Condemn North Korea's nukes & question Western responses

There are good reasons to be scared...

Given the serious situation developing around North Korea's nuclear test, TFF offers you 5 articles by two world experts on nuclear weapons and policies.

Gunnar Westberg, May 29, 2009
Questions about North Korea's nuclear weapons and the international...

David Krieger, May 29, 2009
North Korea's nuclear test message

Gunnar Westberg
North Korea - The United States and Russia are greater global threats

Gunnar Westberg, Aftonbladet
Nordkoreas tragiska misstag

Gunnar Westberg
Vad bråkar Nordkorea om?


Seeing and reading Western responses to North Korea's nuclear test, one is reminded of Oscar Wilde's statement that "hypocrisy is the compliment vice pays to virtue".

Politicians and diplomats make their convenient condemnations and globally leading mainstream media blow up the coverage and serve as megaphones seemingly without judging proportions, without questioning the other nuclear mega powers, without knowing how to assess threats, without even asking what could be North Korea's motives or the world as seen from Pyongyang, and without checking the simplest of facts.

A few simple facts any politican and journalist could find on the Internet given a will to try and 5 minutes available:

- that North Korea's estimated entire Gross Domestic Product, GDP, is about 5% of the military expenditures of the United States;

- that political public relations uses North Korea's military expenditures as percentage of its small GDP to make it look like one of the strongest powers in the world and thereby cover up another fact that:

- that South Korea's military expenditures is about US$ 20 billion, North Korea's less around US$ 500 million (estimated), i.e. South Korea is 40 times stronger (and technologically at a much higher level);

- South Korea will increase its military spending by approximately 10 percent a year between 2008 and 2020;

[Figures from the Korea Economic Institute of America]

- Japan spends US$ 45 billion on its military (90 x North Korea) and is the 5th military power in the world in permanent violation its own peace constitution;

- that the US is permanently present all over the region on see and land and in the air and in space.

Citizens around the world shall be scared that North Korea is "now threatening the world". Swedish Television expressed it this way: "North Korea is now just waiting for a feeble reason to start an attack" revealing a completely lack of even basic knowledge.

In much of today's politics, make-believe, "fearology" and virtual reality is much more important than knowledge, facts and pluralist, balanced public information and service.

If media's coverage of food or sports were as ignorant as foreign/global coverage, people would die from using their recipes, and sports journalists would be fired by public demand. Could humanity similarly one day die as a consequence of the sorry state of affairs in international affairs reporting?

Here are some very useful links concerning the facts and proportion relevant to understanding nuclear weapons and the Korea issue:

The National Campaign to End the Korean War

http://www.nautilus.org/DPRKBriefingBook/index.html"">The Nautil...

Stratfor

The Korea Economic Institute of America
Ploughshares into Swords: Economic Implications of South Korean Mil...

North Korea on Wikipedia

Global Issue on military expenditures - using SIPRI

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Tad Daly
Maybe we should take the North Koreans at their word?

In conclusion, I am considerably more scared about the existing nuclear powers and the Military-Industrial-Media-Academic Complex (MIMAC)'s deception, denial and dis-information than I am about North Korea's probably self-defeating attempt to look like a superpower on the global stage when, in fact, it's a dwarf.


Jan Oberg