01/06/16 – Christine Ahn – The Scott Horton Show

Hey, Al Scott Horton here.
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All right, y'all.
Introducing Christine Ahn.
She's the executive director of Women Cross DMZ and is a regular writer over at Foreign Policy In Focus.
Welcome to the show.
How are you?
Hi, good.
Thanks so much, Scott.
Very happy to have you on the show here today.
And can we start with this?
You're not buying this nonsense that the DPRK actually tested a hydrogen bomb yesterday, are you?
Well, it's hard to know what really happened because it hasn't been independently verified.
But what we do know is that there was an earthquake.
The UN monitoring agency showed that there was some kind of activity.
And North Korea itself made a special announcement announcing that they did test and successfully tested a hydrogen bomb.
But it's going to be days until it can be independently verified.
Well, I guess, and this might be my mistake going off U.S. government information, but they said this morning on MSNBC that the U.S. is saying it was a 15 kiloton blast, which I'm sorry, even smaller than that, 10 kilotons, the size of the Hiroshima bomb.
So it doesn't sound like a thermonuke.
Yeah, well, and that's also coming from South Korea, from their foreign ministry and their national security agency, that they suspected was an atomic bomb test.
And I don't know if this is actually definitive or not, but I believe that the more or less consensus, although there was still kind of a question mark on the end, but I'm pretty sure the consensus among the wonks was that the first two tests were fizzles and were incomplete chain reaction, basically failures.
The first two atom bombs they tested.
And then the third one seemed like maybe it was a success, but they didn't have enough information from that one to really be able to tell.
But I think I read yesterday that this earthquake, the vibrations from this one were the exact same virtually as the previous test.
Well, I think that the point that you make is really important, which is it's very difficult to fully know.
And if it is true that North Korea did succeed or is close to producing a hydrogen bomb, that it poses some really grave concerns, especially for the United States, because that means that they can miniaturize a missile and put it onto and strike the mainland in the United States.
And obviously the devastation of a hydrogen bomb is catastrophic.
And the 45 million people in South Korea would be obliterated, basically.
And so I think that, you know, it's a wake up call for Washington, D.C., particularly for President Obama, that under his watch, you know, three out of the four nuclear tests have been conducted by North Korea and that his policy of strategic patience has been an utter failure.
And you know, it's time to do something different.
And why not try engagement this time?
You know, I'm interested in that strategic patience.
It's funny how they always have to have some fancy name for every ridiculous thing.
Strategic patience.
That means do absolutely nothing.
Right.
And I'm curious about that, because in the later part of the Bush Jr. administration, Cheney was sidelined and Christopher Hill went over there and made a deal with the North Koreans.
And it wasn't a complete deal, but it was a really good start.
And then it ended up getting messed up.
And it was really Bush Jr. himself who messed up probably more than anyone.
But it seemed like they were on the right track.
And of course, the South Koreans have had previously the sunshine policy and this kind of thing and trying to warm up relations.
And yet, Obama, is it fair to say that his policy has been to the right of the at least second term Bush Jr. administration on this issue?
Yeah.
I mean, I would say that the Obama administration's Northeast Asia policy generally has been very hawkish.
And yeah, he has basically maintained and you're absolutely right.
And I would say that the collapse of that agreement was because of the splits, even among the conservatives about how to deal with North Korea.
And yeah, his policy, the Obama policy is this policy called strategic patience.
It's basically about military posturing through the form of these military exercises and through sanctions.
And it's containment and deterrence.
And it's based on this mindset of collapsism, which is that we're just waiting for North Korea to collapse.
And based on my trips to North Korea and every other expert's observations about the economy and the well-being of the people, it's not about to collapse.
In fact, the fact that the economy has improved, the fact that there are now three million people North Koreans on Korea Link, which is their mobile phone service, is a sign that things are improving.
And so they're obviously going to be more behind Kim Jong-un than ever before because they see their quality of life improving.
And so it's not about to collapse.
And so we're basically hinging our policy on the fact that we're waiting for the regime to collapse.
What we're seeing instead is North Korea investing more in its nuclear technology.
And as David Culp of the France Committee on National Legislation, who is a nuclear weapons expert, told me just a few months ago, North Korea is testing its nuclear weapons because it's trying to improve upon it.
And even though we don't know fully how advanced or sophisticated it is, we can assume that it's obviously nowhere.
It's decades still behind the U.S. technology.
But they are testing them to improve its capacity.
And so, you know, it's not a done deal.
It's not a foregone conclusion that North Korea can be a nuclear power.
And so why don't we try to engage them at this juncture?
Why don't we try to respond to their appeals for a peace treaty, for a non-aggression pact?
It's just a matter of talking.
And that's why it's so important that you are giving me some voice, because I feel that the peace movement in this country, you know, just as they mobilized for the Iran deal, we need to get behind some kind of deal for North Korea.
And I think that the historical legacy is really important to weave in here, because, you know, it's not just that North Korea was on the axis of evil and, you know, saw what was happening in Afghanistan or Iraq and U.S. military occupations and invasions, but their own lived experience during the Korean War, where 80 percent of North Korean villages were completely bombed to bits, where one in four North Korean family members lost a relative from being killed from the U.S. airbombing raids.
And so the devastation was catastrophic.
And so that's a different kind of historical memory than what we have here in the United States, where, you know, we call it the Forgotten War.
Yet, you know, our government is a signatory to that ceasefire agreement in 1953 that temporarily halted the war.
The U.S., China and North Korea signed this, and they agreed within 90 days to return to sign a peace deal.
Sixty-three years later, that has not happened.
And the consequence is this nuclear testing, is this militarization, is the military exercises that our government conducts regularly with South Korea, simulating an invasion of North Korea.
It is the three generations of Korean families that have been separated and divided.
And so all of this insanity can actually come to a halt if the United States were willing to sit down and sign a peace deal with North Korea, which North Korea has been appealing to the United States for in recent months.
You know, I just think that there's no doubt about the possibilities here.
And it's honestly, it's very confusing to me.
I'm sure it's all wrapped up in the China pivot containment policy and all of this.
But even understanding that, I don't understand where it fits.
I can't understand why Obama would have given up this whole, his entire presidency, would have given up the opportunity for a pretty easy victory here, a pretty, you know, a political success in coming to some kind of agreement with the North Koreans.
You know, as far as them possessing nuclear weapons or, you know, somehow rejoining the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state, that cow is out of the barn.
George W. Bush already ruined that opportunity by driving them out of the agreed framework deal back in 2002 and three.
But still, I bet we could have come to a deal where, all right, you keep the one or two you have, but you quit making more and, you know, we'll give you some some more whatever compromises this and that.
That agreement framework deal was perfectly fine before Junior ruined it.
And it just seems like, well, I don't really understand.
Do you have a theory as to why the administration has decided to just punt this issue to Jeb or Trump or Hillary or whoever comes next for this entire presidency?
Well, I think it's a it is it is a quandary.
I mean, I agree with you that North Korea would seem to be an easy diplomatic victory, except in the eyes of of the world.
North Korea is, you know, is the villain.
And I'm not sure how much support there would be in Washington to engage, because the way that North Korea has been so badly vilified.
I think that, you know, one theory is that in its pivot to Asia, where 60 percent of the U.S. Air Force and Navy will be in the Asia-Pacific by 2020, which is just four years from now, that in its containment of China, that it has a very nuanced relationship, the frenemy relationship with China.
And so North Korea just happens to play a very convenient boogeyman that allows the regular conduction of U.S. military exercises with its allies, with Japan and South Korea right near China's border.
And that, you know, it's it's it's much easier to justify this military buildup when there is a hated enemy like North Korea versus versus China.
Well, it helps prevent the reunification of the Korean Peninsula as long as there's a crisis.
Absolutely.
And that's that's really the big deal that they would never say on TV is that the Pacific Ocean belongs to America and that includes everything on the west end of it, too.
And so two Koreas is easier to handle than one.
If you had a united Korean Peninsula with the South's economy and the North's nukes, now you have a whole new power in the Pacific that you got to deal with.
Keep them divided.
Keep them conquered.
Even if the North is sitting on some A-bombs.
Right.
Absolutely.
Wow.
The American empire is run by some real cynical bastards, it seems like, you know, I'm sorry.
Well, unfortunately, it's it's what's driving our economy.
I mean, you know, arms exports is I don't know if it is the but it is one of the key exports.
And so we have to maintain crises all around the world so that we can continue to maintain our economy.
That is what's truly sad.
And we, you know, desperately need to change that around.
Yeah, absolutely.
Gordon Brady used to point out a press conference, a joint press conference between George W.
Bush and I believe it was President Roe at the time where the president misunderstood Bush and said, I'm sorry, did you just say that we could have reunification talks at the same time or even prior to having some nuclear talks?
That's great.
We want to do that.
And Bush said, no, that is not what I said, damn it, and pounded his hand on the on the podium and said, no, what I said was, you know, they must accomplish all nuclear talks first and only then will we allow any other negotiations to take place.
And this is, of course, after he personally has already forced the North Koreans out of the agreed framework and the nonproliferation treaty created the crisis and said only after they bow to all of our demands now, only then can you guys talk about reunification?
Oh, I know.
I mean, it is.
I mean, that's where I think it's incredibly important.
Thank you, Scott, for bringing in that history is that at the time when North Korea landed on the Bush administration's axis of evil, that there was an incredible historic engagement, you know, with Kim Dae-jung.
And between North and South Korea, they signed the June 15 accord, which began the process of reconciliation and reunification.
The Kim Jong-il and Kim Dae-jung, the South Korean president at the time, agreed to begin the process of family reunifications, civil society engagement, you know, the integration of their economy through the beginnings of these joint economic zones, which is Kaesong.
And that, you know, they would decide, let the future decide, but that these important steps were needed to begin that process.
And this was completely jettisoned by the Bush administration.
And so when we say that there needs to be peace on the Korean Peninsula, it's not just the domestic motivations or the efforts of North and South Korea.
It has to include the United States because we, as a signatory, as a kind of superpower in the region, as, you know, a signatory of a mutual defense treaty with South Korea, we have been playing a huge role.
And we have to put pressure on our own government to realize that as a signatory to this armistice, we have a responsibility to end the Korean War.
And you know, the thing that I find also interesting about North Korea's timing of this nuclear weapons test, I think has a lot to do with the recent comfort woman deal that was signed between South Korea and Japan.
As you may or may not know, just about a week ago, South Korea signed a deal basically absolving Japan of its historic war crimes against these women, 200,000 women.
And you know, gave up, you know, gave up this, you know, the fight that, you know, these comfort women, these grandmothers in their 80s and 90s who have valiantly spoken up about the horrors that they experienced when they were sex trafficked by the Japanese military and wholesale just like threw them under the bus.
And, you know, we see in news reports that, you know, the U.S. is applauding this.
And that's because the issue of the comfort women has been a major sore in the trilateral alliance.
You know, the way that the U.S. sees as a, as the bulwark against a rising China is containing through South Korea and Japan.
And if these allies that they depend upon to basically be a front against China can't even get along or can't even communicate or can't be in sync because they can't get over this comfort women issue.
And now South Korea basically has gone along with the U.S. program.
And you know, it's, you know, I hate to say it, but I'm sure North Korea views that as okay, they're, they're, they're emboldening.
And we have to, we have to flex our military might to show that we will use all deterrence possible in the case of some kind of military intervention for regime change.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I mean, it's just like that movie 13 days or whatever, where all these things are language setting off nuclear bombs.
This is how we send messages kind of thing.
Like imprisoning millions of people is how we teach the children what's right and wrong.
That's how they do it.
So, so yeah, it does make sense that if the South Koreans are going to capitulate, then the North Koreans say, well, that's something we would never do.
Watch us.
We'll split some atoms and, and prove our point and you know, just for the politics of the deal, you know, and in the case, Christine, I'm totally ignorant about this.
I'm sorry.
But isn't it the case that the South Korean regime is actually, they're the descendants of the Vichy puppet government under Japanese occupation.
And it's the North Korean government are the ones who are the descendants of those who fought them off during World War Two.
Well, yes, yes.
Park Geun-hye's father, Park Chung-hee was trained and in the Japanese police by the Japanese police.
And yes, I mean, he would, would be considered in modern day language, a Japanese collaborator.
You know, he was a dictator that ruled South Korea with an iron fist for 17 years.
And so yeah, she is a descendant of that.
And yes, it is true that Kim Jong-il is a descendant of Kim Il-sung who, you know, historians without a doubt have said that Kim Il-sung was a guerrilla fighter in Manchuria, trying to overthrow the Japanese colonizers.
You know, I would say that, you know, the point is that this is just leading to insane militarization at a time when we are all facing like a global crisis, whether it's climate change, like crazy depleting resources and economic crises.
I mean, in California, you know, I just recently read that Fresno County, 51% of people in Fresno County, which is considered California's breadbasket, is, you know, is food insecure.
So at a time when neither governments in North Korea or the United States have the ability to adequately care for and feed its people, it's investing in more militarization and more.
And that has got to stop.
And I think that North Korea is presenting a plate platter to the Obama administration saying, we want to talk, we want peace, we want a peace deal.
So let's begin that process.
Let's urge our governments to do that.
Well, and that's such an important point that they've been saying that.
I mean, that hasn't gotten much coverage at all, that the North Koreans have been suing for peace here.
And they're saying, come on, come and talk to us.
And like you say, this is the forgotten war.
Vietnam is the one that had such trauma in, you know, as far as the American psyche.
And the only thing we know about the Korean War is Alan Alda and MASH.
And that's basically it.
But so then the problem is, though, that helps to obscure the fact that, as you're saying, this is a tripwire, this is a possible nuclear war, a possible major confrontation between The North Koreans obviously are a weak power, but they have a gigantic army and they do have nukes.
The South, of course, are armed to the teeth.
And there are 30,000 something American soldiers, sailors and Marines there in Korea who serve as a tripwire, who guarantee that in the event of any conflict, the United States has got to be involved, which of course means that we could end up in a real conflict with China or God knows what.
And meanwhile, all we got to do is send some basketball players and the symphony orchestra and a couple ambassadors over there to just start talking, to just start warming up relations or cooling them off or whatever the hell.
There's no reason to have all this tension at all.
That's the thing that bothers me is we could just ratchet it all down simply with like a couple of PR stunts, right?
And never mind a final peace deal.
But like, let's just let's let's start talking to the North Koreans with a little bit of respect.
Yes, I agree.
I agree.
So thanks so much for having me on your show, Scott.
Thank you so much for coming on.
I really appreciate it.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
That's Christine Ahn.
She's at Foreign Policy and Focus and she's the executive director of Women Cross DMZ.
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