The editors of the Wall Street Journal came up with a piece
that's too clever by half. Of course, they have the right to edit what they
publish. But what they cannot do is edit so much of the piece, it becomes a
different story. Going about it this way, changes editing to truncating, and
that's unacceptable.
And yet, this is what the editors of the Journal did to the
piece they published under the title: “Trump and Bolton on Libya ” and the subtitle: “North Korea and the U.S. press corps share a common
enemy.” The editorial was published on May 18, 2018 in the Journal.
The editors defended John Bolton who was denounced by the
North Koreans for a statement he made during a television interview. Here is
what the Journal says Bolton had said in that interview: “The White House aide
said that the U.S. sees the
'Libya model' as an example
for North Korea
to pursue nuclear disarmament”.
Even though John Bolton did not specify what he was talking
about, and neither did the interviewer ask him for an explanation, the editors
of the Wall Street Journal took it upon themselves to explain that Bolton “was referring to Moammar Gadhafi's decision in
2003 to renounce his nuclear program.” Of course, this alone did not warrant that
the North Koreans should respond as harshly as they did.
But they did respond harshly as reported by the editors of
the Journal. Here is what they said in that regard: “The analogy infuriated North Korea , which denounced Mr. Bolton, and
threatened to cancel Kim Jong Un's summit with Mr. Trump, adding that North Korea is not Libya , which met a miserable fate”.
And that's where the editors of the Journal saw the need to
tell there was confusion. But instead of explaining what the confusion was and
how it happened, they exploited it to score political points, thus added more
confusion to what's already there. Simply put, the confusion stemmed from two
different dates. In 2003 Gadhafi renounced his nuclear program. In 2011 America and its allies bombed Libya , causing
an uprising against the regime, culminating in a street mob shooting Gadhafi
and killing him.
Instead of putting it as simply as that, the editors of the
Journal took a long detour talking about superfluous subjects for the sole
purpose of attacking their liberal opposition. In so doing, they said very
little about the real story, effectively truncating it and telling a different
story. It must be said, however, that the editors of the Journal behave in such
manner all the time, except that they had more on their mind this time. They
wanted to hide the fact that the North Koreans were justified when they
responded the way they did to John Bolton's interview.
Here is what the editors truncated out of the story. For a
long time, the consensus in America
and throughout the world was that North Korea
did not meet Libya 's fate
because it has nuclear weapons whereas Libya did not. Thus, to
denuclearize North Korea
meant to put it in the same category as the Libya of 2011 when regime change
was imposed on it. The fact that Bolton did
not specify 2003, made that year irrelevant. The fact that he associated
denuclearization with Libya
made 2011 the banner year in that interview.
Thus, it can be said that the Bolton
confusion––whether deliberate or inadvertent––stemmed from the fact that the
Americans – who are constantly nudged by the likes of John Bolton – never cease
to speak of regime change. This threat, however implicit it may be, is
reinforced by such explicit sayings as: all options are on the table. There is
also the constant allusions to North Korea proliferating nuclear technology to
other unsavory states, as well as the ties it maintains with terrorist
organizations … all of which are unproven allegations.
If the American president was confused about Bolton's
saying––as reported by the editors of the Wall Street Journal––imagine how
difficult it must have been for the leaders of North
Korea when they tried to decipher the translated version
of what Bolton had said into their language.