XPost: soc.culture.china, soc.culture.usa, soc.culture.korean   
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   ture.afghanistan   
   XPost: rec.sport.tennis   
   From: acoustic@panix.com   
      
   If there is a "crisis" over North Korea, it was precipitated by us a   
   long time ago.   
      
   First, we sent troops to the Korean peninsula and fought the Koreans   
   and pushed the battleground all the way up to the Chinese border.   
      
   It was one of the first hegemonic acts of the U.S.   
      
   In response, China under Mao decided to send volunteers and fight   
   with the Koreans that the US army fought against.  It ended with a   
   truce at the 38th parallel north and the division of Korea.   
      
   Yet, the US government refused to sign a peace treaty, thus giving   
   itself an excuse to station US troops in South Korea ad aeternum.   
      
   There was an opening, in the 1990s, for the much desired unification   
   of Korea, similar to that of Germany.  And there arose the "Sunshine   
   Policy" in South Korea.   
      
     The Sunshine Policy was the foreign policy of South Korea towards   
     North Korea from 1998 to 2008.   
      
     In the year 1988 the South Korean President at the time chose the   
     name Sunshine Policy after Aesop's Fable which was about the north   
     wind and the sun. This was meant to soften North Korea's attitude   
     towards South Korea. Even though the name came from Aesop's Fable   
     the idea was based on the traditional Korean ways of dealing with   
     enemies by giving them gifts to prevent them from causing harm.   
      
   Even the Scandinavians were working to encourage the reproachment by   
   giving a Nobel Peace prize to South Korea's Kim Dae-jung.   
      
   But George W Bush wouldn't let the sun shine over the country.  He   
   actively intervened to make South Korea scrub the policy and declared   
   North Korea a member of his "axis of evil" in connection of his "War   
   on Terror" (see his State of the Union speech in 2002).   
      
   What terrorism has North Korea committed?  Washington is long on the   
   narrative about the Kims being "mad men", starving and torturing his   
   people, etc, etc.  But it's short on evidence.   
      
   So, Bush nixed the Korean hope of reunification.  Then the worthless   
   Obama, who was so eager to earn his $400,000 per speech retirement   
   benefit that he further intensified the temperature over the Korean   
   peninsula.   
      
   Obama inaugurated his Asian pivot!  The act was and is aimed at China   
   and Russia in the Far East, just as stationing the trooops on the 38th   
   parallel was aimed at those then-communist countries.   
      
   Obama further signed a deal to deploy a THAAD system in S Korea, on a   
   golf course outside of Seoul, ostensibly to protect the Korean people   
   from attack of the mad man from the north.   
      
   But of course, not even the South Koreans believe it.  It is a system   
   mainly aimed at China and Russia - and that's why those two countries   
   are so nervous about it.   
      
   Again and again, the politicians in Washington and their propaganda   
   arm are insisting that North Korea has threatened the world.  Is it   
   backed up by facts?   
      
   A desire to be able to defend yourself and make your home secure is   
   natural to all living and conscious organisms.  Why shouldn't any   
   living and breathing and thinking creature want to live?  Who wants to   
   be the next Saddam or Qaddafi?  Who want to be savagely murdered and   
   then your executioner be laughing it off before the whole world?   
      
   And certainly, a "smart cookie" knows that a deterrent is to keep   
   those who have any idea about doing you in from trying and not to use   
   it except when your enemy is about to take you out.  A deterrent is a   
   counterpunch device.  A smart cookie, especially a small one, does not   
   counterpunch unless you strike him first.  A smart cookie is not the   
   crazie that his enemies are painting him.   
      
   Before we first had nukes, we conducted extensive trials.  Before we   
   had ICBMs, we tested and tested their precursors and had many failures   
   too.  Likewise, before Russia (or the Soviet Union before it) and   
   China had their first workable ones, they also conducted extensive   
   trial launches.  The UK, France, Israel, Pakistan, ..., also did   
   exactly the same thing.  What the UK did to the Solomon Islands is   
   sacrilegious to Mother Nature in fact.   
      
   And, except for the United States, no countries who have the nukes   
   today and the delivery capabilities, have used them.  And since having   
   nukes and nuke-delivery capabilitires are self-defense tools, it makes   
   no sense to tell a country it must be destroyed for trying to secure   
   itself from external harm.   
      
   If France, e.g., is not held to the same standard we are judging North   
   Korea by, then the standard won't be respected.  And that's why it is   
   causing so much commotion when Washington is moving nuclear submarines   
   and aircraft carriers to the Korean coast for a possible attack.   
      
   And that's why the THAAD system is such a provocation to North Korea,   
   and China and Russia.  All these cannot be good news to all three   
   countries.  They are in Washington's cross-hairs and they know it.   
      
   If North Korea falls, it is not because of a possible refugee crisis   
   China fears.  It is that China will see itself as the next Syria at   
   the time when Libya was about to fall.  It is not in China's own   
   interest to survive if it listens to John Bolton's mad invitation to   
   help hasten North Korea's fall.  And that's why no sane government   
   would see kindly what we do if we attack North Korea for simply   
   testing a nuke or launching an ICBM in order to acquire a deterrent.   
      
     John Bolton:   
      "There is a deal here, not based on Pyongyang renouncing its   
      nuclear program, but on China and America ending the North's threat   
      by peacefully ending the North.   
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
      
   What Bolton is saying to China is essentially:   
     "Here is a knife, you `end' the North or you will be worse off if we   
     take actions".   
      
   You know, when Imperial Japan was lording over China in the first half   
   of the 20th century, it exploded the train that carried the Chinese   
   general Zhang Zuo-Lin to eliminate him.  Why?  For not working hard   
   enough for the Japanese interests in China.   
      
   Should Beijing not remember the "huanggutun incident" of 1928/06/04?   
      
   Besides, if there will be a refugee crisis arising from the Korean   
   peninsula being attacked from the outside, it will be refugees heading   
   to the south and then very likely from the south to the United States.   
      
   If we Americans worry about terrorism, this will be it!  Attacking NK   
   will radicalize the Korean people, north and south.  We will further   
   terrorism the same way we did by attacking Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya,   
   Yemen, and Syria.  John Bolton is cynical and crazy.  And Israel's   
   defense minister would do well to call Bolton a "madman" instead of   
   calling Kim such.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)