On Friday, president Trump announced that his administration would be hitting North Korea with the “heaviest sanctions ever imposed on a country before.” The new penalties target dozens of ships and shipping companies that have (allegedly) been helping Pyongyang sustain its economy — and thus, its nuclear program. Specifically, these firms have allegedly enabled Kim Jong Un’s regime to evade previous sanctions by helping it trade illicitly with other countries while at sea, as opposed to on land, where such verboten commerce would be more easily detected.
The move represents an escalation of the White House’s latest strategy for combating the North Korean nuclear program: Pursue direct talks with Pyongyang — while imposing maximum economic pain on the regime — in hopes of forcing Kim Jong Un to denuclearize without unleashing “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
There are a couple of flaws with this gambit. First, it does little to prevent the Chinese from continuing to keep their eccentric allies afloat; and second, it does nothing to stop the irrational actor in the Oval Office from poisoning the prospects of a diplomatic agreement with homicidal bluster.
“If the sanctions don’t work, we’ll have to go to Phase 2,” Trump replied. “Phase 2 may be a very rough thing. May be very, very unfortunate for the world.”
In other words: If North Korea does not meet my demands, I will deliberately inflict something “very, very unfortunate” on the entire world.
This might sound like a maniacal threat fit for a Bond villain. But if launching a globally devastating war is the only way to preempt the possibility of a globally devastating war, then what choice do we really have? How could we possibly trust that crackpot dictator with the nuclear weapon? I mean, have you heard the things he says?
“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War”
by Michel Chossudovsky
Available to order from Global Research!
ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102
Print Edition: $10.25 (+ shipping and handling)
PDF Edition: $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)
Reviews
“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
–John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University
“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations
Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
–Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute
Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
