And in North Korea ...

There's never a shortage of FUD in any given issue of the daily paper. Quick rule of thumb to find FUD is to read an article about any nation the current U.S. administration has differences with. Today's example: U.S. Pursuing Talks With 4 Nations on N. Korea.

The most obvious FUD, or FUD semi-retraction actually, is that Christopher Hill, a State Department spokesman, said he could not confirm that Iranian officials had witnessed the recent missile testing. The great thing about these tactics, and why they are used so often, is that all you have to do it put it out there (true or not) and then retract it later. The L.A. Times adds to this by placing the article right next to an article about Iran (another subject of heavy FUD in the U.S. press).

The article has a number of other lies and half-truths. For example, "the North Koreans don't seem to want to go to six-party meetings right now." It also labels this as a "boycott." This is a half-truth. The North Koreans are willing to engage in talks, but the U.S. has been foot-dragging. Oh yeah, and there are those sanctions the U.S. has on North Korean. One reasonable explanation for the missile tests is actually that they were a means of forcing talks to reconvene, since the U.S. was clearly trying to line up all of the other six parties against North Korea. In particular, China was invited in May to watch U.S. joint military exercises. As North Korea's largest ally, this was a strong indication of further isolation.

What is funny is that North Korea has been asking for two-party talks from the get-go. So, statements by Hill that the "U.S. would have no problem with one-on-one contact with Pyongyang on the sidelines of six-nation negotiations" are evading. The U.S. really wants to get its allies and others in the region to do the work, and particularly to pay the cost. The U.S. is the one who doesn't want to "torpedo" the six-party talks.

In the end, the U.S. state line is that North Koreans "pride themselves on being opaque" and that's what the media regurgitates. Why can the U.S. push this line? Because the media never talks about the details of North Korea unless it is backed by a U.S. policy. I've studied Korean history, and I have to say that nothing here seems opaque to me. North Korea is acting in a rational manner given its situation.

It is an interesting situation now. Of the six parties, there are three factions. North and South Korea obviously don't want war and don't want the North to suffer, but instead move toward something like reunification on a basis that won't devastate either economy too much. China and Russia as semi-neutral; they don't want war or complete deprivation, but have totally different interests. And then you have the U.S. and Japan who are clearly hostile to North Korea.

Japan is interesting here, since that nation is clearly trying to expand its military and get rid of its constitutional prohibition on warfare. But, under Bush's definition of self-defense, Japan could claim justification in participating in a war against North Korea even with that restriction. I don't think a war is likely at this point (initial estimates are that something like 100,000 people would die in the first week of a war between the U.S. and North Korea). Really, South Koreans are the only ones in a position to head things in a positive direction, but if they had the resources to do it alone things would be better off already.

One thing I'd love to see is a good, neutral timeline of events for North Korean-U.S. relations over the last decade or so. Every one I've come across online is biases toward U.S. foreign policy aims.