15 SEPT IMMEDIATE USE
PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
HUMAN SURVIVAL PROJECT
MORE POSTURING, BLOWVIATING OVER NK MISSILE TEST COMPLETELY UNHELPFUL
SANCTIONS WILL ACHIEVE NOTHING
UN Nuclear disarmament campaigner John Hallam took issue with statements made this morning by prime Minister Turnbull, to the effect that 'North Korea must be brought to its senses' and that 'increased sanctions are the way to do it'.
According to mr Hallam:
“No doubt sanctions WILL be increased if that is at all possible. Equally certainly however, increased sanctions will achieve nothing unless to make the lot of those at the bottom of North Korean society even more miserable than they already are. The missile and nuclear program will go on because, from the narrow, deterrence-based framework in which the DPRK is working – a framework identical in all respects to the misguided framework DFAT seems to be using for Australis own decisions about security – pursuing the nuclear program makes perfect 'sense'. Only by changing that fundamental framework of thinking can the DPRK be persuaded that different priorities would make sense. And to do that we would first of all have to change our OWN way of thinking.”
“A North Korea that had 'come to its senses' would do exactly the same as the North Koreans are now doing, because they would believe that enemies need to be deterred and that classical nuclear deterrence is the way to do it. In that respect they are simply behaving the way that nuclear weapons powers generally behave. To behave differently, a Mahatma Gandhi or at least a Gorbachev would have to assume power in Pyongyang, a prospect that seems unlikely. In the meantime, all the sanctions, threats, and blowviating in the world merely elicits counter-threats and aggression not to mention bloodcurdling language back from them. Threat begets threat and it all goes up in a never – ending spiral toward catastrophe.”
“There is worse. By using the kind of language of further threat and sanctions that he has used, our prime minister is in effect painting a series of targets not only on Pine Gap but also potentially on Australian cities, saying to the DPRK 'Bomb here'. This puts in jeopardy the security of all Australian citizens more surely and more fatally than any terror threat ever did”
'We desperately need a commonsense approach to the DPRK. Blind Freddie can telly you that what we have been doing thus far has not worked and could never have worked.”
Talk of 'bringing the North Korean regime to its senses' is counterproductive and dangerous nonsense that imperils Australia. It will have precisely the opposite effect to what is intended. We've got to start making sense over North Korea, and repeating things that are calculated to fail is unhelpful.”
John Hallam
0411-854-612
