Page 305 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

A Game Plan for Infinite War? 295

described the authoritarian government of Kim Jong I1 as "the world's #1 nu-
clear threat,"55 ignoring evidence that it was the United States, not North Korea,
which put forth the idea of potential first-strike scenarios against an "enemy"
state (as seen in the Nuclear Posture Review). Also neglected in Cavuto's report
is the acknowledgement, as of yet, that North Korea, despite having testing a
nuclear device, is not known to have any sort of effective delivery mechanism
through which to deliver a weapon against Western targets. Regardless of a lack
of evidence, ChN has presented doomsday scenarios, where Kim Jong 11, the
"nuclear wildcard," might attempt to "help a terrorist group arm itself with a
nuclear weapon."56
Questioning exaggerations of a North Korean threat is not meant to imply
that there is no threat at all from the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but rather
to demonstrate the dangers inherent in assuming that such rogue regimes pose a
stronger threat than they really do. Such efforts to escalate the conflict between
the U.S. and North Korea are a major cause of concern for those who are intent
on defusing this nuclear crisis. Media pundits are typically more likely to blame
the North Korean regime for fueling tensions with the U.S., than they are to
level substantive criticisms against American political leaders for their share in
provoking a nuclear crisis.
The brutality of the North Korean communist regime makes it an easy tar-
get for attack in the American media. Take for instance, the statements of
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times; in explaining the dangers of North Ko-
rea's development of WMD; he cites the threatening of American allies (China
and Japan), the risk of another Korean war, and increased proliferation through-
out the region, although he is hesitant to place fault on the U.S. for exacerbating
the situation by further isolating the North Korean state and for refusing to fulfill
the agreements it made with Kim Jong 11's regime. Instead, Kristof argued: "In
fairness, all this is more Kim Jong 11's fault than Mr. Bush's. . . . North Korea is
the most odious country in the world today.. .while some two million North Ko-
reans were starving to death in the late 1990's, Mr. Kim spent 2.6 million dollars
on Swiss watches. He's the kind of man who, when he didn't like a haircut once,
executed the barber."57
Attention is focused less, if at all, on the United States' well-documented
efforts to aggravate an already volatile situation by labeling North Korea as part
of an "Axis of Evil3'-as well as other American actions that have provoked a
standoff, including the U.S. use of spy flights near North Korean air space (and
even over its sovereign air space),5s the repositioning of U.S. bombers near
the
North ~orea?~ initial reluctance to engage in bilateral peace talks and to
honor the requirements of those talks, and the continued presence of large U.S.
troop and military personnel concentrations in South Korea. Such escalation and
provocation of an already dangerous situation continued, as U.S. leaders de-
manded that other countries throughout the region punish North Korea as a
whole by cutting off food shipments and oil to a population already suffering
under Kim Jong 11's dictatorship.60 In addition, the Bush administration esca-
lated hostility with initiatives like "Operation Plan 5030," which calls for efforts