[pjw] INFO: N. Korea rejects Bolton's idea of "the Libya model" (The Hill 5/22)

[Peace and Justice Works]

Hey PJW supporters
When I heard the other day that John Bolton made a reference to "the Libya 
model" for dealing with North Korea and its nuclear weapons program, it 
immediately sounded like a threat to repeat the Obama-Clinton war on Libya 
from 2011 that threw that country into chaos and led to a mob murdering 
Mohammar Ghadaffi. I only just now read that the North Koreans saw that 
Bolton was expecting them to do what Libya did in 2003--  give up its 
nuclear weapons with no guarantee of security. What this article from The 
Hill neglects to mention is that the reason Ghadaffi did so was he saw 
what the US did to Iraq when they didn't even HAVE a nuclear weapons 
program. The deal was struck 9 months after the US invaded Iraq. (And to 
further underscore the connection between Iraq and Libya, the US started 
the Libyan war exactly 8 years to the day after the Iraq war.)

Anyway, there's so much going on these days I'm sure everyone's following. 
I got this article from the Mercury's blog, where they also reported that 
Palestine has filed war crimes allegations against Israel for its recent 
slaughter of protestors at the border in the International Criminal Court. 
As the Merc pointed out, Israel's not signed on to the Court (like the US, 
they fear being "wrongly accused" of war crimes) but Palestine is.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/palestine-submits-icc-referral-open-probe-israel-crimes-180522101121093.html

That's all for now.
dan h
peace and justice works iraq affinity group
   http://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/388613-north-korea-did-trump-a-favor-by-snubbing-bolton
North Korea did Trump a favor by snubbing Bolton
    By Tom Z. Collina, opinion contributor -- 05/21/18 12:30 PM EDT

    It was pure fantasy to think that North Korea was going to turn over
    its nuclear arsenal within months of the planned June 12 Trump-Kim
    summit. Yet, apparently, National Security Adviser John Bolton has an
    active imagination.

    So it's a good thing that Pyongyang has rejected Bolton's ridiculous
    Libya plan; Trump can now focus on realistic ways to get the
    denuclearization we all want.

    Bolton has been aggressively touting his plan to apply the "Libya
    model" to North Korea. By this he means that, as Libya did in 2003,
    North Korea should turn over its nuclear program to the United States
    soon after the summit, and only then would Washington reward Pyongyang
    with economic and security benefits.


    Nevermind that Libya had a minuscule nuclear program hardly comparable
    to North Korea, or that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed in
    2011 after the United States and European allies attacked the country.

    The lesson to North Korea was clear: If you don't want to end up like
    Gaddafi, don't give up your nukes unless you have another way to
    guarantee your security.

    So it should have come as no great surprise when on Wednesday, North
    Korean First Vice-Minister Kim Kye Gwan issued a statement rejecting
    Bolton's approach, and Bolton personally, outright.

    He criticized the "so-called Libya mode of nuclear abandonment" as
    "absolutely absurd" and the notion of "abandoning nuclear weapons
    first, compensating afterwards" as a "sinister move." On Bolton, Kim
    said, "We do not hide our feeling of repugnance towards him."

    Kim also reiterated North Korea's support for "denuclearization of the
    Korean peninsula" and that such a step would require an "end to
    anti-DPRK hostile policy and nuclear threats and blackmail of the
    United States." He warned against forcing Pyongyang into "unilateral
    nuclear abandonment."

    Some have interpreted Kim's rejection of "unilateral nuclear
    abandonment" as proof that North Korea has no plans to ever give up its
    nuclear weapons. Not so fast. This could also be Kim rejecting the
    Libya model, where Pyongyang would be expected to "unilaterally"
    surrender its arsenal without anything in return.

    Trump got the message. The next day the president threw Bolton under
    the bus, saying that, "the Libya model isn't the model that we have at
    all when we're thinking of North Korea." Let's hope that is the last we
    hear of it.

    So if Libya is not a good model to apply to North Korea, what is?

    Maybe South Africa, the only nation to have built nuclear weapons and
    then voluntarily unbuilt them. The apartheid government secretly built
    and then dismantled seven nuclear bombs before revealing its program to
    the world in 1993.

    After South Africa joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991,
    international inspectors were invited in. It took about 18 months for
    South Africa to dismantle its own weapons and about two years to prove
    it to the world.

    But even the South African case is simple compared to North Korea,
    which has more weapons, more facilities and long-range missiles as
    well. Plus our standards of verification will likely be higher for
    North Korea, a nation we expect to try to cheat, than for South Africa,
    which had just handed power to Nelson Mandela.

    The bottom line is that it takes years to disarm a country, even if it
    does so voluntarily.

    But the physical process of denuclearizing North Korea may be quick
    compared to the time it takes to build the confidence to get to this
    point. To avoid ending up like Gaddafi, Pyongyang will not give up its
    nuclear arsenal until its security concerns are addressed in some other
    way.

    There is no piece of paper, no agreement that can do this. U.S.
    security guarantees are not enough. We must transform the U.S.-North
    Korea relationship so both sides feel more secure. That will take
    time.

    The Trump administration can get what it wants from North Korea if it
    plays its cards right. The goal for the June 12 summit should be an
    agreed statement that leads to the phased denuclearization of the
    peninsula and a transformed U.S.-North Korea relationship.

    Meanwhile, both sides can front-load the agreement to get things they
    need to sell the deal back home. For Trump, that could mean ending
    North Korea's nuclear and long-range missile testing, closing the test
    site and possibly getting Pyongyang to dismantle its long-range
    missiles and make available for inspection a significant chunk of its
    weapons material.

    We don't want Pyongyang to hand over complete warheads because, weapons
    designers say, we don't know how to dismantle them as well as they do.
    These are tangible steps that would reduce the dangers we face from
    North Korea, and they could be completed before the 2020 election.

    So let's forget about the Libya model. There are no shortcuts to the
    hard work of building confidence between two nations that, just a few
    months ago, were threatening each other with nuclear annihilation. But
    by planning for a phased, multi-year process, the June 12 summit can
    still be a grand success.

    Tom Z. Collina is the director of policy for the Ploughshares Fund, a
    public grantmaking foundation that supports initiatives to prevent the
    spread and use of nuclear weapons, and to prevent conflicts that could
    lead to their use.