Just Waking Up
.
Showing posts with label nuclear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nuclear. Show all posts
Nuclear Threat
.
Nuclear Proliferation 101,
Courtesy of Pyongyang
Courtesy of Pyongyang
.
By John Metzler (*)
.
UNITED NATIONS — The political choreography was perfect — an American president visiting majestic Prague and setting out an ambitious plan for nuclear non-proliferation. An East Asian dictator, defying world opinion, firing off a ballistic missile just hours earlier. And the UN Security Council, gathering in urgent session, discussing, but not quite condemning, the rogue state with even a slap on the wrist.
President Barack Obama’s speech at the storybook Prague Castle aimed high in soaring rhetoric but was punctured by the announcement that half a world away from the medieval spires of Prague, a North Korean dictator had, as planned, tested a long range missile. Flying over Japan, the Taepodong-2 rocket capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, was fortunately a dud, falling short of expectations but still raising the specter that the enigmatic Kim Jong-il will try again and thus continue to hold East Asia hostage to his nuclear saber rattling.
While President Obama painted the grand if Pollyannaish picture of a world without nuclear weapons, he was acutely aware of the growing risk from rogue states and black market atomic bomb technology being a clear and present danger. The U.S. while reducing nuclear arms in parallel with such states as Russia, remains committed to counter the risk from terrorist groups such as Al Qaida to who are “determined to buy, build, or steal a bomb.”
Yet given the Obama Administration’s planned military cutbacks in anti-missile defense research and development, such hopeful dreams are directly challenged by a nightmare of North Korea’s nuclear reality. Precisely the sort of nuclear threats by North Korea, Islamic Iran or someday perhaps Pakistan threaten America, as well as Japan and the European Union. Thus in this setting, the speech could be viewed as Kafkaesque.
Indeed Pyongyang’s challenge has less to do with North Korea’s current capability but with the intent and aspiration; and its inspiration to radical regimes elsewhere.
North Korea already has nuclear weapons, and the regime is working on the rocket technology to deliver them. Japan is seriously threatened by this and thus has taken particularly strong diplomatic moves in the UN Security Council to slap sanctions on Pyongyang regime.
In 2006 responding to Pyongyang’s rocket firings and nuclear tests, the UN Security Council passed two binding resolutions #1695 and #1718 which forbade North Korean “not conduct any further nuclear tests or launch of a ballistic missile.”
Despite the robust rhetoric from the Obama Administration both before and after the missile test, “Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished…the world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons. Now is the time for a strong international response,” the response remains tepid.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton later scolded that North Korea’s test had “It’s a provocative act that has grave implications.” She advised a forceful UN response.
But back at Turtle Bay in New York, both the People’s Republic of China and Russia played interference and blocked the Security Council discussions from going further offering the sonorous advice that the missile only put a satellite into orbit, let’s not overreact, and in the words of Beijing’s delegate take a “Cautious and proportionate” response. Eventually the Council may make a pro-forma declaration
Still the multilateral Six Party talks in which both South and North Korea are joined by China, Japan, Russia and the USA in discussing a nuclear free North Korea probably remain the best diplomatic path ahead, though Pyongyang will use the test as leverage in the stalled negotiations.
Pyongyang’s missile plan to launch a satellite (portrayed as a glorious scientific victory in communist media) has more to do with internal regime mobilization as it does with bullying East Asia.
In the bizarre political hagiography of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea the missile test is clear and logical; it offers a political benediction to the regime, the Kim Cult, and the military. Kim Jong-il has just been “re-elected” by proclamation in the Supreme Peoples Assembly in Pyongyang as dictator. This period constitutes the celebratory Loyalty Festival, between Dear Leader’s Jong-Ils birthday in February and that of the deceased Great Leader Kim Il-Sung on 15 April. The moribund Marxist state needs rallying points, through both domestic mobilization and international brinksmanship. Rebuffing Japan and the U.S. is grist for Pyongyang’s propaganda mill.
It’s crucial that the USA, South Korea and Japan stand firm against North Korea’s latest provocation. It’s ironic that President Obama’s speech was made in Prague, after all the capital of the Czech Republic, a country whose name has been synonymous with the tragic legacy of appeasement. History must not be allowed to repeat itself, this time in the Far East.
(*) John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for WorldTribune.com.
President Barack Obama’s speech at the storybook Prague Castle aimed high in soaring rhetoric but was punctured by the announcement that half a world away from the medieval spires of Prague, a North Korean dictator had, as planned, tested a long range missile. Flying over Japan, the Taepodong-2 rocket capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, was fortunately a dud, falling short of expectations but still raising the specter that the enigmatic Kim Jong-il will try again and thus continue to hold East Asia hostage to his nuclear saber rattling.
While President Obama painted the grand if Pollyannaish picture of a world without nuclear weapons, he was acutely aware of the growing risk from rogue states and black market atomic bomb technology being a clear and present danger. The U.S. while reducing nuclear arms in parallel with such states as Russia, remains committed to counter the risk from terrorist groups such as Al Qaida to who are “determined to buy, build, or steal a bomb.”
Yet given the Obama Administration’s planned military cutbacks in anti-missile defense research and development, such hopeful dreams are directly challenged by a nightmare of North Korea’s nuclear reality. Precisely the sort of nuclear threats by North Korea, Islamic Iran or someday perhaps Pakistan threaten America, as well as Japan and the European Union. Thus in this setting, the speech could be viewed as Kafkaesque.
Indeed Pyongyang’s challenge has less to do with North Korea’s current capability but with the intent and aspiration; and its inspiration to radical regimes elsewhere.
North Korea already has nuclear weapons, and the regime is working on the rocket technology to deliver them. Japan is seriously threatened by this and thus has taken particularly strong diplomatic moves in the UN Security Council to slap sanctions on Pyongyang regime.
In 2006 responding to Pyongyang’s rocket firings and nuclear tests, the UN Security Council passed two binding resolutions #1695 and #1718 which forbade North Korean “not conduct any further nuclear tests or launch of a ballistic missile.”
Despite the robust rhetoric from the Obama Administration both before and after the missile test, “Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished…the world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons. Now is the time for a strong international response,” the response remains tepid.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton later scolded that North Korea’s test had “It’s a provocative act that has grave implications.” She advised a forceful UN response.
But back at Turtle Bay in New York, both the People’s Republic of China and Russia played interference and blocked the Security Council discussions from going further offering the sonorous advice that the missile only put a satellite into orbit, let’s not overreact, and in the words of Beijing’s delegate take a “Cautious and proportionate” response. Eventually the Council may make a pro-forma declaration
Still the multilateral Six Party talks in which both South and North Korea are joined by China, Japan, Russia and the USA in discussing a nuclear free North Korea probably remain the best diplomatic path ahead, though Pyongyang will use the test as leverage in the stalled negotiations.
Pyongyang’s missile plan to launch a satellite (portrayed as a glorious scientific victory in communist media) has more to do with internal regime mobilization as it does with bullying East Asia.
In the bizarre political hagiography of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea the missile test is clear and logical; it offers a political benediction to the regime, the Kim Cult, and the military. Kim Jong-il has just been “re-elected” by proclamation in the Supreme Peoples Assembly in Pyongyang as dictator. This period constitutes the celebratory Loyalty Festival, between Dear Leader’s Jong-Ils birthday in February and that of the deceased Great Leader Kim Il-Sung on 15 April. The moribund Marxist state needs rallying points, through both domestic mobilization and international brinksmanship. Rebuffing Japan and the U.S. is grist for Pyongyang’s propaganda mill.
It’s crucial that the USA, South Korea and Japan stand firm against North Korea’s latest provocation. It’s ironic that President Obama’s speech was made in Prague, after all the capital of the Czech Republic, a country whose name has been synonymous with the tragic legacy of appeasement. History must not be allowed to repeat itself, this time in the Far East.
(*) John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for WorldTribune.com.
-----------
--> This article appeared on worldtribune.com
.
Flashed
.
.
The Creation
.
By James Weldon Johnson
And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I'm lonely--
I'll make me a world.
And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That's good!
Then God reached out and took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light around in his hands
Until he made the sun;
And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said: That's good!
Then God himself stepped down--
And the sun was on his right hand,
And the moon was on his left;
The stars were clustered about his head,
And the earth was under his feet.
And God walked, and where he trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.
Then he stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And he spat out the seven seas--
He batted his eyes, and the lightnings flashed--
He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled--
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.
Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around his shoulder.
Then God raised his arm and he waved his hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God could drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said: That's good!
Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his moon,
And he looked at his little stars;
He looked on his world
With all its living things,
And God said: I'm lonely still.
Then God sat down--
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I'll make me a man!
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in is his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen.Amen.
.
(The poem appeared on
famouspoetsandpoems.com)
PS : I took the picture on
a motorway in Portugal
.
By James Weldon Johnson
And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I'm lonely--
I'll make me a world.
And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That's good!
Then God reached out and took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light around in his hands
Until he made the sun;
And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said: That's good!
Then God himself stepped down--
And the sun was on his right hand,
And the moon was on his left;
The stars were clustered about his head,
And the earth was under his feet.
And God walked, and where he trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.
Then he stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And he spat out the seven seas--
He batted his eyes, and the lightnings flashed--
He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled--
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.
Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around his shoulder.
Then God raised his arm and he waved his hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God could drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said: That's good!
Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his moon,
And he looked at his little stars;
He looked on his world
With all its living things,
And God said: I'm lonely still.
Then God sat down--
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I'll make me a man!
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in is his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen.Amen.
.
(The poem appeared on
famouspoetsandpoems.com)
PS : I took the picture on
a motorway in Portugal
.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)