Radio War Nerd EP #137 — Tim Shorrock on Trump-Kim Summit + Famine As Weapon of War
Guest: Tim Shorrock, journalist & author
Recorded June 18, 2018
The War Nerd interviews journalist and Korea expert Tim Shorrock, fresh from the Singapore summit between Trump and Kim Jong-un. Tim is one of the few western journalists who called Korea right all along—in this interview, he recounts what it was like to be among the smug US media elites gathered in Singapore who've been wrong on Korea almost as a matter of principle . . . Tim has previously appeared on Episode 127 ["The North Korea Peace Freakout"], EP 62 ["COINdanistas and the South Korea Crisis"] and EP 20 ["Korean War Recovered History"].
At 57:35 — War Nerd and Ames discuss Famine As a Weapon of War, given the US-Saudi coalition's starvation strategy in Yemen. War Nerd talks about the cold logic of Famine as a war weapon throughout history, and how it was used (and discussed) in Ireland in the 19th c, through the Biafra War in the 1960s . . .
Read Tim Shorrock's articles on the Koreas at The Nation here.
Buy our genius sound engineer Brendon Anderegg's new album "June" here, and read Pitchfork's review of Brendon's album here
Total time: 2:38:46
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
Comments (25)
Anderegg's best piece on this one.
To be fair to the poets, God inflicting the English on the Irish is pretty good evidence of them being accursed!
So, YHWH really is Protestant? (See also: Mexico.)
Amartya Sen has also written on the lack of basic healthcare in India and how if you factor in the lower life expectancy created by rural poverty and poor coverage the PRC and India after the end of British colonialism have a similar level of surplus mortality in the 20th century. Of course, British India was worse than either as an extractive dictatorship meant to enrich Britain. The "famine relief" provided by the colonial authorities consisted of something like half the necessary daily caloric intake, conditional on doing backbreaking work in public works projects while the stockpiled grain was shipped to Europe.
Open repost of Shorrock's section?
Tell them to sign up. We need to support good independent journalism!
I think the treatment of native populations in North America by both the British and later the United States could be mentioned here as well considering it's essentially a three centuries long and increasingly onesided campaign of displacement by terror and genocide by starvation and disease, from the British paying rangers by the scalp to clear indigenous populations from areas designated for settlement to Washington burning towns and villages. Jackson is of course famous for the trail of tears but the real drive west in the Indian wars under presidents like Lincoln and Grant and commanded by generals like Sherman (“We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children … during an assault, the soldiers can not pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age.”) who generally get a more heroic treatment is the culmination. US fort building, the reservation system, the mass killing of the bison and strategies like chasing nomadic peoples with cavalry to prevent winter settlement were all essentially meant to deny access to food and land in order to open up the west for US settlement and aimed at the eradication of as many "useless" people as possible.
Whitman's poem on the death of Custer (himself a union man) is a nice little paean to genocide. <a href="https://whitmanarchive.org/published/periodical/poems/per.00142.html" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://whitmanarchive.org/published/periodical/poems/per.00142.html</a>
Kurt Vonnegut wrote some essays and articles on Biafra and even went there I believe. A.A. Gill was married to the former Home Secretary, Amber Rudd. That is not to say she shared his views but he was well connected.
Fascinating! That would be Amber Rudd, Conservative MP and former Home Secretary?
A Sadist's Guide to the British Empire by Gary Brecher. Some kind of thorough accounting of their deeds would be a great read.
Maybe without the 's' word, hehe hehe...
Apropos the canibalism discussion. The classic pyton sketch aout the royal navy: <a href="https://youtu.be/deoNAOfkXxc" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/deoNAOfkXxc</a>
Have Shorrock on as often as possible, he’s a radically rational voice about what’s going on on the Korean Peninsula.
The Warren Hastings trial should probably get more attention. He oversaw the first of the famines in British-run India, and they seriously considered punishing him. Ended up getting away with it though, which obviously set a horrific precedent.
Your comment was the first I'd heard about the Warren Hastings trial. After a quick Google, it looks like a remarkable incident. Of course it was 1788 and Britain had a sharper brain and some vestiges of conscience at that time. I think after Victoria's world freezes in place, those things are gone.
On a tangent from the 1848 Famine, if you want to dive into the psychology of the UKs ruling class in the Victorian era and how they managed and felt about troublesome populations (in this case the poor of London) I can’t recommend Outcast London by Gareth Stedman Jones enough. Even if you don’t agree with his thesis, the quotes he digs up from some of the economist types are burnt into my mind like some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare, these people honestly looked to Charles Travalyan as the grand old man of poor relief. Regards Al
Thanks, yes, Victorian 'political economists' are terrifying people. There's that one quote attributed to Nassau Senior on famine casualties: "Not enough"
& Mendoza asking a question about military exercises is the only example of Democratic warmongers you gave.
You think the GOP is for peace? Why the fixation on the press? Axios & Atlantic are not liberal.
There are plenty of people in the Trump administration who oppose peace on principle, but Trump himself is in for whatever gives him good press.
What are South Korean hawks up to? Are they just laying low?
Good question. A lot of people want us to bring Tim Shorrock back, and when we do we'll ask him
Always happy to see Shorrock make another appearance.
This has nothing to do with Trump. Peace with NK is not an option for the US empire. Kim is making the same mistake that Gorbachev made, that Yeltsin made, that Putin term 1 made and that Medvedev made. The Libya comments plus the last military exercise showed that the US made it clear that it doesn't want peace. But if Kim insists, they will take it. And will just play the long game like they did with Russia. Kim is a fool. He makes the exact same mistake that all the non US subject countries make. They always hold out the possibility of balancing one of their rivals with the US. Iran did it with Obama. Look how that turned out ! Russia has been trying to balance China with the US for 30 years. Same result. And of course NK could open up and free up the economy and keep the same govt. It's the China model and it works. NK doesn't need the US for that.