A Great Big Incongruity:

US Double-Dealing in Mideast and Korean Peninsula

Rasa - Visiting Tokyo, President Donald Trump made a big push to secure more weapons sales deals for top US arms-makers, something which has also been a high priority for him on a recent Mideast tour - a case in point Trump’s recent trip to Saudi Arabia, during which he sold weapons to Riyadh worth over $100 billion.

News ID: 434679

Date: 08 November 2017 - 23:22

RNA - Equally, President Trump was very transparent about his interest in selling more arms to Japan this week, hyping the threat of North Korea (in the case of Saudi it was Iran) and playing up the idea that the best way for Japan to defend itself would be to buy “lots of additional military equipment from the United States.”

Trump hyped the notion that Japanese officials would be shooting North Korean missiles out of the sky with ease using US-made defensive missiles, which appears to dramatically oversell the capabilities of US interceptor missiles.

Indeed, anti-missile systems have already been present in Japan, and there’ve been no attempts to shoot down North Korean missiles shot over Japan, specifically because of concerns that the interception attempt would likely fail, and harm confidence in the costly interceptor systems.

Nevertheless, the US-led War on Terror and containment strategies run on double standards and lies. And the game goes on. To substantiate:

According to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and just as the way Washington has been talking to North Korea behind closed doors, several Western nations have been directly, albeit secretly, cooperating with Damascus on the war against various terror groups.

In the words of President Assad: “They attack us politically and then they send officials to deal with us under the table, especially the security. They only repeat what the United States want them to say.”

Trump, likewise, threatens North Korea directly, but talks to Pyongyang behind closed doors, and then hypes North Korean missiles to sell anti-missile systems to Japan and South Korea.

We have seen this all before; it should be oddly familiar:

1- The colonial divide-and-rule policy isn’t a complete shock, as several Western media reports to this effect have been making the rounds throughout the Syria war and Korean crisis, suggesting that the War Party has been using  allies as a back-channel way to talk peace, share intelligence against enemies, and sell arms. This policy of double-dealing is likely not to sit well with Japan, South Korea and its Mideast cohorts, which like Saudi Arabia have argued that the focus of the war should be very openly fighting the Syrian government.

2- Despite the Saudi perception, the US policy to divide terror groups into two camps of "moderate" and "extremist" rails directly against Syria. In the meantime, by making the Korean crisis go viral, Washington is only helping itself accomplish its sadistic goals, including selling arms. Mind you, the Washington won't lose any sleep over this - if it ever happens, even with an all-out war in the Korean Peninsula.

3- The Iranian, Syrian, Russian and Hezbollah military advisors and fighters killed in the War on Terror are characterised in the US media as "regime supporters", and blamed for their own deaths based on the unfortunate coincidence of their geographical location or government policy. Nor does the White House interrupt every news broadcast to publicly condemn the "moderate" terrorist attacks in Syria and laud the counter-terror efforts by the coalition of Iran, Syria, Russia, and Hezbollah.

4- When Western-backed, Saudi-led coalition massacres civilians in Yemen, it never goes viral, and President Trump doesn't apologize, yet alone barely even acknowledge the tragedy. Instead, he keeps blaming every single civilian death in Yemen on the resistance movement Ansarullah. These all demonstrate the extent to which the US is willing to disobey all legal and moral conventions to achieve its strategic goals, all in the name of fighting terror or protecting allies.

5- To deny that North Korea and its people have been and are the victims of US state terrorism and embargo for years is an outrage. To add insult to injury by blaming Pyongyang for the Asian crisis and nuclear stand-off because of political considerations and arms sales is just cruel.

6- US double standards on terrorism and security point to an awkward mindset among American politicians. They refuse to agree on a single definition. Terrorism is even defined differently within different government departments.

That said, terrorism cannot be "moderate" or "extremist". It is a crime against humanity. Security talks in the Korean Peninsula likewise requires effective regional cooperation in an open, honest and direct manner. For the sake of regional and global security and peace, the US must stop this unwelcome practice of antagonizing one neighbor for the sake of appeasing and selling arms to many others.

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