{"id":327811,"date":"2017-09-26T19:08:41","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T18:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/north-koreas-rational-nuclear-strategy\/"},"modified":"2017-09-26T19:08:41","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T18:08:41","slug":"north-koreas-rational-nuclear-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/north-koreas-rational-nuclear-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea\u2019s Rational Nuclear Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>A favorite tactic of U.S. propaganda is to label a foreign adversary \u201ccrazy\u201d to justify a military attack \u2014 as is now happening with North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un although his nuclear program really makes logical sense, observes Ted Snider.<\/p>\n<p>By Ted Snider<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cinsanity\u201d label that America attaches to North Korea has a lot of political utility. First, it colors the interpretation of everything North Korea does. The consideration of a rational motivation for undesirable actions can be prevented: the actions are assumed to be crazy.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_22881\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/9d3ce1609d6bf96ea1ef124b5c8ca1b97895c1ff07fcbc970e938a0566062899_3904642.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/9d3ce1609d6bf96ea1ef124b5c8ca1b97895c1ff07fcbc970e938a0566062899_3904642-300x169.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22881\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/9d3ce1609d6bf96ea1ef124b5c8ca1b97895c1ff07fcbc970e938a0566062899_3904642-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/9d3ce1609d6bf96ea1ef124b5c8ca1b97895c1ff07fcbc970e938a0566062899_3904642-160x90.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/9d3ce1609d6bf96ea1ef124b5c8ca1b97895c1ff07fcbc970e938a0566062899_3904642.jpg 536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-22881\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/9d3ce1609d6bf96ea1ef124b5c8ca1b97895c1ff07fcbc970e938a0566062899_3904642-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/9d3ce1609d6bf96ea1ef124b5c8ca1b97895c1ff07fcbc970e938a0566062899_3904642-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/9d3ce1609d6bf96ea1ef124b5c8ca1b97895c1ff07fcbc970e938a0566062899_3904642-160x90.jpg 160w, https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/9d3ce1609d6bf96ea1ef124b5c8ca1b97895c1ff07fcbc970e938a0566062899_3904642.jpg 536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">North Korean missile launch on March 6, 2017.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Secondly, it makes the target of blame clear. Thirdly, and most importantly, it justifies the claim that rational discussion and diplomacy are pointless and misguided. Since the regime is irrational, it is incapable of listening to reason: the only approach that works is threats, military action and regime change.<\/p>\n<p>There is a long American history of calling opponents crazy. At times, the installation of a compliant but brutal and insane dictator has even been seen as desirable, since later \u2013 when compliance turns to inconvenience \u2013 applying the crazy label can justify his removal. (For instance, think of Panama\u2019s Manuel Noriega or Iraq\u2019s Saddam Hussein, who received American backing before their unpredictable behavior made them targets for regime change.)<\/p>\n<p>More than half a century ago, the insanity strategy was honed by the British and the Americans in Iran. They colorfully painted the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadeq, their target of regime change at the time, as mad, both to blame him for a political crisis and to justify the need to replace him.<\/p>\n<p>Publicly, the media and the politicians created a collage of lunatic adjectives to paint Mossadeq as mad. Ervand Abrahamian, in his book <em>The Coup<\/em>, has curated a number of them: \u201cimpervious to common sense\u201d; \u201cbewildered and desperately short sighted\u201d; and \u201cmarred by nervous instability.\u201d He was called \u201chopelessly irrational\u201d; \u201ceccentric\u201d; \u201chysterical\u201d; \u201cmentally unstable\u201d; and \u201ccrazy.\u201d He was consistently portrayed as childish, erratic and emotional. Abrahamian says government&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/09\/26\/north-koreas-rational-nuclear-strategy\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A favorite tactic of U.S. propaganda is to label a foreign adversary \u201ccrazy\u201d to justify a military attack \u2014 as is now happening with North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un although his nuclear program really makes logical sense, observes Ted Snider. By Ted Snider The \u201cinsanity\u201d label that America attaches to North Korea has a lot [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-327811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}