Plaidcast  |  International Organizations

Costa Rican Close Call Turns the CAFTA Tide: Free Trade Surf’s Up Dudes!

• World
• International Organizations
• The Americas

What the hell is up party plaid people? I heard you kicked ass on your mid-term exam….Congratulations! Your success was probably largely thanks to my colorful and creative cacophony of clarifying current event concoctions, of course!  And sticking with the alliteration of C, I just had to come down to Costa Rica to check out the crazy conclusion of this CAFTA circumstance here in Costa Rica. Ha! Top that you whack-ass wanna-be CNN analysts!   But I’m sure you have not a crack-addict clue what the hell CAFTA is, so let’s get to work….

Central American Leaders Applaud Costa Ricans Approving CAFTA

Costa Rica votes in referendum on US free trade deal

U.S. warns Costa Rica against rejecting CAFTA

CAFTA will open doors for Costa Rica’s workers, farmers, and entrepreneurs point

DR-CAFTA: A Bad Deal for Poor Countries counter-point

So Costa   Rica barely approved the acceptance of the CAFTA deal this week…like by only 52% yes to 48% nay. So what the crap is this CAFTA covenant? And why the hell was the US so concerned about it? Because I’m serious dudes: people in DC were sweating bullets about this Costa Rican vote. What? Why would rich ass bureaucrats in the Beltway give a shit about some rum-swilling, eco-touring, po’ folks south of our border? Here’s why:

DR-CAFTA stands for the ‘Dominican Republic/Central America Free Trade Agreement’ and is an international treaty to increase free trade. It was ratified by the Senate of the United States in 2005. So far its members include the US, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Dominican Republic….and now Costa Rica.  Like NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement between US/Canada/Mexico), its goal is to privatize public services, eliminate barriers to investment, protect intellectual property rights, and eliminate tariffs between the participating nations. Many people see DR-CAFTA as a stepping stone to the larger, more ambitious, FTAA—which stands for the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas…dudes! The whole freakin’ Western Hemisphere man! In one single big ass trade block! How insane would that be?

So why isn’t the US just pushing for the FTAA right this second? Why aren’t they just trying to get every single country to sign up for that gargantuan free-trade block?  Oh…that’s right…I just remembered! Because a bunch of Latin American countries totally fucking hate the idea, and have told the US to kiss their ass in no uncertain terms. 

Hmmmm….let’s test your Latin American learning my plaid amigos: what leaders south of the border would be opposed to some trade block action with the US? If you answered Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, and Lula de Silva of Brazil, then you win a shot of tequila! For each one of your right answers too! But don’t drink them yet, or you won’t be able to finish this blog. Seriously.

Since the rise of the letftist/socialist in Latin America (don’t know what I’m sayin’? Check: Incensed Iranian links up with Lively Latin Leftists…and America Annoyed) the US has been fighting a losing battle trying to get countries fired up to have a Americas-wide free trade block.  When George Bush entered office seven years ago, he had high hopes of the FTAA going forward. But then the Latins turned left, and at this juncture virtually no South American country supports the endeavor—except for Colombia, which is just an Latin American lap dog .  Which is precisely why the US revamped its approach, and started targeting Central America first.  The plan is now to basically bite off a small piece at a time, getting groups of more pliable countries on board for the free trade gig…with hopes that eventually the whole deal will go down, from Canada all the way to the chilly tip of Chile! You dig?

But why so tough a fight to begin with? Wouldn’t poor ass countries be thrilled to get a trade deal with the US?  The controversy regarding DR-CAFTA is very much like the controversy regarding NAFTA…and eventually the controversy with the proposed FTAA too. Many people are concerned about the US losing jobs to poorer countries where the minimum wage is lower and environmental laws are more lax. Also, some people are concerned that regional trade blocs like DR-CAFTA undermine the project of creating a worldwide free trade zone using organizations like the WTO. On top of that, lots of poor folks in those poor countries are worried that the local businesses face unfair competition if they open their doors to the US giant. 

And think about it. Could any Costa Rican company really compete with Wal-Mart? Or Ford Motor Company? Or Exxon? You gotta face the facts: these trade blocks create a level economic playing field between countries…and even medium-sized US companies can beat the shit out of anybody in a fair fight.  And they can beat the shit out of them even worse in an unfair fight…which many think CAFTA is. However, many economists would argue the counter-point: that opening trade will increase international investment and bring companies in to set up shop to take advantage of cheaper labor.  And free trade allows those Central Americans to buy US goods for even cheaper too—because you know how huge the Guatemalans demand for US-made Hummers is….ummmm…yeah…right….But as capitalist theory goes, free trade will increase all trade in the long run, which means more money and more jobs for everyone in the long run.  The question is: how long is that run?

So the fight for free trade is a much debated debacle of our age….and the Americans are extremely anxious to continue the free trade ball rolling south of the border, so as to keep the dream of the FTAA alive as well.  That’s why the Costa Rican CAFTA vote was such a nail-biter for the US administration.

Ah….but the Plaid Avenger will let you in on another little secret that the headline news sources are too shallow to figure out! The US has another strategic interest in keeping Latin American countries tied to them economically….and that reason is China! In what cannot be a coincidence, the Costa Ricans just dropped their ties with Taiwan, in order to officially establish ties with China (Check: Taiwan loses Costa Rica’s support).

What’s that got to do with anything? Just this: In officially recognizing China, Costa Rica is opening the door to all kinds of spectacular trade deals with the Asian giant.  And do you think the US wants that?  Oh hell no my friends!  The US is fighting desperately to not be displaced out of Latin America altogether! So I’m here to tell you, the US had its nuts in a vice over this CAFTA vote! They were begging, pleading, threatening, cajoling, coercing, and outright demanding that Costa Rica side up with them on this CAFTA thing….with the primary motivation to keep China‘s influence at bay! You heard it here first my friends! 

And I have to say, my plaid hat is off to President Oscar Arias and his whole Costa Rican funky bunch…they just played a masterful hand of pitting the two world powers against each other, completely benefiting themselves.  Nice job guys! You got China and the US kissing your asses!

Damn I’m good! I bet no one has linked these two stories but me.  But then again, no one but me has had so many sultry relationships with so many Costa Rican hotties either…

How else do you think I have such good insider information….Watch out all you world leaders! Protect your wives from …the Plaid Avenger!

TI: Coolest Corruption-Fighting Cats on the Plaid Planet

• World
• International Organizations

Watch out you cowardly crooked klepto-crats! TI is in the house, and are ready to deal with your dastardly deeds! TI stands for Transparency International, and they are a global outfit that is working damn hard to make the world a better place…by exposing and reporting on the most crooked government and corporate assholes on the plaid planet.  Hell yes! It’s about time we had some more good guys on the scene… damn, I can’t do everything on my own!  I need me some back up every now and again, and these guys are one of the best grime-fighting groups we’ve got.  If you are really interested in understanding the world, or maybe even trying to help out the world, then you absolutely must keep up with the TI. Browse through their website as often as you can.  And why are they in the news right now? Check it:

2007 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) page from Transparency International

Somalia, Myanmar, Iraq top corruption blacklist

How do we break the corruption cycle?

West ‘complicit’ in Third World corruption

Group calls on multinationals to fight the bribery that fuels corruption

So what the hell exactly is corruption? Simply put on a global scale, it’s when politicians and civil servants abuse their public positions for personal gain. While TI mostly focuses on corruption within political systems, we also have to consider the role of multinational corporations and illegal entities that play a big part in providing a lot of opportunities for those politicians and civil servants to screw up. In other words, you can’t tackle corruption simply by busting people who are on the take, but you have to also bust the bastards supplying the cash. You dig?

And how did TI come about to help fight this shit? As with everything good, it started with one dude:  As director of the World Bank for East Africa, the German jurist Peter Eigen was given a prime opportunity to observe corruption firsthand. He saw how useful development projects in Africa proceeded very slowly while costly, useless, and even destructive projects proceeded very quickly—mainly because they were receiving funding from rich financiers from developed countries like Germany, Japan, Canada, France, etc. Eigen calculated that a third of the debt burden of developing countries can be traced back to corruption-driven projects. He tried to develop anti-corruption concepts at the World Bank but the legal team told him to mind his own business. They said that he could legally do nothing against corruption because the World Bank wasn’t supposed to interfere with the internal affairs of recipient countries.

For this reason, Peter Eigen told the World Bank to ‘piss off’ and he formed Transparency International in 1993. The goal of TI is to eradicate corruption because it believes that corruption hinders social and economic progress and weakens democracy. It defines corruption as “the abuse of public office for private gain.” Some examples provided by TI as corruption are poor people having to come up with bribes in Southern India to use birth clinics or parents in Africa having to bribe teachers to teach their children, as well as big examples like Nigerian government officials being paid off by Shell Oil Co. to allow toxic dumping. TI publishes a Corruption Perception Index, a Bribe Payers index, and a Global Corruption report. 

But I’ll keep this rant brief: the news stories allude to this year’s publication of the Corruptions Perception Index (CPI) which ranks 180 countries on a variety of factors to see how corrupt they are. Scores range from 10 (perfectly clean) to 1 (covered in shit). See map below for a graphic take, or visit their website to download the whole report.

cpi_2007_worldmap.pdf

Some high-lites: New Zealand, Finland, and Denmark are clean as a whistle my friends! Rich democracies all typically rank high, with Western Europe doing the best as a region.  The US is #20—not bad considering how many high-level politicians have been busted last year, and the fact that they have OJ Simpson still running around free..  And surprise, surprise! Poorest countries in the world are most often the most corrupt ones.  Places that the Plaid Avenger considers ‘failed states’ (because they totally suck so bad that the government is almost useless) are almost invariably among the most corrupt in the world.  Burma, Somalia, Iraq, Haiti, Sudan, Afghanistan…yep, they are right down on the bottom of this list.

So why should anybody even care about this stuff?  Because “corruption continues to exist and ruin lives. For the poorest nations, in particular, corruption remains an enormous drain on resources sorely needed for education, health and infrastructure.” Sure, you can give money to charities and build habitat for humanity with Jimmy Carter or even start a business that provides jobs to an impoverished area.  But if you do these things in an extremely corrupt environment, then in the long run you are not going to help people out that much. Corruption is a disease that can eventually sap the life out of a community…or a country.  Unless it is stopped in its tracks!

And don’t feel like you have no role in this game my friends! You do! As TI and other international organizations well know, multinational corporations (most of whom are from the rich countries) and even the rich democracies themselves fuel a lot of this corruption from afar… some of it unintentional to be sure, but some of it quite intentional. Crooked bastards!  We in the superhero community encourage you all to pay attention to corporations that contribute to corrupting poor governments, and strike back. How? Don’t buy their shit!

Quite frankly, corruption may be the biggest factor that keeps poor countries poor. To many of us superheros in the business of justice, stopping corruption begins to solve virtually all the other problems that face the poorest countries in the world. And you simply cannot solve problems by sending aid to these places—because the damn crooked bastards will just steal it!  See how problematic corruption becomes?

So keep up on the happenings of TI! Do your part to fight for international justice!  Help stamp out corruption! And as always: Party on!

Permanent Possessors of Power: the Fabulous 5!

• World
• International Organizations
• East Asia-Pacific
• European Eurasia
• The Americas

Forget the Fantastic 4, you want to know about the Fabulous 5! Greetings from the New   York City my plaid friends! From the United Nations Headquarters to be exact.  And there are big things are going on in the Big Apple, not the least of which is the Avenger knocking back a dozen big-ass Manhattans—my mixed drink of choice here in the big city. Hey, the town’s so nice they named it twice, so I have to drink twice as much when I party here! But I digress as usual….While this weekend’s meeting will cover many tipples and topics, I just wanted to give you a quick rant about the UN’s most powerful component: the UN Permanent Security Council. Check out these stories related to this group’s recent activity:

Security Council reps discuss Iranian sanctions

Security Council Reform Resolution Fuels German Hope for Seat

Signs of shift in Iran stand-off

U.N. to revisit Security Council growth

U.N. Security Council has imposed an arms embargo on Sudan

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is the main organ of the UN charged with maintaining peace and security among countries. While lots of other committees do lots of other shit, all that shit only amounts to recommendations that are made to countries of the world.  However, the Security Council has the power to make decisions which member governments must carry out under the UN Charter—a charter which all members states have agreed to. Starting to get the picture here? If the Security Council passes a resolution, it must be enforced…by force if necessary!

In example: if a country on the Security Council proposes a resolution to bomb Burma, and that resolution passes, then the UN has to act on it, and Burma will be bombed.  That is an extreme scenario, but you get the point.  In 1950, it was just such a UN resolution that led to the invasion of South Korea by (US-led) UN forces to counter the hostile North Korean takeover that we now call the Korean War.

But let’s look at the mechanics of how this shit actually works.  The Security Council is made up of 15 member states, consisting of five permanent seats and ten temporary seats. Ah! Now we finally see the ‘permanent’ part of this group, and the reason for this blog.  The permanent five are the US, the UK, China, Russia, and France.  The ten temporary seats are held for two-year terms with member states voted in by the UN General Assembly, and broken down roughly on a regional basis (i.e. like 2 from Africa, 2 from Latin America, 2 from Middle East, etc.). So those 10 temporary seats are rotating, usually about half of them rotate out every year.

But the big 5! That is where all the action really is! Why? Because the Permanent Security Council members have this one all important distinction: veto power! Any one of the 5 permanent members can stop any resolution dead in its tracks. Russia or France or China can kill anything the US or Great Britain puts forward, and the US can crush anything the Russians or Chinese want to pass.  It’s just that simple. And that’s what creates all the drama!

Why so much drama? Because for the UN to actually send troops or aid to any part of the world requires a resolution from the council.  See, the entire Security Council votes on all issues, with each country getting one vote.  For any resolution to pass, it must have at least 9 ‘yes’ votes, and zero ‘veto’ votes from any of the permanent 5.  And the big permanent 5 don’t always see eye to eye on what the UN should be doing, because they all have different allies and strategic partners and motivations to consider.  So to keep our example going, the US would actually love to pass a resolution to send in troops to Burma to straighten that shit government out, but everyone knows the Chinese would veto it in a hot-shit second because the Chinese are big buddies of the Burmese regime.

Need another example? Just think back to the lead-up to the current US invasion of Iraq. That is a US invasion, not a UN invasion, precisely because of the dynamics of the Permanent Security Council.  The US was working damn hard to get the Council to pass a resolution to invade Iraq, but the Frenchies outright vetoed it, so the Ruskies didn’t even have to (which would have been likely). Thus, french fries became ‘freedom fries’, but you know that story already…

To keep it even more real, consider the current Iranian situation as referenced in the stories above. The US and the UK have for some time wanted to pass some resolutions to beat down the Iranians, but haven’t really bothered because the Frenchies and Russians would veto it. Now with Nick Sarkozy and the Frenchies coming over to Team USA, the sides are starting to get stacked in their favor….BUT the Russians are big buddies with the Iranians and will still likely veto any resolution that calls for military action against Iran. Can you dig it?

Just as a side note: China typically votes against any resolution which involves military action against any country.  They are big fans of sovereignty, and as such think that only some whack-ass extreme behavior by a state would warrant the use of UN force. What wusses. Actually, they are hesitant to violate any other countries sovereignty mostly because they don’t want anyone to invade theirs. They just don’t want to piss anyone off.

And you should know that a country can actually decide not to vote at all—which happens quite a bit with the Chinese.  They might not like a resolution, but if everyone else wants it, they will just not vote, thereby saving face. To keep our Iranian example: if the Russians eventually agree to some use of force against Iran, China will not want to stand in the way of a resolution that everyone wants, so they will abstain from the vote….so they won’t piss off the US, UK and France, and at the same time can tell the Iranians “Hey, don’t be pissed at us! We didn’t vote for it! Send your terrorist to their countries, not ours!”   See how this shit works?

To finish, you just got to know your Permanent Security Council 5, and how their behavior in large part determines the actions of the entire UN. Many folks want to expand the Permanent Security Council membership and change some of the rules to better represent the world and end the predictable stalemates. Check the stories above for activity on that front…and know this: Germany will likely join soon, as they already are invited to virtually every high-level talk that the Council holds. You will often see news stories reference meetings like this: The Permanent 5 + Germany.

Hmmm….Germany….isn’t it about time for Octoberfest celebrations to begin?

——-

APEC: a Peck of Pickled Pacific Presidents

• World
• International Organizations
• East Asia-Pacific

Ha! Say that shit seven times swiftly in Sydney! It’s the Plaid Avenger coming at you again from ‘Down Under’ reporting live at the APEC meeting to bring all my plaid friends up to speed on what the hell is going on n the world.  The meeting is still hot, and the booze is flowing as fast as fabricated vocabulary from George Bush’s lips…and I have to tell you, that guy can still do a serious inverted keg hit! Somebody told him that we were in the Southern Hemisphere, so he thought we all had to drink upside-down in order to get hammered! Dudes! This guy can party outside of the beltway!

But I digress as usual when I start getting buzzed with the Bushes… Today’s rant will be a quickie—I just want you to know what the hell APEC is, so dig this:

Fences, foes and farces: world view of APEC

APEC Nations Wrestle With Climate Change

Climate Change, Nuclear Power Central to APEC Meeting

APEC? OPEC? Thanks Austria!

There’s more to APEC than USA

APEC 2007 Homepage

APEC stands for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation—famously referred to as 4 adjectives in search of a noun. Ha! Too hilarious! And many think the grouping is just 21 countries in search of a mission.  And this year’s meeting in Sydney, Australia doesn’t seem to be helping clarify what this group is all about.  But let’s see if the Avenger can sort out some of the details for you….

APEC consists of most…but not all…of the countries that border the vast Pacific Ocean.  Hmmmm….let’s see, we’ve got Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong (which is China), Taiwan (which is China), Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, United States, and Viet Nam.  These entities are referred to as “Member Economies” which stresses their main motivation to be in this club—its all about the money! Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money!

So how they make mo’ money at an APEC meeting? APEC is like many other economic unions across the plaid planet—like the WTO, NAFTA, the EU, and ASEAN just to name a few—whose primary goal is to get countries to sit down at the table once a year and figure out how to better increase economic trade amongst them. And how do they do that? By lowering trade barriers like tariffs (a fancy word for taxes), lowering barriers to international investment, and facilitating each other as much as possible in order to move goods, services, and money…we here in the real world refer to this as cooperation. So you have countries cutting deals and trying to work together in order for shit to move more freely economically….so like Thailand will tell Mexico, ” Hey, we won’t put any import taxes on your tequila if you promise to not put any import taxes on our pineapples,” and Mexico would be like, “Que? Si senor, that sheeet sounds sweet!”

However, you need to be aware of this: everything that goes down at an APEC meeting is non-binding.  Huh? What the hell does that mean? That means that none of these countries during any of these talks is actually signing anything resembling a contract. There is no bound charter, or set of rules or regulations, or laws or by-laws.  These 21 countries just meet once a year to rap about things informally and come to a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ about how to work together best in the coming year. This is NOT like the WTO, or NATFTA, or even the EU—those clubs all have legit constitutions or binding contracts or laws which all the member states agree to follow when they join.  For instance, the WTO…which stands for the World Trade Organization…has almost all the exact same free-trade goals as APEC, but they also have laws which everyone agrees to follow.  And if Thailand taxes tequila after they promised not to in the WTO, then Mexico can sue them via WTO law.  Not so for APEC, which is non-binding.

And that leads us to the mystery and mystic of this grouping of countries. Why would these guys get together, when there are already so many other international organizations dealing with trade? Here’s why: this is a hot zone of trade on our planet.  In fact the hottest! The Atlantic used to be the ‘in’ ocean for the last 500 years…what with all the explorers and colonist and trade and movement between Europe and the US.  But the Atlantic heyday is over my friends, and the Pacific is now kicking ass! With the US as a major consumer, and the rise of China as a superpower, along with places like Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand already being industrial mega-producers, the Pacific Ocean is witnessing more international trade than the history of humans has ever known! Damn! Its crazy!

I know you’ve never heard this phrase yet, so let me be the first to spring it on you: we are in the Pacific Century. You heard it here first.  More action will take place across this ocean than anywhere else on the planet in the coming decades.  And that’s why this group was formed. The 21 APEC countries have 2.6 billion people in them, account for 60% of world GDP, and currently do over half of all the world’s trade between them. Damn. That’s a lot a vig. And its growing fast.

APEC was actually invented and in Australia back in 1989, so it has come full circle with them hosting this year’s event. Go figure: Australia can claim credit on two inventions now: APEC and the boomerang.  No wonder they are so rich. NOT. Screw you Russell Crow! I’ll tell you what you can do with that boomerang you asshole! Oops…sorry…that guy really pisses me off. And I’m not the only one getting hot and bothered down here…some countries are starting to get miffed about the events here in Sydney….

Specifically, John Howard (you know who he is know, right?) and George Bush have been using the APEC forum to push their version of an anti-global warming agenda: an agenda which calls for poorer/developing countries like China and India to reduce CO2 emissions just like the rich countries are going to.  I won’t get into right now, but this is really pissing off the Chinese and other developing states.  Also, as part of their program, Howard & Bush are stressing the need to use nuclear power for energy generation, as well as pushing for more pro-democracy stuff within the member states.  Again, pissing of China and Vietnam…and maybe even Russia. 

The main point I want to make is that many things being talked about this year are not related to economics or trade, and this is blurring the lines a bit.  China and Russia didn’t come to this forum to hear about global fucking warming man! What gives? Who knows my friends, I’m just giving you the straight talk here in Sydney. APEC, at least for this year, has become an avenue for the US (and its little brother Australia) to vent about many other non-money related themes. 

We’ll just have to see how this plays out, and we also get to look forward to the group picture that always concludes the APEC summit.  AS witnessed in the pics above, it is taken in some sort of customary dress of the host country, and usually ends up looking ultra-gay!  I can’t wait to see it! And to give Crow the smack-down….I’ll tell you how that turns out too.  As for now, party in plaid….

No Hangover from this Party: 6-Party Talks Actually Working!!!

• World
• International Organizations
• East Asia-Pacific
• European Eurasia
• The Americas

Sweetness! I love a good party….and I love a great party even more! And when the party is the 6-Party Talks, well, I think you know that the Avenger is going to be getting his drink on… times 6!  To understand the plaid world in which we all co-habitate in my friends, you really must know what, or who, or where, the 6-Party is.  And the party just got it going on over the last weekend, with some very interesting results.  In fact, I have been partying in Pyongyang playing power ping-pong while getting my drink on with a Chinese panda named Ling-Long! Ha! Top that on a Labor Day weekend! So what the hell is this Korean party all about? Check it: 

US Says North Korea to End Nuclear Program

No Form Date to Take North Korea Off Terror List

North Korea Close to Being Struck from Terror List

One Less on the Axis of Evil?

N Korea Asks to Leave Axis of Evil, Cites “Creative Differences” (this is satire, but its good!)

So who the hell gets the invite to the 6-Party? I’m glad you asked.  The sweet 6 are the US, China, North Korea, South Korea, Russia, and Japan.  And what’s the party all about? Just as easy to answer: the goal of the party is to find a peaceful resolution to the security concerns raised by North   Korea attempting to build a nuclear program.  Nuclear bombs specifically, which of course always worries anybody in the world that doesn’t want to get fucking blown up.  And especially the countries that are right next door to North Korea which would be the first to be targeted.  And quite frankly, everybody and their Asian brother is worried about North Korea getting anything close to a nuclear warhead, since their country is run by a complete fucking lunatic. 

Which lunatic? That would be Kim Jong-il.  The freak. Not to be too harsh on the guy, but I generally refer to him as the Michael Jackson of the Korean peninsula.  He lives in a palace while his people starve to death, but is surrounded by military whackos and court jesters who tell him he’s a god and that everybody loves him.  Shit, the dude is totally clueless about reality….much like Jackson, he is just living in his isolated Neverland Ranch, propped up by admirers that tell him everything is great.  Unfortunately, Kim il-Jong’s ‘ranch’ happens to be a country, and he happens to be the head of it.  And Michael Jackson’s nose is real.  Just like his skin.  Yeah right. Fucking freaks the both of them.  But I digress as usual…

So the US, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and even China are not really keen on this goober or any of his military advisers acquiring nuclear weapons.  So much so that all the countries have been working in earnest for years to get this group of freaks to relinquish development of their nuclear program, pull their heads out of their asses, and join the rest of the real world.  The US has been so insistent about it that they put North Korea in their famous ‘Axis of Evil’ category along with Iraq and Iran.

Of course Iraq is now off the list since its occupied by the US…. oh, and no weapons were actually found anyway. And now folks around the world are debating about what to do to Iran and their nuclear program.  But there really has never been any debate about the North Korea situation: everyone thinks they are nuts and all surrounding countries just want them to knock off with the damn shenanigans!  Too bad whacko North Korea! You are on your own! Not even China wants to put their neck out for those freaks.

And apparently that’s why the 6-Party talks are working. Everyone has been putting the heat on the Koreans to dismantle their nuclear program.  And it looks like it worked! The stories above reference that just last weekend the North Korean regime has agreed to not only stop production of nuclear materials, but to completely dismantle their program by the end of the year! Damn! That’s big news! But why would they nutty Northerners agree to this at this particular time? Why not earlier? Or why agree at all?

Here’s why: they suck.  The North Korean economy is non-existent. The people are starving to death, and winter is fast approaching which will result in many more folks starving to death. North Korea just got the shit kicked out of them by major floods all summer.  Their already meager crops are going to suck ass this year.  People are trying to literally haul ass out of the country by the thousands—it has gotten so bad in the last year that the Chinese have posted troops all over their border with North Korea to stem the tide of immigrants trying to get the hell out of there.  Seriously, the place is a total joke. And everyone in the leadership is starting to realize that they can’t keep this total sham of a country afloat for much longer. 

Call in Michael Jackson! Maybe he can lull the North Korean masses into submission by singing ‘Beat It’ a million times! Shit, the whole damn place already looks like a scene from the fucking ‘Thriller’ video.  Dude! I would pay serious money to see Kim il-Jong do the moonwalk!

But anyway, North Korea can no longer afford to piss off all its neighbors, especially when all those neighbors [as well as the US] are going to be providing them with all sorts of food aid, fuel aid, and financial aid as incentive to give up the nukes.  And the Plaid Avenger has always been convinced that the quest for nukes by the North Koreans has been simply about having a card to play in international politics…in other words a leveraging tool for the world to take the North Koreans seriously.  Now that the North Korean position is a total joke and the country is nearing collapse, giving up the nukes appears to be the only face-saving device which allows Kim and his funky bunch to get international assistance while keeping their rule—and the entire country—intact.

You’ll notice from the stories above that as soon as the 6-Party ended on Sunday, the North Koreans ran out to the press and announced that the US was normalizing relations with them, and taking them off the ‘Axis of Evil’/terrorist list.  What a bunch of boneheads! The US immediately renounced that claim, and has instead said that they will be working towards patching up relations with the Koreans, and possibly taking them off the ‘terror list’ once the nuclear plants are actually totally dismantled.  Shit! Those whack-ass North Koreans can’t even keep the story strait for 5 damn minutes.

BUT! Whatever the story is, it is a promising turn of events for the US, South Korea, Japan, and the entire world. Promising for the North Koreans because they will undoubtedly get shit tons of aid, just when they need it most.  Perhaps they will actually give up all efforts to make nukes. Perhaps the US will take them off the terror list. Perhaps the Korean peninsula will start a re-unification process if this goober regime opens up a little. Perhaps Michael Jackson and Kim il-Jong will become fast friends…and then lovers…  Who knows what the rosy future holds?

And repercussions outside the Korean peninsula? There are plenty, but only one worth mentioning, and it’s a doozie! And its also in the news on the same day, which compounds its importance!  What the smell am I referring to?  I’m talking about Iran, and how the 6-Party is going to cause a huge fucking hangover for them, even though they weren’t invited to the crib!  Dig this:

Iran Meets Key Target in Nuclear Program

Long story short, just as North Korea is renouncing nukes, Iran is bragging that they are fast developing them.  Damn! Its like those guys are absolutely determined to piss off the world!  I’ll deal with the Iranian nuke program later, but know this for now: with North Korea out of the picture, the ‘Axis of Evil’ is fast turning into the ‘Axis of One’ aka ‘the Only Evil One Left’.  Iran was already getting plenty of attention for its nuclear activities; with North Korea going legit, all eyes of the world will now be sternly focused of what the hell Iran is now going to do.  Shit! IS is getting hot in here or what?

So know this my fine American friends: know what the 6-Party is all about; know the Kim-il really is pretty ill—in his head; know that North Korea is going straight and may rejoin the rest of us here on planet earth soon.  And know why this is turning up the heat on Iran….

Party in Plaid in Pyongyang!

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