Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 11/14/22 Tim Shorrock: The Tension with North Korea is America’s Fault

Episode Date: November 19, 2022

Scott talks with Tim Shorrock about the build-up to today’s tension with North Korea. Shorrock takes us back to the 1990s when the U.S. and North Korean governments were making serious headway in negotiating a formal end to the Korean war. At the time, the North Korean nuclear program was nonexistent. By the end of the decade, there were even serious talks taking place about ending the entire missile program. Then George W. Bush came in and, with the help of John Bolton, ruined everything. Scott and Shorrock talk about what went wrong, how it was almost fixed during the Trump administration and how things spiraled back out of control—again thanks largely to John Bolton.  Discussed on the show: The Shorrock Files — Patreon  “U.S. Government Quietly Declassifies Post-9/11 Interview With Bush and Cheney” (The Intercept) Tim Shorrock is the author of Spies For Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing and a regular contributor to The Nation and the Korea Center for Investigative Reporting. Follow him on Twitter @TimothyS. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State and Why The Vietnam War?, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; and Thc Hemp Spot. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjYu5tZiG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey man, you guys should all sign up for the Libertarian Institute's email list. Will Porter's been putting together this great newsletter every week. And all you've got to do is go to the bottom of the page at libertarianinstitute.org and sign up there. It's real dang good. All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director. of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron. Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the brand new, enough already. Time to end the war on terrorism. And I've recorded more

the 5,500 interviews since 2003, almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at Scott Horton.4. You can sign up the podcast feed there, and the full interview archive is also available at YouTube.com slash Scott Horton's show. All right, you guys, on the line, I got Tim Shoreock, and, you know, he's a hell of a great journalist. He wrote the book Spies for Hire, The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing, and he's a real expert on Korea, writes for the nation, and things like that. And he's got a brand new project called The Shoreock Files, and it's at patreon.com. Welcome back to the show, Tim. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you.

It's been a little while. it's been a while you're in my book i got your book yeah yeah hotter than the sun did i send you one you did yes okay good sorry i got what biden's got i can remember everything i read but i can't remember anything else uh listen um so and and it's a really good interview too it's a great summary of kind of a an encap on what trump tried and failed to do with north korea there we're going to talk about that in a minute, but it's one really great reason for people to buy and read hotter than the sun. Time to abolish nuclear weapons. Tim Shoreock's great takes. But so tell us all about this new project, the Shore Rock files, Tim. Well, first of all, I'm trying to do like so many other people

who've gone on Substack. I looked at that and decided with a combination of, of reporting I've done and all the archives I have, I thought doing a Patreon would be better because I could do kind of a multimedia presentation of my work. And so that's what I've done. So it's a Patreon where people can subscribe for as little as $3 a month, cheap, but the basic price is $5 a month.

And then it's linked to my website, which I've designed to be redesigned to be an archive of my work and research I've been doing on U.S. involvement in South Korea and Japan and East Asia in general, basically, you know, since the 1970s. And so I've got archives that, on one hand, you know, I became famous in Korea for disclosing the kind of hidden U.S. rule in the 1980 uprising, citizen uprising in South Korea against a military coup, where the Carter administration basically sided with the military dictators and helped them put down a uprising in this city. And I've got a ton of documents about that that are now, they've been available, but now they're searchable and, you know, I'm adding, I'm increasing that archive. And I'm also been working on another book about the U.S. and

Korea in Japan since 1945. And as I've been, you know, doing the research for that, I'm going to be posting all kinds of documentation and documents and photographs and and other kinds of media, you know, about the U.S. role in Asia since the end of World War II. And it's also got all my reporting on intelligence and privatization of intelligence going way back. And so it's a real resource, I think, for people that are interested in American policy in Asia, one of the most important parts of the world and where, of course, you know, the situation there is very dangerous right now.

At least this morning, you know, I watched, you know, Biden after his meeting with Gigi Ping in Indonesia. So at least the U.S. is talking to Gigi Ping, but all negotiations with North Korea have, you know, ended. You know, they've been over since the talks, with Trump and Kim Jong-un collapsed in 2019. So, you know, I hope to be a resource for people really, you know, interested in following these developments and trying to understand that, you know,

when we talk about confronting China militarily, that it means, you know, all the confrontation will come from all these U.S. bases that are in South Korea and Japan and Okinau, Guam, and this is a massive military empire that itself, you know, is, I think, is a real danger to peace. And I think, you know, that's what I hope to bring attention to with this Patreon, which is called DMZ Empire. People can go to it by just going to Patreon slash DMZ Empire. And the reason I call it a DMZ Empire is that I see the U.S. you know, force structure in Asia, you know, based of, you know, 28,500 troops in South Korea, about about 50,000 in Japan and Okinawa, mostly in Okinawa. And of course, the forces in Guam,

that military empire is based on the permanent division of South Korea and the kind of the merger of South Korea with Japan. And in terms of the U.S. military. And, you know, in the last couple days, the Biden administration has been putting out all these statements and, you know, tweets and policy overviews of what they're doing, all based on what they call this trilateral military relationship with South Korea and Japan, which I believe is at the heart of a lot of the military confrontation. And actually, that is a problem in and of itself. and that's what I'm trying to bring attention to. Yeah, so that's such an important point that they've created this permanent greater and greater disincentive for ever negotiating any kind of real peace with North Korea because that opens the door to reunification,

and that opens the question of South Korea arm with North Korea's nuclear weapons and not having to do what we say anymore. And so that'll screw up your whole trilateral thing you're doing there, right? Right. And, you know, and of course, you know, now, I mean, you know, Japan has been under, you know, the rule of the Liberal Democratic Party, the ruling party since, basically they've been ruling almost uninterrupted since 1955.

And this, of course, is a very pro-American, very subservient to U.S. interests kind of government. South Korea, you know, until recently, has. going, well, it's going back and forth between progressive governments and very conservative governments since the 1990s. You know, as your listeners know, and you've had me on the program when talks were actually going on between North and South Korea and the U.S. and North Korea, that was under Moon Jae-N., who was the president of South Korea from 2007 until, you know, from 2007, until recently. And he was very progressive and wanted engagement with North Korea. And he actually,

you know, initiated negotiations. And this was back in 2008. And out of that negotiation grew the invitation from North Korea to meet with President Trump when he was president. And, you know, out of that grew, you know, there was a, you know, there was. So there was great hope that there would be a, you know, a peaceful resolution to what the U.S. considers, you know, the problematic is the development of nuclear weapons in North Korea. And, you know, these negotiations went pretty far, but, you know, in 2019, they collapsed because, you know, Kim Jong-un and North Korea came forward with his proposal where they would close. about 80% of their nuclear facilities is basically this one big place where they make their weapons, this site called Yung Bion. They were willing to close that down, but they wanted in return a lifting of some of the latest sanctions

that were imposed on North Korea by the U.S. and the United Nations Security Council. But Trump and Pompeo and the people around him did not want to give up any sanctions until they had fully denuclearized. And so the talks collapsed. And since then, a very conservative president was narrowly elected in South Korea earlier this year. And President Yun, and he is very militaristic himself. He has threatened to have, he was threatened, you know, preemptive strikes on North Korea. And he's very much in tune with the Biden administration's hawkishness on North Korea. And so as a result, you know, this kind of three-way trilateral alliance with Japan and South Korea

under this conservative president in South Korea is really developing rapidly. And, of course, you know, over the last, well, particularly over the last few months, North Korea has been testing a record number of missiles. And some of them are shorter range and some of them are long-range missiles, but they really developed this capacity basically to hit any U.S. base in the area. So that means, you know, U.S. bases, or they've targeted U.S. bases in Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, Guam. And, of course, the U.S. has this massive military structure rate against them. And so the situation is deteriorating, and it's dangerous on both sides.

And I, you know, I'm really concerned about, about what could happen as a result. All right. Well, we all know that the ruiner of all good things is George W. Bush. And that 20 years ago was 2002. And that 2002 was the year of many great, terrible things, including right, This time in 2002 was when, as I remember it, John Bolton at the State Department, of course, under the supervision of Bush and Janie, broke the agreed framework deal of 1994, announced new sanctions, put North Korea in the, announced the, what they call the PSI, the proliferation security initiative, which was their declared right to seize whatever North Korean ships on the high seas that they felt like. and then they added them to the Nuclear Poster Review in December. And that was the final straw.

That came, you know, Bush put North Korea on the axis of evil. Oh, yeah, that was at the beginning of the year, yeah. Right. Yeah, that is important. I always skip that, right? I always go to the fall. But yeah, the axis of evil thing is important. I mean, and look at the absolute absurdity of this, but don't let it fool you, people.

Like, if you were too young to remember, this was important. I mean, people took this seriously that there was an alliance, an Axis, you know, like Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo, an axis between Saddam Hussein, the Ayatollah, Kim Jong-il, and Osama bin Laden. That's what they tried to make people think. But then it wasn't until, I think, the last straw, and let me know if I left out anything else. That was, that series of what now, that's five, six provocations of 2002 was what finally led to Kim Jong-il announcing he was withdrawing from the non-proliferation treaty, kicking the IAEA inspectors out of the country, and only then did he start making nuclear weapons and not out of enriched uranium from a hidden uranium enrichment program based on Pakistani aluminum tubes and all that like in John Bolton's lies, but instead on plutonium harvested from their Soviet area. Soviet-era Yang-Bong Reactor, the one you already mentioned there. And now they have, what, a couple of dozen nukes, and it's all John Bolton and George W. Bush's fault.

Well, if we can go back, I mean, the Clinton agreement that you referred to that was actually North Korea, that was signed in 94, as you said. It was called the Agreed Framework, and it was a first step toward, actually, in the minds of the U.S. negotiators and the North Korean negotiators, it was the first step toward, you know, ending the state of war and hostility between the U.S. and North Korea and normalizing relationships, normalizing diplomatic relations, eventually. I mean, that's even the name of it, right? It's the agreed framework. It's like, let's get started on improving things. All right, now tell me about new games. Right.

And so then you had, you know, this agreement, North Korea froze its nuclear program under the agreement with Clinton under this agreed framework. And actually, for 12 years, there was no fissible, you know, material made. They didn't make any kind of nuclear, you know, weapons-grade material that could be used in bombs. So it was shut down for a total of 12 years. And then in the end of the 90s, at the very end of the Clinton administration, there was negotiations to end North Korea's missile program. They came very close to an agreement, and it was pretty much, you know, pretty much signed

off on by both leaders in both countries at the end of the Clinton administration. And then, you know, Bush came in and immediately, within a few months of his administration, before 9-11, Bush had met with the then-Korean president and the great hero of the opposition movement, Kim De Jong, who was the president at that time in 2001. And he was the one who had initiated the initial engagement with North Korea. And he was the first president of South Korea to meet with the North Korea. Korean leaders. And Bush said, we don't trust North Korea, we're not going to negotiate anymore, and basically ended that period of engagement. And then, as you mentioned, the next

year in 2002, the Bush sent a delegation to Pyongyang, and they said, you have built a uranium facility, and therefore you've violated. the agreement, therefore we're pulling out, and therefore there's no agreement. But in fact, what had happened at that time was that North Korea was bringing in parts that could be made into an uranium enrichment site. They had not enriched any uranium yet, though. And they said they were willing to talk about it and willing to negotiate it, but they felt that they had a right to do that as sort of a back.

backup in case this agreement fell apart because it came under intense Republican opposition as soon as the Republicans came in in 94, you know, after they signed this. And so then, you know, the U.S. Bush accused them of, you know, building this uranium facility and building, trying to build a uranium bomb, and they just ended the whole framework. And so after a couple of years, North Korea did not explode a nuclear bomb until after that, until after Bush canceled all the engagement. In 2006 was their first bomb. Right.

Yeah. No, it took them three years or something to make one, three or four years. It took them three years. And so then, you know, and they've developed it ever since. And then, of course, you know, when these negotiations happened in 2018 that I mentioned, and then Trump met with him. Let me just interrupt here to note real quick that we know for fact on at least 95% of these tests that they've done, that these are plutonium bombs.

These are not enriched uranium bombs. They can tell from the radioactive signatures and whatever all the scientists can't. So there's no question that this all came from plutonium harvested from their reactor that we already knew they had, that they had turned off under the agreement that our side break in the agreement led them to turn back on. Right. And so, you know, now the situation has also changed now because back when there was negotiations in 2018, 2019, you know, when North Korea was slapped with sanctions by the UN Security Council in 2017 and 2018, both China and Russia voted for those sanctions. because they were, they themselves felt that, you know, North Korea's nuclear program was a problem and the, and the, and they recognized, they felt that the, their ICBM tests were also broke

international agreements. And so the Russians and the Chinese voted for the sanctions. But of course, now, we're almost at war with Russia and we're, you know, very hostile toward China. And so they're no longer willing to go along with sanctions against North Korea. So, you know, North Korea has sort of taken advantage of that and is testing, it's testing its, you know, missile capability. But, you know, they, the U.S. has been saying incessantly since I've traced this fact to last May. May 5th of this year, you know, Biden's National Security Advisor said, you know, North Korea is ready to test another bomb any moment now. And, you know, repressed, you know, repeated that. And they say this every day. They said it again today.

But since May 8th, there's been no nuclear test, but they keep saying there's going to be one. And so we have to be prepared. And so each side is just ratcheting up, you know, like so then the North Korean does these tests. And then the U.S. does these massive air exercises with both South Korea and Japan. And they keep doing these military exercises that are designed to completely destroy, you know, North Korea if there was any kind of conflict, any kind of armed conflict. And, you know, they've been going back to the rhetoric, the Pentagon anyway, it's been going back to the rhetoric that Trump was using in 2017, i.e., you will be totally destroyed if you continue this back. They sent Kamala Harris over there to threaten him.

Just had the American policy has just simply not, you know, under Biden, the hostility, nothing has changed. They say, oh, we're open to talks, but they won't come forward with any kind of negotiating, you know, any kind of plan that would move the two sides, you know, towards reconciliation. Right. Now, so stop there for a second because, and not to personalize this too much, but, hey, everybody knows and hates John Bolton, and it is his fault, and it's easier for people to understand it in this way, right?

That, and you alluded to this a bit, that, but let's, I want to make this clear, and you can correct me wherever I get it screwed up here, Tim, but just my best understanding of the narrative here is once Bush pushed North Korea to nukes, he said, well, now you have to give up your nukes or I'll never talk to you again. I remember him famously getting in an argument with President Rowe of South Korea over a mistranslation. Roe goes, did you just say we can negotiate first and then like nukes later? And Bush goes, no, I did not say that when? Yeah, okay. Then Barack Obama comes in. He's emperor for eight years. he keeps the exact same policy. They call it strategic patience,

which just means ignoring North Korea, which, as I guess better than constantly ratcheting up tensions, but mostly ignoring them, trying to outsource negotiating with them to China for whatever good that would do, but insisting on the Bush formulation, that once they give up their nukes, then we'll start talking to them,

which, of course, is the poisonous pill in the whole world, is meant to fail, is meant to prevent negotiations from happening. Trump comes and the South Korean president says, and you're right, because I do remember that, you know, they did in 08, Bush softened for a minute and then took it back. You know, that is an important kind of side note there. But then under Trump, the South Korean president comes and says, look, man, I want to make a deal. We'll put nukes on the back burner for a minute and see if we can just make a deal with them.

And this is about after a year of Trump playing Mr. Tough guy, Fire and Fury and all that. And then Trump says, fine, go ahead and he has the South Korean. Korean delegation, go ahead and announce it in the White House driveway before his own government can stop him. And then, so, but then there's one guy from the actual government, I guess, Began, Stephen Began, and he gives a speech at Heritage and says, I think, and says, all right, look, we're putting nukes on the back burner. We're going to make peace with North Korea on all these different issues and, or we're going to allow the South Koreans to, and cooperate with that. And then we'll get to nukes, you know, we'll trade some security guarantees, this

and that. And then, so I remember, I think, interviewing you at the time and saying, this is the greatest invention in the history of diplomacy with North Korea in the last 75 years or something like that, is this formulation by Began. Then they go to, correct me, I forget, if it was in Saigon or if it was in when they were in Singapore. I'm sorry? Singapore was first. Yeah, Singapore was first. And they bring John Bolton and Began has to sit in the back of the room and Bolton sits at the table and blusters and threatens and prevents any progress from being made. And then that's all she wrote. Well, at Singapore, they did make a declaration, which did not, which as you said, you know, basically put denuclearization as kind of a second step.

And the initial thing, the initial language was, you know, to improve the relationship and and the hostility. That was basically the point of what they said. And then these other things. So that's what led to the DMZ photos and all of that, right? So then what happened? But then when they went, you know, then when they were, you know, they had come, and then they set this meeting in March 2019 in Hanoi. and Kim Jong-un took a train all the way from Pyongyang down to Hanoi, spent a two or three-day train trip, and then they sat down and it looked like that was, it was right before Hanoi that Began made that speech where Began said basically, you know, we're trying to have a breakthrough that will put, you know, make the peace first and then, you know, go next to dealing with this.

nuclearization issue. But that was, you know, he was speaking out of school, basically. That was not, that was not accepted by either Trump or Pompeo, and especially by Bolton. And so when Kim Jong-un came there and laid out this, you know, offer to shut down Youngbun in return for not, not lifting all sanctions, but lifting the most recent sanctions, which had really, really stifled the North Korean economy, and particularly the civilian economy, because it basically, you know, stopped all imports and exports and even, you know, essential goods. And so that really had put the screws on North Korea and its economy. But that deal was, you know, they just rejected. Trump rejected it, you know, and Bolton played the big role there, and Bolton has said since, you know, that that would have been a terrible mistake, and, you know, Bolton was a big force in that breakdown of that agreement.

And he also, you know, talked very disparagingly about the president of South Korea at the time, Moon, you know, very disrespectful, basically, you know, not recognize them. equals or anything, just, you know, basically you're just this colony of ours and you have to go along with whatever we say. And, but, you know, even before the agreements fell apart, you know, north and south, Kim Jong-un and Moon had made a lot of progress in their bilateral negotiations. They had really, you know, brought tensions down on the border to DMZ by removing. and making changes there. So it wasn't such a confrontational situation on the border. And they had also wanted to, you know, have some economic exchanges. And there was one big project

that they wanted to do, which was for the South Koreans to help the North Koreans modernize their railroads. But that was vetoed by the Pentagon in the U.S. because you know, the Pentagon runs the so-called UN command in Korea, which controls any border crossings, any crossing of the border between north and south. And so when South Korea, you know, wanted to bring people north to work on the railroad project, that was just flatly denied by the U.S. and the Pentagon. And so, you know, that also played into it because, like, the North Koreans finally started saying, well, you know, here you are, South Korea saying you want to make the peace and, you know, and make, you know, help, help with our economy and, you know,

deep, you know, make it, make it less tense because of that. But you can't do it because Uncle Sam won't let you, you know. So it really underscored their fears that South Korea was so much under the control of the U.S., and they've been saying that a lot lately. Sorry, hang on just one second Hey guys, anybody who signs up to listen to this show by way of Patreon will be invited to join the Reddit group

And I'm going to start posting stuff over there more That's patreon.com slash Scott Horton's show Thanks Hey y'all, Libertasbella.com is where you get Scott Horton's show and Libertarian Institute shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, and stickers and things, including the great top lobstas designs as well.

See, that way it says on your shirt Why you're so smart? libertas bella from the same great folks who bring you ammo.com for all your ammunition needs too that's libertasbella.com you guys check it out this is so cool the great mike swanson's new book is finally out he's been working on this thing for years and i admit i haven't read it yet i'm going to get to it as soon as i can but i know you guys are going to want to beat me to it it's called why the vietnam war nuclear bombs and nation building in southeast asia 1945 through 61 and as he explains on the back here all of our popular culture and our retellings and our history and our movies are all about the height of the american war there in say 1964 through 1974 but how do we get there why is this all harry truman's fault find out in why the vietnam war by the great mike swanson available now you know back to where we started right is this is because the

U.S. government does not want peace. They prefer nuclear brinksmanship on the Korean Peninsula so they can keep South Korea and Japan under their thumb as a united front against China. And they want to have this, you know, they've had this massive military infrastructure since, you know, since after the Korean War. I mean, it's been, you know, one of the important things about the nuclear story that, that I don't think gets enough attention. is the fact that, you know, it was the United States that first introduced nuclear weapons into Korea, first by, you know, during the Korean War, both President Truman and President Eisenhower threatened North Korea with nuclear attacks if they wouldn't sign, you know,

the agreement that the armistice. And they made those threats numerous times. And then in 1957 and 1958, the U.S. actually introduced nuclear weapons into South Korea. They brought in hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons. Some were on planes, some were in cannons. And then there was even some American soldiers would carry them on their backpacks, these sort of miniature nukes that they, you know, send a missile from these small backpacks. And so, you know, they introduced nuclear weapons early on in the 50s. It wasn't until 30 years later that North Korea began developing its own nuclear program. And, you know, I think that's a development that is completely ignored in U.S. coverage of Korea. Like, we're the ones who brought in

nuclear weapons. You know, in 1991, George H.W. Bush removed. those tactical weapons from Korea and a number of other places around the world as part of a broader, you know, broader kind of campaign, broader program dealing with the Soviet Union and arms control. And that was a good thing that they did that. But the U.S., of course, has nuclear weapons in the region, you know, on its aircraft carriers, on submarines, on all, you know, planes that fly from Guam, these big, you know, strategic bombers that the U.S. has.

So, you know, there's still like a real nuclear threat. And of course, they say South Korea is under the so-called nuclear umbrella. What does that mean? Well, that means, you know, if there's a war, the U.S. would use nuclear weapons. And so we're basically back to, you know, back to the old confrontation, except now, you know, China and Russia, you know, are not willing to, you know, vote against North Korea and the UN Security Council anymore. And of course, you know, all the, all the latest, you know, American policy formulations coming out of the Pentagon makes, you know, the big enemy is now

China. And China knows that very well. And as I've been saying, you know, if Biden can meet with Zizi Ping, who's supposed to be our big enemy, why can't he meet with Kim Jong-un? I mean, Biden admitted this morning on the press conference that he did from Indonesia that he said, well, I don't think we can really say that China controls North Korea. Well, duh, China cannot control North Korea. You know, China does not have military forces in North Korea. China has a good relationship with them, but they don't control them. The only way you're going to get any kind of movement is by having direct negotiations.

And it's insane that it's been 77 years, and there's only been one period of like 18 months when the top leaders of the U.S. met with the top leaders of North Korea. And I think you're right. you know the refusal to negotiate anything besides you know you have to give up all your nuclear weapons and then we'll talk about other things that's not the way to make the peace oh and they know that too that's their most poison pill it's the most blatant thing in the world you'd think they'd come up with another way to sabotage it and try to pretend to be the nice guy for a minute liberal rules based world order and all of that crap but nope this is purely you know Hillary clinton's

muscular foreign policy. Right. It hasn't changed at all. And, you know, the thing is, like, a lot of the people that made, you know, you were talking about this Obama policy of, you know, basically benign neglect, right? But it was during that time, they were, you know, Obama was working very hard to, you know, it cement the military alliance between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea. and, you know, Tony Blinken, the current Secretary of State, and, you know, his current national security advisor, they were key parts of that Obama policy administration.

I mean, Blinken was his deputy national security advisor. You know, so they played very important roles under Obama, and they're back doing the same thing now. And I think it's just a really dangerous situation in that if it continues, like, you know, I think we need to start listening to, you know, people of South Korea. There's been, you know, many, many groups in civil society groups in South Korea, 700 groups put an incredible statement together about two weeks ago. calling on both North Korea and the U.S. and South Korea to stop escalating, you know, to stop the cycle of escalation where North Korea tests, and then the U.S. in South Korea have these massive exercises, and, you know, where they fly, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of fighter planes, and that just, that just, you know, raises the tensions all over.

And so South Koreans are saying, you know, let's stop this escalation. and get back, you know, to negotiating an end to the Korean War. And they say, get back to the declaration that the U.S. and North Korea made in Singapore, the Singapore Declaration, used that as a beginning language. And also in 1992, South Korea and North Korea had this very broad agreement on, you know, having no nuclear weapons in their country period. But that was a good, that's where the negotiations began between North and South Korea. So they're saying, let's stop the escalation and begin talking to, you know, so lots of

American analysts are now saying, you know, like just recognize North Korea as a nuclear power and then, you know, try to negotiate arms control. think that's a good starting point. But I think we have to end the war, the state of war. The Korean War never ended. It's just an armistice. There was never a peace agreement. The U.S. torpedoed any peace agreement. And there was 1954. There was talks that were supposed to end the end bringing a peace agreement. But the U.S. torpedoed them. The U.S. had no interest in a peace agreement in Korea because they wanted to maintain South Korea. as a massive military base, which they did from the Korean War on.

South Korea was this military garrison. And we can't forget that it was under a military garrison state under incredibly authoritarian rule. It was a torture state, you know, until the late 1980s. So the U.S. has a huge responsibility for what happened. You know, the U.S. policy from the 50s, 60s, and 70s of military confrontation, you know, kept it at a state of, like you say, like that. And then that's, you know, what the military industrial complex likes. They want to have this state of war.

They can say, we have to have more weapons and more this and more rockets and, you know, more strategic planes and et cetera. And it just keeps going and going. It just doesn't seem to change. Yeah. Well, hey, did you see the news that they're going to debut the new long-range stealth bomber? I'm not sure if that has anything to do with what we're talking about here. Well, then they could fly from Nebraska, wherever those planes are based all the way to North Korea. And, you know, it's just like...

They cost $1 million billion each. It's great. Oh, great. Yeah, terrific. That's all we need, right? And it is a matter of the flea wagon, the dog, and so many of these things, right? I mean, you mentioned Harry Truman how this never went away since him. But, you know, really since FDR built this war machine to fight World War II. And I can't remember who it was. Oh, I'm such an idiot. Someone was just characterizing this wonderfully the other day about how big business in America really did not want to get into World War II.

So instead of coercion him, FDR just made him a deal. Look, stop making things that people want and start making weapons of death and destruction. and I'll pay you handsomely with deficit spending. And they were like, word. And then they never stopped. That was it. They never stopped ever since then. And, like, what are you going to do?

I mean... I was now right about the military industrial complex. Too bad he said it just as he was leaving office. But it's out of control. And you see, they're the ones who really influence policy. You know, I've been writing about this for years, right? you know, Center for Strategic International Studies. Who are they?

They're funded by Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and everybody else. And all these think tanks that are funded by these huge military contractors. You know, they're not interested in peace. But that's who the press quotes all the time in the U.S. I remember as a little kid probably listening to like National Public Radio or something in the 80s and hearing them talk about a think tank. Oh, that's interesting. because you picture a tank right like a little kid you're like a picture i think tank what do they

well they sit there and think about things but it should the definition of that from the ground up always when people teach their little kids should be that it's corruption it's the worst thing about america it's where arms dealers pay corrupt academics exorbitant amounts of tax money that they stole in order to write justifications for the money they make killing innocent people. That's who they are. They're the worst people in the whole world. These militarists, I mean, no, it's just American militarism is a scourge on the planet. And, you know, it's this past, this history, this hidden history that, that is, we never, it's so hard to get to. That's the reason for I'm doing this Patreon. That's the reason I have

this website up, so people can understand this history more. And, you know, I'm trying to, you know, use it to like, you know, so people can read about what happened earlier in the 70s and the 80s and so on, and read about, you know, the U.S. support for military governments in South Korea for so long, and their support for reactionary, Cold War ruling party in Japan that was, you know, the LDP was created by the CIA, millions and millions of dollars went to Japan in the 1950s to support, you know, its pro-U.S., you know, government that's been in power. And that's why I'm doing this, is that we need to understand the past and break away from this militarism story. And

that that whole way of looking at things and look at what we've done and then, you know, try to go from there and try to try to understand why we're at such a, why the situation is so tense right now. You have to go back and understand it. And by the way, you know, I hope people go to us. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I hope they will too. We're going to plug that real good at the end too. But, you know, it kind of goes without saying so it does go unsaid. I don't know if you and I have ever even really discussed this in all these years is the tyranny of North Korea everybody knows it is like the world's last Stalinist stronghold right and I read something about something like two-thirds of the people in North Korea are in the military

something like that like it's the most it's very very militaristic the military itself has enormous amount of power there and and you know You know, yes, it's a totalitarian state, a totalitarian garrison state. But, you know, they've been feeling, you know, with some justification since the Korean war that they're under great threat from the United States. And I think, you know, South Korea, you know, until the late 80s, was also a draconian authoritarian state. I called it. It was a torture state. People stood up, you know, it wasn't the United States that gave democracy to South Korea. You know, people stood up and fought for years against this

U.S.-backed military government in South Korea and finally, you know, broke its back with public protest, you know, year after year, month after month. That took a lot of organizing. But for many years, it was under this kind of authoritarian state. The U.S. got really used to having an authoritarian state, and that would just do what the United States, you know, what wanted it to do. Well, and also look, I mean, the point there, there's a couple points there, too, about,

not to downplay the South, but just to change the subject back to the North there, is, one, people get very emotionally invested in these narratives, so they need to understand, and we need to make it blatant probably for people, that none of this is an apology for the government of North Korea, we're just pointing the finger at our own government and what it's doing wrong, which is plenty. And you know what I mean? You don't have to be on the side of David Koresh or

Manuel Noriega or Saddam Hussein or Omar Gaddafi or any of these people in order to just tell the truth about the situation. So simple as that. And also, wait, the second point, and you can go ahead right after this is that just because somebody runs a tyranny doesn't mean that they are externally adventurous and pose a threat to their neighbors necessarily. Now, when provoked and they have total, you know, dictatorship-type power, it's pretty hard for checks and balances to stop them from reacting in terrible ways. But you could be, like, you could believe every absolute horrible thing about David Koresh still doesn't mean he's about to march on downtown Waco, you know?

Same thing here. And people can flate these things. Oh, Chairman Xi, he's evil. Well, he is a dictator of a communist dictatorship. What the hell can I say? That's pretty much the definition of evil, other than straight from hell or something like that. But does that mean that he's about to occupy Japan? No.

And so we got to be able to, you know, parse these issues. And I think that as totalitarian as a North Korean state is, they respond to incentives just like everybody else. and here America is the 8 trillion-toned gorilla, we have everything to give and nothing to lose by just treating them like a little kid, patronize them a little bit, but be nice enough to warm things up. And we should be able to do that.

That's all we're saying here. Confrontation just makes the human rights problem situation in North Korea worse, because as the South Korean government did for years, the North Korean government, of course, uses the external threat as the justification for this massive police state that they have. And I think it's, you know, there's example after example around the world, when you make the peace, you know, cruelty within, you know, your system dissipates.

And cruelty and violence dissipate when you make the peace. and that country does not feel threatened. Look what happened in Ireland. You know, there are years of confrontation and, you know, IRA versus the U. the British government and there was terrible violence on both sides, right? You know, when they finally reached a peace, you know, the IRA wasn't, you know, the IRA didn't, you know, set off bombs in downtown London anymore. I mean, it ended, right?

It wasn't because the Irish were just insane and, and, you know, cruel by themselves, they wanted to get free of the U.K. They wanted to get free of British control. And so, like, you make the peace, they finally made the peace, and the violence ended. And, you know, terrorism ended between the two sides. And I think the same thing could happen in Korea. But you have to end this war. It's so important.

And that's what a lot of South Koreans will, of course, concerned about the rights of the people across the border. They're their family. They're their, uncles, grandparents. Families are split. People don't want to see, you know, those people all killed in a war. They want to, and they don't want to see them persecuted either. But the way to do it is to bring some kind of peace to the land so the two sides can develop, you know, the relationship on their own, as they've shown they can do, as they, as happened under the last administration of Moon-J-N, you know, there was a real breakthrough between North and South. And unfortunately, the U.S., the U.S. military posture really destroyed that movement, I think.

And, you know, that's the thing, is that, you know, it's not that they're all evil, one side. It's just that they make terrible decisions because they're under this wartime situation and they fear being attacked. And so they fear an internal, you know, just, they fear any kind of internal threat to them is, you know, that that's also a threat. So, you know, and the war. I think that that's what lots of peace activists in South Korea have been saying for, you know, years and years and years, we got to, you know, bring a formal end to the Korean War, which could, you know, which could eventually, you know, mean U.S. forces would leave. And that's something I think, you know, the Pentagon and the military establishment here does not

want to do. They don't want to decrease, you know, American bases there. They want to keep them. Yeah. 70 years. on just a ceasefire and no peace treaty that's just incredible it's really sad it's really sad american diplomacy um and hey that's one where we said fine and called it a stalemate that could have been a lot worse man anyway let's not do the whole korean war now uh the last one well you know the one thing i want to say is that you know i think it's going to take some outside force i mean the thing is the u n does not have any credibility in korea because it's, you know, it's the UN, they gave you command of, you know, U.S. to the U.N. command, right?

So, like, an independent country that's not tied to either side, I'm thinking, like, maybe Brazil, maybe Brazil. Yeah, somebody has no dog in the fight at all, right? Yeah, and they have relationships with North Korea. They have diplomatic relationships with North Korea. Why not have Lula try to sit down with the two, three sides? I mean, and this was so ridiculous, right, is that this is supposed to, to be America's role in the world. We don't have a dog in any of these fights,

but we'll host your peace conference. But no, we're the evil empire now. I mean, we should have been, you know, trying to negotiate and enter this war in Ukraine months and months and months ago. Instead of more than keeping the war going, we're just fueling that war.

It's not, there's no, there's no statesman-like action, you know, like, okay, let's, let's stop the fighting and let's, you know, meet in some third country, and let's try to work it out with Russia. I mean, I just think that there's, we lack that because it's, I think the military is in control, but I think it's going to take somebody from the outside. I mean, I really like the idea of, you know, somebody like Lula, the president of Brazil, who has relationships with North Korea and the United States sitting down with them, you know?

I mean, why not? Anybody. Third party. Yeah. Who's the president of Uruguay? Send that guy. I don't care. Yeah. Anything, anything to end, you know, to end this. But like our U.S. military, the pride in this, you know, huge military we have is just, it's a, it's a sickness. And, and you know, you see the repercussions all the time looking around at our infrastructure or health care, our health care system. I mean, the country we hate China, look what they've done and just turning, you know, linking all their cities through railroads, fast trains. I mean, they don't.

spend all of their money on military technology. They use it, you know, to build things inside their country. We have so much wealth, but it goes to all this, you know, fancy military technology, deadly military technology. And I just, you know, we know how bad the system is in terms of health care here and in our infrastructure is a joke yeah well um there are other things that are more important just like on september 11th where's our air defenses well they're all provoking this attack over the no-fly zone in southern iraq and they're patrolling the DMZ over in korea right they're not around to protect the united states of america they're just over there getting us into fights well we had one plane in the air that day right and guess what i actually got a friend who went

was doing some research about September 11th, listening to Howard Stern, talk about time to nuke the Middle East and all this stuff. And what he heard, Tim, was from an L.A. radio station report about, I think, an hour before September 11th attack commenced was, oh, this just in.

An American drone has been shot down over the no-fly zone. This is the only, you know, aircraft of ours that was ever shot down over the no-fly zone, as far as I know, in southern Iraq. And that morning, the no-fly zone that was the number one thing on the list was american bases in

Saudi Arabia in order to wage that air campaign against iraq throughout the 1990s it's the number one cause number one motivation of the september 11th attack and even that morning there was news out of the no-fly zone and by the way as long as i'm ranting about that i got to go ahead and mention it too because the news just broke on this i guess a couple days ago i only saw it this morning that they finally released Bush and Cheney's interview with the 9-11 Commission. And it's just a summary. But it does have this direct quote. It says that Bush acknowledged that U.S. economic sanctions on Iraq were, quote, recruiting terrorists.

Their propaganda with reports of starving Iraqi children were hurting us. So, Mr. They Hate Our Freedoms, admitted himself. That's what it was about. It was American bases in Saudi Arabia being used to bomb and blockade the best. people of Iraq. And then, of course, after that, support for Israel and all the dictatorships of the Middle East, et cetera. But they're out of bushes, the liar's mouth himself. And they never hated us because of our virtue. It was the sins. What we did. It's what we did. And the thing is, like you were saying, you don't have to love these people to listen to them, right? I mean,

like Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were saying for years, this is a terrible thing to have American military forces in Saudi Arabia, where Mecca is, right? They were like, that's what inflamed so many of those Islamic fighters, right? The U.S. and Saudi Arabia, we should have listened to that, you know, listen to this opposition, just the same with North Korea. When North Korea says, we're afraid you're going to attack us, they have reason to believe that that's true. And, you know, we have to try to understand why they say that, what's the, what, Why are they do what they do? Why are they setting off these missiles?

Because they want to make sure that if there's a war, they can hit the U.S. bases that are hitting that. Right. I mean, no country wants to be without defenses. And so, you know, North Korea, you know, there was a Korean war, which was largely a civil war. North Korea has never invaded another country. It's so-called invaded South Korea across the border into its own country.

It was basically a construct, South Korea and North Korea were constructs of the Cold War. But North Korea's never invaded another country. If any Korean country has invaded another country, it's South Korea, which sent 350,000 soldiers to fight with the U.S. and South Vietnam. You know, that was an invasion of another country. So, you know, they have reason to think and to believe that the U.S. is a threat to them. And until the U.S. says, like, you know, shows that they have some, you know, they don't want to do that. They'll continue to be testing, continue to build up their military, which is tragic.

Because they, as you were saying, it's a military state. So much of their resources goes into military. But it's not a poor, I mean, people, you know, a lot of Americans just write them off as just some broken third world country. But, you know, a broken third world country cannot make sophisticated missiles that could hit the United States. And, you know, a broken third world country cannot make nuclear weapons. It's just, you know, they have a highly technical society.

You know, they've come back from all kinds of destruction to, you know, to build a modern country. They're not blacking in technology. And, you know, there just needs to be a piece so both sides can, you know, improve their own countries. Korea is one of the biggest military powers on Earth. They're now exporting, you know, weapons to Europe. They have, they're exporting all kinds of weapons to Poland. You know, stories came out the other day. They're selling, you know, all kinds of military hardware to the U.S. that's being used

in Ukraine, you know, as the U.S. sends them weapons, sends Ukraine weapons, then South Korea sends them to the U.S. So the U.S. still has all these weapons, too. So it just goes on and on. Yep. All right, well, we better leave this here. It's been a good one. I've missed you, Tim.

Thanks for coming back on the show. Thanks a lot, Scott. I really appreciate it. Me too, man. You guys find Tim Shorerock at patreon.com slash DMZ Empire. That is his new project there. and as we forgot to discuss this time

he spent a lot of his youth over there and really has been an expert on this since I was in preschool and I'm old so that means he's old but it also means he's got a hell of a lot of experience on this so check that out again patreon.com slash DMZ Empire for Tim Shoreock's new project there

the Scott Horton show anti-war radio can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in LA. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, scothorton.org, and libertarian institute.org.