Behind the Madness of Trump’s Threats of “Fire and Fury” in Korea

August 10, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Sanctions Kill

Last weekend, the UN Security Council approved a U.S. resolution to impose strict new sanctions on North Korea. Mainstream U.S. commentators, of all stripes, spun this as a rational, diplomatic response to North Korea testing new missiles. In fact, many ex-generals and ex-intelligence-agency types who commentate on CNN, many of whom are expressing genuine alarm at Trump’s “fire and fury” rant, portrayed the UN sanctions as one of Trump’s undisputed diplomatic triumphs and an alternative to war.

But sanctions against North Korea are part of the whole package that has led to the dire situation. Sanctions are not non-violent. Sanctions kill people. U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s were responsible for the deaths of some 500,000 children. When directly confronted by Lesley Stahl with the figure of 500,000 children dying, U.S. ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright infamously insisted those deaths were “worth it” in the service of U.S. objectives, namely to weaken and undercut the Saddam Hussein regime.

There are estimates that the new UN sanctions will cost North Korea $1 billion a year, one-third of the country’s income from foreign exports. Nobody thinks the result will be cuts in North Korea’s military spending. A U.S. ruling class expert on North Korea wrote, “Unlike [earlier sanctions against North Korea] last year, [the new UN resolution] does not appear to contain a humanitarian exemption.” (The Diplomat, August 7, 2017, emphasis added). Collective punishment of the most vulnerable people in North Korea is part of the purpose of these sanctions. They ban export of coal, seafood, artwork, and bar additional laborers from North Korea working abroad. They will have an immediate impact on coal miners and coal truck drivers, fishermen, and North Korean workers in Russian and Chinese sweatshops, whose remittances sent back home are crucial to their families’ survival. The sanctions are aimed at creating desperation and discontent among the populace and delegitimizing the North Korean regime, in order to create a situation where the U.S. can bring down the regime through outright war or by creating conditions for the regime to implode.

Case #93: U.S. Invasion of Korea—1950

The Crime: Mass murder of millions; carpet bombing an entire country into rubble; use of chemical weapons against civilians; repeatedly threatening use of nuclear weapons; wholesale rape of women.

In the Criminals’ Own Words:
U.S. Air Force General Curtis LeMay was an unapologetic mass murderer who directed the carpet bombing of Korea that, in his own words, “eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, and some in South Korea too.... Over a period of three years or so, we killed off—what—twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure...” LeMay also said, in defense of the genocide unleashed by U.S. forces in Korea, “... it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.”

Do you know anyone else—any person or organization—that has managed to bring forth an actual PLAN for a radically different society, in all its dimensions, and a CONSTITUTION to codify all this? — A different world IS possible — Check out and order online the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal). Authored by Bob Avakian, and adopted by the Central Committee of the RCP

ON NOVEMBER 4, 2017

Take To The Streets And Public Squares in cities and towns across the country continuing day after day and night after night—not stopping—until our DEMAND is met:

NO! This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!

From Refuse Fascism

Donald Trump’s threat to attack North Korea with “fire and fury and ... power the likes of which this world has never seen before” put the world in the crosshairs of nuclear war. As we wrote immediately after these threats, “This is another level of brutality, bellicosity and insanity even for Trump. The danger we face cannot be overstated: this fascist president has now potentially put the very future of humanity in question.”

Trump’s threat poured gasoline on a conflict that has already brought almost unimaginable suffering and death to the Korean Peninsula. In the Korean War, 1950-1952, the U.S. carpet bombed North Korea, destroying every building over two stories high, and massacred three to five million people, some 30 percent of the people in that country. After the war was fought to a stalemate, the U.S.-installed puppet regime in South Korea imposed brutal fascist repression for decades. And the U.S. has never recognized the North Korean regime as legitimate, and has armed the South Korean regime with cutting-edge missiles and a huge army geared to invade the North. The U.S. has over 20,000 U.S. troops stationed on the border of North and South Korea.

Trump’s incendiary threat came on top of vicious UN sanctions aimed at imposing widespread hardship and crippling the regime (see sidebar). And it came after threats by U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster on August 5 that the U.S. might launch a “preventative war” against North Korea. By “preventative” McMaster literally means that the U.S. would strike first—launching an unprovoked war, which would be a violation of every basic tenet of international law. Plus, the U.S. and South Korea are conducting extremely provocative “war games” simulating a war with North Korea.

Who Is Threatening Whom? And Why...

The North Korean regime is not socialist or revolutionary, it is exploitative and repressive. But it is a problem for the rulers of the U.S. empire, who face a world of crises and challenges from many quarters. North Korea’s rulers have defied U.S. threats, and 15 years after George Bush put that regime on the “Axis of Evil” list (with Iraq and Iran), the North Korean regime is still intact. The U.S. ruling class sees this as unacceptable, especially as the position of U.S. imperialism as the world’s sole superpower is being challenged by forces ranging from fundamentalist Islamic Jihad, to regional powers flexing their muscles as they perceive weakness in the U.S. empire, to rising rivals like Russia and China (with whom North Korea is aligned).

All this is unacceptable to the U.S. ruling class as a whole, and every administration has tried to weaken, isolate, and oust the North Korean regime. But Trump, as a fascist, cannot accept any other power that directly challenges U.S. power. A Trump surrogate told Fox News, “He’s saying don’t test America and don’t test Donald J. Trump... We are not just the superpower. We were a superpower, we are now a hyperpower. Nobody in the world, especially not North Korea, comes close to challenging our military capabilities.”

North Korea has repeatedly made clear, and even U.S. ruling class experts generally acknowledge, that its nuclear program is not aimed at a first strike (which wouldn’t make sense, given its very limited capacity compared to the thousands of nukes the U.S. has). As we wrote recently, “If North Korea is not going to launch a ‘first strike,’ then why does it pose such a ‘threat’ and why are its actions ‘dangerous’ or “‘provocative’? The only logical answer is that the development of nuclear weapons and missiles could serve precisely as a deterrent, and render North Korea less vulnerable to bullying, and possible aggressive military actions, by the U.S. and its allies. So, in reality, the Trump/Pence regime, now at the helm of U.S. imperialism, is threatening and taking actions that could lead to a major—possibly nuclear—war, because an adversary is doing things that might make it less vulnerable to bullying and aggression by these imperialists!!”

Nuclear weapons are inherently weapons of mass destruction, which no one should have. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, a blueprint for a society aimed at ending all exploitation and oppression, insists that the new revolutionary society will not possess and will not use the nuclear weapons, and will lead a struggle around the world to bar them completely. But the completely outrageous position of the U.S. imperialists is that they should have enough nukes to destroy the world ten times over, but if any country they don’t like tries to even acquire them, then the U.S. is permitted to threaten and perhaps carry out a nuclear attack on them.

The Madness Behind the Madness

An outright U.S. military attack on North Korea would kill many people in that country and almost certainly result in a counter-attack by the regime that would kill tens of thousands of people in South Korea right away (and very possibly thousands of U.S. troops stationed there as well). Further, the possibility of a nuclear response from North Korea would be horrific in its own right, but it might also set in motion a dynamic that could draw in China or Russia and spiral to the point of a larger nuclear war that puts the very future of humanity in question. For that reason, mainstream U.S. ruling class military doctrine has been to attempt to use crippling sanctions, economic and diplomatic isolation, sabotage, and constant military threats to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear program—going to the brink of, but not crossing the line of all-out war. The concern of the U.S. rulers has not been the fate of humanity, but the danger that an attack on North Korea could trigger extreme and unpredictable consequences for their system.

With his bellicose threat, Trump tossed a grenade into that. However conscious or unconscious Trump himself is of what his threat represents, there is a logic to the madness. This is the monster who repeatedly asked a foreign affairs expert: If we have nuclear weapons, why can’t we use them? In the eyes of the Trumpite fascists, making America “great again” means—as Trump declared repeatedly during the campaign—having “our” enemies fear us.

The logic of that logic leads to the madness of pushing humanity to the brink of a horrific war that could spiral into unimaginable death and destruction, either through conscious decision, accident, or unexpected chains of events.

This Nightmare Must Be Stopped—by the People

The tremendous uncertainties involved in a U.S. attack on or war with North Korea, with the possibility things could spiral way out of control of the U.S., has provoked debate and conflict within the ruling class, and even among Trump’s inner circle. The New York Times reported that Steve Bannon—Trump’s chief strategist and a hardcore fascist—is arguing the real challenge to the U.S. is China, and that too much focus is being put on the clash with North Korea. But for all the criticisms and demurrals from the Democrats, and reservations on the part of some of the key players in the regime, there is right now no force within the ruling class that is going to stop Trump. Democrats, and possibly some Republicans who have serious reservations about the risks Trump is taking, have more fear of where the upheaval involved in stopping Trump might lead than they do of the path he’s headed down. And, absent a major upsurge of protest and resistance from the people, the U.S. ruling class as a whole will almost certainly put aside any differences to close ranks and rally around Trump in any conflict with Korea.

On the other hand, should there be a powerful upsurge from below, demanding that in the interests of humanity this nuclear roulette STOP and the WHOLE REGIME BE DRIVEN OUT, then that upsurge could interact with contradictions and conflicts in the ruling class in ways that create opportunities to actually drive out the regime.

People must act to stop this regime now! By exposing and protesting moves to war. And most importantly, coming together around the call from Refuse Fascism, starting November 4: In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America! This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must GO.

Beyond that, the whole system that spawned this fascist regime needs to be overthrown at the soonest possible time. And from many perspectives, there is a need to break out of starting from the interests of the “USA” in any shape or form.

As Bob Avakian puts it in BAsics:

The interests, objectives, and grand designs of the imperialists are not our interests—they are not the interests of the great majority of people in the U.S. nor of the overwhelming majority of people in the world as a whole. And the difficulties the imperialists have gotten themselves into in pursuit of these interests must be seen, and responded to, not from the point of view of the imperialists and their interests, but from the point of view of the great majority of humanity and the basic and urgent need of humanity for a different and better world, for another way.
—BAsics 3:8

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