Militant ideologue Andrew Sullivan targets North Korea

Andrew Sullivan really does have breath-taking cheek. In yesterday’s Sunday Times¹ he has the brass neck to accuse the Bush administration of “incoherence”, because they don’t fancy taking on Kim, when they did take on Saddam (disastrously).

Sullivan’s piece is strongly suggestive of a lust for Korean blood. Kim is a “genocidal, certifiably loopy dictator”. North Korea “has launched missiles aimed at the American homeland,² has the potential to murder millions in a country allied with the West, has constructed concentration camps for dissidents, has starved thousands to death and is far further along in the nuclear bomb-making process”. It “has the potential to hand such WMDs to terrorists and wreak havoc on the West”.

It is obvious from Sullivan’s piece that his position is that North Korea should be further confronted, whether militarily or (initially) through sanctions, as soon as possible. Although he stops short in the piece of openly advocating a US military assault (and even says he would “be largely persuaded” by arguments that a “multilateral” approach to attacking the North Koreans might work best), he stops at nothing in his fear-mongering about the supposed dangers of leaving the North Korean regime unconfronted. Sullivan knows he is in the right, and attempts by China and Russia to “block meaningful action” concern him not a jot, except to reinforce his certainty that something must be done by the US. Russia and China, of course, are merely motivated by evil, pragmatic self-interest, in contrast to the morally elevated humanitarian compassion of Sullivan and western regimes (when they are agreeably aggressive towards those he wants attacked, anyway).

Sullivan, of course, thought it was a great idea to invade Iraq. He subsequently appeared to have been somewhat chastened by the bloodbath that has resulted from that particular policy, but in fact his regret was merely the tactical apology of the true ideologue. Like western communist apologists for the murderous crimes of Soviet Russia and Maoist China, his unshakeable ideology (Western Liberal Democracy) leaves no room in his mind for any other conclusion than that it just wasn’t done right last time, whereas next time it will be.

Communism would have worked, you see, if it had been done properly. If only it hadn’t been corrupted by those pesky human factors – greedy kulaks, corrupt Party members, western sabotage, etc. “Liberation and Democratisation” would have worked in Iraq if only the Bush administration had just done it right, and of course (in Sullivan’s fervent imagination) it will be done right next time, whether it is in Iran or North Korea. It only remains to determine tactically whether “Liberation and Democratisation” should be imposed upon Iran and North Korea by direct military invasion now, or following a period of ever-tighter confrontation (sanctions and other murderous bullying) to prepare the ground.

The western communists were wrong, though. It wasn’t just particular implementations that failed in the case of communism. The pesky human factors that made it fail weren’t just particular bad circumstances for the particular attempts to create communist societies, which should merely encourage us to try to get it right next time. They were problems inherent to the ideology, and something like them will bring down every attempt to establish the communist utopia. Similarly, the attempt to bring about Liberation and Democracy at the point of western guns will almost invariably require massive violence, by virtue of its very nature, and not merely as an unfortunate consequence of particular errors in its implementation.

Like all ideologues, though, Sullivan regards mass innocent deaths as being “a price worth paying” for progress towards his particular Promised Land.

But Sullivan’s disentitlement to criticise the Bush regime for incoherence does not stem merely from his ideological blinders. The foolishness of his piece lies most obviously in the inherent absurdity of his claim that there is a threat from North Korea which requires action. In reality, North Korea, albeit highly militarised, is a small, impoverished, third world dictatorship which is comprehensively outclassed, in technological terms as well as in numerical terms, by the US and its allies. The US, on the other hand, currently spends broadly as much on military force as the rest of the world put together, and has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over.

There are no conceivable circumstances whatsoever in which North Korea could substantively attack the US, or any ally which the US chooses to shield, without facing its own certain, immediate and total destruction. There is no plausibly foreseeable future scenario in which this situation could change.

Sullivan would have us believe, presumably, that for some reason Kim will commit suicide merely to get in a blow against the US or its allies. Needless to say, he prefers not to discuss the precise chain of events by which this will occur (in the absence of continuing US aggression³ towards North Korea, that is). Rather, he makes dark hints by describing Kim as “certifiably loopy”, implying that he’ll probably do it just because he’s crazy. This is a great way to avoid the need for explanation. Except, of course, that Kim isn’t “certifiably loopy” in the sense of being likely to bring about his own immediate destruction by rank irrationality. The only sense in which he is probably mentally unbalanced is the one which applies to all those who seek power at any price, to the extent required to achieve national leadership – and which certainly applies to Blair and Bush. (Ironically, since Kim inherited his position, that may apply less to him than to most world leaders). A “certifiably loopy” national leader with so little regard for his own and his nation’s well-being that he might frivolously launch an attack against the world’s only superpower would, of course, soon be removed from power by those around him, who certainly will not be similarly insane.

The only situation in which North Korea (or Iran, or Saddam’s Iraq) might attack the US in the face of their own certain national destruction would be in the case of utter desperation, having been driven to the wall by US economic and political pressure, or following an act of military aggression by the US, doubtless mendaciously dressed up as a supposedly defensive "pre-emptive" attack. ⁴ It is up to the US to make sure this doesn’t happen (though in practice it is highly unlikely the Chinese would allow it to, in the case of North Korea). In the meantime, however, confrontation merely confirms to the North Korean people that their government’s claims of an external threat are true.

Sadly, the term “warmonger” has become rather difficult to use effectively, having been largely discredited by the preceding set of universalist ideologues too certain of their own moral rectitude to feel the need for honesty. It’s particularly sad because “warmonger” is the perfect term for Sullivan and his ilk. For a useful antidote to the hysterical warmongering over perfectly legitimate missile tests, note the responses of ordinary South Koreans recorded in the LA Times yesterday.⁵

Among the usual responses to pointing out the actual absence of substantial threat from such bogeyman nations as Iraq, Iran and North Korea is to ask for an alternative course of action to aggression (whether military or non-military). Here, then, is the simple policy solution to the “problem” of North Korea for the US President: do nothing. It’s also known as masterly inactivity. In due course, the nature of the North Korean regime will change, whether that change is peaceful or violent. It will probably change a lot more quickly if North Korea’s economy has more wealth and wider links with the outside world, rather than being further isolated by demonisation and sanctions on top of the constraints imposed by its own government. It will also help if Kim’s attempts to seek nationalist legitimacy by claiming external threat aren’t regularly demonstrated to be founded in fact by the Washington regime. In the meantime, North Korea isn’t going to attack anybody so long as Kim knows that the result would be his own destruction.

Footnotes

1 “Stop dithering, this dictator's really got WMDs”, Sunday Times, July 9th 2006.
2 A straightforward lie by Sullivan, this, which he repeats later in the piece: “a nuclear-armed dictator fired failed missiles at Hawaii”. Much like the apparatchiks of the Blair regime, Sullivan evidently considers himself fortified against ordinary ethical requirements by his (self-assessed) moral superiority to the target of his enmity.
3 Reality check for Sullivan and his ilk: test-firing missiles into the sea is not aggression. Seeking to acquire nuclear weapons is not aggression. Calling for international sanctions to try to prevent a country from exercising its sovereign right to develop weapons for self defence is aggression (albeit non-military). Whipping up paranoia against a much weaker nation is aggression (again, non-military).
The US and its apologists think that rules just don’t apply to Washington. The US testing missiles and developing weapons is defensive whereas other nations doing the same is aggressive. The US can make hostile statements about other countries and it is mere diplomatic or political rhetoric, whereas other countries doing the same is clear evidence of rogue nation status. The US can spend vast amounts to destabilise other nations’ governments and seek to economically strangle those it dislikes, and that’s just promoting Liberation and Democracy. All this is just simple hypocrisy.
4 The arguable exception to the above is the case of Afghanistan under the Taliban, and its supposed conspiracy with al Qaeda over the 9/11 attack. This, in any case, is entirely sui generis. There is no plausible reason to suppose the Afghan precedent has any relevance to North Korea or Iran
5 “S. Koreans Take North's Missiles in Relative Stride”, LA Times 9th July 2006;
"You'd be surprised, but nobody is really talking about North Korea and the missiles," Bae said. "They don't care. They're more worried about Japan than North Korea." In fact, the big concern in recent days has been a war of words with Japan over a South Korean ship that conducted an oceanic survey of a disputed cluster of rocks known here as Dokdo, off the east coast. And the big summer blockbuster film here is expected to be "Hanbando" ("Korean Peninsula"), opening next weekend. Its futuristic plot pits the two Koreas against Japanese forces who are trying to stop their reunification.At Bae's restaurant, customer Kwon Jeong-eon said that North Korea's missile tests would help the two Koreas defend themselves."I'd like to see the North Koreans become stronger, especially for when we are united," said Kwon, a homemaker in her 40s who had just polished off a bowl of the slippery buckwheat noodles known as nengmyeon. In the event of a war between North Korea and the United States or Japan, she said, "we would of course be on the same side as the North Koreans."Among student groups, the views were more extreme."North Korea's missiles are the last fortress of peace to deter a U.S. invasion. We should celebrate," a group called the Citizens Movement for the Withdrawal of U.S. Forces in Korea proclaimed on its website.
……
"What is scary to us is that the Bush administration will start something and then the North Koreans, figuring they have nothing to lose, will attack us," said Park Kyong-ah, a 36-year-old social worker who describes herself as a conservative.
Also note the South Korean government’s response to Japan’s sabre-rattling (“Japan may postpone North Korea resolution”, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 10th July 2006:
“South Korea, not a council member, has not publicly taken a position on the resolution, but on Sunday Seoul rebuked Japan for its outspoken criticism of the tests.
"There is no reason to fuss over this from the break of dawn like Japan, but every reason to do the opposite," a statement from President Roh Moo-hyun's office said, suggesting that Tokyo was contributing to tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Chomsky overcomplicates the crisis over US threats against Iran

Noam Chomsky has a piece in today’s Guardian¹ in which he sets out what he believes would be needed to resolve what he calls “the Iranian nuclear crisis”.

If his piece were to be taken seriously, one would have to emerge from it with the depressing impression that, realistically, the crisis is utterly intractable. For Chomsky, a resolution of the crisis would require utopian global changes – implementation of a fissile material cutoff and steps by the world’s nuclear powers to live up to their side of the Non-proliferation Treaty. The latter is particularly absurd, as it seems most likely this treaty was always intended to operate as a “noble lie”, with none of the major nuclear powers ever having remotely intended to give up their own nuclear deterrent forces (as I have discussed elsewhere²). If resolution of the crisis really does depend upon these countries giving up their nuclear deterrent forces, then it is probably insoluble.

National defence is the most basic of all the justifications for the existence of national governments. Nuclear deterrence is demonstrably today the only ultimately effective means of national defence, and therefore the only provider of genuine national sovereignty³. Until that basic reality changes – perhaps through technological development, or the rise of a world government - a strong argument can be made that for any national government to abandon a nuclear deterrent force which has been bought at great cost would be a fundamental betrayal of its people. Perhaps Chomsky believes further cosmetic measures could revive the pretence that the nuclear powers’ side of the non-proliferation bargain is something other than a fig-leaf. Perhaps Britain and France could be persuaded to merge their (somewhat token) forces in an EU deterrent force. Maybe we can trumpet some supposed reductions in the number of times over the main Russian and American nuclear arsenals are capable of destroying the world. Ultimately, though, such measures are not going to persuade those nations which have built nuclear weapons out of a genuine need for defence against real threats, to abandon them⁴. Believing they might is pure utopian fantasy.

Fortunately, the crisis over Iranian nuclear development is much simpler to resolve than that. The resolution requires, however, clear perception of the false understanding which makes the problem seem intractable. Once it is recognised that the problem is not Iran’s activities, but rather the actions (or threatened actions) of the US and Israel, it becomes clear that the solution needed is not to coerce Iran into refraining from entirely legal and legitimate action, but to deter the US and Israel from illegal aggression.

It is (potentially, at least) much easier to deter wrongful aggression even by a superpower, than it is to bully a substantial nation into obedience to unjust restrictions. All that is required is to make it absolutely clear that the aggression will not be tolerated. Hopefully, the much-touted new Shanghai Cooperation Organisation might develop into a full-fledged defensive military alliance, which would effectively bring Iran under the Russian and Chinese nuclear umbrellas and supply Iran with much-needed conventional military muscle. Short of that, (and it seems unlikely that will develop quickly enough to defuse the present crisis) the key is probably for the EU nations to take direct and effective steps to protect Iran against Israeli or American military strikes.

The likely costs to the US of an attack upon Iran are heavy, particularly in the light of the ongoing disaster in Iraq, and all the signs are that the US regime is being forced to rethink its apparent earlier intention to attack Iran as soon as practicable after Iraq. Probably, the stiff resistance of the Iraqis has saved the world from the even greater catastrophe of an American attack on Iran. The decision probably hangs close to balance, and it seems likely that to ensure the outcome remains on the side of sanity, we only need European governments and media to stop pandering to the American lie that Iran is a “threat”. Such fear-mongering is what gives rise to atrocities such as the invasion of Iraq. European governments must understand that every time they pay lip-service to the American lie that Iran is a threat, they give more political cover to those who would like to see a military confrontation. Every attempt to “resolve” the crisis by putting diplomatic pressure on Iran helps to structure the popular western perception of the position as a false image of an “Iranian crisis”, rather than the true perception of the situation as a problem with the behaviour of the United States and Israel.

We should be putting pressure on the true source of the problems over Iranian development of civilian nuclear power – Israeli and American threats – rather than upon the nation which is merely exercising its sovereign right to pursue civilian nuclear power.

Chomsky sees this, and includes a reference to the need to "call off the very credible US and Israeli threats that virtually urge Iran to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent”. However, his divergence into the realms of nuclear disarmament fantasy distract from this core issue and thereby help to spread the mistaken, but widespread, view of this as an “Iranian crisis”. Most ironic, given Chomsky’s personal background, is the way the title of his piece helps to promote that very fallacy. “Iranian nuclear crisis”, indeed!


Footnotes

1 “A negotiated solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis is within reach”, Guardian June 19th 2006

2 “Nonproliferation: from Noble Lie to pretext for war”

3 But doesn’t, say, Germany have genuine national sovereignty? Only on the sufferance of the nuclear powers. Were the Russian government, say, to demand any concession from the German government on pain of nuclear destruction, then only two things could allow the German government ultimately to avoid compliance or destruction of the nation – a “nuclear umbrella” provided by other nations (the US, France and the UK, for instance), or forbearance in the face of German stubborn-ness by nuclear-armed Russia. Non-nuclear nations cannot but lose unlimited wars with nuclear powers. Of course, this unpalatable reality is buried deep beneath layers of diplomacy, practicability and nuclear taboo, but it remains present whether we like it or not.

4 China needs nuclear weapons to deter nuclear-armed America – a proven aggressor nation which has made no secret of its hostility towards China – as well as, more distantly at the moment, India and Russia. Pakistan needs nuclear weapons to deter India, and vice versa. The US and Russia need them to deter each other. Israel needs them to deter Arab nations.
Indeed, of all the nations in the world Iran is probably the one with the greatest prima facie case for having a genuine and urgent need for a nuclear deterrent. It has seen two of its neighbours invaded and occupied by a hugely powerful and nuclear-armed aggressor nation (the US), whose government persistently makes public threats against it and openly engages in internal subversion with the goal of the overthrow of Iran’s present government and its replacement by a more amenable one. Strangely, as discussed in the essay referenced in note ii above, it seems as likely that Iran’s rulers may refrain from obtaining nuclear weapons out of real religious conviction, as not. In my own view, Iran’s rulers would be crazy (and irresponsible, in the exercise of their duty to protect their nation) not to seek a nuclear deterrent force in the present circumstances, but I suppose we are constantly being told, by Americans in particular, that the Iranian regime is made up of religious fanatics.

Foreign deaths a price worth paying - again - for the US regime

The moral bankruptcy of the US ruling class was on display again this week, with the resurgence of the obscene argument that immense numbers of foreign deaths caused by US actions are a price worth paying for the achievement of US foreign policy goals.

Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright notoriously made this assertion about the Iraqi deaths caused by sanctions:

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.

FAIR

This week, Bush's Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made the same argument, although now those deaths of foreigners are justified merely to provide a chance of achieving Washington's foreign policy objectives:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that the U.S. military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan do not assure those countries will become successful democracies. But she said the chance for success is worth the price.

Rice: Democracy Uncertain in Iraq, Afghanistan, Washington Post, June 14th 2006

Americans generally seem unconcerned at their leaders' willingness to decide for other people how many of their lives are worth sacrificing for an American cause. I suspect they might not take the reverse situation so smugly.

Imagine the American hysteria we'd all have to sit through if Iran's President Ahmadinejad were to make some public speculation about how many dead Americans would be "a price worth paying" for Iran to be safe from attack!

The sentencing fuss – one of the few popular controversies we can actually do something about

There is currently a popular concern at the shortness of time served in prison following conviction for violent offences (including those of a sexual nature), which is reflected in the newsworthiness of any related story. Unusually for real world matters, this is actually one issue for which a simple solution is available and theoretically easy to implement.

There will always be disputes about whether particular sentences are long enough, or whether sentences should generally be longer or shorter for various categories of offence. One’s position on the general cases will depend upon one’s personal stance on a number of issues – what weight to attach to each of the justifications for imprisonment (revenge, deterrence, removal from society, rehabilitation), degree of confidence in the ability of the system to actually convict the right person, and others. At the heart of the current issue, however, is a concern on the part of government to keep the numbers in prison within the overall capacity of the prisons themselves¹.

Numbers in prison in England and Wales are very high by European standards, have been going up for years, and are reaching new records². The government’s forecasts had recently to be revised upwards, after increases exceeded the previous predictions³. Here are some figures. In April this year, there were 76,764 in prison in England and Wales. This was a 3% increase on the year before.⁴ The Home Office expects a remarkable 76,520 – 90,780 (!) to be in prison by 2011.⁵

At a legislative stroke, we could reduce the prison population immediately by a number in the region of 12,000, and reduce very substantially the future intakes of prisoners, while simultaneously bringing our justice system into closer accord with real justice and not offending a single victim by releasing the person who offended against him or her.

The answer is to re-legalise all drugs possession and use (and void all past convictions under these misguided laws). Morally, there is no more justification for imprisoning a drug user or dealer than there was for imprisoning homosexuals, when that was the law in this country. To say this is not necessarily to declare one's approval of either homosexuality or drug use or abuse, but merely to recognise that such matters are not within government's rightful scope.

At the same time as ending prohibition, a licensing and taxation regime should be devised and put into force. The purposes of this regime should be only to maintain public order, control children’s access to harmful substances, provide and enforce standards of labelling and purity, and raise money to fund costs arising out of the use and abuse of drugs. This regime should bring alcohol and tobacco use and abuse into the same broad category as heroin, cocaine, cannabis, and all the medical drugs. The general principle should be that drug use or abuse is a matter solely for the adult or responsible parent, with government intervention restricted to general supervision of the consequences and circumstances, rather than prohibition.

It really is as simple as that. Whether use or abuse of any particular drug would increase or decrease following the above change is debatable, but is not really important – this is a matter for individuals and their families and friends. While there is undoubtedly some cost to society consequent upon the abuse of any drug, it is probably much less than the costs to society of prohibition of that drug, in most cases.

Not only would we achieve an immediate reduction in the prison population, of the order of 15%, but we would also reduce the numbers of violent crimes, property thefts and corruption crimes which are indirectly caused by the effects of prohibition in our society. This is very hard to quantify, but the experience of alcohol prohibition in the US demonstrates just how corrosive of public order prohibition can be.

As a society, we would then have the choice of cutting government expenditure on prisons substantially by reducing capacity, or using the excess capacity to allow real criminals to be held for longer.⁶ The popular view at the moment would seem to be that serious offenders generally should not be released early to clear space in the prisons, and should generally serve longer sentences.



Footnotes

1 There have been numerous stories illustrating this particular point, but here's a recent one from the Times May 29th 2006: "Short, sharp shock sentences delayed as prisons are bursting at the seams"
2 Times April 29th 2005 “Steep rise in jail terms sends prison population to new high”
3 Home Office Statistical Bulletin: “Updated and revised prison population projections 2005-2011”
4 Home Office National Offender Management Service, “Population in Custody Monthly Tables – April 2006 England and Wales”.
5 Home Office Statistical Bulletin: “Updated and revised prison population projections 2005-2011”
6 Of course, we would also have to face a similar decision regarding the reallocation of the massive policing and court costs which would be immediately saved by ending prohibition. Tough times, eh?

Take real responsibility for once, Mr Blair

Mr Blair again calls for support for a policy of keeping British troops in Iraq.

There is room for legitimate debate regarding whether pulling out of Iraq now would be the best policy. However, Blair muddies this debate by his continued refusal to take responsibility for the original invasion in the proper manner, by resigning.

It is my belief that one reason (perhaps the "real reason") he is determined to stay there is that pulling out would represent the final admission that his personal project of seeking to achieve political ends in Iraq by the use of military force was a disastrous failure. I believe that the consequent deaths of British military men, and all the other costs to Britain of remaining there, are "a price worth paying", for him, to postpone this admission. Whether he is consciously aware of this motivation or not, I have little doubt it is there. He clearly has few scruples about killing innocent people in order to achieve personal goals, since he was willing to use war as a tool of policy in the first place.

Whether I am correct in this belief or not (and assessments of personal motivations must always ultimately be speculative), the fact that this possibility exists explains the deep wisdom of the now old-fashioned view that politicians responsible for contentious decisions which are widely perceived as failures, or as based upon error or deceit, should resign as a simple matter of honour.

This allows the successor to try to deal with the consequences unhampered by the suspicion that retrospective self-justification forms a large part of his motivation.

It is generally believed that Mr Blair deceived the nation regarding the reasons for attacking Iraq. If he did not deceive the nation, then the only viable alternative explanation is that he actually believed what he said at the time, which suggests monumental incompetence. I believe the former is the case, but even if it is not, if Mr Blair had any sense of personal honour or shame he would have resigned anyway when it became clear that the general belief in it cannot be shaken. Instead he has clung desperately to his position, in the hope that some sort of victory will allow him to claim personal vindication. It is at least somewhat satisfying that, by doing so, he has probably irretrievably further tarnished what remained of his own reputation and that of his party along with it.

Apart from the widespread suspicion about the reasons for attacking Iraq, it cannot be seriously disputed that the invasion of Iraq has been objectively a disaster for Britain.

We have lost over a hundred soldiers, spent millions, further damaged our international reputation by association with a US regime widely regarded as rogue and by blatantly breaching our own treaty commitment to renounce the unilateral use of force, and been complicit in an invasion which has caused tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths along with massive destruction of property and essentially destroyed the viability of Iraq as a unified state. The Iraqis will be paying the butcher's bill for our gung ho decision to resort to military force, probably for many years to come.

And all we have to show for this catalogue of disasters is the destruction of the former Iraqi regime. It is difficult to see how this is a benefit to us at all. If one adopts a hard-eyed realpolitik position, Saddam's Iraq was no real threat to us at all in 2003 (certainly less of a threat than the current and foreseeable future situations in the region). Saddam himself would eventually have been killed or overthrown or died naturally. Our interests have only been damaged by destabilising Iraq.

If one adopts a humanitarian position, there is likewise no reason to suppose that anything has been gained, unless one has a fanatic's ideological devotion to some notion of Democracy as the ultimate cure-all. It may be that Mr Blair and some of his fellow paternalists follow that particular ideology (it is widespread in the west these days, especially the US and UK). Certainly many of them claim to do so. However, there is no reason why such an absurd notion should be given credence by the sane. Iraq had a democracy in the past, and there is no reason why the current democracy should not end the same way. The current Iraqi government, maintained in partial power by US and UK guns, is sectarian and will only retain control in minority areas by the use of death squads and torture (just like Saddam). As usual, our intervention has merely switched the identities of the repressors and the repressed, but we will doubtless turn a blind eye to the ongoing repression on the basis that it is "understandable revenge". Certainly people are now being killed and tortured at far higher rates than under Saddam, except for during the periods in which he was fighting wars, civil or otherwise.

So even if there was no actual deceit in the justification for war, certainly the war itself has been an unmitigated foreign policy disaster. A leader responsible for such a disaster should resign.

Test post

Testing this completely new thing that I only signed up for so as to be able to reply to Prof Cole's site. Perhaps I'll find it useful.