North Korea's Launch: Watch Out for Incoming Communications Satellites?

Comments on North Korea's recent test of a

• communications satellite which even now is playing tunes in praise of Dear Leader
• partially successful ballistic missile which
  • Successfully detached its first stage
  • Before malfunctioning

Take your pick. Reaction to North Korea's [successful / not entirely successful] launch of a [communications satellite / mockup nuclear warhead on an IRBM] isn't all one tune, either:

• "I bet Japan isn't happy right now. They're probably still edgy about missiles since the nuclear bombs our terrorizing government dropped in World War II."
  (BlogCatalog Discussion thread)
• "...Kim Jong-Il wept tears of regret that the money it cost could not have been used to help his people...."
  (AFP, reporting on a North Korea state press story)
• "...Media and officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Tuesday hailed the successful launch of a long-rang rocket that put an experimental satellite into orbit...."
  (Xinhua: Background on the New China News Agency at GlobalSecurity.org)
• "...'The U.N. Security Council should respond properly and teach North Korea a lesson that it has to pay for the act of provocation.'..."
  (Japan's foreign minister Hirofumi Nakasone (Taiwan News))
• "...The North Korean report was a a bit of a blast from the past because North Korea made a similar claim in 1998 that it had sent a satellite into orbit playing the exact same two songs...." (Global News Blog (Reuters))
• "...'This issue also involves the right of all countries to peaceful use of outer space,' she [China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu] said referring to the resolution 1718 passed by the UNSC after North Korea's nuclear test in 2006...."
  (The Times of India)

It's a Communications Satellite - It Has to be a Communications Satellite

I think that last comment shows how important it is that as many people as possible assume, officially, that the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea launched a communications satellite - successfully, of course - and not anything resembling a weapons system.

In some circles, it doesn't matter whether or not North Korea launched a communications satellite, a mockup nuclear warhead, or radioactive kimchi. America is a racist terrorist imperialist oppressor, and that's all there is to it.

'Real Americans' have equally odd ways of dealing with reality.

North Korea's way of handling the real world is to carefully manage what its citizens see and hear:

"...'Chants of jubilation are reverberating throughout the country on the news that our satellite is beaming back the "Song of General Kim Il-Sung" and the "Song of General Kim Jong-Il,"' the ruling communist party paper Rodong Sinmun said, referring to the North's founding president and his son.

"It reported that Kim Jong-Il 'felt regret for not being able to spend more money on the people's livelihoods and was choked with sobs.'

" 'Our people will still understand,' it quoted him as saying...." (AFP)

Those are the songs that the Reuters blog referred to, by the way.

Communications Satellite Trumps People's Livelihoods: Why?

The AFP article neglected to explain why Dear Leader " 'felt regret for not being able to spend more money on the people's livelihoods and was choked with sobs.' " Perhaps it's because somehow it's vital that North Korea deploy communications satellites - at any cost. And, that American terrorism and oppression are to blame.

There are other possibilities, of course. North Korea's leadership, under Kim Jong Il, may have determined that 'communications satellites' are vital to the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea. After all, they're constantly attacked by warmongers.

This article, from October, 2008, shows what North Korea (says) it's facing:

"The U.S. and south Korean military bosses held the 40th U.S.-south Korea "'annual security consultative meeting' in Washington on Oct. 17 at which they reaffirmed the 'strong defense commitments' of the U.S. to south Korea and adopted a 17-point joint statement the keynote of which is the 'rapid dispatch of reinforcements in contingency on the Korean Peninsula'....

"...Availing itself of this opportunity, the DPRK warns the south Korean puppets acting war servants of the U.S. imperialists.

"These war servants who go reckless to attack fellow countrymen with arms provided by their American master will not escape from the fate of a tiger-moth as they are cursed and denounced by all the fellow countrymen.

"If the enemy makes a preemptive attack at any cost, the powerful army of Songun and people of the DPRK will deal merciless retaliatory blows at the aggressors...."
("KNS, via GlobalSecutity.org)

Incoming Communications Satellites?

I hope that the current 'communications satellite' launch is more a matter of hardball diplomacy, than preparation for an anticipatory counteroffensive against U. S. imperialists. Or 'puppets' of USI.

The recent test wasn't as unsuccessful as some make it out to be. The vehicle successfully 'staged' - separated from the first stage - a technically challenging process.

I readily acknowledge North Korea's technical abilities. The country apparently is very close to IRBM nuclear capabilities. And, judging by a recent incident, where Syria complained that the Jews blew up a Syrian reactor that didn't exist, North Korea has become a moderately successful exporter of nuclear technology.

I have no problem with another country having high tech. Nations with a vibrant economy and a taste for technology make great trading partners.

North Korea, on the other hand, seems to be a self-isolated and possibly paranoid dictatorship. When an outfit like that gets nuclear weapons and delivery systems, there's a danger that one of the leaders will start believing his own propaganda.

Related posts:

• "North Korea and Missile Concerns: Nations are Not All Identical"
  (April 5, 2009)
• "North Korea Launches Missile; U.N. Security Council to Meet: Here We Go Again"
  (April 5, 2009)
• "North Korea - Again - Still - North Korea"
  (March 26, 2009)
• "North Korea Set to Launch - Communications Satellite?"
  (February 27, 2009)
• "Syria Accuses America, North Korea Threatens South Korea: Nothing New Here"
  (October 28, 2008)
• "North Korea Un-disables Reactor"
  (September 27, 2008)
• "North Korea Disables Reactor: Progress, of a Sort"
  (June 27, 2008)
• "Syria, the IAEA, Israel, Claims and Denials"
  (June 22, 2008)

News and views:

• "Russia wants deal on U.N. response to N.Korea launch"
  Reuters (April 7, 2009)
• "N Korea's satellite launch not same as missile test: China"
  Times of India (April 7, 2009)
• "Japan warns against UN inaction on NKorea launch"
  Taiwan News Online (April 7, 2009)
• "North Korean Revolutionary Tunes Sink to Bottom of the Sea"
  Global News Blog, Reuters (April 7, 2009)
• "DPRK officials, media laud successful satellite launch"
  Xinhua (April 7, 2009)
• "NKorea's Kim 'weeps' at historic rocket launch"
  AFP (April 6, 2009)
• "Mystery over fate of N. Korean rocket"
  CNN (April 6, 2009)
• "Anti-DPRK Military Confab of U.S. and S. Korean Warmongers Blasted"
  Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS), via Global Security.org (October 29, 2009)

---

Updated/correction (April 7, 2009)

The Xinhua (April 7, 2009) link in "News and views" was incorrect, and has been fixed.

---

CNN says status of North Korean vehicle is a "mystery." North Korea says their communications satellite is cheerfully singing the praises of Dear Leader and his father, while "...Officials from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the U.S. Northern Command said the payload cleared Japanese airspace, but later fell into the Pacific Ocean...." The Japanese government says the same thing, and has ships headed to the impact points to recover debris.

In a way, it's a case of he said/they said: in this case involving an invisible communications satellite emitting undetectable signals.

Saudi Arabia is not America

Fouad al-Farhan has a blog, "فؤاد أحمد الفرحان (Fuad Ahmad Al-Farhan)." He doesn't agree with all Saudi policies, and said so.

So, Saudi authorities, ah, detained him. He's the first Saudi blogger detention.

I can see why the Saudi government picked him up. His blog's banner says that it's "بحثاً عن الحرية، الكرامة، العدالة، المساواة، الشورى، وباقي القيم الإسلامية المفقودة" - which seems to mean "In search of freedom, dignity, justice, equality, Shura, and the rest of the Islamic values lost." (Google Translate is a good tool.)

According to the "Guardian," "shura" means "public consultation." The Saudi government seems believe that al-Farhan "violated non-security regulations."

That may be true. Al-Farhan wrote openly about freedom, justice, and equality. That could make a monarch living in a pre-18th-century world feel very insecure.

Al-Farhan believes Saudi authorities were after him because he "wrote about political prisoners in Saudi Arabia."

Al-Farhan says that he was asked to sign an apology. His response: "An apology for what? Apologizing because I said the government is liar when it accused those people of supporting terrorism."

This is another time when I'm profoundly glad that I live in America. College types complain about the lack of intellectual freedom here, but I think they

• Don't like their assumptions questioned by the rabble
• Haven't realized that 'freedom to speak' is balanced by 'freedom to ignore'
• Bitterly resent situations where mere plebeian facts get in the way of their beliefs - the Strange Case of Professor Churchill and the Smallpox Plot comes to mind.

To someone immersed in one of America's politically correct subcultures, the degree to which others are allowed to criticize their beliefs must seem like oppression. But, I'd rather live in a country where public discussion is allowed, than in a well-regulated place like Saudi Arabia.

More at "Blogger Detained in Saudi."

Jews Flee Iran, Fearing Persecution: Sound Familiar?

"Comparisons are odious,"¹ but I'll risk making this one.

"40 Iranian Jews Make Exodus from Iran, Arrive in Israel to Escape Dangers" (December 25, 2007) tells how, and why, these Jews left Iran.

One of the covert emigrants "told all his friends where he was going, and they wanted to come along. 'I was scared in Iran as a Jew,' he said. 'I would never be able to wear a skullcap in the streets there.' Others said they felt safe in Iran, discounting warnings that Jews could become targets."

Seeing that headline was "like deja vu all over again" for me. In April of 1933, Chancellor Hitler and his colleagues defined what they meant by "non-Aryan," and what they intended to do about people who weren't part of the herrenvolk.

About three quarters of a century ago, intellectuals and Jews started leaving Germany, before the Nazi regime made life unpleasant and brief.

Today, some Jews are leaving Iran for about the same reason.

There are obvious differences between 1933 and 2007.

For starters, the leaders of Iran aren't Aryan. Actually, they are, but not the way the Nazis used the term.

On the other hand, then and now, nominally-democratic regimes with clearly-defined philosophies are removing people, and ideas, that their leaders don't like.

I'm seriously concerned.

---

¹ Samuel Johnson (1709-1784). The quote, in context, is

"Asked by a Scot what Johnson thought of Scotland: 'That it is a very vile country, to be sure, Sir' 'Well, Sir! (replies the Scot, somewhat mortified), God made it.' Johnson: 'Certainly he did; but we must always remember that he made it for Scotchmen, and comparisons are odious, Mr. S------; but God made hell.' "
(Quotes on Scotland, The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page)

Johnson's witticism has been paraphrased to refer to Texas, as well as other places and topics.

Professor Ward Churchill: 9/11 Truthteller, or Nincompoop?

Active response to jihadist attacks on this country began in earnest with the 9/11 attacks. That may be one reason why so many opponents of the War on Terror focus on the 9/11 attacks, either calling them justified, or denying that they were made by terrorists or jihadists.

Those who believe that the United States of America has no right to defend itself against alleged terrorists now have a martyr of sorts: professor Ward Churchill, who accused victims of the 9/11 attacks of bringing the attacks on themselves.

He's a martyr some of them may not want.

Ward Churchill's academic offense, according to everything that's filtering out from the University of Colorado at Boulder, was lying: and writing books under an assumed name so that he could cite them in his own scholarly works.

It's 'obvious' that professor Ward Churchill's firing was a violation of his free speech rights.

Or maybe not.

Representative Mark Udall, Colorado Democrat, assured readers of the Rocky Mountain News that controversial views, and those who hold them, will find a safe haven in his state's universities.

Also a salary that's nothing to sneeze at. Churchill will collect one year’s salary of $96,392 as severance pay, according to Rocky Mountain News.

Back to Rep. Udall. He's all for academic freedom, but said that professor Churchill got in trouble because of his academic misconduct.

"But Ward Churchill’s actions have gone far beyond giving voice to reprehensible points of views," he said. "As much as Ward Churchill would like us to believe otherwise, today’s dismissal is about his academic conduct. It is a shame that Ward Churchill still tries to deny the disservice he has done to CU by claiming the university is interfering with his right to free speech." (Rocky Mountain News, "CU regents fire Ward Churchill" July 24, 2007)

I agree with Representative Udall on this. Professors are paid to make outrageous, insane, ludicrous proclamations. And then, try to back them up with something with at least a passing resemblance to truth.

Professor Churchill failed to live up to this high ideal.

Now that his firing is official, professor Churchill is becoming a victim.

One post identified professor Churchill as "cause celebre of the hysterical right."

Another posted a well-written piece, defending what he calls "academic freedom." "All that has been proven is that Churchill made some dubious claims in his writings without any real evidence, and that he engaged in ghost writing for some other academics," he wrote This blogger called professor Churchill's academic faux pas "appalling," but he believes that a professor of Churchill's caliber shouldn't be fired.

And one blogger, with a keen perception of how a group can be discredited by an excessively-enthusiastic member, posted, "Churchill is not a 9/11 truthteller, and he doesn't speak for me." This blogger goes on to say, "Comparing the victims in the World Trade Center to nazis (!) is both offensive and idiotic, and Churchill never even discussed the fact that the 9/11 attacks were allowed -- or made -- to happen by elements within the U.S. government."

I'm waiting for someone to declare that professor Ward Churchill was forced or maneuvered into the position of writing his 2001 essay, and 2003 book. 'Obviously,' he is being used as a tool to discredit all the folks who know that 9/11 was somehow or other a fake.

One thing that's struck me about conspiracy theories is how mediocre they are. Honestly: "elements within the U.S. government?" I've heard phrases like that for decades. I would have expected someone to come up with something more imaginative, after all these years.

I strongly recommend reading this article in the Rocky Mountain News, CU regents fire Ward Churchill (July 24, 2007). In addition to other detail, this article quotes people whose work, in the view of the U of C, Boulder, was "mischaracterized by Churchill."

Professor Ward Churchill: Victim of Neocons, or Plagiarist?

Ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill is out of a job, at least for now.

Professor Ward Churchill achieved national fame in September of 2001, when he wrote an essay titled "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens" in which he compared "technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire" working in the World Trade Center as "little Eichmanns," a professorial quote taken from a Wikipedia article.

In 2003, Professor Churchill wrote a prize-winning book entitled "On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: reflections on the consequences of U.S. imperial arrogance and criminality" (ISBN 1-902593-79-0). (Again, thanks to Wikipedia for bringing this information together.)

A Denver Post headline in today's paper announces another milestone in professor Churchill's career: "CU regents vote to fire Churchill" (also published online in the Post's "movies" folder).

The Post gave a number of views on the firing. The paper quotes Emma Perez, associate professor of ethnic studies: "I'm disappointed because the University of Colorado and the regents have succombed (!) to the political agenda of the neo-conservatives."

It's true that U of C, Boulder, was encouraged to take a closer-than-usual look at Professor Churchill and his work after he wrote that essay, comparing some of the 9/11 victims to Nazi leaders.

The free-speech aspect of the colorful ethnic studies professor was dealt with early. An Associated Press article, repeated on the FOXNews.com pages, said, "Churchill's essay mentioning Sept. 11 victims and Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann prompted a chorus of demands for his firing, but university officials concluded it was protected speech under the First Amendment." (Emphasis is mine.)

Professor Ward Churchill was, and is, perfectly within his rights to call the people whose bones are still being picked out of New York City's hair Nazis. The freedom to say outrageous things is guaranteed by the Constitution.

I doubt, however, that we'll be hearing much about the way the university went to bat for his right to call terrorism victims Nazis.

According to the Denver Post, David Lane, Churchill's lawyer, said:

"...'I told them (the regents) we are at a crossroads, and that they will do irreparable damage to academic free speech if they fire him.

"The world will perceive that he was fired for his free speech.'..."
(Denver Post)

That's likely enough. The actual reasons for his firing were much more prosaic, and don't reflect well on the politically correct parts of the academic world.

Even today, academic professionals are expected to tell the truth, and not claim credit for what someone else did. Professor Ward Churchill had earned a reputation for telling scholarly whoppers, and plagiarizing the works of others.

All in a good cause, I'm sure.

Buried much deeper in the Denver Post article were a few paragraphs that discussed the academic reasons for Churchill's firing.

(Warning: some of what follows violates what "everybody knows" on at least some college campuses.)

"...It soon became clear that Churchill's scholarship had been questioned for years by other professors. Thomas Brown of Lamar University in Texas had long challenged Churchill's assertion that early European settlers of North America had intentionally spread smallpox among Indians by handing out infected blankets.

"Eventually, other revelations about Churchill became public, including that his hiring bypassed most of CU's normal processes for awarding tenure and that he had no proof of his claimed American Indian ancestry, which was the foundation of his hiring.

"Ultimately, a CU faculty committee charged Churchill with inaccurately describing historical facts in some of his writings - including the smallpox case...."
(Denver Post)

(I'll get back to the "smallpox case" momentarily.)

The FOXNews.com article goes into rather more detail, but both the Denver Post and AP seem to agree on the basics.

Churchill was accused of plagiarism, falsification and other things that professors shouldn't do, by three faculty committees.

These "research allegations" go back to other learned writings made by Churchill. His "September 11" essay is involved only in that it raised such a stink that U of C, Boulder, was forced to take a serious look at the ethnic studies professor's work.

"The decision was really pretty basic," said university President Hank Brown in the AP article. President Brown added that the school had little choice but to fire Churchill to, in the words of the Associated Press, "protect the integrity of the university's research."

"The individual did not express regret, did not apologize, did not indicate a willingness to refrain from this type of falsification in the future," Brown said.

The falsification mentioned is a bit of academic mythology which I first encountered some time during the 1970s. At that time, "everybody knew" that American Indians were deliberately killed off by smallpox-infected blankets.

The AP article says, in part:

"...Brown had recommended in May that the regents fire Churchill after faculty committees accused him of misconduct in some of his academic writing. The allegations included misrepresenting the effects of federal laws on American Indians, fabricating evidence that the Army deliberately spread smallpox to Mandan Indians in 1837, and claiming the work of a Canadian environmental group as his own...."
(Associated Press)

All of that is rather boring, though. I expect that by the time I get this post finished, about 10:40 pm Central time in the States, tales of political oppression, neocon plots, and the total loss of freedom of speech will be the crisis du jur for many netizens.

In the news:

• "Regents vote to fire Churchill"
  Tom McGhee, Denver Post (July 24, 2007)
• "University of Colorado Board Votes to Fire Embattled Professor Ward Churchill"
  Associated Press, via FoxNews.com (July 24, 2007)