There is only one reason why the US is obsessed with North Korea. It allows the US to maintain a massive military presence in East Asia. If not for tensions on the Korean peninsula, the US would lose its rationale for its network of military bases in the region, which are primarily meant to threaten and contain China.

Prof. Postol says that there should be two investigations, one conducted by UN experts to determine what actually happened in Khan Shaykhun, Syria, on April 4, the date of the alleged Syrian attack, and another to determine who fabricated the so-called intelligence.

With America’s unilateral attack on Syria, a Russian ally, there are reasonable fears that the worsening relations between Washington and Moscow could escalate. Africans should not imagine that these events are too far away to affect them. The US and Russia are nuclear powers. War between them endangers the whole world. Africans should explore creative ways of putting the issue of nuclear disarmament firmly back on the global agenda.

South Africans who agree that government policies must enjoy popular support, who believe that peace is a desirable value which society ought to collectively and actively aspire towards and who admit the possibility that nuclear technology could be incompatible with the genuine pursuit of peace, should object to the government proceeding with its current nuclear plans without comprehensive public consultation.