Korea, Climate Activists, Torture

As Tensions Rise on Korean Peninsula, Newly-Elected South Korean President Seeks Diplomatic Thaw with the North
Interview with Tim Shorrock, journalist, conducted by Scott Harris

As the U.S. celebrated the nation’s Independence Day on July 4, North Korea claimed to have conducted its first successful test of a long-range missile that it says can “reach anywhere in the world.” The country claimed it was an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, that Pyongyang says could potentially hit the U.S. mainland.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who confirmed North Korea’s claim that it had launched a long-range missile, said that “testing an ICBM represents a new escalation of the threat to the U.S., our allies and partners, the region and the world. ” While Donald Trump said on Twitter in early January that a North Korean test of an ICBM capable of reaching the United States, “won’t happen,” U.S. options to pressure Pyongyang are limited to engaging China to exert new pressure on the North’s leader Kim Jong Un and ratcheting up sanctions.

Although Trump’s National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has said that military force was a possible option in confronting North Korea, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford maintain that any conflict would devastate South Korea’s capital, Seoul, and inflict horrific casualties on its 25 million residents, including an estimated 300,000 U.S. citizens residing in the metropolitan area. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with independent journalist Tim Shorrock, who has reported widely on Asian and Korean affairs. Here. he assesses rising tensions in the Korean peninsula, the Trump administration’s bellicose rhetoric and newly-elected South Korean president Moon Jae-in’s pledge to revive what’s called a sunshine policy of economic and diplomatic engagement with the North. [Rush transcript.]

TIM SHORROCK: North Korea has been building nuclear weapons since it has been missiles to carry them on and it has actually made quite a jump in its missile capability in the last year or so. But, you know, they are building these because they are afraid and have been concerned for many years about the possibility of the United States attacking them, as the United States did during the Korean War.

And the U.S. has surrounded North Korea with an incredible array of weapons for decades, including nuclear weapons, and so, this is between North Korea and the United States and it’s dangerous for both. So I think the problem is, North Korea – the fact that it’s developing nuclear weapons and developing missiles has to be looked in sort of a historical context because, you know, there’s a lot of people who’ve been involved in negotiating with North Korea, have been talking about recently, you know the North Koreans look at places like Iraq, or Libya. Iraq, where the U.S. invaded and replaced a government, and in Libya, where they convinced (Moammar) Gadhafi to give up nuclear weapons, and then with NATO bombed and replaced his government also. They see nuclear weapons as protection against that kind of attack.

So, the question of how to deal with that has to confront how does North Korea feel safe so it’s not attacked by the United States or the combined powers of the United States and Japan, and South Korea, which have a three-way military alliance. And I think that’s the real issue before the United States, as well as with South Korea, in terms of dealing with North Korea as its neighbor. And so, there has to be some kind of resolution to this long conflict.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Tim Shorrock, North Korea and its current leader Kim Jong Un are often portrayed in the U.S. media as irrational, dangerous and as examples, there’s often discussion about the really overheated rhetoric coming out of North Korea’s new media. You have people who visit North Korea from the U.S., sometimes taken prisoner, as this young man who came back in a coma and later died for stealing a political slogan on a banner. How do you assess the rationality of the leadership of the nation of North Korea when it comes to these concerns about their nuclear program?

TIM SHORROCK: Well, first of all, their policies are completely rational. I don’t think its irrational to protect your country from another attack. They’re also very predictable, not unpredictable, as many people say. However, they are without a doubt, it’s a very cruel regime. What happened to this young man, Otto Warmbier, who went there as a tourist, an innocent kid, not knowing what kind of government he was dealing with, and clearly a year ago something happened that cut the flow of blood to his brain and he went into a coma. It’s a tragedy what happened to him.

We need to have better communication with North Korea. I mean, the United States has never recognized North Korea and put an embassy there, some kind of diplomatic presence there would really alleviate these kinds of issues when Americans are arrested and taken prisoner.

BETWEEN THE LINES: South Korea’s newly-elected President Moon Jai-in was in Washington recently speaking with President Trump. Tell us about Moon Jae-in and his stated policy of wanting to ramp up diplomacy and outreach to North Korea, hearkening back to a time that another South Korean president pursued what they called the “Sunshine Policy.” How was that greeted in Washington by the Trump administration and what are the chances that this newly-elected president in South Korea could make some kind of breakthrough here.

TIM SHORROCK: Well, I actually think the chances are pretty good. I was actually in South Korea for two months this spring, April and May and I heard him give campaign speeches a couple times, where I was in the city of quanju in the south and he made the Sunshine Policy a big part of his speeches. And he would talk, how we need to restore that kind of economic dialogue and cooperation with North Korea and go back to those days under certain conditions, of course.

But that’s a very popular notion in Korea. There was a recent poll in South Korea that showed 80 percent of people want to restart the intro Korea talks and negotiations. So I think that all these sanctions are very strong. That the U.S. and U.N. has endorsed. South Korea would like to open a door to negotiations. They still want to maintain a strong military alliance they have with the United States to prevent a war and to be there in case there is a war, but they really want to reach out more, and already Moon Jae-in is doing that. For example, way before I came here, a North Korean tae-quando team was here for a world tae-quando championship. And Moon went to greet the North Korean team, and he proposed they form a joint Olympic team for next Winter Olympics when they are in South Korea.

For more information, visit Tim Shorrock’s Nation magazine page at thenation.com/authors/tim-shorrock.

Climate Activists Must Devise Global Strategy to Challenge Power of Fossil Fuel Industry
Interview with Jeremy Brecher, writer, documentary film maker, longtime labor and climate activist and author, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

Media coverage of climate change and related policy issues spiked after Donald Trump announced on June 1 that he was pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord, to which every nation on earth had signed onto, with the exception of Syria and Nicaragua.

One effort to bring various theories into alignment and unite disparate aspects of the climate movement is a new book by veteran writer and labor activist Jeremy Brecher. Titled, “Against Doom: A Climate Insurgency Manual,” Brecher’s book is accompanied by webinars and a free Read/Discuss/Act Guide, a collaboration with the climate group 350.org and the Labor Network for Sustainability, of which he is a co-founder.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Brecher about the climate emergency we find ourselves in, and the creative explosion of activism being organized to address it. Here, he discusses the importance of weaving together many strands of the climate movement – mass nonviolent direct action, freezing fossil fuel infrastructure, public trust, and just transition – into a global strategic framework.

For more information visit Jeremy Brecher’s website at jeremybrecher.org.

Trump Nominates a Bush Administration Lawyer Who Authorized Torture
Interview with Alka Pradhan, lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and human rights counsel with the U.S. Guantanamo Bay Military Commission, conducted by Scott Harris

President Trump has nominated Steven G. Bradbury, a former Assistant Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration to become general counsel of the federal Transportation Department. However, Bradbury’s nomination has sparked criticism from human rights groups and others who condemned his legal justification for the CIA’s torture of prisoners when he served as head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel during Bush’s second term in office.

During his tenure at the Justice Department, Bradbury authored a set of memos that re-approved previously issued legal cover for U.S. forces to subject detainees to waterboarding, prolonged sleep deprivation, shackling into painful stress positions and confinement in cramped boxes. During Bradbury’s Senate committee confirmation hearing on June 28, Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs while serving as an Army National Guard helicopter pilot that was shot down in Iraq in 2004, placed a hold on Bradbury’s nomination. She declared that Bradbury lacked moral conviction in the Bush White House and couldn’t be trusted to stand up for American values under a Trump presidency.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Bradbury also was questioned about his work representing the Takata Corporation before the Transportation Department, over the firm’s defective auto airbags that killed or injured more than 100 drivers. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Alka Pradhan, a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and human rights counsel with the U.S. Guantanamo Bay Military Commission. Here, she shares her views on the controversy surrounding Steven G. Bradbury and decries the lack of accountability for U.S. government officials who were complicit in authorizing torture against international law. [Rush transcript]

ALKA PRADHAN: Steven Bradbury was the acting assistant attorney general in the Bush administration. He basically was the author of four memos that we collectively refer to as “The Torture Memos.” Three of them were written in May 2005 and one of them was written in July 2007 and those dates are sort of interesting. And the three written in May 2005 went through various techniques that we now know, of course, are torture, but at the time called “enhanced interrogation techniques” that the CIA was using, at that time had been using for quite some time on detainees in their secret prisons abroad, one of whom was my client Amar. And these techniques included things like waterboarding, extreme sleep deprivation for up to 180 hours, things that were called stress positions which was basically being shackled in really just heinous positions that have caused lasting damage. Beatings, being held naked, just a whole variety of techniques.

So the first memo went through all of those techniques and found that none of those techniques actually violated our obligations under the conventions against torture. And if you read the language of that memo, the gymnastics that Bradbury goes through to find that “technically” the “way that the CIA is applying these techniques doesn’t quite maybe violate the convention against torture.” It is astonishing. It is shocking.

If you read the first memo, which was made May 10, 2005, there is a lengthy footnote that says that the Office of Legal Counsel doesn’t represent in any way that these techniques are okay to be used by the Department of Defense by the military. We’re not saying that this doesn’t constitute a violation of the Geneva Conventions or a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So what they’re saying is, “We want to use these techniques, we get that there’s a violation of the Geneva Conventions that are a serious one, which is why we are sending our guys in black at the CIA to use these techniques abroad. We’re not going to send necessarily our military personnel.”

Now, as we know, there is a lot of bleed in the use of these techniques, such that our military did end up using them at Guantanamo and the (intelligible). But the nitpicking there, in that memo, is really stunning. He continues that in the second memo, which talks about the use of those same techniques in combination. And that reflects reality a lot more than the first one does because the techniques were never used individually.

My client was held naked while being shackled for days at a time, while being sleep-deprived, while listening to loud music, while in freezing temperatures, while being deprived from nutritional sustenance while being interrogated. Those techniques were almost always used in combination. And so the second memo finds those techniques in combination also don’t violate the convention against torture.

BETWEEN THE LINES: It’s certainly disturbing to hear these details again about the torture that the United States engaged in during the George W. Bush years as president. What message does the Trump administration send to our country and the world when it nominates someone who used his legal credentials to justify torture in violation of the Geneva Conventions? What are we saying about torture and that dark era in U.S. history?

ALKA PRADHAN: I think it says two things. I think it says, number one, that the United States is abdicating its moral responsibility that we are no longer willing to lead in human right and moral authority. And I think secondly, it says that we don’t care about our troops, about our personnel abroad. The entire system of international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Conventions is designed so that all of us protect each other in war time. All the countries and all the entities engaging in war protect each other. So that what we do to others we understand could be done to our men and women. And we continue to be in violation of our obligations under international law and under domestic law to prosecute people who engage in torture. It’s deeply disappointing and it’s deeply disturbing.

This week’s summary of under-reported news

Compiled by Bob Nixon

Haiti textile workers launched a strike in mid-May to demand higher wages, an eight-hour workday and protections against increased quotas. For six weeks, workers have shut down operations of powerful textile companies that make clothing for US firms like Levis and Fruit of the Loom. (“Thousands of Haitian Workers Are on Strike Against Foreign-Owned Sweatshops,” In These Times, June 22, 2017; “Haiti – Flash : Several Textile Companies Do not Exclude Leaving Haiti If…,” Haiti Libre, June 27, 2017)
Thai prisoner Prontip Mankong was convicted of criticizing Thailand’s monarchy months after a military coup took power in the Southeast Asian nation in 2014. She was arrested at the international airport for participating in a political theater group, whose performance satirized the Thai monarchy. (“The Story of Prisoner 5770102414,” Christian Science Montor, June 11, 2017 )
The fate of the rustbelt city of Akron, Ohio rests with high-tech startups like Akron Ascent Innovations, which is developing a new type of adhesive film that acts like a magnet. The company is only one of a number of startup firms that have recently launched in a former tire factory. (“Can the Rust Belt Become the ‘Brain Belt’?,” Christian Science Monitor, May 1, 2017)

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