No one can deny that North Korea is paranoid and wants to be seen as a legitimate “player” in the world. If we want to be seen as a leader in the world, we must though get beyond the notion that foreign policy is a “shoot first” and “occupy later” concept. Our role in how North Korea is now is based on our initial roles in how North Korea got to be.
The Korean crisis is a powerful lens on American barbarism, past and present. Despite Washington’s self-righteousness and pretensions of virtue, the modern history of Korea is an especially powerful lesson that destroys the American national mythology.
Listening to President Trump’s conceited rhetoric about wiping out North Korea has an eerie resonance with the rhetoric of President Truman. Truman launched into the Korean War more than six decades ago with same arrogant, mythical presumptions of American virtue and self-ordained right to use overwhelming military force.
For reasons of political self-preservation, Washington must live in denial of historical reality. US leaders out of necessity have to construct an alternative, fictional narrative for their nation’s conduct. Because if historical reality were acknowledged, the rulers in Washington, and the whole edifice of presumed American greatness, would implode from the endemic moral corruption. Read more here.