Urgent Warning: Time to Hit the
Reset Button on US-Korean Policy
By Medea Benjamin
July 29, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- Touching
down in Washington DC Friday night
after a peace delegation to South
Korea organized by the Task Force to
Stop THAAD in Korea (STIK),
I saw the devastating news. No, it
was not that Reince Priebus had been
booted from the dysfunctional White
House. It was that North Korea had
conducted another intercontinental
ballistic missile test, and that the
United States and South Korea had
responded by further ratcheting up
this volatile conflict.
The
response was not just the usual
tit-for-tat, which did happen. Just
hours after the North Korean test,
the US and South Korean militaries
launched
their own ballistic missiles as a
show of force. Even more incendiary,
however, is that South Korean
President Moon Jae-in also responded
by
reversing his decision
to halt deployment of the US weapon
system known as THAAD (Terminal High
Altitude Area Defense). President
Moon gave his military the green
light to add four more launchers to
complete the system.
South Korea’s new, liberal president
came into office on May 10 on the
wave of a remarkable “people power”
uprising that had led to the
impeachment and jailing of the
corrupt President Park Geun-hye.
Part of the legacy that Moon
inherited was an agreement with the
US to provide land and support for
THAAD, a missile defense system
designed to target and intercept
short and medium-range missiles
fired by North Korea.
THAAD is controversial on many
fronts: military experts say it
doesn’t work; environmentalists say
it emits dangerous radiation;
national assembly members say it was
never submitted for a vote; China
says the radar is aimed at them and
has responded with economic
sanctions; and the local residents
of Seongju, where the system is
placed, are furious that their
tranquil lives have been pierced by
a billion dollar Lockheed-Martin
weapon system they were never
consulted about.
Our delegation—composed of former
Green Party presidential candidate
Jill Stein, Reece Chenault of US
Labor Against the War, Will Griffin
of Veterans for Peace and myself—had
the opportunity to visit Seongju, a
farming town 135 miles southeast of
the capital, and the neighboring
town of Gimcheon. The feisty
residents, including women farmers
in their eighties, have been
protesting every single day for the
past year. We attended a rally with
thousands, which concluded with a
symbolic smashing of a cardboard
version of THAAD, and a candlelight
vigil that takes place in both towns
every night, rain or shine. The
villagers have blockaded the roads
to prevent entry of the launchers,
fought with police, publicly shaved
their heads in opposition, and set
up a 24/7 protest camp. They are
joined by the local Won Buddhists,
who consider the THAAD site their
sacred ground.
It was the resilience of Seongju and
neighboring Gimcheon residents that
pushed the Moon administration to
pause the deployment process until a
thorough environmental impact
assessment had been completed, which
would have taken about a year. This
gave the villagers hope that they
would have time to convince
President Moon to rethink and
reverse the THAAD agreement
altogether. The president’s recent
decision will only spark more local
outrage.
The North Korean nuclear program is
certainly alarming, as are the
myriad human rights violations of
that repressive regime. But the
question is how best to de-escalate
the conflict so that it doesn’t
explode into an all-out nuclear war.
Adding another weapon system into
the mix is not the answer.
The
North Korean regime feels encircled.
It knows that the most powerful
nation in the world, the United
States, wants to overthrow it.
There’s Trump’s
belligerent rhetoric:
“If China is not going to solve
North Korea, we will." There’s the
ever-tightening screws of sanctions.
Just a few hours before the latest
North Korean missile test, Congress
approved yet another round of
sanctions to squeeze the North.
There
are 83 US military bases on South
Korean soil and US warships often
patrolling the coast. US-South
Korean military exercises have been
getting larger and more provocative,
including dropping mock nuclear
bombs on North Korea.The US military
also
announced
that it would permanently station an
armed drone called Gray Eagle on the
Korean Peninsula and it has been
practicing long-range strikes with
strategic bombers, sending them to
the region for exercises and
deploying them in Guam and on the
peninsula.
The United States has also long held
a “pre-emptive first strike” policy
towards North Korea. This
frightening threat of an unprovoked
US nuclear attack gives North Korea
good reason to want its own nuclear
arsenal.
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North Korea’s leadership also looks
at the fate of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein
and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, leaders
who gave up their nuclear programs,
and conclude that nuclear weapons
are their key to survival.
So the
North Korean leadership is not
acting irrationally; on the
contrary. On July 29, the day after
the test, North Korean President Kim
Jong-un
asserted
that the threat of sanctions or
military action “only strengthens
our resolve and further justifies
our possession of nuclear weapons.”
Given
the proximity of North Korea to the
South’s capital Seoul, a city of 25
million people, any outbreak of
hostilities would be devastating. It
is
estimated
that a North Korean attack with just
conventional weapons would kill
64,000 South Koreans in the first
three hours.
A war on the Korean Peninsula would
likely draw in other nuclear armed
states and major powers, including
China, Russia and Japan. This region
also has the largest militaries and
economies in the world, the world’s
busiest commercial ports, and half
the world’s population.
Trump
has few options. His Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis has
warned
that a pre-emptive strike on the
North’s nuclear and missile
capabilities could reignite the
Korean War. Trump had hoped that
Chinese President Xi Jinping could
successfully rein in Kim Jong-un,
but the Chinese are more concerned
about the collapse of North Korea’s
government and the chaos that would
ensue. They are also furious about
the deployment of THAAD in South
Korea, convinced that its radar can
penetrate deep into Chinese
territory.
But the
Chinese do have
another proposal:
a freeze for a freeze. This means a
freeze on North Korean missile and
nuclear tests in exchange for a halt
on US-South Korean war games.
The massive war games have been
taking place every year in March,
with smaller ones scheduled for
August. A halt would alleviate
tensions and pave the way for
negotiations. So would halting the
deployment of the destabilizing
THAAD system so disliked by South
Korean villagers, North Koreans and
the Chinese.
Given
the specter of nuclear war, the
rational alternative policy is one
of de-escalation and engagement.
President Moon has
called for dialogue
with the North and a peace treaty to
permanently end the Korean War.
North Korean diplomats
have raised the possibility of a
“freeze for a freeze.” Time has
proven that coercion doesn’t work.
There’s an urgent need to hit the
reset button on US-Korean policy,
before one of the players hits a
much more catastrophic button that
could lead us into a nuclear
nightmare.