Monday, November 29, 2004

Hawk Engagement: A Dangerous Turn in U.S. Plans for North Korea

By Gregory Elich

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Posted 11/29 | Add a Comment

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  1. RE: “South Korean officials revealed that in early 2003, President Bush made the decision to attack North Korea by late spring.”

    Uh… revealed to the author and no one else? Would he kindly back that up. Somehow?

    Posted by Peter Schroepfer from Seoul  on  11/29  at  08:20 AM

  2. The source for this information is: “Bush Admits He Considered a Military Strike Against North Korea,” Korean Broadcasting Service (Seoul), March 18, 2004.

    South Korean officials discovered Bush’s plan to attack only when President Roh Moo-hyun and his entourage met with President Bush in Washington in 2003.

    - Gregory Elich

    Posted by gelich from  on  11/29  at  09:13 AM

  3. 20 years in Korea and I have never heard of the “Korean Broadcasting SErvice” though many entities have similar names.

    If you mean the Korean Broadcasting System, then you can’t say that “South Korean officials” said as much, unless they are quoted in the story as saying so, because KBS is just a broadcasting network.

    The reason I mention this is because it would be a VERY serious event for domestic SK politics and highly unlikely for government officials to openly say the Bush Administration had such plans, even if it did, unless well after the fact. Granted it’s possible _one_ “official” leaked a hint about that possibility to KBS.

    Posted by Peter Schroepfer from Seoul  on  11/29  at  11:03 AM

  4. Yes, I meant to type ‘Korean Broadcasting System.’ And yes, South Korean officials, did say precisely that and yes, KBS quoted them as saying exactly that.  The officials who leaked that information to KBS, did so on the condition that their names not be given.  And yes, this was well after the fact.  The report appeared about one year (March 18, 2004) afterwards.
    In regard to KBS being “just a broadcasting network,” that doesn’t automatically discount their news reports.  Just as one can’t dismiss a report from the New York Times, because it is “just a newspaper.”
    - Gregory Elich

    Posted by gelich from  on  11/29  at  12:35 PM

  5. I should add that the KBS report quotes South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Pan Ki-Mun, who says that Bush admitted to him that he had such a plan when they met in early March 2004.
    -Gregory Elich

    Posted by gelich from  on  11/29  at  02:19 PM

  6. Gregory Elich: “South Korean officials revealed that in early 2003, President Bush made the decision to attack North Korea by late spring.”

    Gerry Bevers: The KBS did NOT say that “President Bush made the decision to attack North Korea by late spring.” The report simply said that Bush “considered military options,” which is a far cry from “made the decision to attack.”

    In regard to North Korea, a military option is always considered, so there is no news in that. In fact, I think the Bush administration has said more than once that they will not eliminate any option.

    Mr. Elich either misread the KBS report or got some very, very bad information.

    Here is the link to the March 18 KBS report.

    Posted by Gerry Bevers from Incheon, Korea  on  11/30  at  10:10 AM

  7. The language in KBS’ report is diplomatically subdued, but it certainly does refer to specific action, and not to a mere statement by Bush that all options on the table, which indeed would not be news.
    For example, after mentioning all the military hardware that was moved into the region “to intimidate North Korea,” KBS says: “Speaking on this in a meeting with Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Pan Ki-mun on 2 March, President Bush admitted that he had considered a military option against North Korea last spring.  This is the first time a US President has publicly admitted military measures against North Korea since 1993...This tense situation was alleviated over the ROK-US summit meeting.”
    If what was being referred to was the mere policy of all options theoretically being on the table, there wouldn’t be any “tense situation” to be alleviated by South Korean officials at the summit.
    -Gregory Elich

    Posted by gelich from  on  11/30  at  11:09 AM

  8. Mr. Elich,

    President Bush simply acknowledged to the Korean foreign minister that he had considered military options. From that acknowledgement, KBS, not the Korean foreign minister, described the situation as “tense.” To me, that does not sound like KBS is being “diplomatically subdued”; it sounds like KBS is trying to sensationalize something that is not sensational.

    As for the “tense situation being alleviated” after the summit meeting, that is also another subjective judgment by KBS. The report did not quote any Korean official as saying that, nor did Bush say the military option was off the table.

    Even though KBS seems to have been trying to sensationalize the issue, the Korean broadcaster, at least, did not make the giant leap in logic that you did when you changed “acknowledged considering military options” to “made the decision to attack North Korea by late spring.”

    Posted by Gerry Bevers from Incheon, Korea  on  11/30  at  01:03 PM

  9. TO:Gary Beevers, your quibbling over whether Bush plans to/planned to “attack” or utilize “military options” against North Korea reveals the right wing pundit’s attribute of what Hannah Arendt so astutely labeled “the banality of evil”. However, the obfuscation of language that Orwell warned of by turning war into peace, human casualties into “collateral damage” and militaristic and sadistic aggression into a thoughtful and diplomatic “military option” are what leads to the normalization of killing as championed by the latest chickenhawks in Washington, namely, the neo-con killers. To dismiss the substantive data presented by Ellich on such a quibbling point as being “sensationalistic” is deeply disingenuous in itself. The “military option” could lead to the mass murder of innocent civilians, including babies and cute little children who giggle when their parents tickle their ribs, who would have their entrails scattered across the floor, their brains splayed onto the walls of their bedrooms, their limbs ripped asunder and tiny toes and fingers crushed by the thoughtful and diplomatically minded “military option” and other “smart bombs.” Such sophistry does indeed lend itself to the banality of evil of the American military empire and the normalization of its daily eco/geno/omni-cide.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  12/01  at  07:17 AM

  10. Sorry, Mr. Rhino Rick, but it is Mr. Elrich who seems to be engaging in sophistry. In fact, he created an entire attack scenario out of a misreading, innocent or not, of a short KBS News report. If Mr. Elrich can invent such an elaborate attack scenario out of the misreading of a short news report, it makes me wonder how much of the rest of Mr. Elrich’s article is based on rumor, hearsay, misinterpretation, and leaps in logic.

    In the KBS report, no Korean official said, “President Bush made the decision to attack North Korea.” No Korean official said that Stealth bombers were sent to South Korean “in preparation for the attack.” And no Korean official said, “South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun scuttled the plan.” All of that was said by Mr Elrich, not by any Korean official. I do not think it is quibbling to point that out.

    Here is what Mr. Elrich wrote:

    <objections by South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun scuttled the plan, which only strengthened the Bush Administration’s conviction that it would be necessary to demonstrate the failure of negotiations before it could win the acquiescence of regional allies. It could best accomplish this by presenting the image of negotiating without actually doing so. </blockquote>

    Posted by Gerry Bevers from Incheon, Korea  on  12/01  at  08:52 AM

  11. Do the Korea Hawks here agree with Bill Kristol’s characterization of South Korea (quoting Gary Leupp) as run by “Appeasement minded” “New Leftists” “Taliban?” It seems that the target of many Americans is the whole peninsula, and to work against South Korea’s attempts to keep it in the family. 

    In the early 60s, the Social Democrats of West Germany and Communists of East Germany started talking. Kruschev considered letting thnigs be.  Not the Americans… “Camelot” Kennedy “ich bein ein berliner” speedfreak worse than Dubya, fucked that up, and a wall was built in Berlin.  Are you Americans trying to say you know better than South Koreans?  Even if you do, can South Koreans attempt to prevent the Crips of Inglewood from talking to the Bloods of South Central?

    Kudos to Greg for his brave piece of reportage

    Posted by j cummings from  on  12/01  at  09:47 AM

  12. I wonder why so many people are so quick to assume that Bush wants to obliderate various nations…

    Could it be that Iraq’s willfully ignoring 12 years of non-compliance with the surrender agreement --BY ITSELF-- was legal justification to remove Saddam? Similarly, we needed to stop the phony war euphemistically labelled “no-fly zones”. (Clinton’s efforts proved how useless “cruise missile diplomacy” could be).

    And could it be that the hyperbolists don’t see the subtilty of the Bush approach to North Korea?  Rather than negotiating with the DPRK folks directly and letting KJI’s government lie to us again (and letting us justly receive the blame for their misdeeds), he has made it a regional issue and gotten all of the neighbors involved.

    There is no need for the US to be the <bold>one</bold> directing the negotiations and making all of the concessions when there are four other nations who also want a nuke-free Korean Penninsula.

    When the peaceful end of the Korean War finally arrives (well-informed readers will remember there is still no peace treaty from the conflict that started 6/25/1950), the US troops can finally come home leaving the locals to their own brands of capitalism or not…

    Posted by jtb-in-texas from Texas, of course...  on  12/07  at  07:09 PM

  13. Yeah anyway, RE: “In regard to KBS being “just a broadcasting network,” that doesn’t automatically discount their news reports.  Just as one can’t dismiss a report from the New York Times, because it is “just a newspaper.””

    “Just a broadcasting network” as in “not an official government news outlet.” As a broadcasting network, it’s legit.

    BTW, your comments section is starting to look like OhmyNews.com

    Posted by Peter Schroepfer from Jongnogu  on  12/07  at  08:05 PM
    14. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. {/if}

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