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Radio War Nerd EP #137 — Tim Shorrock on Trump-Kim Summit + Famine As Weapon of War (Patreon)

Published:
2018-06-23 18:12:38
Imported:
2026-06
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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 

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Comments

Paul Vd

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.

MoldyTolge

Always happy to see Shorrock make another appearance.

James Christensen

What are South Korean hawks up to? Are they just laying low?

tong

You think the GOP is for peace? Why the fixation on the press? Axios & Atlantic are not liberal.

tong

& Mendoza asking a question about military exercises is the only example of Democratic warmongers you gave.

Maggie+Al

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

Avery

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.

James Christensen

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.

Nick

Have Shorrock on as often as possible, he’s a radically rational voice about what’s going on on the Korean Peninsula.

THEKILLERWHALE

A Sadist's Guide to the British Empire by Gary Brecher. Some kind of thorough accounting of their deeds would be a great read.

xnfec

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.

eh

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.

Henry Hamilton

There was also an ecological component: colonizers introduced pathogens, whether by accident or design, but also non-native plants and weeds (wheat, barley, grasses, etc) and animals (rats, cattle, horses, bees, etc) that disrupted the ecological balance and adversely affected the native way-of-life...to say nothing of the rampant hunting for furs and deforestation for agriculture. See: Nash, Ecological Imperialism Another good book for those interested in the early New England conflicts between Native Americans and British colonizers is: Jennings, Invasion of America. Despite the somewhat provocative title it's a well-respected academic treatise on the topic. It's mostly concerned with military and political topics, as well as ethical and sociological issues. It also makes one interesting claim that may be of interest to the War Nerd. Apparently the practice of scalping enemy casualties was a terror-tactic brought to the Americas from the British isles, where it had been used to great effect in the wars between the Brits and the Irish. I don't recall whether Jennings claims it was used by one or both sides back in the old country, but it seems that the locals in North America figured "what's good for the goose..." And since the winners write the history, it's the image of the bloodthirsty savages scalping each other (and any white man they found) that persists.

eh

Grenier's First Way of War is another good academic work, he's an ex-USAF military historian and writes about early US military strategy's roots in colonial wars using irregular forces, where the main targets were the enemy civilian population. He also discusses the European military theoretization of the "petite guerre", and might make for an interesting guest if he's available.

eh

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.

teh_drewski

To be fair to the poets, God inflicting the English on the Irish is pretty good evidence of them being accursed!

Jim Vail

Tell them to sign up. We need to support good independent journalism!

radiowarnerd

eh: Very good point, and something we need to cover soon. Sherman is especially remarkable in this context because he continues to take endless abuse for his quite mild march to the sea but still (for reasons I don't quite understand) gets a pass for his genocidal ferocity in the Indian Wars.

radiowarnerd

Henry Hamilton, excellent info. I haven't heard much about scalping in the Irish counterinsurgency but, as you say, it was written by people who might not have wanted to stress that.

radiowarnerd

Fascinating! That would be Amber Rudd, Conservative MP and former Home Secretary?

radiowarnerd

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.

radiowarnerd

Thanks, yes, Victorian 'political economists' are terrifying people. There's that one quote attributed to Nassau Senior on famine casualties: "Not enough"

radiowarnerd

Worse yet, he was wrong about that. It crippled the country for good.

radiowarnerd

No, I don't think the GOP is for peace in any way. I'm sorry if we gave that impression. We were discussing Trump's move to engage with NK rather than stonewalling and insulting them, which has been standard US policy for a half-century. At the same time Trump was suggesting the US invade Venezuela, so we were dealing only with the strange response to his NK overture.

radiowarnerd

Good question. A lot of people want us to bring Tim Shorrock back, and when we do we'll ask him

xnfec

Maybe you're speed reading could do with a tune-up? But yes.

James Christensen

One of the few really useful bits of information I got out of reading 1950s movement conservative books, specifically Russel Kirk's biography of Edmund Burke. I don't think I had the intended reaction though- kept thinking "Hastings seems much more like today's Republicans than Burke does."

Conor

Anderegg's best piece on this one.