Wednesday, September 06, 2017

The Children of God?

Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.  Of course Christians should recognize this verse from Christ's Sermon on the Mount.  Our conservative political leaders like to think of the United States as a Christian nation, but they are the same leaders who say peace making is equated with "appeasement".  The sad fact is that the United States wants to maintain the status quo on the Korean peninsula--a tense military standoff--because it benefits the warfare state.  The US has over thirty thousand heavily armed soldiers in South Korea poised to invade the North.  Of course they would not be need if Washington decided to seriously pursue peace along the lines set forth in the Agreed Framework negotiated during the Clinton Administration.  Instead, they let their incendiary front man, Der Donald, make provocative threats.  Then totalitarian North Korean regime engages in similar over-heated rhetoric in response.  Apparently the United States reserves the right to threaten the existence of other nations whenever threats suit it geopolitical policies.  This sabre-rattling is making the world nervous.

Yes, the North Koreans fired missiles over Japan's northern most island of Hokkaido which crashed harmlessly in the ocean. What the warmongering corporate media will not mention is that the US and Japanese troops engaged in a provocative war game entitled "Viper-17" in August.  This war game had one end: simulate a "decapitation operation" to remove Kim Jung-un and his regime.  The fly-over of North Korean missiles--similar to the fly-bys of B-1B nuclear bombers [below]--occurred just after the offensive war game ended.  Clearly it is a message that the regime will defend itself, and with nuclear force if necessary.  If one thinks carefully about North Korea's behavior, it is less 'mad dog' and more understandable in the context of half a century of belligerence, following a war in which civilians were carpet bombed and starvation used as a military tactic. Another annual military operation recently took place south of the demilitarized zone (a complete misnomer) in which 75,000 US and South Korean troops and all manner of offensive heavy armament participated.  Peace has never been concluded in Korea since the shooting stopped in 1953.

One parameter is certain, Kim Jung-un has no intention of ending up like Qaddafi or Saddam, and he has the nuclear button to prove it.[above]  So it is time for the Christian nation to end the "military hysteria" by re-taking the initiative to make peace in Korea.  That does not mean forcing the North Koreans and South Koreans to live as one nation.  Only Koreans can decide that for themselves.  But the military stalemate has to end and the peninsula de-nuclearized before millions loose their lives. The North has indicated its willingness to negotiate before.  In fact, according to one western intelligence official, it was ready to give time to the new administration to come up with new peace proposals instead of a repeat of the annual military exercise with the South.   Washington ignored those signals because it benefits from the hostile stalemate. South Korea, under its quisling government, serves as a giant military base from which the Empire can project force against China and Russia in Asia.  And that is the truth 'Mericans cannot handle.