly so at the moment. Go there and sign up to get their free newsletters and spread the word to your friends, or even better join as a member or make a donation.

And also, I have a new article up at Newmatilda.com (another quality free site - what did we do before the world wide webs?) on the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen, with a bit of a different slant than what you normally get.

Hysteria once more

Back again. Looks like North Korea set off a more successful nuke than last time. While we wait for the hysteria to subside, check out this excellent article from last month by Scott Ritter on the hypocrisy of the 'international community' re North Korea's Taepodong-2 launch. Here's a taste:

Six minutes before 1 o’clock in the afternoon, on Jan. 23, a 173-foot-tall, two-stage rocket lifted off from Northeast Asia. Capable of carrying a giant 33,000-pound payload, the rocket’s liquid-fuel engine, supplemented by two solid-fuel strap-on booster rockets, generated nearly half a million pounds of thrust before giving way to the second stage, likewise powered by a liquid-fuel engine. After reaching a height of nearly 430 miles, the rocket released into orbit a 3,850-pound satellite, along with seven smaller probes. Other than the small community of scientists interested in the data expected to be collected from the “Ibuki” Greenhouse Gases Observatory Satellite (GOSAT), the rocket’s main payload, very few people around the world took notice of the launch. The United Nations Security Council did not meet in an emergency session to denounce the launch, nor did it craft a package of punitive economic sanctions in response.

The reason? The rocket in question, the H-2A, was launched by Japan, at its Tanegashima Space Launch Facility. Deemed an exclusively civilian program, the H-2A has been launched 15 times since its inaugural mission on Aug. 29, 2001. Four of these launches have been in support of exclusively military missions, delivering spy satellites into orbit over North Korea. Although capable of delivering a modern nuclear warhead to intercontinental ranges, the H-2A is seen as a “non-threatening” system since its liquid-fueled engines require a lengthy fueling process prior to launching, precluding any quick-launch capability deemed essential for a military application.

In contrast, on April 5, at 11:30 in the morning, North Korea launched a three-stage rocket called “Unha,” or “Milky Way,” which it claimed was carrying a single small communications satellite weighing a few hundred pounds. Like the H-2A, the “Unha,” better known in the West as the Taepodong-2, is liquid-fueled, requiring weeks of preliminary preparation before launch. Although North Korea declared the vehicle to be intended for launching a satellite, the launch was condemned even before it occurred as “dangerous” and “provocative,” unlike Japan’s similar efforts.

Thanks Truthdig and Information Clearing House.

As for nukes, just think: hundreds more and the means to deliver them, and they'll be right up there with 'our' friends who are in flagrant violation. And as I said in an article last year:

For all the bluster about violation of the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty, mostly directed at emerging nuclear powers, the forgotten condition of the NPT is that existing nuclear powers should make efforts to reduce and eliminate their nuclear weapon stockpiles, and not develop new forms; therefore, all are in violation. Nuclear weapons are not needed as a deterrent between major powers, and stated first-strike policies, even against non-nuclear nations, act only as an incentive to arm the world to the teeth.

Having said that about major powers, nukes certainly can be a deterrent for smaller nations against belligerent superpowers (not mentioning any names, of course), as long as you portray yourself as 'just crazy enough to use them', which Kim seems to excel at.

Another point early on the wiki entry that I hadn't seen before came from this piece in the London Times:

The world’s intelligence agencies and defence experts are quietly acknowledging that North Korea has become a fully fledged nuclear power with the capacity to wipe out entire cities in Japan and South Korea.

The new reality has emerged in off-hand remarks and in single sentences buried in lengthy reports. Increasing numbers of authoritative experts — from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the US Defence Secretary — are admitting that North Korea has miniaturised nuclear warheads to the extent that they can be launched on medium-range missiles, according to intelligence briefings

Wa-hey, theatre nukes! Welcome to the club! I'd like to tell you guys to enjoy the newfound respect, but not sure how much you'll get.

If this is true, I'm interested to see what changes in the strategic calculus. Japan will wring its hands publicly as only it can, South Korea will continue to condemn while many (most?) of its own people support reunification, and the US will continue - and probably expand - its economic and disinformation campaigns, which won't help anything.

We shall see. On a related note, this whole area needs to be flushed clean of US influence. Most Japanese don't want them; I've seen opinion polls over the years saying the South Koreans don't either, though I don't know if that's a consistent finding and I haven't read much on it. My feeling is it's true. Imagine: they could be free to reunify at their own pace, and there'd be no more frat-boy rape by US soldiers. That's gotta be good for everyone. I'd like to see the South take its economy back first, but you don't often get your stuff back from the banksters. (Read The Shock Doctrine for more on how US capital encouraged and exploited the Asian crisis in 1997 so they could buy large enterprises for cents on the dollar.)

They're all getting in on it

Here's a few from the South:

DEA quits Bolivia on Morales' order

Hugo Chavez Urges Obama To Hand Over Cuban Exile

Fidel Castro demands Obama return Guantanamo base

You think The Obamessiah will see this as a signal to end American pretensions to empire and save a broke country a fortune?

Me neither.

Also, I must admit I thought Morales was a bit soft - let's see what else he has in store.

Balles, the third

Of course, Erdogan's been all over the news, but worth reposting here:



You know, a surefire way of uniting people is to give them yourself as an enemy. Well done, US and Israel.

And yet more balls!

This time from Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal. It seems that Arab officials are lining up to get into the new US administration about Israel. Obama's reaction we can probably expect to be the same platitudes he's been mouthing. It'll take a bit more than this, but it's a start.

Some choice bits:

In the past weeks, not only have the Israeli Defence Forces murdered more than 1,000 Palestinians, but they have come close to killing the prospect of peace itself. Unless the new US administration takes forceful steps to prevent any further suffering and slaughter of Palestinians, the peace process, the US-Saudi relationship and the stability of the region are at risk.

...

Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran wrote a letter to King Abdullah, explicitly recognising Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds and calling on him to take a more confrontational role over “this obvious atrocity and killing of your own children” in Gaza. The communiqué is significant because the de facto recognition of the kingdom’s primacy from one of its most ardent foes reveals the extent that the war has united an entire region, both Shia and Sunni. Further, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s call for Saudi Arabia to lead a jihad against Israel would, if pursued, create unprecedented chaos and bloodshed in the region.

So far, the kingdom has resisted these calls, but every day this restraint becomes more difficult to maintain. When Israel deliberately kills Palestinians, appropriates their lands, destroys their homes, uproots their farms and imposes an inhuman blockade on them; and as the world laments once again the suffering of the Palestinians, people of conscience from every corner of the world are clamouring for action. Eventually, the kingdom will not be able to prevent its citizens from joining the worldwide revolt against Israel.

Again, for mine they're a bit too strong to be completely empty. Even if they are aimed at pacifying the average Saudi, they might just do the opposite.

Abbas grows some balls?

I mean to post a longer piece on Gaza soon, but I just got back from Cambodia (might post something on that too) and saw this.

So he's either grown them or they've been implanted by Hamas-induced political pressure. Either way, the language seems too strong for empty grandstanding. Can Fatah get back some love from the Palestinians? We shall see ...

Two plus two equals you're fucked

There was a news item the other day about Somalia which, as I've been busy, I've only just seen. Here's the gist:

The US government said Wednesday that it believes a new UN Security Council resolution on Somalia authorizes air strikes against pirates in Somali territory.

Sometimes their sheer vindictiveness surprises even me. First they go in and foment more violence than there was already. Then the country begins to return to normalcy under the Union of Islamic Courts. Oh no - an Islamist government?! Just hold on a sec. While they're commonly portrayed as fundamentalist nutjobs, James Petras writes:

The basis of the popular support for the Islam Courts during its short rule (from June to December 2006) rested on several factors. The ICU was a relatively honest administration, which ended warlord corruption and extortion. Personal safety and property were protected, ending arbitrary seizures and kidnappings by warlords and their armed thugs. The ICU is a broad multi-tendency movement that includes moderates and radical Islamists, civilian politicians and armed fighters, liberals and populists, electoralists and authoritarians. Most important, the Courts succeeded in unifying the country and creating some semblance of nationhood, overcoming clan fragmentation.

Whoa! Ending arbitrary warlord 'justice'? Including a broad base of non-fundamentalist nutjobs? Sounds like a start, at least. But hang on:

In the process of unifying the country, the Islamic Courts government re-affirmed Somali sovereignty and opposition to US imperialist intervention in the Middle East and particularly in the Horn of Africa via its Ethiopian client regime.

Yep. So in go the Ethiopian attack dogs - we always pick the arch-enemy to go in, it seems - and the country goes backward. Now the Ethiopians are deservedly having their asses handed to them and getting out (and back in again here and there, but out overall). But what about the devastation for ordinary folks? Meh, what does that worry us?

Anyway, what does this have to do with airstrikes on pirates? Well, one man's pirate is another man's toxic waste dumping preventer, and was for some years until the US helped the warlords come to power.

Then that hated, corrupt bunch (did I hear anyone say Afghanistan?) ran the place like, oh, like warlords tend to. As the article says,

the nature of this piracy soon began to change. Members of the Somali government, who were part of the then Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG), started to get involved.

They transformed the piracy operation into a multi-million dollar industry that funded their lavish lifestyles.

Yep, turns out piracy is a real money-spinner.

But now the warlords are on their last legs. Looks like there might be an independent indigenous government - the horror! - and, even worse, more sorties by locals wanting to stop foreign ships dumping toxic waste. Two plus two equals airstrikes. I can hear the useful idiot liberal journalists now. 'Oh, what a dilemma! We might accidentally kill innocent people but we have to kill bad people sometimes too!'

Et voila, airstrikes. Sorry Somalia, the 'civilised nations' aren't ready for you yet.