Condemning North Korea’s Latest Nuclear Test Is Meaningless

ANGLO AMERICA, MILITARISM, ASIA--PACIFIC, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, 18 Feb 2013

Buddhi Kota Subbarao - Countercurrents

“A third nuclear test has been successfully staged,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Tuesday, February 12, 2013. “The high-level nuclear test, unlike in the past, had more explosive power and involved a miniaturized and lighter atomic bomb and was staged safely and perfectly.” said KCNA.

North Korea further said the test is aimed at coping with “ferocious” U.S. hostility that undermines the North’s peaceful, sovereign right to launch satellites.

The estimated yield of the latest North Korean nuclear test is 6 to 7 kilo tons. It is a miniaturized, lighter atomic bomb which can be carried on a long range missile, the technology of which is more or less mastered by North Korea. The implication is North Korea is capable of hitting the United States of America with atom bombs delivered by long range missiles.

As expected, alarm bells started ringing in the United States. President Obama immediately called North Korea’s latest nuclear test a “highly provocative act” that threatens U.S. security and international peace.

Time has come for the humanity to rise and call off the American bluff. If the United States on the pretext of guarding its national security could launch Iraq war without a cause and use indiscriminately drones to kill people in Afghan war, what is wrong in North Korea conducting an underground nuclear test to fortify its national security?

Time also has come for the leaders of other nations not to succumb to American pressure anymore and also to read in between the lines of the American narrative.

If the fear of nuclear proliferation is a rallying point to indulge in condemnation of North Korean nuclear test, then the need is for a compelling rallying point to lift all sanctions against North Korea. Humanity should rise to disallow the United Nations Security Council from becoming a tool in the hands of the United States of America and its allies to institute sanctions of any sort against any country inimical to the United States and certainly not against North Korea.

Terming a country with a different ideology a “rouge country” has become a pastime with the American leaders. The attending pastime of the Americans in power is to induce the pliable leaders of other countries to agree to impose sanctions on those “rouge countries.”

The characteristic of the present times is the notorious game the United States of America plays in the name of establishing “democracy” in other countries but with a definite aim to grab the natural resources of those countries.

At present, the connection between U.S. military intervention and the promotion of capitalist enterprise is all too evident to ignore. Too often and too readily the United States is prepared to engage ‘directly’ or ‘indirectly’ in a paroxysm of violence to enforce its will. It is difficult for Barack Obama to admit that he has become a coveted and sophisticated tool in the hands of US military industrial complex and corporate world to use US military might to enforce the will of the United States.

Obama loves his own oratory and also knows all those behind the scenes who actually benefit from his oratory. By the end of his first term as US President, Obama proved to be the biggest hypocrite of all times in human history. No more evidence is required than the Noble Peace Prize to Barack Obama. There are several ‘think tanks’ in the United States who might dislike this assessment. Their dislike is from two reasons. First they are unable to know how conditioned their own minds are. Second they cannot bear the loss of the existing comfort.

To understand the reaction of China to the latest North Korean nuclear test, one has to understand first what China is. China has the colour of communism but capitalism fills its core. China has charmed the United States to ignore the communist colour for an embrace over the Pacific Ocean. At the same time under the fear of communism, the U.S. creates endless troubles for Cuba which is located geographically right under the belly of the United States.

There is one more angle to China’s growing status. There is evidence in its actions to show China to be expansionist. It has troubled every one of its neighbours and occupied lands of other countries. Tibet is a concrete example. Occupation of Indian Territory in the north east is another example. China can accept North Korea only if it does not pose any threat to the capitalist and expansionist traits of China. Right now, China views the economically weak North Korea as trump card against the United States.

China cannot accept unification of South Korea and North Korea, because the militarily strong North Korea and economically strong South Korea if united could create problems for China’s ambition to become world power. Japan with its intrinsic ability to become nuclear power, and the systematically growing Vietnam after the heroic unification of North and South Vietnams, together with a unified Korea could alter the geopolitical situation around China. It is in this light that one should understand China’s reaction to the latest North Korean nuclear test.

According to China’s foreign ministry, its Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi summoned North Korea’s ambassador to China on Tuesday (Feb 12, 2013) to tell him Beijing was “strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed” to North Korea’s nuclear test.

Reactions to the latest North Korean nuclear test, from the United States, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and China betray their struggle to find their individual positions on the geopolitical chess game. The condemnation by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, NATO, the European Union, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, shows the wide spread deception practiced through these institutions. One is compelled to remember George Orwell, “In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”

Nowhere the universal deceit and arrogance is more evident than in the words of US President. “The danger posed by North Korea’s threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community. The United States will also continue to take steps necessary to defend ourselves and our allies,” President Obama said in released remarks.

These words of President Obama are a deceit because the United States even under President Obama is spending billions of dollars to perfect its nuclear weapons. Therefore the meaning that flows from the threatening words of Obama is, the United States which wages war against other countries without a cause would not allow any country to pick up ability to fight back the United States. North Korea as a self-respecting nation is developing its ability to fight back the unjust United States.

Just like the people of Iraq suffered more from the sanctions imposed against Iraq than from the alleged despotic rule of Saddam Hussain, the people of North Korea would suffer more from the sanctions than from the vicissitudes of socialistic rule in North Korea.

For these reasons it is meaningless to condemn the latest nuclear test by North Korea. The same reasons also would show that it would be inhuman and unjust to subject North Korea to any sanctions.

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Buddhi Kota Subbarao is former Indian Navy Captain with Ph.D. in nuclear technology from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay and advocate of Supreme Court of India. E-mail : bksubbarao@gmail.com.

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