Rogue state is as rogue state does

Dr Kamal Wickremasinghe

The concept of “rogue state” is a pre-eminent component of the alleged global ‘rule of law’ architecture the US neocons are trying to impose on the world. Countries that defy the dictats of the ‘bully’ are branded rogue states, virtually making them fair game for future military intervention. Iraq and Libya are familiar examples of this sinister, deceitful branding by the ‘world’s only super power’.

They are at it again – Currently the US neocons are busily painting a picture of an imminent war, reinforcing the lie that North Korean “bellicosity” was escalating tensions in the Korean peninsula, and North Korea was threatening the might of the US. Clearly the actions of a rogue state, we are being forced to think.

Kim Jung-un	John S. McCain

Western corporate media are providing propaganda support to such lies, as usual, with sensational headlines like that of The New York Times: “North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jung-un, ordered his underlings to prepare for a missile attack on the United States.”

These lies, like many perpetrated by the US over the last 70 years to heighten military tension in the Korean peninsula, are part of a campaign of disinformation aimed at deceiving the relatively uninformed US public and some in the broader international community about the real neocon agenda of maintaining a permanent military presence in China’s neighbourhood.

The US war propaganda machine is misinforming the world on North Korea’s reaction to provocation by the annual US-South Korea war games, named “Foal Eagle”, staged at North Korea’s doorstep. The games began in March and will continue til the end of April.

The high-profile military manoeuvres executed during the games were clearly designed to provoke North Korea. Naval ships including the destroyer USS John S. McCain and the oil rig-like SBX-1 Radar platform fired artillery and dropped anti-submarine bombs off South Korea's east coast.

Two B-52 bombers out of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam flew twice over the peninsula to highlight a “continuous bomber presence” in the region. The nuclear-capable, B-2 stealth bombers flew from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri -taking 38 hours - to demonstrate America’s ability to conduct long range, precision strikes quickly and at will. F-22 Raptor fighter jets were moved to a US Air Force Base in South Korea where they will remain on “static display”.

The land-based Terminal High Altitude Area Defence System (THAAD) will be stationed in Guam to “defend” against North Korean ballistic missiles and the 23rd Chemical Battalion, a group equipped to deal with chemical and nuclear weapons attacks, was moved to South Korea on April 4.

In a move designed to further antagonise the North Koreans, an ironically-named “Combined Counter-Provocation Plan” aimed at improving the “mutual readiness and response capabilities” in the event of a North Korean provocation was signed between the US and South Korea.

These games were preceded by US-Japanese war games in February named “Iron Fist”, aimed at capturing an “imaginary” island, a not-too-subtle reference to the Senkaku Islands, the subject of an ownership dispute between China and Japan.

The US propaganda characterised these extremely provocative actions of the Pentagon as a “sign of resolve” and a self-defence manoeuvre that is “routine”. However, just as expected, the display of aggression so close to their shores, including the simulated invasion and bombing, naturally made the North Korean Military and political leadership anxious, probably closer to paranoid.

North Korea branded the US war games a “rehearsal for invasion.” They announced that as a nuclear power it would use its weapons “to repel invasion or attack from a hostile nuclear weapons state and make retaliatory strikes.” At the same time, they pledged that the weapons would be stored responsibly, would not use them against non-nuclear nations, and that it would participate in non-proliferation talks – subject to “improvement of relations with hostile nuclear weapons states.”

War propaganda portrayed North Korea as the aggressor

The North Korean reaction to the events seemed reasonable, especially in the context of the inordinate level of provocation they had been subject to for nearly five weeks. The neocon cabal and the western corporate media however, in their inimitable fashion, ‘twisted and turned’ North Korean statements to depict them as the provocateur and “rogue state”.

The neocon campaign of lies gathered momentum with the broadcast by CNN of alleged Pentagon “intelligence” indicating North Korean mobile missile movement, suggesting preparations for a ballistic missile attack on South Korea, and possibly on Japan.

While all this was going on, the National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden was admonishing the North Koreans: “Threats and provocative actions will not bring North Korea the security, international respect, and economic development it seeks. We will continue to urge the North Korean leadership to heed President Obama's call to choose the path of peace and come into compliance with its international obligations”, she said.

Former Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, one of the most hawkish neocons chipped in with advice that the US needs to be “very concerned” by North Korea’s recent “level of bellicosity” and do everything necessary to defend US allies and interests.

At the State Department, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland who is never short of a loud word or two on international affairs advised Pyongyang to “change its behaviour” and come back into compliance with its “international obligations”.

In a move calculated to denigrate North Korea’s young leader, his alleged “bellicosity” was described as aimed primarily at a domestic audience, as part of attempts to keep his vast, “poorly paid” army motivated and improve his status among North Korea's population as he seeks to cement his “grip on power”.

A North Korean People's Army official displayed his rational assessment of the situation when he warned, in delightfully grandiose language, that “The responsibility for this grave situation entirely rests with the US administration and military warmongers keen to encroach upon the DPRK's sovereignty and bring down its dignified social system with brigandish logic.”

The provocation of North Korea was pre-planned

Experience shows that neocon lies are loosely packaged and they constantly face the risk of unravelling unexpectedly due to the actions of right-thinking people within the US system. Thankfully, this happened once again with the campaign of lies on North Korea.

An anonymous US defence department whistle blower revealed to independent media that the increased show of US military force such as the flying of B-2 bombers during the annual US-South Korea military exercise was part of a “play book” of pre-scripted actions the Obama administration had established as part of a campaign to insulate military funding against “sequestration” (mandatory funding cuts) that came into effect in March.

The next step of this military-industrial complex conspiracy would be to publicly air US “concerns” about North Korea in testimony before Congress by top Pentagon officials including the commanders of US forces in Korea and the broader Pacific region. Such “concerns” would protect military expenditure from any sequestration.

Framing North Korea as the foremost security threat is vital to the escalation of military tensions by the neocon-led military industrial complex in their next-phase thievery of billions of dollars from the US tax payer.

The existence of a “bellicose” North Korea justifies Washington’s surrounding the north with a ring of fire power. A “dangerous” North Korea is also a useful lever to get once-pacifist Japan to boost its already formidable arsenal with US built weaponry. All such ventures ensure the transfer of trillions of US tax payer dollars, increasingly borrowed dollars, to neocon coffers.

US lies about North Korea is not a new phenomenon

Lies about North Korean aggression have been a vital component of the annual US-South Korea war games that take place around March-April.

In 2010 for example, Hillary Clinton blatantly lied in an attempt to pin the accidental sinking of the South Korean ship Cheonan, with 46 military deaths, during the March war games on North Korea. The US hastily convened an “international panel” to investigate the sinking and obtained an ‘unsigned’ report.

Soon after, Clinton announced that “the ‘objective’ international, independent, investigation found overwhelming evidence leading to the ‘inescapable’ conclusion that the ship was sunk by a torpedo launched by a North Korean submarine. She went on to add: This is an unacceptable provocation by North Korea and the international community has a responsibility and a duty to respond.”

Hillary Clinton was backed by Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea “expert” with the notorious International Crisis Group mafia, that evidence supporting North Korea’s role in the sinking is “pretty irrefutable.” South Korea’s President warned his nation would no longer tolerate North Korea’s “brutality” and said the regime would pay for the surprise torpedo attack.

Russia and China at the UN Security Council however, expressed doubts about the so-called international inquiry and its conclusions. A Security Council resolution on the sinking did not accuse the North Koreans.

Chinese officials later proved that the sinking of the Cheonan had been the result of an American rising mine planted during anti-submarine exercises that propelled itself onto the ship upon the detection of sound or magnetics.

The Chinese backed up their claims by adding that North Korean submarines such as the one Clinton suggested to have sunk the Cheonan were incapable of moving undetected within South Korean waters, and a conventional torpedo would have been completely destroyed upon impact, without leaving traces.

Such exposure of lies has never deterred the neocons from continuing the deceptive behaviour that seems to be ‘normal’ for them.

The illegal US occupation of the Korean peninsula is based on deception

The current occupation of the Korean peninsula by more than 40,000 US troops, along with a naval fleet, nuclear bomber bases and troop installations, forming the foundation of US campaigns of lies, in itself is a story of a shameful lies and deception by the US.

The history of the South Korean occupation by the US goes back to the end of the Second World War and the defeat of Japan in 1945 when its Korean peninsula colony was divided along the 38th parallel, just north of Seoul. In a temporary arrangement meant for a couple of years, the Soviet Union assumed responsibility for the northern half and the US occupied the south until the country could reunify. Russia honoured the agreement, and the US didn’t.

The devastating three-year Korean War in 1950 that resulted from North Korea’s unilateral action to end the division of their country was basically a conflict between them and the US. But the US exploited the Soviet boycott of the UN Security Council to engineer UN sanction for an ‘international’ military response, with 340,000 UN backed troops led by the US joining the war on the South Korean side.

Three years later when an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953 an estimated 2.5 million people had died including an estimated two million North Korean and 400,000 South Korean civilians, due to extraordinarily brutal US carpet bombings. The line of division remained at the 38th parallel.

Since the end of the Korean War, the Worker’s Party government of North Korea has been requesting an end to the virtual US occupation of South Korea and the discontinuation of annual month-long U.S-South Korean war games. They have also been requesting a peace treaty to end the Korean War, the reunification of Korea.

The US refuses to sign a peace treaty to end the Korean War, pointing to the armistice of 1953 which only signifies a “temporary cessation of fighting by mutual consent”, with expectations of a peace treaty when “a final peaceful settlement is achieved.” US has rejected a North Korean proposal to end the separation of the North and South, including the offer of a “one country two systems” model.

The US refuses all proposals of reunification due to its greed for the entire peninsula that allows it a military presence close to the border with China, and Russia.

Obama plan to “pivot” to Asia makes the Korean peninsula even more valuable due to the need to intensify the threat to China.

The current campaign of lies is designed to prevent the emergence of a concerted peoples’ movement within America to demand an end to the dangerous and threatening actions of the Pentagon on the Korean Peninsula.

The present confrontations will simmer down with the end of this year’s provocative war games, and the natural end is already being dressed up as a ‘conciliatory gesture’ to North Korea.

In the face of such evidence, it should not be too difficult to see who the real ‘rogue state’ is.