Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Even Bernie Sanders Ignores History of North Korea Conflict!



Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it; and as much as I want to continue supporting Bernie Sanders he continues to cave to the political establishment one time after another, often ignoring epidemic levels of corruption rigging elections and fear mongering that successfully incites one war after another based on lies.

I still like Bernie Sanders better than any other traditional politician; but he's coming up short more often and even campaigning for the establishment that he campaign against just last year.

As long as he continues to support progressive issues I'll support him but when he comes up short or tries to lead people to support establishment supporting corporations people need to speak out against it not blindly falling for same scam again after another candidate with excellent rhetoric leads public in wrong direction. This is how we got Hillary the nomination which led to Trump in office.

Bernie Sanders may still provide stronger opposition to unjustified wars than most politicians but he ignores the history behind this conflict and many others leading him to support a policy that will inevitably fail.

Contrary to all the propaganda that is now being repeated over and over again the United States has repeatedly had opportunities to negotiate with North Korea to reduce and possibly end hostilities but these negotiations have collapsed often not because of the fanatical behavior of the North Korean leaders but because of the war mongering actions of our own country; one of the worst examples was in 2001 when George W. Bush abandoned the agreements negotiated by Jimmy Carter with limited support from the Clinton administration.

The mainstream media, political establishment, and even Bernie Sanders continues to ignore this when deciding on the policies that we should adopt to them including this excerpt about his interview with Jake Tapper Sunday:

Bernie Sanders explains opposition to Syria strike 04/1/2017

Meanwhile, Sanders said he believed Trump understood he needed to work with China to rein in the North Korean nuclear threat. "The United States must not act impulsively, and we must not act unilaterally," Sanders said.

Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the US earlier this month and spoke by phone with him last week to discuss North Korea's progress in missile development and another potential nuclear test.

Both Sanders and Trump have said the focus on the issue must remain on China. In recent days, China has signaled a possible shift on North Korea, including an editorial in Chinese media warning China could support UN sanctions on oil shipments to the isolated nation.

However, Sanders did not credit Trump with the possible progress, saying it was part of a trend.

"I think this policy shift on the part of China has been taking place for quite a while now," Sanders said. Complete article


The traditional media fails to remind the public of the history behind this conflict and that negotiations began in 1994, with help from Jimmy Carter, and could have lead to nuclear disarmament and normalization of relations if they were pursued. Most reports that came during the Clinton presidency indicated that a large portion of the administration was actually opposed to Carter's overtures, although most records that I've seen recently fail to mention this; however he did make some progress in 1994 and more could have been made in 2000 and into the twentieth century if the Bush administration hadn't abandoned efforts and acted in an arbitrary manner dismissing negotiations.

The following excerpt from an article before Kim Jong Un's rule shows how much more success could have happened if the Clinton and especially Bush administration had been more willing to negotiate in good faith; this could have set the stage for a much friendlier relation when power was passed on perhaps even avoiding as belligerent a leader as Kim Jong Un:

How Not to Deal with North Korea 03/01/2007

Jimmy Carter felt that the situation was extremely dangerous, and he was not alone. Three former senior American government officials, including Gallucci, have written a meticulous history of the 1994 crisis, and they credit Carter with halting a chain of events that could have led the US to resort to military action. Under active consideration, the former diplomats report, was what was called the Osirak Option, named for Israel’s 1981 strike against Iraq’s nuclear weapons plant, in which the Americans would have bombed North Korea’s nuclear complex at Pongbyon.3 Had that been done, who can know for sure what the North Korean response would have been? Among those advocating a preemptive strike was former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft. When Gallucci asked him what he thought about a possible North Korean invasion of South Korea as a response, Scowcroft’s reply, Gallucci told me, was “they won’t do it.”

As it happened, Carter needed just a single meeting with a jovial and commanding Kim Il Sung to put an end to the crisis. “If the US would agree to hold a third round of talks, and to help us get light water reactors, then there will be no problems,” Kim told Carter, according to Creekmore. Kim died three weeks after meeting with Carter, but Kim Jong Il, his carefully groomed successor, stuck to the deal in subsequent negotiations with the United States, leading to the Agreed Framework, which was signed on October 21, 1994, in Geneva. ....

Oddly though, what Kim Jong Il would decide if asked to choose between the bomb and a full, normal, nonbelligerent relationship with Washington has never been tested. Very likely, a working relationship with the United States would prove more subversive of the North Korean dictatorship than the efforts to isolate it and punish it have been. It is something that a new administration might try, assuming it is not already too late. Complete article


Most of the reports that I have seen recently don't fully reflect the abruptness that Bush administration abandoned the talks or the way it was presented at the time; but in March 2001 Bush decided that he didn't want to continue the talks and wasn't willing to trust the North Koreans as much as the Clinton administration, even though they had made an enormous amount of progress, even if some members of the Clinton administration hadn't been so supportive. According the the chronology listed below on March 13, 2001: "North Korea, apparently reacting to Washington’s new tone, cancels ministerial-level talks with Seoul. The talks were intended to promote further political reconciliation."

Jimmy Carter proved as recently as 2010 that there was still opportunity to negotiate with North Korea when he arranged the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes. No doubt there have been plenty of problems and some of it was the fault of the dictators of North Korea but contrary to the propaganda that is constantly being repeated over and over again they haven't always been as belligerent as the media and the most extreme right wingers make them out to be.

This same attitude isn't limited to North Korea. In 2001 after the attack on 9/11 Iran offered intelligence, or should I say espionage help, to help track down Al-Qaeda who was also there enemy and demonstrated that they were willing to improve relationships; but after accepting this help Bush turned around and declared them part of the "Axis of Evil." This antagonistic attitude is what enabled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to get elected several years later.

The united States leaders has a long history of antagonizing their opponents until they become the enemies they seem to want to have as an excuse to maintain a permanent state of war.

This proves to be incredibly obvious when arrogant leaders like John McCain refers to Kim Jong Un as that "Crazy fat kid." McCain claims that Kim Jong Un is not "rational," which may be true but if he's so irrational and he has nukes how rational could it be to antagonize him?

John McCain isn't the only one that seems to treat foreign policy as a joke many media pundits do so as well. Brian Williams was ridiculed for talking about how the Tomahawk missiles were so "Beautiful" and some of the pundits at MSNBC that remained silent about Brian Williams turned around and criticized Fox news for glorifying the missile strikes with country music singing about how glorious it is to "fight for freedom" without exposing all the lies leading up to war. Geraldo Rivera was one of the pundits at Fox when that clip went on and either at the same time or another one he talked about how he through it was great when the "Bad guys" would fear Trump because he was so unpredictable.

This is all part of a non-stop effort to glorify war without checking the facts as they go to prevent another war based on Weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist, and Scott Ritter and Mohamed ElBaradei exposed those lies before the Iraq invasion but they got little or no media attention and now the media refuses to cover people exposing their current lies. 

John McCain, Donald Trump, George Bush and many media pundits routinely demonstrate that they're no more rational than Kim Jong Un is! there should be no doubt that their warmongering is as much of the problem as Kim Jong Un and that part of the reason Kim Jong Un is so irrational is because they're constantly goading him, and ignoring this history isn't going to help resolve this problem.

This has been reported numerous times in the past but when the war drums are repeated over and over again they routinely ignore it and only people that get little or no media coverage attempt to remind the public of this and regrettably this includes Bernie Sanders. The following articles have some additional information on this subject:

Chronology of U.S.-North Korean Nuclear and Missile Diplomacy

The Problem is Washington, Not North Korea 04/17/2017

Blame Bush for North Korea's Nukes 02/10/2005

Jimmy Carter arrives in North Korea in attempt to free US prisoner 08/25/2010

I usually don't try to jump on the bandwagon of some of the most farfetched conspiracy theories about false flags unless there's an enormous amount of evidence; but even if there isn't some evidence of this then the fanatical behavior of our political leaders refusing to remind the public of the most important history of this subject and basing their decisions on their own deceptive propaganda is as fanatical as many of these false flag conspiracy theories.

Adding to this we're supposed to believe that a country that can't even keep their cities lit, as we're often reminded with these satellite photos has the technology to make nuclear weapons and hack into Sony pictures among other things.



This often seems to do far more to serve the propaganda purposes of the warmongers in the United States than it does North Korea's. Even though I would put to much weight in false flag conspiracy theories unless there was a lot of evidence under these circumstances I wouldn't completely rule it out; and the deceptive propaganda may be part of that evidence that there might actually be something to it even if the most irrational conspiracy theories turn out to be exaggerations as they often are.

Even if there is no false flag operation the entire political establishment including Obama who has also been silent about the most important history of this conflict does more to keep it going than to sincerely try to reconcile differences.

There is also growing reasons to doubt that Bernie Sanders is as progressive as he claims when he constantly endorses Democratic establishment candidates that oppose his progressive positions. I still like Bernie Sanders as much as anyone else, or at least I want to, but when he continues remaining silent about some of the worst war mongering and goes on the campaign trail for people like Hillary Clinton and not Tom Perez who were involved in rigging the election against him it is hard not to have some doubts.



Bernie Sanders attracted an enormous amount of support from the grassroots and became famous for collecting a record amount of small donations from people that really supported his agenda; but as much as I still like his positions that he often continues to support, of at least speak out in favor of, he's endorsing a growing number of Democrats that don't support them at all, often canceling out his own political views.

If people follow their leaders and they routinely behave like this then the belief in a Democracy is a tragedy and a farce; however it should be clear that many of his followers didn't accept his endorsement of Clinton nor do they accept his endorsement of Tom Perez which is what enabled Trump to win in the first place.







If we're going to avoid reelecting Trump or letting the Republicans increase their already unjustifiable majority in congress we're going to have to have a much stronger grassroots movement since the Democratic Party routinely demonstrates that they no longer care about Democratic principles, and it won't help for Bernie Sanders to try to convince us that the Democrats are the lesser evil when this is the best they're willing to do!









This is only a relatively brief review of some of the selective claims that they're using to scare people into supporting yet another war which may end up being based entirely on lies including some that may not have been exposed yet. This is part of a pattern of behavior that becomes clearer the more people look at history.

In order to get elected to higher office especially nationwide or statewide in large states the most important thing any candidate needs is name recognition. In order to get that name recognition they need coverage from the commercial media, controlled by only six oligarchies, that controls over ninety percent of the national news. If they want to prevent any progressive candidate from getting name recognition they need to win all they have to do is refuse to cover them.

Bernie Sanders was the most progressive candidate they provided coverage for since I can remember but they still didn't provide him with enough coverage to win especially with the political administration rigging the primaries, as several people including me explained in Can Hillary Clinton win without cheating? (Evidence of irregularities suppression or other cheating in at least eighteen states) Now Bernie is campaigning for the establishment he previously opposed like many other presidential candidates in the past including John McCain in 2000 and Barrack Obama in 2008; but when Obama won and McCain returned to the Senate they both got in line and supported the establishment they allegedly stood up to.

One of the most common methods used to manipulate the public is fighting wars based on lies. This has been exposed over an over again to those that know how to check the most reliable sources for their history. Sometimes this even comes from the mainstream media. A lot of this history was reported previously by traditional sources in the past but when it doesn't serve their current objectives they simply forget about history that doesn't serve their agenda.

I went into some of the past propaganda about North Korea in at least two past articles myself in Is 60 Minutes presenting anti-North Korea propaganda? and North Korea Nuclear Test Propaganda Is War Mongering

While we fight one war after another based on lies there are plenty of corporations making a fortune as demonstrated when Tomahawk maker's stock went up after U.S. launch on Syria 04/07/2017 and many more news stories that few people can keep track of. Amazingly despite all the propaganda about how "great" and "glorious" our veterans who are when they "fight for our freedom" they can't find the money to support them after they return whether it is at the Veterans Administration providing health care of counseling for PTSD or for providing retraining for other jobs in civilian life and they often treat them like charity cases, which I'm sure isn't what they expected when they signed up.

But there's never any shortage of money when paying off the military contractors making enormous profits from wars based on lies.







Edit 04/21/2017: Within a day if not hours of the posting of this article the Trump administration has done several more things including some obvious blunders to incite war without reviewing the obvious historical flaws of their war mongering; and they've also increased the pressure on Iran almost replicating the same thing that the Bush administration did with North Korea in 2001. Rex Tillerson came out with tough talk accusing the Iranians of violating the spirit of the agreement although it was "only hours after the State Department said Tehran was complying with its terms." Once again he ignored a long history of antagonizing activities by the U.S. including the 1953 coup which was exposed decades ago although the United States didn't officially acknowledge it until a few years ago. The United States itself gave them the technology they needed to get started in the seventies when they were under the rule of the Shah who was still terrorizing his own people. The United States passed up numerous opportunities to encourage democracy before the tyrant they were propping up was overthrown. The United States routinely only supports democracy when the people oppressing their own people happen to be opposed to the United States and often do their part to set the stage for them to take over in the first place.

Ignoring history and demonizing other countries is not an effective way to avoid war and encourage democracy. This is especially true when we have a consolidated corporate media that only provides coverage for candidates that repeat the same deceptive propaganda about wars or any other subject. By only providing coverage for corrupt candidates the consolidated media is helping to rig elections and maintain a permanent state of war based on lies!

The following are some additional sources about the conflict with Iran including history that the mainstream media and political establishment rarely ever mention:

Tillerson Toughens Tone on Iran After U.S. Confirms Nuclear Deal Compliance 04/19/2017

Rex Tillerson accuses Iran of 'alarming provocations' 04/19/2017

Wikipedia: 1953 Iranian coup d'état

CIA admits role in 1953 Iranian coup 08/19/2013

Timeline of Nuclear Diplomacy With Iran




2 comments:

  1. Bernie is a politician and he knows what issues will cause mass uprising and end his Political career. He was bold enough to speak about Israel, but this would bring him down. Hence it is the people who are at fault for not educating themselves nor thinking for themselves, not Bernie.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes the people are at fault for not educating themselves but so is the media for refusing to provide some of the most important reminders when tensions rise to enable the public to know how to make decisions.

    And a lot of celebrities, including Bernie are aware of this and they could speak out more. Bernie could have reminded the public about this background without having his political career collapse, actually it would only add to his credibility for pointing out the flaws in the media and political establishment.

    I like him as much as anyone else, but am wary when ever someone becomes looked at as a hero who is portrayed as the only one that can save the day. And at times he has caved and supported the political establishment he ran again including when he campaigned for Hillary instead of speaking out about election rigging, even though there was plenty of evidence to support this; and when he campaigned with Tom Perez even though he clearly isn't a progressive either.

    To support a progressive agenda and the Democratic establishment that opposes real progressive politics raises major questions.

    As much as I like Bernie he still needs to be held accountable as long as he's a political leader; and it is becoming increasingly obvious that if real reform is going to happen it has to come from the grassroots. There are way to many politicians that run as progressives then switch once they gain power. Bernie has been able to avoid this as an independent that can't pass anything with the opposition of the duopoly. But when he support the duopoly or Democratic party it raises doubts.

    ReplyDelete