Dave Emory’s entire life­time of work is avail­able on a flash dri­ve that can be obtained here. (The flash dri­ve includes the anti-fas­cist books avail­able on this site.)

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s pro­pa­ganda chief, once said: ‘In 50 years’ time nobody will think of nation states.’

NB: Updat­ed on 4/26/2013.

COMMENT: One of the more bizarre and alarm­ing devel­op­ments in recent months con­cerns North Korea and its nuclear saber rat­tling. Dom­i­nat­ing the news cycle, it is increas­ing pres­sure on the Unit­ed States to “do more” in the area of defense–invariably an expen­sive and “bud­get-unfriend­ly” under­tak­ing. 

This also comes at a time when the “sequester” has ground­ed rough­ly a third of the U.S. Air Force’s fleet, as well as plac­ing strain on oth­er mil­i­tary resources.

It should be not­ed that this sort of behav­ior can­not improve busi­ness con­fi­dence in Asia as an area of invest­ment.

One of the ques­tions that sug­gests itself is just what Kim Jong Un is real­ly think­ing? Is he actu­al­ly delu­sion­al and oper­at­ing under the pro­found mis­con­cep­tion that some­thing pro­duc­tive can come of nuclear war with the Unit­ed States (or any­one else?) Is he attempt­ing to appeal for more aid to from the West and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty by throw­ing a sort of mega-tem­per tantrum?

Obvi­ous­ly, we are not in a posi­tion to state pre­cise­ly what the answer is, how­ev­er we note sev­er­al con­sid­er­a­tions which, tak­en togeth­er, sug­gest at least the pos­si­bil­i­ty that there may be a method to Kim’s mad­ness. Note the sequence of events, with linked sto­ries excerpt­ed below:

• In Novem­ber of 2012, Ger­man for­eign min­is­ter Gui­do West­er­welle stressed Ger­many’s impor­tance as Amer­i­ca’s num­ber one trad­ing part­ner, as well as encour­ag­ing a North Atlantic Free Trade agree­ment, stalled for many years as the U.S. turns increas­ing­ly toward Asia. Oba­ma’s re-elec­tion was fol­lowed by an announce­ment of a “piv­ot toward Asia,” involv­ing both increased mil­i­tary pres­ence and aug­ment­ed eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty.
• At the same time, West­er­welle urged the U.S. to embrace the Ger­man “aus­ter­i­ty” doc­trine, not­ing that many in this coun­try look to Ger­many as an exam­ple, an oblique ref­er­ence to the GOP and allied inter­ests.
• This comes at a time when the U.S. has been crit­i­cal of the impo­si­tion of “aus­ter­i­ty” on the afflict­ed economies of the EU, as well as reject­ing it here.
• Two months lat­er, in Jan­u­ary of 2013, Ger­man media car­ry an account of North Kore­a’s desire to open up to South Korea and the West, with a par­tic­u­lar eye toward stim­u­lat­ing trade and invest­ment. 
• This announce­ment was accom­pa­nied by the arrival in North Korea of Ger­man lawyers and econ­o­mists to facil­i­tate the effort.
• Kim’s Korea then abrupt­ly adopts the exact oppo­site stance, threat­en­ing both South Korea and the Unit­ed States with mil­i­tary action, includ­ing nuclear attack.
• South Kore­an offi­cials have tak­en note of North Kore­a’s almost slav­ish alliance with Ger­many.
• In addi­tion to pro­vid­ing impe­tus for main­tain­ing defense spend­ing in the face of the sequester and con­se­quent­ly increas­ing bud­getary strains, this does noth­ing to cre­ate pos­i­tive busi­ness and invest­ment sen­ti­ment in the West with regard to Asia. Who wants to invest in an area threat­ened by a nuclear “mad­man”?
• A British reporter notes that pub­lic icons of Lenin and Marx have been elim­i­nat­ed from wide­spread pub­lic dis­play. Why?
• A for­mer British ambas­sador to North Korea has stat­ed that North Korea is deeply racist, and that its gov­ern­ment bore an unnerv­ing sim­i­lar­i­ty to Nazi Ger­many. Kim’s father was an unabashed admir­er of Hitler, accord­ing to this account, and pat­terned the North Kore­an pub­lic polit­i­cal spec­ta­cle after Hitler’s Nurem­berg ral­lies.

This sequence of events rais­es a num­ber of ques­tions and points of infor­ma­tion, includ­ing: 

• Is Ger­many devel­op­ing eco­nom­ic rela­tion­ships with North Korea, at the same time as it is encour­ag­ing North Korea to desta­bi­lize Asia by threat­en­ing South Korea and the Unit­ed States? In effect, is North Korea becom­ing a “proxy bel­liger­ent’ ” for Ger­many?
• Is this Ger­many’s way of dis­cour­ag­ing com­mer­cial growth in Asia, this at a time that Ger­many is pres­sur­ing the U.S. for a “free-trade” agree­ment?
• It should nev­er be for­got­ten that the cur­rent Ger­man eco­nom­ic hege­mon­ic posi­tion in Europe–rapidly being trans­formed into polit­i­cal hegemony–began with “free-trade” agree­ments in the ear­ly 1950’s. 
• Ger­many’s posi­tion and pol­i­cy is an exten­sion of the poli­cies of the Third Reich, spelled out by Dorothy Thomp­son in 1940 and enun­ci­at­ed by Nazi offi­cials dur­ing the war.
• That pol­i­cy, as enun­ci­at­ed by Ms. Thomp­son entailed the fol­low­ing for the Unit­ed States: ” . . . As far as the Unit­ed States is con­cerned, the plan­ners of the World Ger­man­ica laugh off the idea of any armed inva­sion. They say that it will be com­pletely unnec­es­sary to take mil­i­tary action against the Unit­ed States to force it to play ball with this sys­tem. . . . Here, as in every oth­er coun­try, they have estab­lished rela­tions with numer­ous indus­tries and com­mer­cial orga­ni­za­tions, to whom they will offer advan­tages in co-oper­a­tion with Ger­many. . . .”
• Is the “free-trade agree­ment” West­er­welle was stress­ing in Novem­ber of 2012 the begin­ning of the teth­er­ing of the U.S. to the Ger­man polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic design? he, too, dis­cuss­es the (osten­si­bly and ini­tial­ly) prof­itable advan­tages of such a rela­tion­ship, rather like Ms. Thomp­son’s inter­vie­wees in 1940.
• We should remem­ber the the­o­ret­i­cal struc­ture for­mu­lat­ed and advanced by Fran­cis Park­er Yock­ey, who envi­sioned an alliance between Third World and Com­mu­nist coun­tries as a vehi­cle for sub­du­ing the Unit­ed States, paving the way for a Ger­man-led Euro­pean empire–‘The Imperi­um.”

Note that future posts will explore this “heck­u­va con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry” in con­nec­tion with pos­si­ble Ger­man envi­ron­men­tal and bio­log­i­cal warfare/terrorism in Asia. Be sure to check this site reg­u­lar­ly for updates.

“The Basis of Transat­lantic Inter­ests;” german-foreign-policy.com; 11/07/2012.

EXCERPT: The Ger­man For­eign Min­is­ter has called on the new US admin­is­tra­tion to con­sol­i­date transat­lantic eco­nom­ic rela­tions. “Europe and the USA” should “soon reach an agree­ment on con­crete nego­ti­a­tions for a transat­lantic free trade zone,” pro­posed Gui­do West­er­welle. This could bring new “growth.” Experts are esti­mat­ing bil­lions in pos­si­ble added prof­its. Regard­ing its strate­gic con­se­quences, the for­eign min­is­ter claimed that the close coop­er­a­tion would strength­en the “basis of com­mon inter­ests” in the glob­al com­pe­ti­tion. Berlin’s ini­tia­tive was pro­voked by Wash­ing­ton’s explic­it announce­ment that, in the future, it will main­ly focus on East and South­east Asia, rather than on Europe. The Ger­man gov­ern­ment is react­ing with an expan­sion of its own Asian activ­i­ties, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly insur­ing its alliance with the USA in glob­al pol­i­cy. Berlin is also mak­ing demands that are more exten­sive. For­eign Min­is­ter West­er­welle calls on Wash­ing­ton to assume the Ger­man aus­ter­i­ty pol­i­cy as its own mod­el for fight­ing the cri­sis. . . .

First Free Trade Plans

Since the 1990s, there have been dis­cus­sions on the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Area (TAFTA). Already at that time, it was clear that the USA would even­tu­al­ly shift the focus of its atten­tion to the Pacif­ic Basin, as Wash­ing­ton’s reac­tion to the rise of the Peo­ple’s Repub­lic Chi­na. Bonn want­ed to take pre­ven­tive mea­sures to per­ma­nent­ly insure its exclu­sive rela­tion­ship with the USA. But, delib­er­a­tions proved futile, because the USA was seek­ing glob­al free trade reg­u­la­tions. . . 

. . . Over the past few months, the US gov­ern­ment has expressed angry crit­i­cism of the Ger­man aus­ter­i­ty dic­tates, because these threat­en to lead Europe into a reces­sion, there­by endan­ger­ing the glob­al economy.[7] In a recent inter­view, when asked what “Wash­ing­ton can learn from Berlin” West­er­welle claimed that “many Amer­i­cans have been respect­ful­ly fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful eco­nom­ic his­to­ry writ­ten by us Ger­mans over the past three years,” adding “growth comes from increased com­petive­ness.”[8]

The Most Impor­tant Part­ner in Europe

The Ger­man For­eign Min­is­ter has made his impos­ing pub­lic dec­la­ra­tion based on Berlin’s claim of still being Wash­ing­ton’s most impor­tant part­ner in Europe. The for­eign min­istry points to the fact that although the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many is but the fifth-largest investor in the Unit­ed States, it remains its largest Euro­pean trad­ing part­ner. Just recent­ly, Har­ald Leibrecht (FDP), coor­di­na­tor of the Ger­man For­eign Min­istry’s transat­lantic coop­er­a­tion sec­tion, suc­cinct­ly summed up Berlin’s atti­tude: in the USA, “Ger­many is cur­rent­ly seen as the most impor­tant part­ner in Europe.”[9] But Leibrecht can­not deny the fact that the Unit­ed States is turn­ing more strong­ly toward East­ern Asia and that “a ten­den­cy” can be dis­cerned, where­in “a decreas­ing num­ber of US politi­cians are inter­est­ed in Ger­many.” Berlin hopes that the transat­lantic free trade zone, claimed to pos­sess the poten­tial for con­sol­i­dat­ing the “basis of com­mon inter­ests,” can coun­ter­act this dwin­dling sig­nif­i­cance.

“Media Report: North Korea Enlists Ger­man Help to Pre­pare Eco­nom­ic Open­ing”; Der Spiegel; 1/4/2013.

EXCERPT: On New Year’s Day, North Kore­an leader Kim Jong Un called for a “rad­i­cal” eco­nom­ic renew­al for his coun­try and an end to decades of con­flict with South Korea. Now, a Ger­man media report says he is mov­ing quick­ly to ful­fill at least the first pledge.

Accord­ing to an arti­cle to be pub­lished on Sat­ur­day by the dai­ly Frank­furter All­ge­meine Zeitung, the com­mu­nist regime in Pyongyang is prepar­ing to open up the coun­try’s econ­o­my to for­eign investors. More­over, it has enlist­ed the assis­tance of Ger­man econ­o­mists and lawyers to lay the ground­work for the move. . . .

“Inside North Korea: No ads, no planes, no inter­net, no mobiles, no 21st Cen­tu­ry... A rare dis­patch from deep with­in the lunatic rogue state enslaved by Zom­bie and Sons” by John Sweeney; Dai­ly Mail [UK]; 4/13/2013.

EXCERPT: . . . Many peo­ple think of North Korea as Com­mu­nist. One year ago Marx and Lenin still had pride of place in a big square in town. But on our trip, they’re gone.

If North Korea is not Stal­in­ist, what is it? For­mer British ambas­sador to the coun­try John Ever­ard was blunt: ‘There are sad par­al­lels between North Korea and Nazi Ger­many and although some peo­ple describe North Korea as a Stal­in­ist state, it’s actu­al­ly much more accu­rate to describe it as neo-Nazi. It is deeply racial­ly biased.

‘Kim Jong Il [Kim The Sec­ond] was an unabashed admir­er of Hitler and copied the Nurem­berg march­es that are staged in Pyongyang to this day.’ . . .

“Park Seeks to Bench­mark N.K.-Germany Ties”; The Dong‑A ILBO; 4/4/2013.

EXCERPT: Pres­i­dent Park Geun-hye said, “North Korea is said to have the belief that it should keep its promise with Ger­many with­out fail,” effec­tively con­firm­ing that she con­sid­ers North Korea-Ger­many ties as the tar­get for bench­mark­ing in her bid to pur­sue what she calls the “Kore­an Penin­sula trust-build­ing process.”

“When imple­ment­ing a joint project with North Korea, Ger­many gave the North the impres­sion that ‘the North should nev­er break promise with Ger­many,’ which is believed to take cor­re­spond­ing mea­sures if the North breaks promis­es both nations agreed to fol­low,” Pres­i­dent Park was quot­ed as say­ing by gov­ern­ment sources at the joint brief­ing by the For­eign Affairs Min­istry and the Uni­fi­ca­tion Min­istry last Wednes­day.

Like­wise, trust is impor­tant. By imple­ment­ing pol­icy through con­sis­tency, we should prompt the North to think ‘it would pay the price’ if and when it does things wrong,” stress­ing, “We should make sure that North Korea keeps promis­es with the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity with­out fail.”

Kim Jang-soo, chief of the pres­i­den­tial Nation­al Secu­rity Office, said, “I under­stand that as North Korea is well aware that if it breaks even a sin­gle promise, its rela­tion­ship with Ger­many will col­lapse. Hence Germany’s aid pro­grams for North Korea have been seam­lessly imple­mented based on trust.” . . . .