Geopolitical naiveté

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

4/15/2013

Daily Tribune

In our last column, "Saving paradise Earth," we quoted China's Xi Jinping setting the tone for his country's political-moral stand on the Korean Peninsula crisis: "No one country should be allowed to upset world peace."

Mike Billington of the LaRouche movement in an interview with Iran's Press TV had this to say: "There has been a concerted effort in the Western press… to falsify the warning coming from China … Xi Jinping… in a forum yesterday said no country should have the right to create a regional or even global crisis for their own self-interests … That was recorded in the New York Times this morning adding falsely the words in front of that speech that no 'Asian country' should have the right to do that."
Ingraining the term "manufacturing consent" in the minds of Filipinos is important as it describes the way the powerful use their controlled or heavily influenced media to create mindsets that accept lies as truths and even actions adverse to the audiences as good.

The US uses its massive global media domination to manufacture consent for one of the pillars of its very troubled economy today — the war industry. It lied about the WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) of Saddam Hussein which no longer existed when half the world was made to accept these as the reason for invading Iraq. Likewise the false charge that Bin Laden engineered the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks in order to invade Afghanistan, as with the alleged threat of Libya's Gaddafi to wipe out Benghazi which was never true. Last year, it was the supposed genocide by Bashar al-Assad; but now it's turning out that the US-Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)-backed "rebels" are the real genocidal force in Syria — including against Christians.

The example of what The New York Times did in muddling President Xi Jinping's statement is important in showing the perfidy of the Western media. It's a daily, even hourly, mission for the MSM (mainstream media) of the West to pound lies and half-truths into the global audience's mind for its ruling class' geopolitical ends. One local MSM headlines "North Korea nuke test could test China's patience" as if official Chinese policy is on the brink of abandoning Pyongyang.
I go direct to the most reliable reflection of China's official position on the matter, Global Times, the non-government and semi-official news site that echoes the hard-line views of the decision-makers in China. Its response came under the editorial, "Geopolitics makes abandoning NK naïve."

To read North Korea motives, it is best to go to its pronouncements, as contained in a North Korean White Paper ("White Paper Reveals Danger of US-South Korea War Drills," April 8. Juch 102, Pyongyang).

The White Paper reviews the long history of US-South Korea military exercises that have numbered 18,000 war drills since the ceasefire in the 1950s and "in particular, the war drill Ulji Freedom Guardian (that) activated more than 400,000 to 500,000 troops, including the US aggression troops in South Korea, US reinforcement troops, the three services of the South Korean puppet army, those concerned of the South Korean 'government' institutions and local autonomous bodies … (showing) that the US and South Korea mobilize huge forces enough to conduct a total war in the north-targeted war exercises" that can be converted to actual invasion anytime.

How is the 60-year-old Korea crisis to be resolved? Tony Carlucci, a dedicated anti-imperialist writer, authored a piece in GlobalResearch ("Key to Peace in Korea: Remove US Presence") that can be summed up as such: The two Koreas have been trying to patch-up with their "rainbow diplomacy" over the decades but the US has perpetually sabotaged this by supporting anti-rainbow presidents like Lee Myung Bak, by staging provocations while keeping up the pressure on the "embargo" on North Korea that prevents it from trading minerals for essential fertilizers and fuel for heating and energy. Many belittle North Korea as a country that cannot even feed itself, but that is due to the embargo more than anything else, and its leadership has been resourceful enough to use whatever strength they have — their military potential — to strike back and wrangle those supplies.

Finally, here's the most crucial point that a Russia Today interview with American Brina Becker of the Anti-War Coalition highlights: "RT: Isn't it in America's interests to keep a 'dangerous' North Korea there on the Peninsula to have a reason for re-balancing to the Asia-Pacific region? BB: Well indeed. Ever since President Obama went to Australia and announced the so-called Asia Pivot, the US is loading up the Pacific with its aircraft, its nuclear-capable aircraft, and a large part of its Navy. Of course they need provocations, they need tension. It is good for business, it keeps the mega profits coming in into the military industrial complex but it gives the Pentagon the excuse, the pretext to do what it wants to do, which is basically to encircle China."

Naiveté can lead to thermonuclear holocaust in our region; this, as the US and Nato resume their re-colonization of the world.

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