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<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/15/north-korea-issue-is-not-de-nuclearization-but-de-colonization/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/06/15/north-korea-issue-is-not-de-nuclearization-but-de-colonization/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">North Korea Issue is Not
De-nuclearization But De-Colonization</h1>
<span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/cuxere/"
rel="nofollow">Ajamu Baraka</a> - June 15, 2018</span></div>
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<p>The critics had already signaled their strategy for
derailing any meaningful move toward normalizing
relations between the United States and North Korea.
Right-wing neoliberals from CNN, MSNBC and NPR are in
perfect alignment with the talking points issued by U.S.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and the Democrat Party that
took the position that anything short of the North
Koreans surrendering their national interests and
national dignity to the United States was a win for
North Korea.</p>
<p>For much of the foreign policy community, corporate
media pundits and leaders of the two imperialist
parties, the issue is North Korean de-nuclearization.
But for the people in Korea and throughout the global
South, the real issue has always been the unfinished
business of ending the war and beginning the
de-colonization of the Korean peninsula.</p>
<p>The interrelated issues of respecting the dignity and
sovereignty of the North Korean nation and engaging in
an authentic process of de-colonization are precisely
why the U.S.-North Korean initiative will fail without a
major intervention on the part of the people in the
United States demanding that their leaders commit to
diplomacy and peace.</p>
<p>There should be no illusions about U.S. intentions. If
U.S. policymakers were really concerned with putting a
brake on the North Korean nuclear-weapons program, they
would have pursued a different set of policies. Such
policies would have created the necessary security
conditions to convince the North Koreans that a nuclear
deterrence to the United States was unnecessary.</p>
<p>The fact that those conditions were not created were
less a result of the evil intentions of the North
Koreans. than it reflected the need to maintain the
justification for continued U.S. military deployment in
South Korea and in the region. Being able to point to
North Korea as a threat to regional security has
provided the justifications for U.S. power projection in
the region and the ever-expanding U.S. military budget.</p>
<p>With the growing power of China over the last few
decades, the threat of North Korea allowed the United
States to continue a physical presence right at the
underbelly of China. That is why the “agreed framework”
under Clinton was not implemented and then jettisoned by
the Bush administration. It is also why the Obama
administration’s so-called strategic patience was really
about a series of increasingly provocative military
exercises and no negotiations.</p>
<p><strong>Full Spectrum Dominance and the Psychopathology
of White Supremacy</strong></p>
<p>Korea has historically played a significant role for
the U.S. imperial project since the end of the second
World ar.The emergent forces U.S. President Dwight
Eisenhower identified as the military/industrial/complex
are still present, but are now exercising hegemonic
power, along with the financial sector within the U.S.
state. Those forces are not interested in a diplomatic
resolution of the Korean colonial question because their
interests are more focused on China and maintaining U.S.
regional hegemony in East Asia. The tensions in Korea
have not only provided them the rationale for increased
expenditures for various missile defense systems but
also for bolstering public support for the obscene
military budgets that are largely transferred straight
to their pockets.</p>
<p>That is why the historic record is replete with the
United States sabotaging negotiated settlements with the
North, but then pointing to North Korean responses to
those efforts as evidence of North Korean duplicity.</p>
<p>In addition to the material interests and hegemonic
geopolitical objectives, the social-psychological
phenomenon of inculcated white supremacy is also a
factor and has buttressed imperial policies toward that
nation for years.</p>
<p>For example, the psychopathology of white supremacy
invisibilizes the absurdity and illegitimacy of the
United States being in a position to negotiate the fate
of millions of Koreans. The great “white father” and
savior complex is not even a point of contestation
because it is not even perceived–the rule of whiteness
through the dominance of the Western capitalist elite
has been naturalized.</p>
<p>Therefore, it is quite understandable that for many,
the summit is the space where the North Koreans are
essentially supposed to surrender to the United States.
It is beyond the comprehension of most policymakers and
large sectors of the public that North Koreans would
have ever concluded it is not in their national interest
to give up their defenses to a reckless and dangerously
violent rogue state that sees itself beyond the law.</p>
<p>And it is that strange white-supremacist consciousness
that buys into the racist trope that it was Trump’s
pressure that brought North Korea to the table. The
white-supremacist colonial mentality believes the
natives will only respond to force and violence.</p>
<p>As U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the good old boy
from South Carolina, <a
href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/11/politics/rand-paul-lindsey-graham-cnntv/index.html">argues</a>
“The only way North Korea will give up their nuclear
program is if they believe military option is real.”</p>
<p><a
href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/north-korea-blames-us-south-korea-military-drill/story?id=55200524">But
as Kim Kye Gwan</a>, North Korea’s first vice minister
for foreign affairs and former nuclear-program
negotiator pointed out in relationship to the reasons
why North Korea stayed with the process:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The U.S. is miscalculating the magnanimity and
broad-minded initiatives of the DPRK as signs of
weakness and trying to embellish and advertise as if
these are the product of its sanctions and pressure.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unfortunately, the white-supremacist world-view renders
it almost impossible to apprehend reality in any other
way. That is why it is inevitable that the Trump
administration—like the Clinton, Bush, and Obama
administrations—will mis-read the North Koreans.</p>
<p>The North Korea issue is a classic example of why it is
impossible to separate a pro-peace, anti-war position
from the issue of anti-imperialism. The concrete,
geopolitical objectives of U.S. imperialist interests in
the region drives the logic of regional dominance, which
means peace, de-colonization and national reconciliation
for Korea are counter to U.S. interests. And while we
must support the U.S. state’s decision to halt military
exercises, we must recognize that without vigorous
pressure from the people to support an honest process,
the possibility of conflict might be ever more alive now
as a result of the purported attempt at diplomacy.</p>
<p>The nature of the North Korean state is not the issue.
What is the issue is a process has begun between the two
Korean nations that should be respected. Therefore,
de-nuclearization should not be the
focus—self-determination of the Korean peoples must be
the center of our discussions. On that issue, it is time
for activists in the United States to demand the United
States get out of Korea. The peace and anti-war movement
must support a process that will lead to the closure of
U.S. military bases, the withdrawal of U.S. troops and
the elimination of the nuclear threat.</p>
<p>In short, U.S. based activists must support an end to
the Korean war and the start of the de-colonization of
South Korea.</p>
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<p> <em><strong>Ajamu Baraka</strong> is the national
organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the
2016 candidate for vice president on the Green Party
ticket. He is an editor and contributing columnist for
the Black Agenda Report and contributing columnist for
Counterpunch magazine. </em> </p>
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