"We must give top priority to defending national sovereignty and security, and get ready for military struggles." Hu Jintao, Pres. of China, in a speech to the Peoples Liberation Army, Mar 11, 2006.

Annals of Propaganda

March 26, 2006

By OTTO

It is a novel situation indeed when a country declared to be a hated enemy by the US government publishes an editorial with which most Americans and almost the entire world would agree. A summary of the editorial published by the Korean Central News Agency is appended.

That the KCNA article is not an isolated instance can be seen from the concluding paragraph of a commentary in the China People's Daily summarizing an essay by Fan Jishe of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences:

The article [by Fan Jishe] also listed the US actions of gradually [departing] from the [nuclear] non-proliferation system and ignoring…international laws.

• Seven years ago, the US refused to pass the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
• five years ago, it pushed forward the development of anti-ballistic missile system;
• four years ago, it abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty;
• three years ago, it played down the International Atomic Energy Agency's supervision role and launched the Iraq War;
• one year ago, it refused to make any promise to reduce and finally destroy nuclear weapons.

Today, while the danger that nuclear proliferation and terrorism will combine becomes bigger and bigger, it is thought-provoking that the international non-proliferation system is in such an awkward situation.

To read the full summary click here.

It is a measure of the tactical stupidity of the Bush regime that it risked and then demolished the carefully crafted image of the US as a country committed to the highest ideals of democracy and strict adherence to international law. If the psychological side of warfare is important, then in this important aspect of national security the US is now more vulnerable to military defeat than at any time in modern history.

And it is relevant to point out that this regime was put in power by a Supreme Court, which, under the judicial cover of a technically flawed election, usurped the Constitutionally mandated authority of the people to elect their President rather than ordering a rerun of the election.

Here is a summary of the editorial in Rodong Sinbun, the newspaper of the Korean Worker's Party, as it appeared on the website of the official Korean Central News Agency on March 20, 2006.

Democratic People's Republic of Korea

Int'l Community Urged to Bring U.S. to Int'l Tribunal

Pyongyang, March 18, 2006 (Korean Central News Agency) -- The international community is now condemning the U.S. imperialists as war maniacs, disturbers of peace and war criminals as they are rushing headlong into war quite contrary to the desire of humankind and the trend of the times. Rodong Sinmun today says this in a signed article. With no play with words can the United States justify its history of aggression and war crimes, the article notes, and goes on: The United States has committed countless military aggressions and wars in its more than 200 year-long history.

At the outset of the new century the U.S. bellicose elements carried out "crusade" of modern brand to destroy sovereign states by force of arms defying international law and the UN.

A typical example of this was the Iraqi war for which the U.S. imperialists are branded as war criminals at present.

The resolution "Definition on Aggression" adopted at the 29th UN General Assembly stipulated that when a state perpetrates aggressive armed attack on the territory of [an]other state, with the declaration of war or not, this shall be the worst international crime.

The 3rd paragraph of Article 2 of the UN Charter says that all members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice are not endangered. And the 4th paragraph of the same article notes that all members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. The United States, however, committed armed invasion against Iraq, a legitimate sovereign state, in March of 2003 under the unreasonable pretext defying the UN Charter.

It is now floating sheer sophism that its invasion of Iraq was justifiable though no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) could be found there.

Its assertion about the existence of WMD in Iraq was nothing but a pretext for launching the war.

The horrendous human rights abuses committed by the U.S. imperialist aggression troops in Iraq clearly prove that they are the most cruel barbarians and man-killers in the present times.

They should be sternly punished by the international community for such unpardonable war crimes as destroying a sovereign state by unilateral use of force against it under an absurd pretext and putting it under their occupation. It should bring them to an international tribunal at once. This alone will make it possible to build a peaceful new world free from aggression and war.