What most journalists and sundry pundits have in common is a lack of examination of the facts of the case – if you write what is essentially ideological polemic, facts can get in the way. On top of that, or perhaps part of it, is a failure to understand and attempt to analyse the context in which the event is embedded. This context has two aspects, the contemporary geopolitical environment, and the historical framework. Once you take an event out of its context it often becomes impossible to comprehend it correctly. Worse still, events and the actors that perform them can have their meaning and significance distorted, often to the point of inversion. Prey become predators, victims become villains, and war becomes peace.
Tag: special-r
China should also send a clear message to the US and Japan not to encourage South Korea to take any aggressive actions against the North. China should make it crystal clear that anyone who uses the Yeonpyeong incident as an excuse for further provocative actions is playing with fire.
The geopolitical context is tortuous, and often hidden from view by politicians and press, but it is the key to understand what is going on. The situation in Northeast Asia is becoming increasingly tense and dangerous. If real fighting breaks out, rather than the skirmishes of the past, then we might well end up with another war between the United States and China, with incalculable, but surely disastrous, consequences.
The issue of the need for a peace treaty to end the Korean War is a critical issue. It is the obligation of both Ban Ki-moon, as Secretary General of the UN, and of the Security Council, to find a way to support the drafting of such a treaty. It is high time the Security Council takes on to meet its actual obligations.
Manipulation of public perceptions has since advanced along the learning curve from MacArthur to the Pentagon’s “MacWar” bureaucracy. On Yeonpyeong Island, for instance, South Korean gunners positioned their self-propelled howitzers not in an open field but behind a ridge, causing the North Koreans to hit the village on the facing slope. The Western press could then lead the world to believe that Pyongyang had targeted innocent civilians. The media chorus accusing Pyongyang of “provocation” ignores the fact that the South Korean side had initiated the gunfire.
The crisis in the Korean Peninsular are badly affecting markets – not only in Asia, but in other parts of the world. According to China Daily, Seoul’s Kospi index shed 0.15 percent, or 2.96 points,…
Remember, this was the same type of framing which Saddam Hussein and his regime in Iraq were given by Western media reports, and few weeks later, Iraq was invaded by the Bush (Jr.) administration. When Washington succeeded in the destitution of Iraq, and the later hanging of Saddam Hussein – mission having been accomplished – new information began emerging that no weapons of mass destruction were in Iraq. The most shameful part of the 2003 drama was that it had been known well ahead of time (before Iraq was invaded by the U.S.) that there were no weapons of mass destruction; but the corporate western media decided to dance to the tunes of American politicians and their key ally – Britain, and censored the information from a desperate public which heavily relied on any thing that came from Western media.
[Editorial] Before the brink of a real war situation (if a war broke, it’ll be definitely a nuclear war, period!) not only in Korean peninsula but also in Northeast Asia region as a whole,…
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) said in a statement Wednesday that DPRK military measures taken in the exchange of artillery fire with South Korea on November…
The Korean situation differs somewhat because Pyongyang is superimposing a new strategic layer atop the existing Pacific triangle of China, Russia and the United States. In reaction to the centrifuge report, Seoul jumped the gun by calling for the reintroduction of tactical nuclear weapons on its territory after a lapse of 19 years. After the recent artillery exchange, Seoul retracted its threat.
As the mirage of a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula dissipates, the prospect of an East Asian nuclear triangle beckons Japan. Though Asians will voice strong objections, Tokyo may soon have to walk out from under the American nuclear umbrella and into the hard rain, just as Tel Aviv and Tehran have done. The superpower era is over, and so a multipolar world for its own security must create a new architecture of nuclear terror.