April, 2013
North Korea would never ignite a war in Asia without China’s backing.
For more than two weeks, the Western corporate media has been hyping tension with North Korea in order to maintain a superpower image of Western governments.
The corporate media continues to report the so-called “imminent nuclear threat” from Pyongyang, in a similar manner that it had reported the “imminent nuclear threat from Iraq.” Analyzing the rhetoric of Western politicians and the corporate media immediately reveals that the US and its surrogates are artificially inflating North Korea’s capabilities. This is to make it appear as if they are facing a serious and powerful opponent with whom they are struggling in order to keep the world safe. All of this is done in order to build a reputation of a superpower dealing with super challenging issues, a political strategy Barack Obama has successfully implemented since he became president. While running for president in 2008, Obama repeatedly stated he would improve the US image worldwide. The image aspect of the US was and is the primary concern of the Obama regime. Much of US imperialism’s power projection is based on image; it has little or nothing to do with reality as has been witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even though since 2011, 20 percent of America’s children and 13 percent of all Americans live in poverty, people worldwide are still fed the idea that the US is an economic global powerhouse.
The US government pulled a similar PR stunt during the first days of aggression against Iraq in 2003. At the start of the Iraqi invasion, Pentagon and the corporate media were constantly beaming messages about the upcoming “tough resistance from Saddam’s Republican Guard.”
The US government which built the security apparatus for Saddam Hussein in the mid- 1980s to use it against Islamic Iran knew very well that the only thing the Republican Guard is good for is to torture helpless prisoners with their hands tied. The Republican Guard never presented a serious military challenge to the US or its allies. In order to appear powerful, Washington created a false image of the Republican Guard in Iraq in order to present its victory over its former ally as a heroic achievement. The Iraqi people forced the US to scale down its military occupation of Iraq with resources far fewer than the US once used to provide the Republican Guard with. The entire “tough Republican Guard” myth was utilized as an image boosting campaign for Washington’s power.
A similar approach is being utilized today by the US in North Korea. A nearly starving country, with a malfunctioning socio-political system and an antiquated military force is being projected as a formidable opponent. Why? So that when China restrains North Korea’s empty rhetoric, the US can immediately present this as a major political victory.
North Korea would never ignite a war in Asia without China’s backing. And Beijing will not go to war with the US over North Korea, as partnership with Washington is economically vital for China.
The entire media hype around the North Korean “threat” once again highlights the fact that the Western corporate media is an unofficial arm of Western governments. When acquiring information from the Western corporate media, the global public should keep in mind the notorious lies manufactured by the same media such as the infamous lies during the first Iraq war (January 1991) about Kuwaiti children being murdered in incubators and the more recent myth about Qaddafi given Viagra pills to his troops to rape women in Libya.
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