According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Australia and South East Asia are apparently under threat from North Korea. According to Bob Carr, the foreign minister for the Australian Labor Party-led government, the American assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, Dr Kurt Campbell has made this assertion. Julia Gillard is cordially invited to attend a heads of state meeting in South Korea to discuss peace.
This is a nonsense. This is political posturing as a precursor for war. This posturing is intended to assist the "anti-war" Labour government to 'sell war' with North Korea, and I suggest the same posturing will be made to convince people that action needs to be taken against Iran as well.
Don't get me wrong; I actually think there is huge justification for engaging with these states. The issue however is not whether it is justified; but whether our political leaders are 'playing with a straight bat'; or 'playing with a bad ball' to use a cricket analogy.
These two regimes have been allowed to assemble a defence system. There is actually good reason to think that these systems are not fully functioning. I fully expect North Korean missiles to fall out of the sky; but I also expect these regimes to be rolled very quickly if the Western military were to engage. Why? Well, its simply. North Korea is starting; and the political leadership in Iran is also very unpopular. There is good reason for thinking that support for these regimes will quickly fold if a concerted effort was brought to the issue. The approach to these two countries is different:
1. Seize control of Iranian oil interests after killing its aviation sector and destroying its nuclear armaments, and land to land and land-to-sea capacity. Place Iranian funds in a trust fund and use them to fight for democracy in the nation.
2. Knock out North Korean nuclear capacity. Whilst you might expect the North Korean military to display a formidable 'front' at first, expect them to collapse like a pack of cards, and to seek asylum in South Korea if they can.
The world ought to be accustomed to Western governments posturing to secure the support of the people. The issue is the Western political system which demands this type of 'manipulation'. The sad reality is that Western governments are manipulating our minds much as the North Koreans are using manipulation to secure the acquiescence of their people. There are important differences:
1. The North Korean government uses fear, intimidation; but mostly it uses propaganda and social pressure to ensure compliance.
2. The Western governments manipulate the press with certain media releases or precipitate certain action to bring about the result they want.
This case is interesting because we might expect that the North Korean leader might be open to negotiation and concessions because he is new to the job. His leadership is less 'entrenched' and I suspect he has less of a legacy of human rights abuses like his deceased father. This might be the bargaining chip of the West. The question is - how Westernised or enamoured is the new Korean leader with the West, and how strong is his relationship with the Chinese. If North Korea agrees to open its gates; after Myanmar has done, there is probably good reason to expect the same from Iran, the only other state to really present an 'imminent threat'.
The problem of course aside from these rogue states however is the manipulation of Western constituents. For while the focus of Western governments is on the injustices perpetrated by the rogue states; they remain remarkably indifferent to their own lack of moral integrity; and the inherent problems with Western democracies. They will happily tinker with these systems on the margin to give voters the hope of change; but really, this is just another façade. The West is fully prepared to manipulate voters to achieve their goals....which is to entrench their '2-party oligopolic position.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com
