Why Not Extend Diplomatic Recognition to North Korea?

For many, the question posed in the title of this posting might seem absurd. Are not the North Koreans testing nuclear weapons and missiles? Are they not threatening the U.S. with military action (albeit, only in a defensive way)?

The fact is, it is far past time for the U.S. to officially recognize North Korea. The US has never, since the cessation of major combat hostilities in 1953, extended diplomatic recognition to the DPRK. In fact, U.S. policy has been unremittingly hostile since the Japanese were kicked out of Korea by combined U.S. and Soviet forces, in conjunction with Communist partisans led by Kim Il-Sung.

The U.S. places stringent, damaging economic sanctions on North Korea. Those sanctions have helped cause massive starvation in that country (helped along at times by the policies of the ruling elite). The U.S. keeps tens of thousands of its own soldiers stationed along its southern border, maintaining a permanent sense of threat and mobilization for war that has warped North Korean society and distorted the political process there.

An example of the symbology meant to irritate the North Koreans, the U.S. and Japan “called... for the main U.N. human rights forum to launch an inquiry into allegations of violations including the torture and execution of political prisoners in North Korea.”

I’m as much against torture and the execution of political prisoners as anyone is — and I have a body of work that reflects that — but neither the U.S., who carpet bombed and napalmed their country, nor Japan, a country that held Korea in a totalitarian dictatorship for decades, have any right to preach to the North Koreans. The Japanese government long refused to recognize its war crimes against the Korean people, while both the Japanese and U.S. governments are responsible for the deaths of over a million Koreans during wartime.

The U.S. is preparing for a second Korean War — and even if they are not preparing, their bellicose saber rattling could take both the U.S. and the two Koreas (not to mention China and possibly Russia) farther than anyone may consciously wish to go.

As of the date of posting here, the New York Times reports the U.S. rattled the North Koreans by sending B-2 stealth fighters to fly over South Korea as part of military "exercises." In fact, the NYT article by Choe Sang-Hun mirrors much of what I am saying here:

After suffering from the American carpet-bombing during the 1950-53 Korean War, North Korea remains particularly sensitive about American bombers. It keeps most of its key military installations underground and its war cries typically reach a frenetic pitch when American bombers fly over South Korea during military exercises. The resulting fear and anti-American sentiment is used by the regime to make its people rally behind the North’s “military-first” leadership.

It is many decades now since the U.S. lost over 36,000 military dead in the Korean War. Sixty years later the country of North Korea still exists. Another Korean War would be hugely destructive, and will change the world even more than the Iraq debacle.

Unfortunately, the U.S. has no intention of recognizing North Korea (after over 60 years). The rulers of this country want to finish the Cold War job and wipe out those regimes that do not formally recognize capitalism, that put themselves outside Western imperialist control.

The fall of the Soviet Union, Tito’s Yugoslavian federation, the East Europe puppet Stalinist regimes… this seems to have only whetted the appetite for the second act, which would be the overthrow of the Chinese Communist regime, the forced capitalist reunification of the Korean peninsula, the return of capitalism to the old French Indochinese states, and, of course, the destruction of Castro's Cuba.

It’s an ambitious agenda, and a murderous one. Its accomplishment is unlikely without WWIII, and at a minimum the destruction of Constitutional democracy in the United States, as the latter cannot maintain that level of war for as long as it will take to accomplish their conquest without significantly policing the population, subject to greater exploitation to pay for the country's wars. Already a Harvard study just published describes the costs of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as costing $3 to $4 trillion.

It has long been known, if forgotten, that the future of humanity rests on solving the problem of nuclear proliferation and stopping nuclear war. It is this, not global warming, that is the most immediate threat to the human race, if not the planet. Nuclear annihilation remains only minutes away, given the right, or that is, a set of immediate but awful circumstances.

The answer, however, does not lie in a global Pax Americana. That way lies dictatorship and destruction, as North Korea, no more than Iraq, Iran, Afghani tribesmen, or millions of people around the world will capitulate and allow themselves to be forever ruled by America.

The fact that not one U.S. politician to my knowledge is calling for serious moves to normalize relations with North Korea is testimony to the stifled state of politics in America, where all discourse that would oppose the policies of the war party are marginalized or frightened or economically driven out of competition.

Günter Grass on Subs for Israel, Threats Against Iran: "I’ve had it with the West’s hypocrisy"

German author Günter Grass published a poem whereby he breaks his silence on the issue of Israel's nuclear capacity, and recent moves by German to facilitate that capacity with the sale of two submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles. All of this is, of course, in the context over the U.S.-inspired controversy over Iran's nuclear program.

Germany has already sold two new Dolphin-class submarines to Israel (to add to three older subs), and this sale would be for a sixth submarine. Germany originally balked at the sixth sale as a matter of protest against Israel's settlement policies on the West Bank (particularly "the construction of 1,100 homes in Gilo, an Arab part of Jerusalem captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War"), but by February this year, the matter seemingly was dropped and the sale moved forward.

The subs are being built by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW), a division of German steelmaker Thyssen-Krupp. Haaretz Daily reports that Germany subsidized 80 percent of the cost of the three original Dolphin submarines in the 1990s. According to Haaretz, the German-Israel dispute over the sixth submarine was not apparently about the settlements, but bickering over the cost of the German subsidy for the deal. The eventual February 2012 agreement has Germany paying a portion of the $700 million per sub price tag.

Apparently the Israelis had been testing the older Dolphin subs for nuclear missile launch. The new subs reportedly have a upgraded propulsion system. According to Defense Industry Daily last January:

It is also rumored that Israel has tested a nuclear-capable version of its medium-range “Popeye Turbo” cruise missile design for deployability from the 650mm torpedo tubes in its Dolphin Class submarines. The 2002 Popeye Turbo launch test location off Sri Lanka suggested that the tests may have been performed in cooperation with India.

The translated text below is reposted from pulsemedia.org.

What Must be Said

By Günter Grass

Why have I kept silent, silent for too long
over what is openly played out
in war games at the end of which we
the survivors are at best footnotes.

It’s that claim of a right to first strike
against those who under a loudmouth’s thumb
are pushed into organized cheering—
a strike to snuff out the Iranian people
on suspicion that under his influence
an atom bomb’s being built.

But why do I forbid myself
to name that other land in which
for years — although kept secret —
a usable nuclear capability has grown
beyond all control, because
no scrutiny is allowed.

The universal silence around this fact,
under which my own silence lay,
I feel now as a heavy lie,
a strong constraint, which to dismiss
courts forceful punishment:
the verdict of “Antisemitism” is well known.

But now, when my own country,
guilty of primal and unequalled crimes
for which time and again it must be tasked—
once again, in pure commerce,
though with quick lips we declare it
reparations, wants to send
Israel yet another submarine —
one whose specialty is to deliver
warheads capable of ending all life
where the existence of even one
nuclear weapon remains unproven,
but where suspicion serves for proof —
now I say what must be said.

But why was I silent for so long?
Because I thought my origin,
marked with an ineradicable stain,
forbade mention of this fact
as definite truth about Israel, a country
to which I am and will remain attached.

Why is it only now I say,
in old age, with my last drop of ink,
that Israel’s nuclear power endangers
an already fragile world peace?
Because what by tomorrow might be
too late, must be spoken now,
and because we—as Germans, already
burdened enough—could become
enablers of a crime, foreseeable and therefore
not to be eradicated
with any of the usual excuses.

And admittedly: I’m silent no more
because I’ve had it with the West’s hypocrisy
—and one can hope that many others too
may free themselves from silence,
challenge the instigator of known danger
to abstain from violence,
and at the same time demand
a permanent and unrestrained control
of Israel’s atomic power
and Iranian nuclear plants
by an international authority
accepted by both governments.

Only thus can one give help
to Israelis and Palestinians—still more,
all the peoples, neighbour-enemies
living in this region occupied by madness
—and finally, to ourselves as well.

“Was gesagt werden muss” published in Süddeutschen Zeitung (4 April 2012)

Translation by Michael Keefer and Nica Mintz

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Expose Lies Used in US Drive for War with Iran

The following statement by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) has been posted across the web, and this reposting is meant to assist in getting their position out. The points they make about the manufacture of false "evidence" to mobilize the country, even the world, for a US war with Iran, are important and worth greater attention.

The statement reproduced below is from the website globalresearch.ca:

Avoiding Another "Long War": Intelligence Officials Reveal "Dubious" IAEA Report on Iran's Alleged Nuclear Weapons Program

Exaggerated coverage of a dubious report by the International Atomic Energy Agency about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program has spurred a rush toward a new war in the Middle East, but ex-U.S. intelligence officials urge President Obama to resist the pressures and examine the facts.

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Avoiding Another Long War

As professionals with collectively hundreds of years of experience in intelligence, foreign policy, and counterterrorism, we are concerned about the gross misrepresentation of facts being bruited about to persuade you to start another war.

We have watched the militarists represent one Muslim country after another as major threats to U.S. security. In the past, they supported attacks on Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya and Afghanistan, as well as Israel’s attacks on Syria and Lebanon — nine Muslim countries – and Gaza.

This time, they are using a new IAEA report to assert categorically that Iran is building a nuclear weapon that allegedly poses a major threat to the U.S. Your intelligence and military advisors can certainly clarify what the report really says.

As you know, the IAEA makes regular inspection visits to Iran’s nuclear facilities and has TV cameras monitoring those facilities around the clock. While there is reason to question some of Iran’s actions, the situation is not as clear-cut as some allege.

Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former IAEA director-general, said recently, “I don’t believe Iran is a clear and present danger. All I see is the hype about the threat posed by Iran.” He is not alone: All 16 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded “with high confidence” in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran had halted its nuclear-weapons program as of 2003.

We are seeing a replay of the “Iraq WMD threat.” As Philip Zelikow, Executive Secretary of the 9/11 Commission said, “The ‘real threat’ from Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The unstated threat was the threat against Israel.”

Your military and intelligence experts can also provide information on unpublicized efforts to derail Iran’s nuclear program and on the futility of attempting to eliminate that program – which is dispersed and mostly underground – through aerial bombing.

Defense Secretary [Leon] Panetta and other experts have stated that an air attack would only delay any weapons program for a year or two at most.

Former Mossad head Meir Dagan said that an air force strike against Iran’s nuclear installations would be “a stupid thing,” a view endorsed in principle by two other past Mossad chiefs, Danny Yatom and Ephraim Halevy. Dagan added that “Any strike against [the civilian program] is an illegal act according to international law.”

Dagan pointed out another reality: bombing Iran would lead it to retaliate against Israel through Hezbollah, which has tens of thousands of Grad-type rockets and hundreds of Scuds and other long-range missiles, and through Hamas.

We are already spending as much as the rest of the world combined on National Security and $100 billion per year on a Long War in Afghanistan. The Israel lobby has been beating the drums for us to attack Iran for years, led by people with confused loyalties like Joe Lieberman, who once made the claim that it is unpatriotic for Americans not to support Israel.

Another Long War is not in America’s or Israel’s interests, whatever Israel’s apologists claim. Those are the same people who claim that [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad said he would “wipe Israel off the map.” Persian specialists have pointed out that the original statement in Persian actually said that Israel would collapse: “This occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the arena of time.”

What we have is a situation where Israel’s actions, for example in sending 300,000 settlers into the West Bank and 200,000 settlers into East Jerusalem, are compromising U.S. security by putting us at risk for terrorist retaliation.

We have provided Israel with $100 billion in direct aid since 1975. Since this is fungible, how has funding settlements contributed to our security? You agreed to provide $3 billion in F-35s to Israel in exchange for a 90-day freeze on settlements. What you got was 90 days of stonewalling on the peace process and then more settlers. What more do we owe Israel?

Certainly not a rush to war. We have time to make diplomacy and sanctions work, to persuade Russia and China to make joint cause with us.

James Madison once wrote that “Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded.... War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes.... No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

We are currently winding down what you labeled a “dumb war;” we should not undertake another dumb war against a country almost three times larger than Iraq, that would set off a major regional war and create generations of jihadis. Such a war, contrary to what some argue, would not make Israel or the U.S. safer.

Steering Group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

Phil Giraldi, Directorate of Operations, CIA, retired
Ray McGovern, US Army Intelligence Officer, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA, retired
Coleen Rowley, former Special Agent and Minneapolis Division Counsel, FBI
Ann Wright, Col., US Army Reserve (ret.), former Foreign Service Officer, Department of State
Tom Maertens, Foreign Service Officer and NSC Director for Non-Proliferation under two presidents
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence Council
David MacMichael, former history professor and CIA and National Intelligence Council analyst

Exposed: FBI Cover-Up on Nuclear Spying by U.S. Officials

The cover-up is of the Sibel Edmonds revelations about a nuclear secrets ring wherein high U.S. officials sold information on nuclear weapons technology via Turkish intermediaries to foreign countries, most notably Pakistan. It has been covered by bloggers for years, but was first reported in the mainstream press by the British Sunday Times. Daniel Ellsberg recently excoriated the U.S. press for its suspicious quietude:

For the second time in two weeks, the entire U.S. press has let itself be scooped by Rupert Murdoch's London Sunday Times on a dynamite story of criminal activities by corrupt U.S. officials promoting nuclear proliferation. But there is a worse journalistic sin than being scooped, and that is participating in a cover-up of information that demands urgent attention from the public, the U.S. Congress and the courts.

The second time? Ellsberg is referring to yesterday's second article on the Sibel Edmonds revelations reported in the Sunday Times: FBI denies file exposing nuclear secrets theft. The article exposes an FBI cover-up of a crucial document in the investigation of the nuclear secrets ring.

According to the Sunday Times, the Liberty Coalition made a Freedom of Information request from the FBI for a document, labelled "203A-WF-210023." According to a Sibel Edmonds, this document "refers to the counterintelligence programme that the Department of Justice has declared to be a state secret to protect sensitive diplomatic relations." The FBI responded to the FOIA request by saying the file did not exist.

But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie”.

“I can tell you that that file and the operations it refers to did exist from 1996 to February 2002."

The Valerie Plame Connection

Just as explosive are the assertions of the anonymous tipster to Liberty Coalition that a U.S. official warned members of the Turkish network to steer clear of the Brewster Jennings company "because it was a CIA front company investigating the nuclear black market." Of course, Brewster Jennings was in fact such a CIA front, and the operational cover for Valerie Plame, which was outed by a number of White House operatives back in 2003. This new information corroborates the suppositions of the blogger Lukery, who contended Marc Grossman outed Brewster Jennings as early as 2001. (Grossman was named by prosecutor Fitzgerald as passing information on Valerie Plame to convicted perjurer I. Lewis Libby. He worked in Bush's State Department, and was Clinton's Ambassador to Turkey in the late 1990s.)

How would Grossman know about Brewster Jennings? How widespread was this nuclear secrets cabal within the U.S. government? Widespread enough to have compromised the FBI? These and other equally disturbing questions can and should be asked by politicians and the press in the United States. Yet nothing is heard from either. Why?

Ellsburg's guest op-ed over at Brad Blog explains who in American government should be following up on this:

...there must be pressure by the public on Congressional committee chairpersons, in particular Representative Henry Waxman and Senator Patrick Leahy. Both have been sitting for years on classified, sworn testimony by Edmonds --- as she revealed in the Times' new story on Sunday --- along with documentation, in their possession, confirming parts of her account. Pressure must be brought for them to hold public hearings to investigate her accusations of widespread criminal activities, over several administrations, that endanger national security. They should call for open testimony under oath by Edmonds --- as she has urged for five years --- and by other FBI officials she has named to them, as cited anonymously in the first Times' story.

From Rot to the Danger of Gangrene

The rot of greed and bankrupt great power political maneuvering is totally exposed for all to see. The Sibel Edmonds revelations about U.S. officials selling state nuclear secrets to foreign governments offers a counter-narrative to the myth of U.S. "good intentions" in the world. In fact, it reveals a destabilizing force for war and nuclear blackmail emanating from the most powerful chambers of government. Furthermore, the silence of the press and so-called progressive politicians shows that the corrosion of values and truth-telling in society has seriously degenerated, and gangrene has set in.

I put no faith in Waxman or Leahy. Even less in the New York Times or the Washington Post (who published Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers over a generation ago). The Sunday Times articles are likely the expression (on some level) of a widening breach between the U.S. and Britain, and meant by the British to tweak the beard of their more powerful American patrons (asking the latter, perhaps, not to push the Brits too hard re their commitment to Iraq or Afghanistan).

Ellsberg is right about one thing: unless the American people stand up and make their political voices heard, nothing will be done by the current people in power. And the gangrene will spread. It may already be too late.

See related articles:

*** UK Times: Official Documents Prove FBI lied to protect US officials
*** The Story We've All Been Waiting For
*** UK Sunday Times Scoops US Media Again, Confirms FBI Cover-Up of Documents in Sibel Edmonds Nuke Secrets Case

Gagged Whistleblower Speaks: U.S. Cover-Up on Sale of Nuclear Secrets Abroad

Sibel Edmonds, a former Turkish translator for the FBI, has told the Sunday Times "how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions." These intelligence assets then sold, according to Sibel, "highly classified information, not only from the State Department but also from the Pentagon, in exchange for money, position and political objectives.”

Sibel's charges are only coming out now, even though she has given classified testimony to Congress and to the 9/11 Commission. While Edmonds and some in the FBI were tracing the transfer of nuclear technology and other secrets to the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency via Turkish conduits, other elements within government were moving to shut down any investigation. As for the stolen information, it was passed on to the notorious A.Q. Khan, "father" of the Pakistani atomic bomb, and of a network of nuclear proliferation that went around the world.

The blogger lukery has put names to pictures Edmonds has posted on some of those culpable in the bribery-intelligence scandal, and they are among some of the most famous names in Bush's foreign policy apparatus, including Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Eric Edelman, Marc Grossman (supposedly the State Department official quoted anonymously in the Sunday Times article), and congressional bigwigs from both sides of the aisle, like Dennis Hastert, Tom Lantos, Roy Blount, Stephen Solarz, and others.

Given the blackout in the U.S. mainstream press, I don't know how far this scandal will become public and operational in this country. The entire story demonstrates just how dangerous and corrupt the present political order is. A cover-up of massive proportions has kept this story from coming out, fingering, as it does, major political players from both political parties in treasonous activity. Yet, treason may be one of the lighter charges, as these individuals have manipulated the most dangerous technology in the world for both profit and political exigency, thereby destabilizing the world far more than anyone like Osama bin Laden could have ever dreamed.

But even beyond that the major question hangs ominously: who gave the green light to help the Pakistanis (and possibly the Israelis) get the bomb? And to spread these nuclear secrets around the globe? Could it be the same folks who refused to press for the extradition or questioning of A.Q. Khan, now under luxurious house arrest in Pakistan?

Following the story in the Sunday Times article (bold remarks are mine):

One of Edmonds’s main roles in the FBI was to translate thousands of hours of conversations by Turkish diplomatic and political targets that had been covertly recorded by the agency.

A backlog of tapes had built up, dating back to 1997, which were needed for an FBI investigation into links between the Turks and Pakistani, Israeli and US targets. Before she left the FBI in 2002 she heard evidence that pointed to money laundering, drug imports and attempts to acquire nuclear and conventional weapons technology.

“What I found was damning,” she said. “While the FBI was investigating, several arms of the government were shielding what was going on.”

The Turks and Israelis had planted “moles” in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. “The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,” she said.

They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles – mainly PhD students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent....

The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official....

The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief.

Intercepted communications showed Ahmad and his colleagues stationed in Washington were in constant contact with attachés in the Turkish embassy.

Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.

The results of the espionage were almost certainly passed to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist.

Khan was close to Ahmad and the ISI. While running Pakistan’s nuclear programme, he became a millionaire by selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. He also used a network of companies in America and Britain to obtain components for a nuclear programme.

Khan caused an alert among western intelligence agencies when his aides met Osama Bin Laden. “We were aware of contact between A Q Khan’s people and Al-Qaeda,” a former CIA officer said last week. “There was absolute panic when we initially discovered this, but it kind of panned out in the end.”

It's not certain what this cryptic latter comment means, but I'd like to know more about what they knew about the Khan/Al-Qaeda contact. It does seem likely that the CIA is up to its ears in this business.

It is likely that the nuclear secrets stolen from the United States would have been sold to a number of rogue states by Khan....

Following 9/11, a number of the foreign operatives were taken in for questioning by the FBI on suspicion that they knew about or somehow aided the attacks....

“A primary target would call the official and point to names on the list and say, ‘We need to get them out of the US because we can’t afford for them to spill the beans’,” she said. “The official said that he would ‘take care of it’.”

The four suspects on the list were released from interrogation and extradited.

Edmonds also claims that a number of senior officials in the Pentagon had helped Israeli and Turkish agents....

Once acquired, the nuclear secrets could have gone anywhere. The FBI monitored Turkish diplomats who were selling copies of the information to the highest bidder....

Edmonds’s employment with the FBI lasted for just six months. In March 2002 she was dismissed after accusing a colleague of covering up illicit activity involving Turkish nationals.

She has always claimed that she was victimised for being outspoken and was vindicated by an Office of the Inspector General review of her case three years later. It found that one of the contributory reasons for her sacking was that she had made valid complaints.

The US attorney-general has imposed a state secrets privilege order on her, which prevents her revealing more details of the FBI’s methods and current investigations.

Her allegations were heard in a closed session of Congress, but no action has been taken and she continues to campaign for a public hearing....

In researching this article, The Sunday Times has talked to two FBI officers (one serving, one former) and two former CIA sources who worked on nuclear proliferation. While none was aware of specific allegations against officials she names, they did provide overlapping corroboration of Edmonds’s story.

Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg has reportedly called the Sibel Edmonds revelations (and we don't know all of them yet) "far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers. When we add these revelations to others coming out around the CIA destroyed tapes scandal, and recent publications linking CIA mind control experiments to biological warfare crimes by the U.S. government -- including the long-denied use of bacteriological warfare by the U.S. during the Korean War -- we may have the makings of a crackdown on the intelligence agencies not seen in decades.

But given the craven capitulations of a majority Democratic Congress, a U.S. media controlled by military-linked corporate interests, and a political culture enamoured of electoralism (while controlled by the aforesaid corporations), I wouldn't hold my breath. This country awaits the awakening of the population as real political actors in society, and not iPod and T.V. mesmerized participants in American Idol-like spectacles of inanity and nihilistic meaninglessness.