American Belligerence
By Hank Roth
During the 1994 nuclear crisis with North Korea, Bill Clinton flew stealth bombers to South Korea to be used against North Korea and he was quoted in the New York Times (December 19, 2002) stating: "We actually drew up plans to attack North Korea and destroy their reactors, and we told them we would attack unless they ended their nuclear program."
"North Korea has few cards in its pack. The nuclear one has been its joker for at least a decade. It should be recalled that the country is well acquainted with nuclear terror, having been at its receiving end for over half a century. In the winter of 1950 General MacArthur sought permission to drop `between thirty and fifty atomic bombs,' laying a belt of radioactive cobalt across the neck of the Korean peninsula. During the Korean War the Joint Chiefs of Staff deliberated about using the bomb, and came close to it several times. In Operation Hudson Harbour, late in 1951, a solitary B52 was dispatched to Pyongyang as if on a nuclear run, designed to cause terror, as it undoubtedly did. From 1957, the Americans kept a stockpile of nuclear weapons close to the Demilitarized Zone, designed to intimidate the then non-nuclear North. It was only withdrawn in 1991, under pressure from the South Korean peace movement; but the US continued its rehearsals for a long-range nuclear bombing strike on North Korea at least up to 1998, and probably to this very day.... [Gavan McCormack, "North Korea in the Vice" in New Left Review (November/December 2002)]
Perhaps George Bush should not be expected to know this since he prefers a shallow assessment of history and politics? The fact of the matter is there are several standards here and a belligerence for the Bush "axis of evil" which has the potential of leading us to a catastropic conclusion.
Hank Roth http://pnews.org/ 37,000 American Troops out of South Korea
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