Imperialist hypocrisy

How the imperialists raged and wailed at the United Nations when Democratic Korea prepared to launch a satellite into space a couple of weeks ago. How they gloated when it sadly failed. The Nato powers and the rest of their lackeys falsely claimed that Democratic Korea’s satellite launch was a cover to test a ballistic missile. They claimed this was a breach of UN agreements and a threat to peace in north-east Asia and drummed up a diplomatic furore to justify the continuation of the US-led economic blockade of the DPRK.

But there was hardly a peep when India, now more or less in the imperialist camp, brazenly tested an intercontinental ballistic missile last week. The Indian test of what is openly an offensive weapon — a missile which their media boast can hit targets throughout China as well as every city in Pakistan — will doubtless trigger a new arms race with their neighbour. Pakistan is reportedly racing to test its own long-range missiles in response to the Indian provocation.

India and Pakistan are both nuclear powers with close ties to the Nato powers. They have fought each other several times over the disputed territory of Kashmir, whose people are still denied self-determination, largely due to Indian intransigence.

None of the imperialist powers have done anything to resolve the Kashmir conflict. They have refused to impose the referendum that the UN called for back in 1949 to allow the Kashmiris to decide their future for themselves and they openly encouraged the Indian and Pakistani military to acquire more and more weapons of mass destruction that the imperialists claim to deplore in other circumstances. On the other had Iran, whose government is seeking to develop a nuclear industry for peaceful purposes, is demonised as a threat to world peace.

Those in the peace camp who were taken in by the hysteria drummed up by the imperialist media over Iran and the DPRK should draw the only conclusion from this latest demonstration of imperialist double-standards.