When things were becoming slightly less threatening for the divided Koreas — the United States intentionally worsened the situation

© 2018 Peter Free

 

26 February 2018

 

 

Warmongering never goes out of American style

 

Perhaps you noticed that North and South Korea were apparently talking again, during these past Winter Olympics.

 

North Korea elected to participate in the Games. And both Koreas walked into the opening arena under a flag with a representation of all of Korea on it. Knowledgeable observers perceived a two-sided effort to de-escalate geopolitical tension.

 

Naturally, the US Imperium immediately objected to anything that undermines its near full control of matters South Korean:

 

 

The United States said on Friday it was imposing its largest package of sanctions to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs, and President Donald Trump warned of a “phase two” that could be “very, very unfortunate for the world” if the steps did not work.

 

[T]he U.S. Treasury sanctioned one person, 27 companies and 28 ships, according to a statement on the U.S. Treasury Department’s website.

 

The United States also proposed a list of entities to be blacklisted under separate U.N. sanctions, a move “aimed at shutting down North Korea’s illicit maritime smuggling activities to obtain oil and sell coal.”

 

© 2018 Steve Holland and Christine Kim, U.S. imposes more North Korea sanctions, Trump warns of 'phase two', Reuters (23 February 2018)

 

 

Notice a few things about this

 

First, the immoral inutility of sanctions. Sanctions historically fall hardest on ordinary citizens, who (by definition), have no say over their governments, even in the United States. Sanctions are a cowardly paranoid's way of feeling good about doing something, even though that which is to be done almost completely comes at the expense of ordinary folks. Meaning people who have nothing to do with whatever situation is being addressed. Relevant to this, North Korea's attempts to obtain oil and sell coal are the natural reactions of any sanction-blasted, resource-lacking political entity.

 

Second, it is unlikely that yet more of the external threats that motivated North Korea's nuke development program (in the first place) will now reverse it. There is nothing in North Korean history to indicate that a foolishly bellicose United States is going to make the People's Republic back down.

 

Third, the Trump Administration's Boost the Sanctions announcement came just after the aforementioned North and South Korean Olympics step toward de-escalating hostilities. It does not require genius to decipher the war-favoring core of American intent.

 

And, in President Trump's case, it requires no prescient perspicuity to intuit that this is another ploy to get the immediacy of the concocted Russian Puppet Monkey off his back.

 

In sum, American trampling on the two Koreas' tentatively symbolic de-escalation effort is inflammatory and intentionally so. We are pursuing the same policy that has long prevented formal peace between the Korean War's two sides.

 

Why?

 

As with all things Military-Industrial, there are billions and billions of dollars in it for some.

 

 

The moral? — Self-serving leaders deliberately inculcate baseless fears and hatreds

 

People with power generally abuse it. This abuse most characteristically involves harming other people for no ethically legitimate reason.

 

Relevant here, North Korea is hardly the only despicable regime on the planet. Heavily propagandized Americans heavily contribute to the fires that we set all over the world. Many of us economically and socially benefit from fomenting war. We conveniently ignore how self-interest motivates us to castigate and attack other people.

 

With regard to the Koreas specifically, there is no way that China will refrain from intervening in a US conflict with the North. When that happens, war will escalate beyond the United States' volunteer military's ability to handle it. It will not then only be 'foreigners' and 'those who signed up for it' conflict. Regular Americans are going to become the cannon fodder that they so (usually hypocritically) avoid becoming.

 

As the President said, but surely not in the unidirectional way that he meant it, implementing "Phase Two" will be "unfortunate."