Richard Hollaran; KJI a ‘poison dwarf’
by Richardson ~ October 6th, 2005. Filed under: Six-Party Talks.The Taipei Times ran this commentary by Richards Hollaran, ‘It’s time to tell `poison dwarf’ Kim `so long‘’
Everyone engaged in the six-party talks in Beijing to persuade the North Koreans to give up their nuclear ambitions should see that Pyongyang’s latest shenanigans have made two conclusions patently clear:
One, the North Koreans have shown once again that they are not to be trusted…
…What, then, to do?
The time has come to stop trying to cajole the North Koreans into a verifiable agreement and for Hill and his colleagues to pick up their briefcases and walk away. They should thank the Chinese, who have been the hosts of the negotiations, for a nice try and give the North Koreans a phone number and an e-mail address and say that if they ever want to negotiate in good faith, let us know.
The consequences? North Korea will have a free hand to develop nuclear weapons, but they have that anyway. Walking away will damage the endeavor to prevent more nuclear proliferation, but that has already been damaged. Iran and possibly others will be encouraged to proceed with plans to acquire nuclear weapons but the Iranians have indicated they intend to go ahead anyway.
Greatly condensed, read the rest here.
He does not touch upon the other options such as a blockade (perhaps likely, if talks completely fail), or limited strikes (very unlikely). I believe that nuclear proliferation is too important to just walk away – it may be worth a conventional conflict where we can limit it to prevent a potential nuclear one where we can’t. Until we are seriously in that mindset, and North Korea understands it, we may be banging our head on the Six-Party Talks wall.
October 7th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
Wiser words have never been said. Let the North Koreans go play with themselves, along with a warning that they will face complete destruction if they sell or give away an atomic bomb.
October 7th, 2005 at 7:09 pm
I’m torn. Part of me want to take them down; but the rational part knows that, for now at least, the cost is too high. If a nuke proved to be NKorean ever gets outside those borders and in the hands of a terrorist group, however, I am fairly certain that the U.S. will put NK down, regardless of the effect on SK.
October 14th, 2005 at 6:45 pm
The perennial delusion that somehow it is unthinkable for Iran or the DPRK to have nuclear weapons always makes us smile. Once upon a time it was muskets. It strikes us as logical and arguably just that they prsue them, and inevitable that they have them. As for this “strategy” of running away: Isn’t this what the neo-cons were already advising? Isn’t it obvious from the famines the DPRK cabal has already survived that they have some means of retaining their grip on the country that will outlast a mere try at starving-out? If this is the best the West can think up — not only literally nothing, but the same nothing they were already doing anyway (earlier) — a bit of bribery, so long as it can yield real progress, looks positively brilliant.
October 14th, 2005 at 11:31 pm
So, you compare “nuclear weapons” to “muskets“? Are you seriously attempting to equate the two? Try again, unlike items make a comparison not.
Then you say, “It strikes us as logical and arguably just that they pursue them, and inevitable that they have them.” The problems with your position are many, including; (a) the NPT, (b) the 1991 Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and (c) the 1994 Agreed Framework. Ever heard of those? But for someone who tries to equate nukes to muskets, it might make sense.
Finally, containment is a policy - you may not like it, but it’s still a policy - and please provide some information on any neo-con strategy that will attempt to starve the nation. Containment has specifically omitted that as a tool, so perhaps you can enlighten us with some documentation.
Thanks in advance.
October 19th, 2005 at 5:56 pm
(a) the NPT, (b) the 1991 Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and (c) the 1994 Agreed Framework
(mutual *yawn*) These three things are two different things.
The first is required reading for academics who want to be area studies experts or advisors.
The second is absolutely nothing in a number of cases we are all currently living in. It is inconceivable to us that any nation could suffer the standing threat from the US that the DPRK (or Iran) does and not desperately seek nukes. We value much more highly than any pieces of paper which Lil Kim is currently using for wiping the infamous statement of the Indian general after the first portion of Desert Storm: that the US takes your sovereignty seriously if you have nukes, and if you don’t, well, not so much.
Was it us first who took seriously the idea that Lil Kim is indeed pursuing the Bomb anyway, or was that a roomful of experts asked by the CIA?
The thing about firearms is that yes, they do compare to atomics in theior right period as an absolute weapon against which nothing less can seriously be fielded. Maybe muskets was an emotional choice: but the guns Britain used in the Sudan were just as distant from fission, and still might as well have been a nuke or two to the Mahdi.
How can we take seriously people who claim they want to control proliferation — and that therefore they want, instead of confronting the US and other major figures in the game, to enact a bit of dadaist S&M? To convince Lil Kim to give up his perfectly not-insane desire for self-defense without doing one thing about the threat he does face is, besides unreasonable, a clear desire to avoid diplomacy or compromise in favor of power demonstrations. It is one bully staring down another.
Americans will never figure out why people do not like polishing their boots.
It strikes us as logical and arguably just that they pursue them, and inevitable that they have them: for the following reasons
– it would rather completely settle the issue of American shenanigans.
– nuclear weapons have an excellent track record outside American hands.
– it is logical because it is an inevitable result of their situation.
You threaten them. They want to defend themselves.
We lack degrees in Korean studies but are under the impression that DPRK national mythohistory is almost entirely consumed by the existentialiust struggle against the evil domineering Uncle Satan.
Why is it so baffling or outrageous to the educated that as long as they feel threatened, they will seek defense, no matter what they outwardly say or sign? You want to get past a piece of paper that they have no respect for? Take your boot off their neck.
(They will still probably lie, too. That’s not the point. You interview a paedophile with sympathy, not the entirely reasonable murderousness a normal non-cop would feel.)
October 20th, 2005 at 4:35 pm
The folly of those who justify North Korea’s possession of nukes is evident in Kei & Yuri’s response. Kei & Yuri say,”They just want to defend themselves”. Just who are “they” and what are “they” defending?
“They” in this case is the Kim family, who would like to continue presiding over the world’s largest harem and slave plantation. These not-so-secret nuclear weapons are defending not the DPRK or its people, but the privileges of the male Kims to fuck any woman they want (re: “Teams for Pleasure”), and to have any material goods delivered to their palace at a moment’s notice. Add to that the power of life or death over 22 million subjects, in addition to any type of food they’d ever want (re:”I Was Kim Jong-Il’s Sushi/Pizza Chef”).
So Kei and Yuri need to get their heads out of their asses and ask themselves the question: What motivates Kim Jong-Il? Answer: Pussy, food and expensive stuff. Plus killing and torturing as sport.
Thus, a true understanding of the DPRK is more akin to criminology and the study of persons like Pablo Escobar and Alphonse Capone. Garbage like this –”[we] are under the impression that DPRK national mythohistory is almost entirely consumed by the existentialiust [sic] struggle against the evil domineering Uncle Satan”–is totally off the mark. Why would the Kims ever willfully give up the babes, the money, the food, the palaces and the power of life and death over their subjects? Why are the underlying motives of the Kims so baffling to Kei and Yuri?
October 20th, 2005 at 8:35 pm
We have no doubt that Kim is an uninspiredly evil little golem of pure venality. But it is simple racism to deny a nation, even one ruled by evil people (and how many would that be?), the defining characteristic of any state: sovereignty.
(Doubting the xenophobic unity of North Korean national mythohistory is also one of the few surpassingly ignorant things that can be said that we are comfortable enough with correcting. You are perhaps attempting is to claim that the uniformly loyal and very controlled People secretly yearn for Americaness, that all the DPRK’s protestations to nationhood are merely excuses for corruption, and that crimes void sovereignty? O that it were so; Mexico would make such a lovely addition…)
It might be useful to drag out our (similar?) analysis of Cuba: it is the stupid and cruel embargo that keeps Castro in power for half-centuries. The thing for this is not some hard punishing surface he can define himself (as a hero!) against, but a gelatinous loving goo that dispenses medicine and free speech.
Considerably easier of course in Cuba than in Korea, but a similar principle connects: your grand schemes, be they starving-out or conquest, don’t work on paper and are nightmarish in real life. They weren’t even so great with a pathetic Kim-imitator like Saddam, who retained power until the current undying disaster, minor participation in which colors all our faith in the American government and its rotisserie policy wonkerate.
Tell Kim we give an egg about his nuclear capacity, since he has no hope of doing anything in the long-term (he might expand on IX/XI, but then we would start vaporizing vast tracts of underindustrialized juche-blessed land). Engage him economically, as a British tobacco firm already secretly has and more probably have as well. Bring it to the level of two nations talking instead of Glorious White Father Impotent and Paralyzed with RAGE at the EVIL wrong-headed Korean Psycho who will not get any pudding until he himself admits he is wrong!!1!!1
We are obviously not professors or grad students Hanguk and kimchee under our belts; and our experience with Brilliant Plans has traumatized us, possibly irrationally. But these Great Schemes need to stop, and what passes for negotiation needs to be replaced with the real stuff. How long will two ideologically mad bureaucrats talk past eachother and then blame the other for their unwillingness to do anything but dominate?