How the US provokes North Korea

October 9th, 2006 at 14:35 Björn Hallberg

Or how the US turned a promising denuclearization agreement into disaster, to the point of subverting its own negotiator for making progress. It’s only the most recent incident of course in a long line of US provocations and swaggering that frankly shows a startling lack of pragmatism. One has to wonder if it is just North Korea being stuck in the cold war and whether there are those within the US that are in fact knowingly sowing the wind.

On Sept. 19, 2005, North Korea signed a widely heralded denuclearization agreement with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. Pyongyang pledged to “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.” In return, Washington agreed that the United States and North Korea would “respect each other’s sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations.”

Four days later, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea designed to cut off the country’s access to the international banking system, branding it a “criminal state” guilty of counterfeiting, money laundering and trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.

At least the US is consistent in the bizarre handling of Korea, starting with the perplexing and unpopular division of 1945.

So much for the rationale for maintaining a US military presence in the region. If today’s nuclear hype is verified it would mean, above all else, that the American promise of stability in the region has now produced its fourth nuclear power. Not to mention several conventional wars and millions dead. Add to this the monumental hypocrisy that it takes to badger Iran day in and day out while North Korea openly declares its policies and ambitions.

Entry 643 filed under: Asia. This entry was posted 1 year, 12 months ago. RSS feed for comments on this post.