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Bush policy failures escalate and exacerbate international tensions as the US media sits by silently. Bush's dangerous missteps in Korea threaten world peace. In February 2001, Bush shocked the world by scuttling promising peace discussions between the two Koreas. The US media barely notices, but Bush's clumsy, ill-considered intervention reversed encouraging progress toward peaceful relations between the Koreas.
Consider events leading to Bush's stunning policy reversal. South Korean President Kim Dae Jung won the Nobel peace prize in October 2000 for his "Sunshine Policy" efforts fostering a lasting peace and possible future reunification of the Korean peninsula. "Half a century after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a tense armed truce, the two countries technically remain at war. More than a million soldiers still square off along a border that is one of the Cold War's last frontiers." See Working to End the Cold War, South Korea’s President Kim Wins Nobel Peace Prize, Reuters / ABC News (online), Oct. 13, 2000: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/nobelprize001013.html.
However, Bush, VP Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and the rest of the White House Chicken Hawk Coop would have none of that. After Bush assumed power, they reversed this thaw by applying overt pressure on the South Koreans and lobbing increasingly inflammatory rhetoric at North Korea. Bush set the belligerent tone in his inauguration speech by ironically denouncing North Korea as an "enemy of world peace." Diplomats around the world questioned Bush's "axis of evil" diatribe in his January 2002 state of the union address.
Bush's rhetoric increased tensions on the precariously balanced, heavily armed peninsula where 37,000 US troops remain deployed, a development our staunch allies in South Korea consider unwelcome. "The BBC's Richard Lister in Washington says the tougher tone from the White House is unlikely to be welcomed by the South Korean leader, who is trying to reduce tension through increased contacts with the North." See Bush rules out North Korea talks, BBC News (online), 8 March, 2001: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1207864.stm.
Right wing Chicken Hawks disingenuously blame President Clinton's policy -- favoring engagement with the North -- for the impending crisis. They claim Clinton, former President Carter and others misguidedly sought diplomatic means to defuse the nuclear threat begun when Ronald Reagan reversed US commitment to nonproliferation as "none of our business."
Refusing to accept their role in promoting North Korean nukes -- and the spread of destabilizing city-killing weapons technology to other nations -- veterans of Reagan/Bush laissez-faire thermonuclear policies like Cheney and Wolfowitz assert that this current crisis is a vindication of their viewpoint. The opposite is true.
Bush's apologists ignore the facts. The Jung/Clinton "Sunshine Policy" strategy was working. This ongoing process achieved progress through the end of Clinton's term. Once the Bush Administration took power, they reversed this progress. This shameful and potentially disastrous nonpolicy strikes a chilling parallel to Bush's irresponsible withdrawal from the Middle East Peace Process and other US efforts to promote international stability. Bush assumes the same misguided obstructionist posture against efforts to control and prevent use of poison gas and biological weapons and to establish international agencies to prevent war crimes.
Early 2001, Chicken Hawks in the Bush administration voiced concerns about Kim Dae Jung's fast-moving peace process. Why were they afraid to give peace a chance? They worried about the implications for their ambitious national missile defense (NMD) system plans. They predicated this $trillion spending plan -- popularly known as "Star Wars" -- on supposed threats posed by "rogues states," especially North Korea. If Jung's peace efforts were successful, the military contractors and their allies in the Bush regime would lose their justification for Star Wars.
Would Bush risk thousands of American lives and perhaps
millions of Koreans to enrich defense contractors?
What other explanation is there for Bush's efforts to
eclipse the Korean "Sunshine" progress toward peace?
Additionally, the Bushies were intent on reversing nearly every Clinton policy that mattered. This "anti-Clintonism" drove them to disengage from the Palestinian/Israeli dispute, repudiate balancing the budget, and abandon Clinton / Gore efforts to contain and destroy the threat from Al Qaeda terrorists. The Korean peace effort was no different.
The last thing Rove and therefore Bush wanted was a successful peace effort linked in any way to President Clinton. In June 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell convinced Bush to resume the engagement policy, despite the Clinton connection. However, by that time the neglect took its toll and the damage had already been done. Furthermore, no substantive action was taken after the announcement. The American media avoids discussing this context for the impending Korea crisis.
The European press has no qualms about reporting that, "President Clinton ... was close to an agreement with North Korea, an agreement that would have halted North Korea's production and export of long range missiles. President Bush's Secretary of State Colin Powell wanted to quickly follow up on Clinton's efforts. But after statements to that effect, Powell was told to back off in almost humiliating fashion. Just as South Korean president Kim Dae-jung's 'sunshine' policy of engagement towards North Korea seemed bluntly dismissed by the new American president when the two met in March in Washington." See US to Resume "Serious Talks" with North Korea , Radio Netherlands (online)Reinout van Wagtendonk, 7 June 2001: http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/us010607.html
When Bush finally signaled some willingness to stop dragging his feet concerning Korea, it was too late. Three months later, terrorists struck America. This unleashed the Chicken Hawks who once again prevailed over Powell. They reversed progress toward peace, and resumed beating the drums of war. Looking back, we can see the June 2001 announcement was merely a temporary bout of foreign policy sanity Powell hoped to foster, which fell victim to the Chicken Hawks who run Bush policies.
We had ample warning Bush was creating problems for the US and the region. Kim Dae Jung and former Clinton officials voiced public concern that any protracted delay in Bush's resumption of talks with North Korea would undo much of the progress the South had achieved. Efforts drawing Pyongyang out of its traditional isolation in early 2001 stalled and reversed in the face of Bush administration hostility.
Clinton's special envoy on talks with North Korea, Wendy Sherman, warned in a March 2001 New York Times editorial that Kim Jong Il "is capable of creating a crisis in the absence of a clear signal that negotiations are possible." Sherman wrote, "Although there is some logic in trying to construct a missile defence system, there is also logic in seizing every opportunity to reduce or eliminate the missile threats through the less costly means of arms control negotiations. In dealing with North Korea, President Bush has an opportunity to take this latter approach. The question now is whether he will seize it."
Sherman warned: "Although President Bush has time to consider his approach to negotiations, North Korea, a country of immense pride, will not wait forever." She was right. See Sherman's NY Times commentary and others' insights quoted at: US Calls Time-Out on North Korea Talks, The Acronym Institute, Disarmament Diplomacy -- Issue No 55: http://www.acronym.org.uk/55nkor.htm
As danger increases, the Bush team refuses to face facts. The Washington Post reports: "Joel S. Wit, a State Department expert on North Korea during the Clinton administration, said he saw 'no sign' that the administration had developed a 'serious strategy' for stopping North Korea from acquiring a large nuclear weapons stockpile." Worse, "The Bush administration strategy seems to be based on the assumption that the North Koreans are just playing chicken and that, if we outwait them, they will just give in," according to this expert.
Bush has no plan for facing much less defusing this impending Korea crisis, in large part because of "tunnel vision" focused on attacking Iraq. As Wit added: "But the pace of events is moving much more rapidly with North Korea than with Iraq." Bush's backward priorities defy our national security needs because, "If we attacked Iraq next year as opposed to next month, I am not sure the situation would be that different. The North Koreans, on the other hand, seem to be moving gung-ho toward making nuclear weapons."
Bush's reactions to this coming crisis alarm diplomats familiar with the situation. The Washington Post quotes Kurt Campbell of the Center for Strategic and International Studies: "By feigning nonchalance, the Bush administration risks encouraging a dangerous regime to step even further forward." This former Pentagon Korea policy expert explained: "When the North Koreans reactivated their nuclear reactor, the [Bush] White House called it 'regrettable.' That's the kind of word you use when the soup isn't very good before dinner." See For Wary White House, A Conflict, Not a Crisis, the Washington Post, Michael Dobbs, December 29, 2002; Page A01.
Our national security is suffering again, and once again Bush is to blame. Still, the US media refuses to tell us the whole truth about another perilous Bush blunder. The US media's unwillingness to even mention the controversy in early 2001 is troubling, especially given its current profound implications. Why do US media outlets leave voters in the dark about the true cause and context of this crisis?
In a notable exception, the Boston Globe's Jonathan Power reported: "President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea is clearly fighting tooth and nail to save what remains of what he calls his 'sunshine policy' - his ambition to forge reconciliation with communist North Korea. The opposition at home has been buoyed by the sounds of jihad from Washington." This although "the European Union and the awarders of the Nobel Peace Prize ... have supported 'sunshine.'" Bush's alternatives boil down to a "choice between an honorable peace and a terrible war." Alarmingly, Bush is stumbling mindlessly toward the latter. See Bush Plays Dangerous Games in Korea, Boston Globe, Jonathan Power, February 23, 2002 -- reprinted at Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0223-05.htm
The international media is not afraid to identify Bush's fetish for Star Wars as a clear and present danger to US national security. May 2001 the Guardian (United Kingdom) prophetically reported: "If the detente between the Koreas does indeed collapse, it may come to be seen as the first victim of Bush's doctrine of missile defence. Far from making the world a safer place, it will have delivered an enormous setback to peace in one of the most dangerous places on earth." See Missile defence casts cloud over Korean sunshine, (UK) Guardian, Simon Tisdall, May 3, 2001: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4180099,00.html
Other foreign news sources confirm Bush's bullheadedness represents a dire threat to peace. In the Online Asia Times, Aidan Foster-Carter reports that "Kim Jong-il and his peculiar realm seem to be once more headed full-steam astern, back into hermit kingdom mode. And while that's their choice and ultimately their responsibility, what I find galling and frankly heart-breaking is that it's the crude and crass choices of others, who should know better...."
Foster-Carter refered to "George W Bush [who] made clear his contempt not only for Kim Jong-il but also for Kim Dae-jung. Just when the latter's patient diplomacy had broken through half a century of hostility, to achieve last year's North-South summit and the peace process that came out of it - a feat for which he was rightly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize...." He adds: "It's also lousy diplomacy to humiliate the most pro-American leader South Korea has ever had. That weakens Kim at home, and boosts nascent anti-Americanism."
Bush's policies are hurting US interests and undermining Koreans seeking peace. Who is Bush empowering? Our enemies. As Foster-Carter asks: "Which if any Koreans are happy about this? Answer: Northern hawks. For them Bush is a dream come true: the perfect pretext to take their bat home, and revert to the snarling of old." This "snarling" risks sparking another major confrontation, perhaps even another war! See The Koreas, PYONGYANG WATCH, Beaten about the Bush: US clouds Korea's sunshine, Online Asia Times, Aidan Foster-Carter, April 25, 2001: http://www.atimes.com/koreas/CD25Dg01.html
Voters trust Republicans to keep us safe, however the record shows straight F's for the bungling Bush regime. They are risking war by reversing progress toward peace around the world, especially in the Middle and Far East. This imperils American interests and American lives.
Cheney's anti-terrorism commission never held a single meeting leading up to 9/11. The Bush administration left us open to terrorist attacks, pointedly ignoring -- even quashing -- warnings from our intelligence agencies and allies. They have no effective answer to threats North Korea and Al Qaeda pose, yet they rush headlong into a new and unrelated confrontation with Saddam Hussein. This despite Cheney's recent, close business ties with Saddam.
Colin Powell's rush to reassure Americans that North Korean rhetoric does not signal a crisis fell flat on several Sunday AM "news" shows December 29, 2002. First, informed observers understand Powell is a PR fix-it man, not a policy maker in Bush Inc. Second, Bush's rash rhetoric and actions -- not North Korea's -- heighten the risks.
Republican Chicken Hawks have come to roost. We're already seeing the dangerous fallout from Bush's folly as he sets us to invade Iraq in an unwelcome return to his father's botched Persian Gulf "diplomacy." Will a rerun of the bloody Korean conflict -- this time under threat of a nuclear weapons exchange -- be next?
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