I make no apologies for the length of this diary. Bush will try and use the North Korean situation to rally support. The Democrats must make clear that the nuclear test is the product of the failure of Bush and his administration.
In 1996, that Dr Strangelove group of Neocons drew up their plans for a New World Order. It was based on the overwhelming military supremacy of the United States as the only superpower remaining after the collapse of the Cold War.
United States hegemony would be achieved by its huge military dominance and by the exercise of such power that its "shock and awe" would ensure that "America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East." The architects of the policy warned the American people " If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership."
A 4.2 earth tremor, detected by the US Geological Survey on the Richter scale a few hours ago in North Korea at 01:35:27 (UTC), signals that the disastrous six year Republican experiment to implement this New World Order is not just in crisis but has fallen into a chaos. The situation demands that we have a new leadership for the Western world.
The main purpose of this diary is to plead with the Democratic Party to not allow these events to be used in the four weeks before the election to rally the American people behind the failed Commander-in-Chief and his discredited administration and Republican Party supporters.
Nor should what has happened in North Korea be isolated from every other aspect of US policy and its disasters in other parts of the world.
A great deal of analysis will take place on the implications of the test and why North Korea decided to ignore world opinion by precipitately implementing its threat to demonstrate its capability and to become the world's ninth nuclear power.
Already, analysts are identifying the disaster that occurred after denuclearization agreement had been reached with North Korea agreement with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea. As Meteor Blades records on the front page here at Dkos, Pyongyang pledged to "abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs." In return, Washington agreed that the United States and North Korea would "respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations." Within four days, the US blithely "imposed sweeping financial sanctions against North Korea designed to cut off the country's access to the international banking system, branding it a "criminal state" guilty of counterfeiting, money laundering and trafficking in weapons of mass destruction."
"Coincidence", claimed Bush. If so, it may yet prove to be a tragic one, Yet it is difficult to see it as having been entirely that, after what has proved to be a highly successful and not entirely dissimilar diplomatic deal engineered by British Prime Minister Tony Blair with Libya was subsequently shown to have drawn angry opposition from Dick Cheney.
I will leave, however, this type of analysis of the failure of four years of US diplomacy in this part of Asia to others. I will simply ask you to retain in your mind the incoherent threats of the walrus moustached bully, UN Ambassador John Bolton, of a week ago as he blustered out his threat that if North Korea went ahead with the test the "world the next day would be very different".
How so, Mr Bolton? Through the exercise of "the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad"?
No, Sir. You and your colleagues have squandered all these advantages and now stand as you stood in the United Nations building those few days ago with nothing but empty rhetoric to offer; a rhetoric that has no effect on those that the world needed you to influence.
After their first preliminary statement issued an hour ago, the White House will be forming its response to these events. Amply demonstrated by the now over-shadowed events such as Foleygate, the administration will be less concerned with the implications to world peace and more concerned with gaining electoral advantage from this new threat to the United States. The Democrats have a few hours in which to frame their own reaction to this latest element that Bush will attempt to encompass as being a part of the axis of evil of global terrorism which, if he didn't create, he empowered.
The Democrats must powerfully promote the truth that the North Korean nuclear test is a consequence of the direct failure and sheer incompetence of this administration's diplomatic and military policy and its utter inadequacy to demonstrate leadership on the world stage.
What was it that the Neocons said were the essential elements that they would bring to United States foreign policy? They said they would ensure that the government had the ability to:
1- defend the American homeland;
2- fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
3- perform the "constabulary" duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;
4- transform U.S. forces to exploit the "revolution in military affairs
Well, let us see how well they have done in just one theatre of war, Iraq, using just the unadorned statistics as of October 4, 2006 supplied by the excellent Deborah White without any additional explanation:
US SPENDING IN IRAQ
Spent & approved to spend in Iraq - $505 billion of US taxpayers' funds, including $70 billion more approved by Congress and signed by the President in Sept 2006 for Iraq & Afghanistan
Lost & Unaccounted for in Iraq - $9 billion of US taxpayers' money and $549.7 million in spare parts shipped in 2004 to US contractors
Halliburton Overcharges Classified by the Pentagon as Unreasonable and Unsupported - $1.4 billion
US AND COALITION TROOPS IN IRAQ
Coalition Troops in Iraq - Total 162,000, including 144,000 from the US, 7,200 from the UK, and 10,800 from all other nations (other than Iraq)
US Troop Casualties - 2,729 US troops; 98% male.
90% non-officers; 77% active duty, 14% National Guard; 74% Caucasian, 10% African-American, 11% Latino. 17% killed by non-hostile causes. 53% of US casualties were under 25 years old. 68% were from the US Army
Non-US Troop Casualties - Total 236, with 119 from the UK
US Troops Wounded - 20,687, 20% of which are serious brain or spinal injuries (total excludes psychological injuries)
US Troops with Serious Mental Health Problems 30% of US troops develop serious mental health problems within 3 to 4 months of returning home
US Military Helicopters Downed in Iraq - 52 total, 27 by enemy fire
IRAQI TROOPS, CIVILIANS AND OTHERS IN IRAQ
Private Contractors in Iraq, Working in Support of US Army Troops - 84,105 (NOTE - The US has not updated this count for months.)
Journalists killed - 77, 41 by murder and 36 by acts of war
Journalists killed by US Forces - 14
Iraqi Military and Police Casualties - 5,490
Iraqi Civilians Killed, Estimated - The UN issued a report on Sept 20, 2006 stating that Iraqi civilian casualties were significantly under-reported for at least July and August, 2006, and possibly longer. Casualties are estimated at 50,000 to over 100,000 but may be much higher.
Iraqi Insurgents Killed, Roughly Estimated - 55,000
Non-Iraqi Contractors and Civilian Workers Killed - 427
Non-Iraqi Kidnapped - 288, including 53 killed, 147 released, 3 escaped, 6 rescued and 79 status unknown.
Daily insurgent attacks, Feb 2004 - 14
Daily insurgent attacks, July 2005 - 70
Daily insurgent attacks, Sept 2006 - 95
Trained Iraqi Troops Needed by July 2006 272,566
Trained Iraqi Troops, Per US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad in August 2005 - "Not very large."
Trained Iraqi Troops Able to Fight Without Major US Support, as of March 2006 - Zero
QUALITY OF LIFE INDICATORS
Iraqi Unemployment Rate - 27 to 60%, where curfew not in effect
Consumer Price Inflation in 2005 - 20%
Iraqi Children Suffering from Chronic Malnutrition - 25% in May 2006
Percent of professionals who have left Iraq since 2003 - 40%
Iraqi Physicians Before 2003 Invasion - 34,000
Iraqi Physicians Who Have Left Iraq Since 2005 Invasion - 12,000
Iraqi Physicians Murdered Since 2003 Invasion - 2,000
Average Daily Hours Iraqi Homes Have Electricity - 10.9
Average Daily Hours Baghdad Homes Have Electricity - 5.8
Number of Iraqi Homes Connected to Sewer Systems - 37%
Percentage of Iraqi Homes with Access to Piped Water - 78%
Water Treatment Plants Rehabilitated - 22%
Hepatitis Outbreaks - 2002, 100; 2003, 170; 2004, 200.
Children Enrolled in Primary School - 2000, 3.6 million; 2004, 4.3 million
Telephone Subscribers - pre-war, 833,000; April 2006, 7.4 million
How well has this administration's policies been received by the flower strewing grateful new democrats of this shattered country? Again, Deborah White is a source for the answer:
Iraqis "strongly opposed to presence of coalition troops - 82%
Iraqis who believe Coalition forces are responsible for any improvement in security - less than 1%
Iraqis who feel less secure because of the occupation - 67%
Iraqis who do not have confidence in multi-national forces - 72%
I do not reproduce these figures, that are familiar to you all, to simply point out the disaster of Iraq alone, and how it is draining US military capability. It is the impact of Iraq on every aspect of US foreign relations that is the major concern.
It is hard to imagine that anything could be as bad as the deaths of so many US and allied troops and Iraqi men, women and children as a result of the failure of Bush to adequately implement policies that were wrong in conception and wrong in execution. Yet in the long term, it is the weakness that this has exposed, in the ability of the United States to exert its supposed position as the world's pre-eminent power, that could prove more costly than even the current tragedies of failed vision and destroyed strategic objectives.
With what is the United States going to respond to North Korea over the next forty-eight hours? With UN sanctions that will require the support, not just in words but also in deed, of China whose interdependence with that country prohibits any really effective implementation of such action?
With military action? With what resources would this be undertaken, given that these are inadequately supplied for just Iraq alone? With air strikes - if one ignores the hundreds of thousands of South Korean deaths likely as a response to any such action?
One clear lesson learnt now is that air strikes without ground troop involvement have been shown to be totally inadequate. Yet, if Iraq alone is not an adequate lesson, then even the finely trained Israeli army has shown in the last few weeks that the new wars are beyond whatever Cheney and Rumsfeld believed that they have created to fulfil their goal to "transform U.S. forces to exploit the revolution in military affairs".
Read this description from "Le Monde diplomatique":
GENERAL Shlomi Cohen, who commands the famous Alexandroni Brigade, decided to visit his troops, back from the front, on 15 August. He was taken aback when they complained vociferously that they had not been properly informed about or equipped to deal with the enemy. Some soldiers refused to take part in the next war, saying they had families to think about.
The general accused them of lacking motivation. Tensions increased when, after threatening to throw a soldier into jail, he left amid shouts of shame on all sides. A week later, Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, the army chief of staff, heard home truths from the Brigade's officers, who told him: "We felt like they were laughing in our faces, and that stopped us winning the war."
Those scenes, reported by Israel's second-largest public radio station (1), say much about the confusion, sense of helplessness and anger in Israel since the ceasefire was declared last month. In this war the Israeli army, Tsahal, one of the most powerful fighting forces in the world, failed to defeat Hizbullah, a guerrilla army of a few thousand fighters. There have been many revelations detailing the lack of preparedness and the mistakes that cost Israel 160 dead, some 1,500 wounded and a billion dollars' worth of destruction. Israel has also failed in its ambition to play a part in creating the "new Middle East" that is desired by the Bush administration, although that administration had encouraged Israel to "break the bones" (2) of Hizbullah.
"We felt like they were laughing in our faces, and that stopped us winning the war."
How far has this laughter, in Lebanon and I suspect increasingly in Iraq, resonated amongst those who are the enemies of the free world? How far has this emboldened North Korea to celebrate the anniversary of Kim Jong II's appointment as head of the Communist party in 1997 by displaying the nuclear capability of which many of us have spent our lives in fear.
After six years, has this administration met the requirement of the generals that were so critical the Neocon's New World Order? A requirement that demanded:
"This is the choice we face. It is not a choice between pre-eminence today and pre-eminence tomorrow. Global leadership is not something exercised at our leisure, when the mood strikes us or when our core national security interests are directly threatened; then it is already too late. Rather, it is a choice whether or not to maintain American military pre-eminence, to secure American geopolitical leadership, and to preserve the American peace."
Whatever the Bush administration set out to achieve, the Democrats must make clear that it has failed - failed alarmingly and, for the prospects of world peace, perhaps tragically. Bush may ask the American people to gather round the Flag in the next few days, but there is nothing else much to gather around.
If neither sanctions nor threats stopped North Korea, what will the effect be on Iran and will they be emboldened? If the events in Asia cause Bush to accelerate his demands for sanctions on Iran, then he needs to hear its potential effect on that other area of Republican ineptitude: Afghanistan. As the Institute for War & Peace Reporting says:
As the threat of United Nations sanctions continues to hang over Iran, Afghanistan looks on nervously, concerned that its close economic ties with its western neighbour could suffer serious damage.
Some analysts are warning that the Iranians might decide to support Afghan insurgent groups as a way of getting back at the United States, which has taken the lead in pushing for action on the Iranian nuclear programme....
....The government of President Hamed Karzai has close ties with the Americans, so would find it difficult to flout any formal embargo on trade with Iran.
But Afghan officials and commentators are keenly aware that sanctions would have a major impact on their own economy, reducing much-needed imports and forcing Iranian investors to pull in their horns.
Although it is not clear what UN sanctions would include, they might reduce its capacity to export goods freely - bad news for the Afghans, who import fuel, construction materials, food and other items worth 500 million US dollars a year, according to Hamidullah Farooqi, chief executive officer of the Afghanistan International Chamber of Commerce.
The implications of harming the fragile economy of Afghanistan is coincidentally spelt out clearly in an unrelated report published today by AP News:
Gen. David Richards, a British officer who commands NATO's 32,000 troops here, told The Associated Press that he would like to have about 2,500 additional troops to form a reserve battalion to help speed up reconstruction and development efforts.
He said the south of the country, where NATO troops have fought their most intense battles this year, has been "broadly stabilized," which gives the alliance an opportunity to launch projects there. If it doesn't, he estimates about 70 percent of Afghans could switch their allegiance from NATO to the Taliban.
"They will say, 'We do not want the Taliban but then we would rather have that austere and unpleasant life that that might involve than another five years of fighting,'" Richards said in an interview.
The awful truth is that nothing has been learnt by Bush from the disaster that is represented by Iraq. With Iran, the whole mess is being repeated, as Der Spiegel Online points out:
The worst case scenario making the rounds at the IAEA these days is that the UN Security Council does what the United States is pushing for and slaps sanctions on Iran. That then causes Tehran to retaliate by carrying out its threat to bar ElBaradei's inspectors from the country. Or, Iran could follow the example of North Korea and even ditch the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entirely.
Then the IAEA would essentially be blind. And each week without inspections would increase the uncertainty about what was truly going on in Iran's nuclear facilities. Theory, analysis and a flood of so-called experts would suddenly hold sway instead of actual facts.
Inside the IAEA this is known as the "Iraq Scenario." Saddam Hussein tossed inspectors out of the country in 1998, which ended up making it easier for the Bush administration's hawks to use exaggeration and outright lies to try to convince world opinion of the need to invade Iraq.
Hawkish report angers IAEA
There are already the first attempts to shape the debate surrounding the dispute with Iran. In recent weeks, an IAEA letter has surfaced that harshly criticized a report by a US Congressional intelligence committee. The 29-page document supposedly grossly exaggerated the state of Iran's nuclear research and claimed ElBaradei had caved to Iranian pressure to remove a particularly critical IAEA expert from the list of inspectors. The report even went so far as to infer that Nobel Peace Prize winner ElBaradei was more interested in having good ties with Tehran than finding out the truth.
The IAEA called the report "upsetting and misleading" and Heinonen and his experts found at least five fundamental mistakes in it. The worst was the claim that Iran had enriched uranium to 90 percent -- that is, weapons grade. But the IAEA had only found uranium enriched to 3.5 percent in Natanz.
Such hyperbole can't be explained as simple sloppiness. One of the authors of the report is the former CIA official Frederick Fleitz, a hawk who's previously worked for John Bolton, US ambassador to the United Nations. "It's just like before the Iraq war," says David Albright, a respected US nuclear expert. "They blow up the threat with windy information and attack the IAEA."
After the abortive tour of the Middle East, Condi Rice was to attend a much heralded meeting in London of the six leading powers to determine an international joint policy towards Iran. Except that, as if to emphasise the incompetent, ludicrous efforts of this administration, Condi arrived too late, bogged down by technical problems with her aircraft. High officials of the world's governments kicked their heels whilst another flight was arranged for the US representative. Russia, who probably didn't want to be there in any case, went home. There were none of the normal post conference photo calls nor the reading of any profound agreement reached at the conclusion of the meeting. It was left to the hapless British Foreign Secretary, Margaret Becket, to alone give out an embarrassed non-statement to a bored press.
This is, indeed, laughable but today's news from North Korea means it is the most bitter of laughter that does not hide the tragedy of this administration.
With no options but bluster and the emptiest of empty words available to him, Bush will attempt to portray what has happened as part of what he warned the American people would happen.
He had six years to prevent it. It is a consequence of six years of failure, of incompetence and of a shameful waste of American influence and leadership.
I began by saying that I would make no apologies for the length of this dairy. I remain unapologetic. I want the Democratic Party to be clear and powerful in its voice today: the weakness and incapability of George Bush is as big a danger to our world as the aggression represented by the evil of the nuclear warhead ambitions of North Korea.
(Cross posted from ePluribus Media)