The bomb changed everything

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2/1030089891?JServSessionIdr009=pjqd17tvk3.app1b&page=NewsArticle&id=7477&news_iv_ctrl=1261

One year after North Korea's nuclear bomb test

Tuesday, October 16, 2007
By: Ben Becker

<snip>With the war fever heating up, it seemed that the decades-long conflict with North Korea could escalate. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice immediately discussed the possibility of a full-scale naval blockade of North Korea, which Pyongyang declared would be considered an act of war. Was another Pentagon military adventure on the horizon?

One year later, however, North Korea is closer than ever to achieving its desired foreign policy objectives: a lifting of sanctions, normalized relations with the United States and its allies, and a peace treaty to officially conclude the Korean War.

On Oct. 2, for only the second time in history, a South Korean President—Roh Moo-hyun—visited Pyongyang. Relations seem to be improving so steadily that South Korean real estate speculators are thinking of building a golf course directly south of the Demilitarized Zone, which despite its name, is the most heavily armed border in the world. Just a few years ago, that land could not even be given away.

As for the United States, it recently agreed to unfreeze North Korean assets in international banks and began delivering some its promised energy and aid. To the disdain of conservatives, chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill has openly discussed the removal of North Korea from the U.S. list of terrorist states.

A U.S. firm—with explicit backing from Washington—has expressed interest in a joint development project in northern North Korea. Even the New York Philharmonic announced that it might play in Pyongyang as soon as February.

On a similar note, Taku Yamasaki, a senior Japanese lawmaker and former number two in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, predicted on Oct. 10 that diplomatic relations would be established with North Korea within the next year.

Japan, the long-standing imperialist power in the Pacific and former colonizer of Korea, has been irreconcilably hostile to North Korea since its 1945-50 socialist revolution. A year ago, Japan was among the most belligerent in its denunciation of North Korea’s nuclear test.

How did North Korea win such sweeping concessions in the course of a year? Why is the region closer now to a formal peace than ever before? Why are the imperialists—who have strangled the underdeveloped world with no restraint since the overthrow of the Soviet Union—now starting to loosen their grip? What changed the political calculus so dramatically?

The bomb changed everything. By exercising North Korea’s right to self-determination and self-defense and detonating a relatively small nuclear weapon—especially compared to the Pentagon’s arsenal of about 10,000 deployed or reserve nuclear weapons—the North Korean government was able to break through the diplomatic stalemate.

[shadowknows69]

1. Raw blunt force, or the threat of it

is all these thugs understand. This country has lived too long by the sword and that comfortable reign is at an end. Problem being is they would let all of us die to preserve their twisted view of "The American way of life". Endless war is not good for children or other living things.

[NNN0LHI]

2. kick n/t