Another Neocon Jumps Ship

John Bolton is spouting the same crap on BBC News 24. The diplomat who hates diplomacy - even if it's successful.

I have visited DPRK on technical missions involving computer systems for UN organisations and still have and keep contacts here and in DPRK. These guys couldn't repair a washing machine. They have been isolated so long, they have negligible technical skills and have been continually ripped off as the Russian empire imploded and all sorts of rascals sold them all sorts of junk - You want a bomb, sure we gotttem, how big do you want one? Yossarian would have been at home.

If that explosion was anuclear weapon it wasn't like any other ever exploded and their rocket making skills cannot launch a payload beyond a bag of sugar. The US and the West have known this for years.

N Korean agriculture struggles, only 26% of the landmass is cultivable and relied enormously on Swiss (CIBA Geigy)  agricutural chemicals which eventually they ran out of money to pay for - or maybe they spent it on dachsunds for Mrs Kim il Sung (not necessarily the mother of KIm Jong Il)  or Hennessy Brandy.

The West happily stood buy as floods helped to destroy their agriculture, and have waited to get them over  a barrel. Simultaneoulsy China got fed up and lost interest and their only concern was to stem the flow of refugees.

The bottom line is a deal could have been done 10 years ago, but we didn't do it. Rumsfeld's favourite picture is of the darkened DPRK at night -  these neo-cons, hawks, children of McArthur still see this an an un - won war and want them to grovel.

What upsets Bolton is that a first rate Diplomat has quietly and effectively run rings around the  White House,  a non Korean speaker,  with no hang ups, Hill  has patiently,  along with the unsung  UK staff,  done a superb job in getting things moving.... and this sad bastard has had his cat taken away and he cannot torment it any more.

Let us hope the evil f***s don't get the chance to go in again and rustle up some more excuses to deprive 27 Mn of a hope for a break from primitve Stalinism, and a Gubment run by crooks.

Maybe we could swap Bolton for the remains of the US forces Lost in Action... if they would have him

What a pathetic site he looked as he pissed on his former colleagues.

Unassuming, Hill has done great job.

Bolton would have been thoroughly at home in the Third Reich's governing circle. His attitudes to "foreign" nations and people have a lot in common with those of the Nazis. America is automatically superior, and Americans are inherently "better" than foreigners. The resulting attitude to institutions like the UN is appalling.

As I see it, people like Bolton have fundamentally inconsistent beliefs. On the one hand, they profess to believe in democracy, the free market, free speech, human rights, and all the other "values" (in today's political cant) that make America such a wonderful place to live. They also believe, we must suppose, that "all men are created equal".

At the same time, unfortunately, they seem to believe passionately that Americans are much more equal than foreigners. Thus, in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Libya, their behaviour shows clearly that they think one American life is worth at least as much as those of 100 of the locals. (Another trait shared with the Romans, Nazis, imperial British, and other empire-builders down the ages).

Bolton needs to decide whether he really believes that all people should be treated equally, and should have exactly the same rights - or whether he thinks that Americans are intrinsically superior and entitled to a standard of living many times better than those of foreigners, while their safety is also deemed infinitely more important. Chauvinist attitudes are justifiable in a national government, but not when that government simultaneously puts itself forward as a "global policeman" and justifies spending more on its armed forces than the rest of the world combined by claiming that it is acting in the interests of all.

Unless these conflicts of interest are resolved quickly, the USA risks being perceived as the world's foremost exponent of systematic hypocrisy.

I read this as the pragmatists and realists in Washington - Rice et Baker et al - being allowed one tiny (short-term) victory - while the real men turn the real heat on against Iran.

Good stuff all round - thanks, that was well worth reading.

Don't forget that neocons see those at home who have any sliver of difference of opinion as part of the enemy, too, sapping the Will of the True Believers.  It's as delusional as Nazism, although I usually hesitate to draw too many analogies - I think neoconservatism deserves it's own label and own analyses.

I don't think, therefore, that the True Believer would allow lefty backsliders like, er, Condoleeza Rice, to take that much credit - their plan is to go after absolutely everyone as Bolton exemplifies, without any diplomacy.  It's more the real world moving on without them as their power wanes than a calculated decision to concentrate on Iran.  They have little time left and a shrinking circle of believers.  Still plenty of power left for more insanity though, worse luck.