The 'Rogue Nation' Contest Beat the Devil
This article appeared in the June 29, 2009 edition of The Nation.
Was there ever a failed state as barbaric as North Korea? Not only is this "rogue nation" endangering the security of the planet in its efforts to elbow its way into the exclusive club of nuclear powers but it has now dispatched two Asian-American journalists for twelve-year prison terms in one of its labor camps, notorious for their brutality and appalling conditions.
The women, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, work for a TV channel owned by former Vice President Al Gore. According to their friends, the two crossed North Korea's border with China, intent on investigating the alleged trafficking of women.
Leaving aside the obvious fact that the fates and harsh sentences faced by Ling and Lee are tied up with the evolution of relations between North Korea and the new Obama government, let's try to achieve some sense of balance on the charge of barbarism.
Let's suppose a country has endured a half-century of continuous attack by assailants based in the United States, suffering nearly 3,500 dead and 2,000 wounded. Let's further suppose that this country faces sabotage of its budding tourism industry, including the bombing of hotels and murder of tourists. Now let us suppose that this country sends investigators to infiltrate the assailants and hands the results of the probe to the FBI. The investigators I'm talking about are the Cuban Five--courageous men who went to southern Florida and penetrated the Miami-based gangs, specifically Alpha 66, the F4 Commandos, the Cuban American National Foundation and Brothers to the Rescue.
In 1998, after Fidel Castro had dispatched Gabriel García Márquez as an emissary to the Clinton White House, the United States sent an FBI team to Havana to discuss the gangs' attacks. Cuba handed over sixty-four files on thirty-one terrorist acts and plans against Cuba in the 1990s.
About Alexander Cockburn:
Alexander Cockburn has been The Nation's "Beat the Devil" columnist since 1984. He is the author or co-author of several books, including the best-selling collection of essays Corruptions of Empire (1987), and a contributor to many publications, from The New York Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly and the Wall Street Journal to alternative publications such as In These Times and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. With Jeffrey St. Clair, he edits the newsletter and radical website CounterPunch, which have a substantial world audience.
