Theses on the Korean Problem

Theses on the Korean Problem

Major Propositions:

1.      The road distance from Dandong on the Yalu to Shenyang (historically, Mukden) pop. ca. 7 million, is about 100 miles, to Beijing about 550 miles. Korea's border of almost 1,000 miles stretches along two of China's historical Three Eastern Provinces whose combined population exceeds 70 million.

2.      South Korea's combination of a vibrant market-oriented economy with a lively democracy enjoying wide participation would have made a worrisome neighbor and model to the Chinese Communist regime before the recent fall of the government in Seoul.  Spontaneous large-scale demonstrations against corruption leading to replacement of top leaders is probably the stuff of nightmares for CPC leadership.  To them, South Korea looks like an American colony, only worse.

3.      China could cause the present North Korean regime to disappear with relative ease; replacing it – as the U.S. recently learned in Iraq – is another matter altogether.

4.      The reunification of Germany could be taken as a model for the likely form that reunification of Korea would take if the Communist regime in the North were to fall – except that the GDR was much closer to economic and cultural parity with its Western-oriented counterpart than North Korea is to South Korea, and therefore the triumph of capitalism can be expected to be much more rapid and complete.

5.      Again resorting to the German analogy, the Pyongyang regime of the Workers’ Party of Korea is clearly more brittle, less capable of adaptation and accommodation than was the Berlin establishment run by the Socialist Unity Party.  In other words, the existing totalitarian system in North Korea must either remain in total and rigid control or else vanish.  Its fall would create a vacuum which the South Korean system would inevitably and fully occupy.

Lesser Propositions:

6.      Because it is one of the Big Five, all of whom would necessarily prefer that only the Big Five have nuclear weapons, if for no other reason – and there are a number of other reasons – China cannot be happy with the present North Korean regime.

7.      Despite the long border, the nature of Han Chinese society and of the CPC’s (now semi-) totalitarian regime would make it relatively easy for China to deal with any “flood of refugees” resulting from upheaval on the Korean peninsula.  Refugees simply would not get in, or if they did they’d be rapidly and unceremoniously transported back, whatever degree of coercive force might be needed.

Inferences:

To the Chinese government, the inherent problems presented by the continuation of the present regime in Pyongyang are much less serious than the highly likely negative consequences of the collapse of that regime, and such collapse would likely ensue if Pyongyang were subjected to any serious meddling.  Those negative consequences are of existential dimensions (from the CPC perspective) and therefore Beijing would be induced to “lean” seriously on Pyongyang only by extremely serious and effective external pressure.  But no other power, including the U.S., is in a position to exert such pressure.

The President’s suggestion that China would get a better trade deal by taking unspecified measures against the Pyongyang regime will be given no warmer reception as a “tweet” than it was given over the luncheon table at Mar al Lago

From the domestic U.S. perspective, it should be noted that by his own terms, Trump is offering to allow China to continue “raping” the U.S. and stealing the jobs of American workers if China will help us out with our North Korean problem.  This is what he calls “making America great again.”  What is to be feared is that Trump’s will take out his frustration with China in some rash action against North Korea.  Hit them with a few Tomahawks, and they will hit back.

The Terrible Tapp

Awful Aural Acquisition,
or,
the Terrible Tapp

Saturday morning, the President published his declaration that he had “just found out” that “Obama had [his] ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory.”  About the same time, the New York Times was reporting that apparently someone in or closely associated with Trump’s organization had been under surveillance sometime during the campaign.  On Monday, in defense of the President’s weekend accusations, his press secretary offered the observation that “There's enough out there now that makes one wonder how some of this happened without the existence of surveillance.”

Where is “out there,” and exactly what is this sufficiency that makes the press secretary wonder? We are in a strange moment.  Clearly, there are intercepted communications whose content has not been made public even though the existence of these intercepts has caused and is causing political events to occur.  The fate of Gen. Flynn is a clear example, and who knows whether the actual or suspected existence of some similar record is behind Sec’y Sessions’ sudden partial recovery from amnesia concerning his conversations with Ambassador Kislyak?

We now know that a Russo-Ukrainian working for Paul Manafort while Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager was under surveillance as part of a U.S. counter-espionage effort.  Konstantin Kilimnik has claimed credit for getting the Platform Committee of the Republican National Convention to delete anti-Russian content from the hallowed party platform, and has said he was ordered to do it by Donald Trump himself.  The possibility, even the likelihood, that surveillance of Kilimnik resulted in the interception of communications that would compromise Manafort, if not Trump himself, is obvious.

Would surveillance of a Kilimnik necessarily have been limited to measures taken by the FBI, with communications interception only pursuant to a FISA warrant?  I think not.  Kilimnik’s communications with his foreign (presumably Russian) controller could have been intercepted by the FBI, the CIA or the NSA without any warrant.  They could also have been intercepted by any number of foreign agencies and then shared, most likely with the CIA. A foreign source could even have provided encrypted communications to a US agency which alone has the ability to decrypt them.

Of course, if there was a FISA warrant out for the interception of Kilimnik’s communications, it would have followed him into the Trump Tower and into Trump’s office or Trump’s bathroom. Even though the utterances of "US person" participants would have been subject to "minimization," a pre-minimization version would exist somewhere. And there is a world of non-FISA possibilities. Dutch Intelligence (acronym BVD) could have been planting nanomikes anywhere.  The Donald could have the BVD in his BVDs, for all we know.  Transcripts, in unmarked envelopes, could be landing in mailboxes all over D.C., northern Virginia and southwestern Maryland.

How many Kilimniks there were or are, and how close to Trump, are matters unknown at present (to the general public, anyway).  Does Trump know of a damning intercept, or does he merely suspect the existence of one?  Either way, the rationale for his “irrational” accusatory tweets is pretty obvious.

A deep, dark vein of mindless fear and loathing of Barack Obama runs through one half of the American psyche, and Donald Trump launched his political career by tapping into it.  Preposterous Birtherism was useful to Trump, and now he hopes to make use of a preposterous association between Tyrant Obama and his cruel and oppressive act of intercepting communications to deflect attention from the content of the intercepted communications.  (A survey of alt-right sources reveals that the myth of Obama's Surveillance State is already being ginned up.) That there will be no connection, or only the most attenuated of connections, between Obama and the wicked “tapp” will make no difference to Trump’s adherents.

Dear Uncle No. 1, or Breaking All the Rules

Kelly – Smooth Like Jelly, But Weak, So Weak (When Will You Hear "You’re Fired!")

L.A. Times, 2-7-17:

President Trump's top Homeland Security official took responsibility Tuesday for the haphazard rollout of Trump's restrictions on entry into the U.S., a striking claim because he was largely left out of the crafting of the order.

The confusion surrounding the execution of the order is "all on me,” Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly told the House Homeland Security Committee in his first appearance before Congress since Trump temporarily halted refugees and barred entry for people to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries.

Looking back, Kelly added, "I should have delayed it just a bit" to inform those directly affected by the order as well as members of Congress.

But the writing of the order and planning for its rollout was limited chiefly to a handful of senior White House advisors and agency lawyers, and Kelly found himself in the awkward position of defending the execution of a directive he didn’t see until the week it was issued and wasn’t told was coming until the day before it was signed.

"The thinking was to get it out quick so that people trying to come here to harm us could not take advantage of a period of time to jump on an airplane," he said.

In case your aluminum-foil hat conspiracy-theory knee-jerk reaction is to say, “See! That’s the kind of mainstream media fake news, made up out of whole cloth just to undermine Our Beloved Great and Rich Leader that Our Beloved Great and Rich Leader has warned us against,” I saw the video on C-SPAN (though at the moment I can’t remember which Congressional committee the Secretary was addressing) so you need to expand your conspiracy theory to include an extremely elaborate video deception operation as well.  Maybe the aluminum foil hat needs a lead lining.  Then perhaps you’d have no problem believing the elaborate-video-deception layer of the theory.  Alternatively, you could just call me a liar, too.

Did Kelly perform this noble, though essentially unconvincing, act of throwing himself under the bus without any White House encouragement?  One would tend to doubt it, but with this Administration who would really know?

Without trying to explain this disagreement with his HS Secretary, though, on the 16^th President Donald J. Trump declared that “the travel ban rollout was perfectly smooth.”

Just as a reminder, ICE staffs at the ports of entry – most significantly, at airports – had no warning or direction; they just got the text of the Executive Order the morning it was to go into effect.  At most ports of entry it was interpreted as including lawful permanent residents (almost entirely holders of “green cards”) returning from abroad.  Probably in response to threatened habeas corpus actions, ICE personnel urgently requested clarification from Washington.  The White House said they read it right, continue to detain those green-card re-entrants.  Then about ten hours later the White House said they read it wrong, there was no authority for detaining green-card holders.  Shortly after that, the President said the Exec. Order was perfectly clear, no way could it be read to include green-card holders, but he’d be happy to issue a clarifying statement.  Presumably, by then it was getting back to the White House that government lawyers defending the Exec. Order against the perfectly predictable court challenges were describing its facial applicability to LPRs as its Achilles’ heel.  The E.O. had not been vetted by the President’s Office of Legal Counsel, either.

However, presumably because legal advisors explained that the text of the E.O. could not be fixed, legally, by a mere clarifying statement, no such statement was issued.  Anyway, in addition to the LPR problem, foreigners who had traveled to the U.S. in reliance upon valid visas lawfully obtained from our State Department were being detained and/or summarily deported, creating chaos at major ports of entry.

But now we know that the rollout was perfectly smooth (Because Beloved Great and Rich Leader Hath Spoken It) I suppose Sec’y Kelly’s explanation for its non-smoothness should be overlooked in polite embarrassment, by well-bred persons.  Not being quite so well-bred, I’ll continue to look at it and talk about it (if only because the poor Cabinet Secretary was apparently taking his cue from another of his chief’s Twitter® tweets).  “The thinking was to get it out quick so that people trying to come here to harm us could not take advantage of a period of time to jump on an airplane” makes no sense, unless these bad guys who jump on planes without visas are also planning to slip past ICE when that plane lands in the U.S. – in which case, the “travel ban” would make no difference, anyway.  If you simply decree an immediate halt to the issuance of visas (something the President clearly does have authority to do) you avoid the chaos of detaining and deporting those attempting to enter on valid visas but you would not create a period which “people trying to come here to harm us could take advantage of … to jump on an airplane.”

See, Secretary Kelly, you have not absorbed one of the rules Our Beloved Great and Rich Leader has always lived by (though he has all this time avoided consciously formulating it): Never apologize for a mistake. Instead deny it was a mistake and question the honesty, patriotism, solvency, appearance and/or sanity of anyone daring to suggest you made a mistake.

Kelly, you looked weak.  You were supposed to say, “Rocky rollout!  What rocky rollout? Why, the rollout was perfectly smooth, perfectly smooth! If any of the lame-stream media ‘reported’ anything suggesting less-than-perfect smoothness, it’s just more fake news from the Very Dishonest ‘news’ organizations.  Chaos? There wasn’t even a moment of confusion, about anything whatever. It’s all lies, lies made up just to hurt me but worse than that, made up to hurt Our Beloved Great and Rich Leader.”

Only profoundly disturbed personalities live by such a rule, and usually reality squashes them and they end up as homeless ranters.  But sometimes they start out rich and through luck or bluff or fraud get richer.  And sometimes …

"Take Their Oil" And the Law of War

The question has been posed to me: “Where does it say that while we occupy a nation we are at war with we can't use the natural resources of that occupation?”  “Where” is in what is (for complicated historical reasons) commonly called “the Geneva Convention,” but is more properly designated the

Convention respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land; The Hague, 10/18/1907 (Hague IV)

to which the United States of America and the Ottoman Empire (predecessor, for treaty-obligation purposes, of the Republic of Iraq) were original signatories, and in particular, in the

ANNEX TO THE CONVENTION
REGULATIONS RESPECTING THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF WAR ON LAND

SECTION I
ON BELLIGERENTS

Art. 2. The inhabitants of a territory which has not been occupied, who, on the approach of the enemy, spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading troops without having had time to organize themselves in accordance with Article 1, shall be regarded as belligerents if they carry arms openly and if they respect the laws and customs of war.

(I’ve granted myself permission to quote some parts, and make some comments, that are not strictly germane to the “Kick ‘Em in the Ass And Take Their Gas” program the G.W. Bush Administration’s non-adoption of which has been the occasion for our new President’s expressions of wistful regret.)

With customary Oriental torpor, civilian Iraqis failed to take up arms spontaneously upon our approach, doing so only after their territories had (mostly) been occupied.  Whether these facts provide any support for the G.W. Bush Administration’s effort to add the novel classification “enemy combatant,” completely different from the “belligerents” who are subject to and protected by the Convention, may nevertheless be doubted.

Art. 23. In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden –

* * *

(g)       To destroy or seize the enemy’s property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;

Arguably, though, this applies only to the enemy’s property while it is still in territory which has not been occupied.

Section III: Military Authority Over the Territory of the Hostile State

Art. 43. The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country.

If you recall D. Rumsfeld’s gleeful dismissal of all suggestions that we had any responsibility to suppress chaos in occupied Baghdad, you might begin to think that’s where the right-wing attack on the Geneva Conventions began – but I think you really need to look a little farther back.  (But don’t look to A. Hitler. Despite urging by Goebbels in the final months of WW II, Hitler refused to authorize open violation of the Geneva Conventions by the Wehrmacht.)

Art. 46. Family honor and rights, the lives of persons, and private property, as well as religious convictions and practice, must be respected. Private property cannot be confiscated

Art. 47. Pillage is formally forbidden.

Art. 48. If, in the territory occupied, the occupant collects the taxes, dues, and tolls imposed for the benefit of the State, he shall do so, as far as is possible, in accordance with the rules of assessment and incidence in force, and shall in consequence be bound to defray the expenses of the administration of the occupied territory to the same extent as the legitimate Government was so bound.

Art. 49. If, in addition to the taxes mentioned in the above article, the occupant levies other money contributions in the occupied territory, this shall only be for the needs of the army or of the administration of the territory in question.

Art. 52. Requisitions in kind and services shall not be demanded from municipalities or inhabitants except for the needs of the army of occupation. They shall be in proportion to the resources of the country, and of such a nature as not to involve the inhabitants in the obligation of taking part in military operations against their own country.

Such requisitions and services shall only be demanded on the authority of the commander in the locality occupied.

Art. 53. An army of occupation can only take possession of cash, funds, and realizable securities which are strictly the property of the State, depots of arms, means of transport, stores and supplies, and, generally, all movable property belonging to the State which may be used for military operations.

Art. 55. The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary of public buildings, real estate, forests, and agricultural estates belonging to the hostile State, and situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct.

OK. Let’s assume the wells in question are not private property but are owned by the Iraqi state.  So is the usufructuary entitled to pump oil out of the wells?  If you think our tax code is right in giving oil companies a “depletion allowance,” then the answer has to be “No.”  If you think of petroleum deposits as eternally self-renewing, like the ever-springing corn, then yes, we should get to harvest it as long as we occupy the territory in which the wells are located.

That the oil once pumped should be used for something other than the needs of the occupying army or the administration of the occupied territory, though, is certainly at odds with the general approach of Section III of the Convention.  The sale of the oil and appropriation of the proceeds for the general enrichment of the occupying power would, in any case, be hard to distinguish from the “formally forbidden” act of pillaging.

The argument that sucking resources out of an occupied country for the general benefit of the occupier is a violation of Section III formed the basis for several of the war crimes charges that we used to convict leading Nazis, and hang some of them, at Nuremburg in 1945-46

Anyway, the prolongation of our occupation for the purpose of pumping and selling more of the oil would have been completely irreconcilable with the noble Liberation of the Iraqi People which the G.W. Bush Administration declared to be our purpose in going to war. It would also have required us to keep our servicemen in harm’s way in order to make more money from the oil we were taking. And how would they, their families or their Congressmen have felt about that?