Friends, In the previous Korea posting, we heard about plans being considered for a limited bombing strike by the US against N Korean nuclear installations. Below we hear of a less confrontational approach -- a limited blockade, with perhaps some kind of sanctions. But if our other posting was accurate, even this less confrontational approach would be a very dangerous game. If the blockade and sanctions caused no significant inconvenience to N Korea, then it would be a symbolic gesture only -- not typical behavior for Caeser Bush-On-A-Roll. And if the blockade interferes with N Korea's perceived prerogatives, there could be serious trouble. Every nation presumably has the right to sail peacefully on the high seas, and N Korea seems to be taking a rather hard-line position in general. And they have said they would not tolerate sanctions. One can imagine a N Korean ship refusing to stop at the orders of some US destroyer, giving the destroyer the choice of attacking or looking foolish. And one might expect such a N Korean test ship to be accompanied by submarine backup, or some other kind of backup. A Volatile scenario. ciao, rkm ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Delivered-To: •••@••.••• Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2003 21:27:40 -0400 To: •••@••.••• From: Paul Wolf <•••@••.•••> http://www.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId=4268&lang=en N. Korea faces naval blockade over nukes By Shane Green, The Sydney Morning Herald April 28, 2003 The United States is said to be considering a selective shipping blockade against North Korea to prevent the communist state following through on its threat to proliferate nuclear weapons. The Pentagon strategy has been dubbed Cuba Lite, a lesser version of the US blockade during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The plan is in response to last week's claim by North Korea to the US that it already had nuclear weapons, and was prepared to make a "physical demonstration" of them or "transfer" them to other countries. North Korea also said it had nearly finished reprocessing 8000 spent fuel rods to make plutonium for several more nuclear weapons within months, a claim some US officials doubt. In Germany, prosecutors confirmed on Saturday that a director of a German company suspected of supplying aluminium tubes to North Korea's nuclear program had been held for questioning. The announcement came after the news magazine Der Spiegel said the tubes, essential in making enriched uranium, were loaded onto a French ship in Hamburg early this month just as the German federal government vetoed the shipment. The Pentagon plan would include the US Navy intercepting suspected North Korean vessels, similar to an action in December when US and Spanish forces stopped a North Korean ship near Yemen carrying 15 Scud missiles and warheads. "It's a kind of Cuba Lite strategy," The Sunday Telegraph in London quoted a Pentagon official as saying. "It wouldn't be a total blockade. International shipping would not necessarily be blocked from going in to North Korea, but the passage of North Korean shipping would be contingent on what we knew was being carried." The strategy has the advantage of being less confrontational, such as a selective air strike against North Korea's nuclear facilities, to which the volatile regime could easily respond by lashing out against South Korea and Japan. The US is also planning to talk to its regional allies South Korea and Japan about the possibility of UN sanctions against Pyongyang, which has previously said it would regard such moves as a declaration of war. The Bush Administration appears divided on how to deal with North Korea, underlined by the revelation that North Korea told the State Department about the reprocessing last month, but the information was kept from Defence Department hawks. Those who received the information were concerned it would be used by hardliners to scuttle last week's talks with North Korea in Beijing, the first meeting since Pyongyang admitted in October to a nuclear arms program. Intense diplomatic efforts to find a solution to the crisis are continuing, with a South Korean delegation travelling to North Korea yesterday in an attempt to persuade its neighbour to abandon its nuclear weapons. Over the weekend President George Bush phoned his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, about the crisis. North Korea's nuclear weapons claim was seen as severely embarrassing for Beijing, which had convened the talks. China has been increasingly frustrated with the behaviour of North Korea -- to which it has acted as a mentor and provided substantial aid. In Tokyo, Japan's Defence Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, said yesterday that North Korea's main aim was maintaining its regime and socialism. The hawkish defence chief said he did not believe Japan would go nuclear to counter North Korea. "I never support such a discussion that we will possess nuclear weapons because North Korea possesses them." -- ============================================================================ For the movement, the relevant question is not, "Can we work through the political system?", but rather, "Is the political system one of the things that needs to be fundamentally changed?" cyberjournal home page: http://cyberjournal.org "Zen of Global Transformation" home page: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ QuayLargo discussion forum: http://www.QuayLargo.com/Transformation/ShowChat/?ScreenName=ShowThreads cj list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=cj newslog list archives: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/show_archives/?lists=newslog subscribe addresses for cj list: •••@••.••• •••@••.••• ============================================================================
