Massive joint US-South Korean military exercises began yesterday under conditions of high tension on the Korean Peninsula following North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January and rocket launch last month. Under pressure from Washington, the UN Security Council last week imposed the most far-reaching sanctions to date on Pyongyang that will limit its mineral exports and compound the economic crisis wracking the unstable regime. Continue reading
My first experience with the Wounded Warriors Project came in 2006, when I made several donations from between $200 and $500 to the organization. I was a stock broker at the time and my income allowed for such idiocy. I guess you could say that I had more money than I had sense, but more importantly, I gave the money because I felt that I needed to do something to take part in the war effort, and what better way than to provide financial assistance to those who were coming back from the wars in the Middle East maimed and wounded. At least that is where I thought the money that I was donating was going. Continue reading
US President Barack Obama yesterday raised the stakes in the confrontation with North Korea over unsubstantiated allegations that it hacked into Sony Pictures Entertainment, authorizing a new round of economic sanctions affecting 10 government officials and three state entities. Continue reading
The evidence indicates the SONY hack was done by disgruntled ex-employees of SONY itself. Yet the White House has hastily put together a frame-up of North Korea, and unlike the Benghazi attack, the movie that is supposed to be the root cause of it all actually does exist.
So what is going on? Continue reading
Today Sony canceled the premiere of “The Interview” and its entire Christmas-Day release of the movie because of fears that terrorists might attack theaters showing the film.
The actions show just how much power the attackers behind the Sony hack have amassed in a short time. But who exactly are they? Continue reading
North Korea laid out conditions Thursday for any talks with Seoul or Washington, including the withdrawal of UN sanctions and a guaranteed end to South Korea-US joint military drills.
“If the US and the South enemies… genuinely want dialogue and negotiation, they should take these steps,” the North’s National Defense Commission said in statement.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/18/north-korea-lists-conditions-for-talks/
“from that time” becomes “from this time on” and “from this moment“… little change, big difference
As much as our leaders would like them to have taken the bait, North Korea has not declared war on the South or the U.S. in response to our unprecedented provocations. So when all else fails, leave it to yellow journalism like this piece of work from the New York Times or this obviously Photoshopped image that came out this past week.
The much touted “state of war” declaration is not a declaration of war from Kim Jung Un but rather a statement of support for whatever decision he has too make from the “the government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK.” It claims only they will declare themselves in a state of war WHEN their leader makes that decisionshowing they are completely behind him. It is a statement of support from the people and perhaps a warning to the South that the North will not fold under their attack. But not a declaration of war from Kim Jung Un.
There is a campaign of propaganda underway this week in Korea and I will show you that this latest crisis is nothing more than a continuation of that warmongering effort.
It’s being reported across the globe that “North Korea” made these statements in a recent official release via state media Korean Central News Agency :
“From this time on, the North-South relations will be entering the state of war and all issues raised between the North and the South will be handled accordingly,” Ria Novoski
“Now that the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK have entered into an actual military action, the inter-Korean relations have naturally entered the state of war,” Huffington Post
“From this time on, the North-South relations will be entering the state of war and all issues raised between the North and the South will be handled accordingly,” Reuters via Prison Planet
As you can see, this rhetoric spans quite a wide political divide from the fake alternative left to the equally fake alternative right and very thing in between. CNN, Fox,NBC News all of them are reporting this crucial development as fact.
Trouble is, it may be another lie. It’s hard to say because no one links to the actual original source of this statement. Also important to note, which is not being covered by most outlets, the statement is NOT from the usual official offices of the North Korean government but rather from “the government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK” and what that means is, it’s not so much a declaration of war as it is a statement to show the unified resolve of the North Korean people against the aggressive stance and provocations undertaken by the South Koreans and their masters, the United States.
But with that in mind, it may not even be an accurate translation of the statement.
Ria Novosti, to their credit, caught the “mistake” from the AFP and published a retraction calling it a “faulty translation”. A noncommittal way of saying a “lie” I suppose. “Faulty” is right.
Later on Saturday, however, Russian media reported that a faulty translation might have been to blame for this apparent uptick in bellicose rhetoric.
The North Korean original statement apparently stressed that the country would act “in accordance with wartime laws” if attacked, and that “from that time, North-South relations will enter a state of war.” Ria Novosti
What they are saying is if they are attacked they will be ready to enter “the state of war” with the South and their puppet masters the United States.
Seems quite rational when you consider the fact that the Unites States is running practice drills dropping dud tactical nukes on islands off the shores of North Korea. Were the North Koreans to have done that off our shores, Shock and Awe would have already begun. Hell, we claim the “right” to “pre-emptive warfare” on other countries and millions of people are dead and suffering as a result right now.
This interpretation of their quote also blends seamlessly into what appears to be the North Korean’s official position gleaned from several other quotes released on the official media site.
“He declared the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK would react to the U.S. nuclear blackmail with a merciless nuclear attack, and war of aggression with an all-out war of justice.”
“The army and people of the DPRK are full of the spirit to defend the countryas was displayed in the 1950s.” KCNA
“The powerful countermeasures of the DPRK to defend the sovereignty are a manifestation of the firm will of its army and people to defend the countryand socialism at the cost of their lives from the hostile forces’ aggression moves.” KCNA
“If the enemies finally ignite a war of aggression, they will turn to ashes without having time to regret themselves over not paying due heed to the significant warning issued by the Supreme Command of KPA that they will have hardest time with their destiny at stake the moment they make a provocation.
The strong countermeasures taken by the DPRK are not to threaten others but to defend the dignity and the sovereignty of the country and the nation.
No one on earth can check the people turned out for just cause.” KCNA
In this article, the leadership of North Korea calls on progressives to stand against the U.S.’s globalist expansion of late and in this article the state run news agency points out the fact that the South Korean leadership is attacking their own progressives who are still trying to push the reunification agenda that came so close to succeeding not that long ago.
“A battle to be fought by the DPRK against the U.S. will become a war for national liberation to defend the sovereignty and dignity of the country and, at the same time, a revolutionary war to defend the human cause of independence and the justice of the international community.” KCNA
As to the mystery of the misquote: The AFP quote about the statements made by the North Korean leadership seem to come from a website called North Korean Leadership Watch. They cite the statement as being published by KCNA, but AGAIN, like all the others, NKLW doesn’t provide a link to that KCNA article.
However, they do make this statement:
“DPRK state media published a statement (tamhwa) on 30 March (Saturday) from “the government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK.” Unlike the recent volley of statements, or indeed most communications published and broadcasted in state media, the 30 March 2013 statement was not issued under the name of any specific organization (s). The statement is not cited as the work of the DPRK National Defense Commission, the KPA Supreme Command or Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces from the DPRK national security community…”NKLeadershipWatch
According to the origin of the quote, the statement isn’t directly from the government of North Korea and I am having a hell of a time finding the original source. You can find the statement here at Rodong and a few other sites as well.
Take a look at how it is written in the context of what is said:
… The government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK solemnly declare as follows reflecting the final decision made by Kim Jong Un at the operation meeting of the KPA Supreme Command and the unanimous will of all service personnel and people of the DPRK who are waiting for a final order from him.
1.From this moment, the north-south relations will be put at the state of war and all the issues arousing between the north and the south will be dealt with according to the wartime regulations.
The state of neither peace nor war has ended on the Korean Peninsula.
They are declaring they are at a state of war BEFORE given the order from Kim Jong Un?
Now substitute what Ria Novosti thinks is the actual translation:
… The government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK solemnly declare as follows reflecting the final decision made by Kim Jong Un at the operation meeting of the KPA Supreme Command and the unanimous will of all service personnel and people of the DPRK who are waiting for a final order from him.
1.from that time, North-South relations will enter a state of war and all the issues arousing between the north and the south will be dealt with according to the wartime regulations.
The state of neither peace nor war has ended on the Korean Peninsula.
If you look at the other statements issued by the official parties of NK you see a certain pattern. They have not declared war on the South though they fully expect the U.S. to instigate the conflict even more.
They also clearly identify their posture as being in “defense” of their nation and not the aggressor, which given the circumstances, is rational.
This statement which appears to say the North has declared war, is nothing of the sort, even if the Reuters translation is accurate. It is merely a statement of solidarity with their president at a difficult time.
But at worst, this deliberate mistranslation is someone’s opportunistic attempt to create a narrative and a history that mistakenly directs the blame for yet another war on the leadership of North Korea. It is in that sense, blackmail, just of the sort the North Koreans have been complaining about.
And given the fact that the leadership of the organizations signed onto the statement would NEVER openly declare war BEFORE given that order by their president, more than likely the Ria Novosti translation make much more sense.
Therefore, given all of this, I conclude (until such time as I can read the KCNA article myself) that the much touted “state of war” declaration being presented to the American people is in fact a “faulty translation”
The probably mistranslated statement reprinted below.
DPRK state media published a statement (tamhwa) on 30 March (Saturday) from “the government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK.”
The moves of the U.S. imperialists to violate the sovereignty of the DPRK and encroach upon its supreme interests have entered an extremely grave phase. Under this situation, the dear respected Marshal Kim Jong Un, brilliant commander of Mt. Paektu, convened an urgent operation meeting on the performance of duty of the Strategic Rocket Force of the Korean People’s Army for firepower strike and finally examined and ratified a plan for firepower strike.
The important decision made by him is the declaration of a do-or-die battle to provide an epochal occasion for putting an end to the history of the long-standing showdown with the U.S. and opening a new era. It is also a last warning of justice served to the U.S., south Korean group and other anti-reunification hostile forces. The decision reflects the strong will of the army and people of the DPRK to annihilate the enemies.
Now the heroic service personnel and all other people of the DPRK are full of surging anger at the U.S. imperialists’ reckless war provocation moves, and the strong will to turn out as one in the death-defying battle with the enemies and achieve a final victory of the great war for national reunification true to the important decision made by Kim Jong Un.
The Supreme Command of the KPA in its previous statement solemnly declared at home and abroad the will of the army and people of the DPRK to take decisive military counteraction to defend the sovereignty of the country and the dignity of its supreme leadership as regards the war moves of the U.S. and south Korean puppets that have reached the most extreme phase.
Not content with letting B-52 make sorties into the sky over south Korea in succession despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK, the U.S. made B-2A stealth strategic bomber and other ultra-modern strategic strike means fly from the U.S. mainland to south Korea to stage a bombing drill targeting the DPRK. This is an unpardonable and heinous provocation and an open challenge.
By taking advantage of the U.S. reckless campaign for a nuclear war against the DPRK, the south Korean puppets vociferated about “preemptive attack” and “strong counteraction” and even “strike at the commanding forces”, openly revealing the attempt to destroy monuments symbolic of the dignity of the DPRK’s supreme leadership.
This clearly shows that the U.S. brigandish ambition for aggression and the puppets’ attempt to invade the DPRK have gone beyond the limit and their threats have entered the reckless phase of an actual war from the phase of threat and blackmail.
The prevailing grim situation more clearly proves that the Supreme Command of the KPA was just when it made the judgment and decision to decisively settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists and south Korean puppets by dint of the arms of Military-First politics (So’ngun), because time when words could work has passed.
Now they are openly claiming that the B-2A stealth strategic bombers’ drill of dropping nuclear bombs was “not to irritate the north” but “the defensive one”. The U.S. also says the drill is “to defend the interests of its ally”. However, it is nothing but a lame pretext to cover up its aggressive nature, evade the denunciation at home and abroad and escape from the DPRK’s retaliatory blows.
The era when the U.S. resorted to the policy of strength by brandishing nuclear weapons has gone.
It is the resolute answer of the DPRK and its steadfast stand to counter the nuclear blackmail of the U.S. imperialists with merciless nuclear attack and their war of aggression with just all-out war.
They should clearly know that in the era of Marshal Kim Jong Un, the greatest-ever commander, all things are different from what they used to be in the past.
The hostile forces will clearly realize the iron will, matchless grit and extraordinary mettle of the brilliant commander of Mt. Paektu that the earth cannot exist without Military-First (So’ngun) Korea.
Time has come to stage a do-or-die final battle.
The government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK solemnly declare as follows reflecting the final decision made by Kim Jong Un at the operation meeting of the KPA Supreme Command and the unanimous will of all service personnel and people of the DPRK who are waiting for a final order from him.
1.From this moment, the north-south relations will be put at the state of war and all the issues arousing between the north and the south will be dealt with according to the wartime regulations.
The state of neither peace nor war has ended on the Korean Peninsula.
Now that the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK have entered into an actual military action, the inter-Korean relations have naturally entered the state of war. Accordingly, the DPRK will immediately punish any slightest provocation hurting its dignity and sovereignty with resolute and merciless physical actions without any prior notice.
2. If the U.S. and the south Korean puppet group perpetrate a military provocation for igniting a war against the DPRK in any area including the five islands in the West Sea of Korea or in the area along the Military Demarcation Line, it will not be limited to a local war, but develop into an all-out war, a nuclear war.
It is self-evident that any military conflict on the Korean Peninsula is bound to lead to an all-out war, a nuclear war now that even U.S. nuclear strategic bombers in its military bases in the Pacific including Hawaii and Guam and in its mainland are flying into the sky above south Korea to participate in the madcap DPRK-targeted nuclear war moves.
The first strike of the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK will blow up the U.S. bases for aggression in its mainland and in the Pacific operational theatres including Hawaii and Guam and reduce not only its military bases in south Korea but the puppets’ ruling institutions including Chongwadae and puppet army’s bases to ashes at once, to say nothing of the aggressors and the provokers.
3. The DPRK will never miss the golden chance to win a final victory in a great war for national reunification.
This war will not be a three day-war but it will be a blitz war through which the KPA will occupy all areas of south Korea including Jeju Island at one strike, not giving the U.S. and the puppet warmongers time to come to their senses, and a three-dimensional war to be fought in the air, land and seas and on the front line and in the rear.
This sacred war of justice will be a nation-wide, all-people resistance involving all Koreans in the north and the south and overseas in which the traitors to the nation including heinous confrontation maniacs, warmongers and human scum will be mercilessly swept away.
No force on earth can break the will of the service personnel and people of the DPRK all out in the just great war for national reunification and of all other Koreans and overpower their might.
Holding in high esteem the peerlessly great men of Mt. Paektu, the Korean people will give vent to the pent-up grudge and realize their cherished desire and thus bring a bright day of national reunification and build the best power on this land without fail.
With the possibility of North Korea escalating on the threat of a nuclear attack against US bases and possibly Hawaii or the west coast of the US mainland, Joe Biden reassured Democrats during a recent California speech that he’ll personally take the fight to the enemy.’ “I’ll get myself on a B-52 and drop the damn thing myself if that fat little pinko chink bastard Kim tries anything funny.”
Again, Biden claims it’s all a show and the North Koreans go through this each spring when food and fuel supplies have dwindled over a long winter.
“These commie clowns are just looking to stir stuff up and are trying to get a few handouts from folks like us, ” said Biden as he tried to ease the tension among west coast supporters who find themselves in the eye of the storm for the first time since WW II.
Biden supporters cautioned California voters to hang tough and possibly dig a few really deep holes in their backyards just in case and mentioned that the Vice President probably won’t be visiting again for awhile.
In Washington, the President’s inner-circle have prepared a proposal that would give the North Korean regime EBT cards, or as they’re more commonly know as..Food Stamps, to ease the annual shortages of food and other household staples. According to Valarie Jarrett, the President’s most trusted adviser “Look those people over there are real skinny and not much over 5’6″…So really, how much can they possibly eat anyway? Besides, we have half the world’s fat people on EBT and WIC cards now so, what’s a few more skinny ones?”
The Vice President’s staff say Biden is being realistic about fighting for our country and in fact, has taken the afternoon off to participate in a one-on-one Kung Foo class just in case the B-52 gets shot down or crashes.
http://suckersonparade.blogspot.com/2013/04/joe-biden-vows-to-be-first-in-during.html
(DailyMail) -North Korea was today warned it faced fresh sanctions if it went ahead with a predicted missile test in the escalating nuclear stand-off with its neighbours and their Western allies.
Following a meeting of the G8 nations in London, foreign ministers said they had committed themselves to ‘further significant measures’ if the test was carried out.
It came on another tense day on the Korean peninsula, where images of four female soldiers in heels and Soviet-style hats were released in the latest act of bravado from madman dictator Kim Jong Un.
They were accompanied by a fresh round of rhetoric by the pariah state which claims it had ‘powerful striking means’ on standby for a launch.
The official statement is the latest in a torrent of warlike threats seen outside Pyongyang as an effort to raise fears and pressure Seoul and Washington into changing their North Korea policy.
Scroll down for video
Femme fatales: Female North Korean soldiers patrol along the banks of Yalu River, near the town of Sinuiju, as the world remained on high alert for a North Korean missile launch
The eyes of the world remain focused on the secretive nation after South Korea warned that the prospect of a missile attack was ‘considerably high’
The U.S. is on standby to intercept any missile fired and warned North Korea it was ‘skating very close to a dangerous line’ after it emerged the communist state’s weapons system was ‘fuelled and ready to launch’.
In London, William Hague hosted counterparts from G8 nations including the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia amid fears the escalating tensions could trigger a nuclear war.
But it was the image of a group of female soldiers patrolling along the Yalu River at the town of Sinuiju that triggered fresh interest today.
With the ladies: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un with female members of the Korean People’s Army Unit 4302 in an undated picture. Many of the artillery units along the coasts are manned with women
Goose-stepping girls: Propaganda songs have been written to attract more women into the coastal artillery units and women fighters now guard nearly all tunnels and bridges (file picture)
The town is the biggest border crossing between North Korea and China and has been closed to tourist groups, but business travel was still allowed.
The image of women in uniform sparked memories of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s distinctive band of female bodyguards, who wore sunglasses and headdresses and knee-boots.
Women are believed to represent more than 10 per cent of the entire North Korean People’s Army, according to visitors to the state, with many of the artillery units along the coasts manned with women.
Propaganda songs have been written to attract more women into the coastal artillery units and women fighters now guard nearly all tunnels and bridges.
Kim Ok-Hee, 28, a former instructor at a training camp described in a 2007 interview how the state relies heavily on its female soldiers.
Kim served at the 4.25 boot camp, a mechanised division whose mission is to guard the coasts of South and North Pyongan Provinces against the infiltration by enemy paratroopers during a crisis.
The boot camp had five regiments and each regiment had a women infantry battalion consisting of tanks and artilleries, she said.
But even in North Korea’s supposedly egalitarian society, women with good looks or family influence are deployed at more desirable postings, such as medical units, while others end up in artillery units, she said.
Choi Young-Il, 38, who served as a maintenance mechanic in the North Korean air force, said in the same interview that women began to be deployed in his units around 1998.
‘In my unit, all the pilots for IL-28 bombers were women and many women were pilots for the AN-2, which Kim Jong-Il boasted as a more deadly weapon than nuclear bombs,’ Choi said.
Staying sharp: A U.S. Air Force F-16 fighter jet takes off from a runway during a military exercise at the Osan U.S. Air Base in Osan, South Korea
Weapons ar the ready: South Korean soldiers stand guard at an observation post near the demilitarised zone which separates the two Koreas in Paju, north of Seoul
Meanwhile, one cyber expert warned today that it may be the escalating battles between the two Koreas over the internet that triggers full-scale warfare in the real world.
Jarno Limnell, doctor in military science and director of cyber-security for Stonesoft, based in Finland, said a ‘cyber war arms race’ is now in operation on the peninsula.
He told The Huffington Post: ‘Actions in the cyber world easily escalate to warfare or threats of war as the situation on the Korean peninsula demonstrates.’
He spoke out after South Korea yesterday accused the North of orchestrating a cyber attack that shut down about 32,000 computers and servers at South Korean broadcasters and banks.
And with hacking group Anonymous now targeting Kim Jong Un’s regime and increasingly powerful cyber weapons emerging, Limnell warned the worst is yet to come.
He said: ‘The side effects and results of actions in the cyber world are difficult to estimate and manage, which makes them even more dangerous.
‘Cyber activities play a significant role in the rapidly escalating chain of events – which, in the worst case, may lead to large-scale warfare.’
Unrest: Members of the Korea Freedom Federation chant slogans during a rally for North Korea to re-start operations at the joint Kaesong Industrial Complex as the country remained on high alert
Crisis: Members of the Korea Freedom Federation were also protesting against North Korea’s warmongering
At the G8 meeting today, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was also expected to come under pressure over Moscow’s support for Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria.
Other topics covered are likely to include Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Mr Hague is due to hold a press conference when the session concludes this afternoon.
Germany’s foreign minister said North Korea’s provocations were escalating a tense situation and this ‘war rhetoric needs to end’.
Speaking on the sidelines of the G-8 foreign ministers’ meeting in London, Guido Westerwelle said all of the group’s ministers shared his conviction.
‘This war rhetoric is not in any way acceptable and the G-8 has a united position on this,’ he said.
The two-day talks among eight world powers are expected to focus on North Korea and the civil war in Syria.
They will also get some celebrity wattage from an expected appearance by a U.N. special envoy for refugees, Angelina Jolie, who has teamed up with U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague to combat sexual violence in war.
Jolie and the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Zanab Bangora, will meet with G-8 foreign ministers and issue a statement.
Still finding time to relax: North Korean military, along with foreign military attaches from Russia, China, and Iran watch a dance performance as they visit the Pyongyang Folk Park on the outskirts of the capital
Chilling out: North Korean soldiers can afford a laugh despite the escalating missile crisis
North Korea’s missile, dubbed the Musudan after the name of the village where North Korea has a launch pad, could reach the U.S. territory of Guam and US military installations in Japan.
Foreign minister Yun Byung-se said South Korea had asked China and Russia to intercede with the North to ease tension that has mounted since the UN Security Council slapped fresh sanctions on Pyongyang after a nuclear arms test in February.
A test-fire of the Musudan missile would violate UN resolutions banning North Korea from nuclear and missile activity, and escalate tensions with the US, South Korea and Japan.
Mr Yun said: ‘According to intelligence obtained by our side and the US, the possibility of a missile launch by North Korea is very high.’
US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said North Korea was skating close to a ‘dangerous line’, while Japan’s defence minister Itsunori Onodera said his nation was on ‘high alert’.
North Korean officials have not announced plans to launch a missile, but have urged tourists in South Korea to take cover, warning that a nuclear war is imminent. However, most diplomats and foreign residents have dismissed this.
There were also reports that North Korea’s army is split over leader Kim Jong-un’s threats to wage an all-out war with the West.
The madman dictator is said to be facing an insurgency from within his own military despite threatening to launch missiles that could reach Japan.
As the peninsula edges ever closer to war, there were reports that the military is split over the young dictator’s aggression, which may stem from a desire to rein in his discontented but powerful generals.
Urgent talks: British Foreign Secretary William Hague (right) walks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ahead of a G8 meeting which will focus on the developing crisis in North Korea
Crisis: William Hague is hosting counterparts of the G8 from the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia amid fears the escalating tensions could trigger a nuclear war
First Lieutenant Kim, 42, said he had been forced to flee North Korea after he murdered a rival officer as factions in his unit vied for control.
‘I killed a three-star company commander, the same rank as me,’ he said. ‘He was the head of the faction supporting Kim Jong-un. There were two fights. In the first fight, they surrounded us and arrested a lot of people.
‘But I got away and gathered others from the barracks. We found them and I shot the commander. After that, I escaped.’
The Daily Telegraph reported that the battles occurred at the end of 2011, shortly before Kim Jong-un succeeded his father as the ‘supreme commander’ of the 1.2million-strong Korean People’s Army.
He said there may have been a violent disagreement between two major departments over army reconnaissance last year, possibly alarming the 30-year-old and spurring him on to tighten his grip on power.
Zone of terror: Maps and diagrams detail the potential effective range and threat represented by several North Korean missile systems
At the ready: Japanese forces set up Patriot anti-missile defence systems in Tokyo today as the threat level over a North Korea missile launch was raised to ‘vital’
Primed: Japan mobilised its tropps as it was claimed by U.S. and South Korean sources that at least one previously untested missile with a 3,000km (2,000-mile) range is fuelled and ready for launch
This view is echoed by North Korean defector Kim Hyun-hee, who today told an Australian broadcaster: ‘Kim Jong-un is too young and too inexperienced. He’s struggling to gain complete control over the military and to win their loyalty.’
South Korea fears Pyongyang could launch up to three different types of missiles. One unnamed official told the Yonhap news agency: ‘There are clear signs that the North could simultaneously fire off Musudan, Scud and Nodong missiles.’
In rare cases, foreigners have heeded Pyongyang’s warnings and fled Seoul, despite repeated attempts by analysts to play down Pyongyang’s aggressive rhetoric.
‘One of my friends left for the airport this morning,’ said Zoe Chau, a hotel receptionist from Hong Kong told North Korea News. ‘She felt Seoul was too close to the action so bought a ticket to Jeju Island, she’s there now.’
A South Korean vehicle - complete with luggage taped to the roof - and workers return from the Kaesong industrial complex, a joint business zone operated by both Koreas
The U.S. and South Korea believe dictator Kim Jong-un may test fire a nuclear-capable missile with a 3,000km (2,000-mile) range at any time and without issuing a standard notice to commercial aviation and maritime shipping so they can avoid the area.
South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-Se told a parliamentary hearing: ‘According to intelligence obtained by our side and the U.S., the possibility of a missile launch by North Korea is very high.’
North Korea, he added, could launch a Musudan missile ‘at any time from now’.
A border crossing between North Korea and China was closed to tourist groups as the Korean peninsula edged closer to nuclear war.
The Obama administration believes North Korea will likely test one of its mobile ballistic missiles imminently after the most recent intelligence showed Pyongyang had probably completed its launch preparations.
A map showing North Korea missile ranges. The Pentagon has announced it is deploying missile defense systems to the U.S. base in Guam and missile defense ships to sea between Japan and the rogue nation
Having threatened to bomb the United States and warned foreigners to leave South Korea due to an impending thermonuclear war, North Korea said today it was readying for a marathon to celebrate its founder’s birthday.
The North’s state news agency said a big contingent of foreign runners was expected from countries including Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Ethiopia as well as 600 North Koreans at the April 14 race.
‘I think enthusiasm for the upcoming tournament is running high among local marathoners and their coaches as never before,’ the KCNA news agency cited Ham Chang-hyok of the Sports Ministry as saying.
This is the 26th time the Mangyongdae Prize International Marathon has been held.
But a U.S. official said there was no guarantee North Korea would give any warning of its launch to civilians.
‘We hope they issue a notification, but at this point we don’t expect it. We are working on the assumption they won’t,’ the unnamed official told CNN.
In anticipation, the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces have raised their alert level to Watchcon 2 - a vital threat - to increase surveillance monitoring, Yonhap news agency quoted a senior military official as saying.
Watchcon 4 is in effect during normal peacetime, while Watchcon 3 reflects indications of an important threat. Watchcon 1 is used in wartime.
U.S. defenses could intercept a ballistic missile launched by North Korea if it decides to strike, said Admiral Samuel Locklear, the top American military commander in the Pacific.
Locklear told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he was confident that the U.S. military can thwart North Korea if it chooses to act.
Foreign minister Yun said he was coordinating with China and Russia ‘to make efforts to persuade North Korea to change its attitude’.
China is North Korea’s sole major ally, although its influence over Pyongyang is open to question and Beijing has, in any event, backed the new sanctions.
Moscow backed North Korea in Soviet times, though its influence has waned unquestionably.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman issued a fresh appeal for restraint on the Korean peninsula and said nothing about any possible effort to bring about a change in the North’s policy.
A North Korean man passes by roadside propaganda depicting a soldier killing a U.S. soldier in Pyongyang, North Korea today. The poster reads in Korean ‘Life or Death Battle. Merciless Punishment to U.S. Imperialists and Puppet Traitors’
Patricia Lewis, Research Director at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said that strictly on the basis of the North’s vast conventional forces, caution was required.
‘The conventional military capabilities of North Korea are all too real and all too close to Seoul,’ she wrote in a paper. ‘Any incursion could escalate involving the U.S. and Japan, China, perhaps Russia and others.’
Pyongyang has tested short-range Scud missiles. The longer-range Musudan and Nodong missiles are an unknown quantity.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said during a visit to Rome that he had spoken to the Chinese leadership to try to calm tensions, and would discuss the issue with US President Barack Obama tomorrow.
‘The current level of tension is very dangerous, a small incident caused by miscalculation or misjudgement may create an uncontrollable situation,’ Ban said.
Yesterday, North Korea warned all foreigners to evacuate South Korea yesterday because the two countries are on the verge of a nuclear war - as Japan set up a huge new anti-missile system in Tokyo.
In a further sign of rising nuclear tensions, a key border crossing between North Korea and China has been closed to tourist groups, a Chinese official said Wednesday.
An official at the Dandong Border Office, who declined to give his name, told AFP: ‘Travel agencies are not allowed to take tourist groups to go there, since the North Korean government is now asking foreign people to leave. As far as I know, business people can enter and leave North Korea freely.’
A woman surnamed Wu at a travel agency in the town said municipal authorities told it not to take tours into North Korea.
‘It was absolutely North Korea’s (decision) because the travel bureau told us “North Korea is now no longer allowing tour groups to be taken in”,’ the woman told 9 News World.
Western tour operators ‘Koryo Tours’ and ‘Young Pioneer Tours’ both said today that there were no plans to cancel any of their forthcoming tours, making it unclear if the suspension applied to everyone.
‘We have a group in the county at the moment led by Dan, one of our guides, and he phoned in today on his mobile saying everything is as normal as it ever is,’ Nick Bonner of Koryo Tours wrote on the tour group’s Facebook page.
Meanwhile the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office continues to say that travel to North Korea remains unaffected by the latest tensions.
It said: ‘Our overall assessment is that there is currently no immediate increased risk or danger to those living in or travelling to the DPRK as a result of these statements.’
Dandong-based Explore North Korea published a notification last night telling customers that all tours to the DPRK would be cancelled until further notice.
Following a nearly two hour long meeting with North Korean tour officials, the Chinese company, which normally brings western visitors to North Korea, posted an advisory adding that tours would only be resumed once official confirmation was provided by North Korea, reports NK News.
Leonid Petrov, a researcher at the Australian National University in Canberra, told NK News that the move showed a ‘logical’ and ‘consistent’ approach to escalating a feeling of crisis on the peninsula.
He said: ‘War zones are incompatible with joint industrial parks, travel groups or even with foreign embassies. Pyongyang wants to convince the world that Korea will soon be engulfed in the flames of nuclear inferno.
‘The scary truth is that this can really happen regardless of who makes the first shot. ‘China is North Korea’s sole major ally and the provider of the vast majority of its trade and aid, with most of the business passing through Dandong.’
The rising tensions come just days before the April 15 birthday of North Korea’s founder, historically a time when it seeks to draw the world’s attention with dramatic displays of military power.
In Pyongyang, however, the focus today was less on preparing for war and more on beautifying the city ahead of the nation’s biggest holiday.
Soldiers hammered away on construction projects, gardeners got down on their knees to plant flowers and trees, and students marched off to school, belying a sense that tensions on the Korean Peninsula have reached their highest point since the Korean War ended nearly 60 years ago.
Last year, the days surrounding the centennial of the birth of Kim Sung-il, grandfather of the current ruler, was marked by parades of tanks, goose-stepping soldiers and missiles, as well as the failed launch of a satellite-carrying rocket widely believed by the U.S. and its allies in the West to be a test of ballistic missile capabilities.
Mobilising: South Korean soldiers ride a military truck on the road leading to North Korea at a military checkpoint in the border city of Paju
Threat level raised: A South Korean military vehicle drives past barricades on the road leading to North Korea, which is expecting to launch a missile ‘at any time’
A subsequent test in December went off successfully, and that was followed by the country’s third underground nuclear test on Feb. 12 this year, a step toward mastering the technology for mounting an atomic bomb on a missile.
The resulting U.N. sanctions have been met with an unending string of threats and provocations from the North, raising tensions on the peninsula to their highest point since the end of the Korean War in 1953, according to some experts.
The moves are seen as an attempt by North Korea to scare foreigners into pressing their governments to pressure Washington and Seoul to avert a conflict, and boost the militaristic credentials of its young and relatively untested leader, Kim Jong-un.
North Korean government agents were behind a March cyber attack that shut down about 32,000 computers and servers at South Korean broadcasters and banks, an investigation has found.
An official at South Korea’s internet security agency, Chun Kil-soo, told reporters Wednesday that the attack was similar to past North Korean hacking. He said investigators believe that six computers in North Korea were used to access South Korean servers using more than 1,000 IP addresses overseas.
The accusation comes as tensions run high on the Korean Peninsula, with North Korea delivering increasingly belligerent rhetoric in anger over UN sanctions and US-South Korean military drills.
On Tuesday, the North said a nuclear war is imminent and recommended that foreigners in South Korea evacuate to safe places.
Pyongyang advised foreign embassies to consider evacuating their citizens by Wednesday, and warned tourists in South Korea to leave Seoul in case of an outbreak of war.
However, most diplomats and foreign residents appeared to be staying put.
In Seoul, the defense ministry official said the North appeared prepared to carry out a missile launch at any time. He spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media.
He said Pyongyang’s military is capable of conducting multiple missile launches involving Scud and medium-range Rodong missiles, as well as a missile transported to the east coast recently. He refused to say how Seoul obtained the information.
Admiral Samuel Locklear, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington yesterday that he concurred with an assessment by Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., calling the tension between North Korea and the West the worst since the end of the Korean War.
‘The continued advancement of the North’s nuclear and missile programs, its conventional force posture, and its willingness to resort to asymmetric actions as a tool of coercive diplomacy creates an environment marked by the potential for miscalculation,’ Locklear told the panel.
He said the U.S. military and its allies would be ready if North Korea tries to strike.
Despite such tidings of war, the people of Pyongyang went about their daily lives.
Associated Press journalists in the North Korean capital saw soldiers wearing hard hats rumbling past in the back of a truck as they prepared for another day’s work doing construction.
In recent years, military personnel have been pressed into helping build the many urban renewal projects that have been prioritised since Kim Jong-un came to power in December 2011.
In a sign they have been diverted away from preparing for conventional warfare, they are commonly referred to as ‘soldier-builders’ and are also called upon to help plant and harvest rice and other crops in a nation that suffers chronically from food shortages.
North Korea sporadically holds civil air raid drills during which citizens practice blacking out their windows and seeking shelter. But no such drills have been held in recent months, local residents said.
‘I’m not at all worried. We have confidence in our young marshal’ Kim Jong-un, a cleaning lady at the Koryo Hotel said as she made up a guest’s bed. ‘The rest of the world can just squawk all they want but we have confidence in his leadership.
‘We are resolved to stay and defend him until the end,’ she said. ‘It may be hard for the rest of the world to understand, and those who are worried are welcome to leave,’ she said in the typical nationalistic style that North Koreans use while talking to foreigners.
But there was no sign of an exodus of foreigners from Seoul or Pyongyang.
Britain and other governments with embassies in Pyongyang said they had no immediate plans to withdraw but would continue assessing the situation.
North Korea has been escalating tensions with the U.S. and South Korea, its wartime foes, for months.
The tightened U.N. sanctions that followed the nuclear test drew the ire of North Korea, which accused Washington and Seoul of leading the campaign against it.
Annual U.S.-South Korean military drills south of the border have further incensed Pyongyang, which sees them as practice for an invasion.
Last week, Kim Jong-un enshrined the pursuit of nuclear weapons - which the North characterizes as a defense against the U.S. - as a national goal, along with improving the economy. North Korea also declared it would restart a mothballed nuclear complex.
The Musudan, also known as the Nodong-B or the Taepodong-X, is an intermediate-range ballistic missile. It has a range of 3,000 kilometres (1,800 miles) - that would make Japan and South Korea potential targets, but little is known about the missile’s accuracy.
The KN-08 is an 18-metre long missile that North Korea claims has a range of 10,000 miles, putting the U.S. in range, but military experts believe 6,000 miles is more realistic.
It is a concern as it is road-mobile and easy to hide.
North Korea isn’t thought to have nuclear-armed missiles that can hit the United States and, despite threats, is extremely unlikely to launch a direct attack on Seoul or its U.S. ally, knowing that military retaliation would threaten the leadership’s survival.
This week the Pentagon deployed two Aegis-equipped missile defense ships to operate off the Korean peninsula.
Citing the tensions with Seoul, North Korea on Monday pulled more than 50,000 workers from the Kaesong industrial park, which combines South Korean technology and know-how with cheap North Korean labor.
It was the first time that production was stopped at the decade-old factory park, the only remaining symbol of economic co-operation between the Koreas.
Pyongyang also has moved to its eastern seaboard what is believed by U.S. and South Korean intelligence to be a mid-range missile capable of hitting targets in Japan, such as the U.S. military installations on that country’s main island.
Another possibility is that Pyongyang would launch such a missile into the sea as a display of its military prowess.
The United States and South Korea have raised their defense postures, as has Japan, which deployed PAC-3 missile interceptors in key locations around Tokyo. And Locklear said the U.S. military would be ready to strike back if provoked.
One historian, James Person, noted that it isn’t the first time North Korea has warned foreign embassies to prepare for a U.S. attack.
He said that in 1968, following North Korea’s seizure of an American ship, the USS Pueblo, Pyongyang persistently advised foreign diplomats to prepare for a U.S. counterattack.
Cables from the Romanian mission in Pyongyang showed embassies were instructed to build anti-air bunkers ‘to protect foreigners against air attacks,’ he said.
The cables were obtained and posted online by the Wilson Center’s North Korea International Documentation Project.
Person called it one of North Korea’s first forays into what he dubs ‘military adventurism.’
‘In 1968, there was some concern there would be an attack, but (the North Koreans) certainly were building it up to be more than it was in hopes of getting more assistance from their allies at the time,’ Person said by phone from Alexandria, Virginia.
‘I think much of it was hot air then. Today, I think again it’s more hot air,’ he said. ‘The idea is to scare people into pressuring the United States to return to negotiations with North Korea. That’s the bottom line.’
South Korean President Park Geun-hye, who has sought to re-engage North Korea with dialogue and humanitarian aid since taking office in February, expressed exasperation yesterday with what she called the ‘endless vicious cycle’ of Seoul answering Pyongyang’s hostile behavior with compromise, only to get more hostility.
National Paranoia is the Irrational Fear that You’re Being Threatened Which is the more paranoid statement?1. AMERICAN MEDIA: “North Korea is threatening to attack us with nuclear weapons,”or:
2. NORTH KOREAN MEDIA: “The United States is threatening to attack us with nuclear weapons.”
Taking recent events in the U.S. and the Korean peninsula as evidence, while mostly ignoring historical context, the drift toward another American war in Asia can be seen as clearly as the ambiguous moves and countermoves of countries with no obvious motive for war might allow, producing headlines like [1]this[1] in the New York Times of April 4:
“North Korea Moves Missile to Coast, but Little Threat is Seen”
According to the Times, “North Korea has been issuing a blistering series of similar threats in recent weeks, citing as targets the American military installations in the Pacific islands of Hawaii and Guam, as well as the United States mainland.”
One reason such threats are not always seen as threatening is that North Korea has no missile that can reach the U.S. mainland, [2]and[2] quite likely not even Alaska, Hawaii, or Guam, never mind whether they have any long range missile that can hit anything with any accuracy.
North Koreans Move Missile Closer to U.S.!
The South Korean defense chief reported April 4 that the North Koreans had moved one longish-range missile to its east coast, maybe 200 miles closer to the U.S., but that missile was still not close enough to come close to the U.S. west coast. Nevertheless, American bases in South Korea and Japan are still presumably reachable targets, as are Korean and Japanese civilians. Most of China and eastern Russia are also within range. [Later reports said the North Koreans had movedtwo mobile missiles to the coast.]
The U.S. recently deployed a land-based anti-missile missile system to Guam, which is beyond the range of North Korea’s operational missiles. The U.S. has also moved at least two Aegis-class missile-cruisers to patrol waters close to North Korea. While the Aegis system [3]has[3] the capability of attacking targets on land, in the air, and under water, its most notable exploit to date was the 1988 downing of an Iranian passenger plane, killing 290 civilians.
On March 29, CNN reported somewhat breathlessly that “North Korea has entered a ‘state of war’ with neighboring South Korea,” which ignores the reality that the state of war between the two countries has existed since 1950, although an armistice [4]was[4] agreed to in 1953. Fitful efforts to negotiate a formal peace treaty have continued for 60 years, leaving the United Nations Command in place to the present. North Korea has previously rejected the armistice at least five other times, in 1994, 1996, 2003, 2006, and 2009.
Exaggerating the CNN story, the Newsweek/Daily Beast editors gave [5]it[5] this scary headline —“North Korea Prepares Strike on U.S.’ – that had no meaningful basis in reality. Amplifying the fear the next day, NBC News [6]ran[6] a disappointingly low-key story under the ramped-up headline:
North Korea puts rockets on standby asUS official warns regime is no ‘paper tiger’
Peter Hart of FAIR [7]has[7] explored the one-sidedness of American media coverage and its reality-distorting effect in detail.
One reason the North Koreans moved their missile was in response to the March 28 U.S. fly-bys along the South Korean border with B-2 bombers quite capable of carrying enough nuclear weapons to obliterate North Korea and set off nuclear winter around the world. Just because these fly-bys with B-2s, B-52s and other potentially nuclear-armed aircraft were part of military exercises the U.S. and South Koreans put on every year (sometimes using a pretend scenario of invading the North), the U.S. maintains the North shouldn’t think of them as in the least provocative. The B-2s flew from a base in Missouri.
Another North Korean reason for moving their missile might have been the American plans to conduct missile defense drills with Japan and South Korea on an on-going basis. This plan follows the “signal” sent earlier in the winter when the U.S. announced plans to increase its anti-missile missile deployment in Alaska and along the Pacific west coast.
China Votes for Sanctions, but Remains Wild Card
On March 7, the United Nations Security Council unanimously (15-0) approved a resolution brokered by the U.S. and Chine, imposing new economic sanctions on North Korea as punishment for its announcement on February 12, confirming [8]its[8] third nuclear weapons test. While many nations detected seismic activity that they interpreted to be an underground nuclear explosion, and while the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty monitors said the tremor had “clear explosionlike characteristics,” there was no detection of radiation sufficient to confirm that the explosion was nuclear.
North Korea’s admission that it had used a “miniaturized nuclear device with greater explosive force than previously” was seen by some as defiance of Chinese advice against such a test. The Chinese had promised that North Korea would “pay a heavy price” if it went ahead with the test. That price apparently includes China’s cooperation with the U.S. on setting sanctions.
Complicating the response to the test announcement, there are few sanctions left to apply to North Korea, perhaps the world’s second most-sanctioned country after Israel [the U.N. has voted 66 sanctions against Israel, all or most of which Israel ignores with little consequence]. The new North Korea sanctions [9]bar[9] all nations from selling the North expensive jewelry, yachts, luxury automobiles, and racing cars.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said that, “taken together, these sanctions will bite, and bite hard.”
That will depend on China, which has previously helped North Korea get around sanctions, seeming to have less concern for the country across the border having nuclear weapons than having it devolve into instability and chaos. So the current round of sanctions, like earlier ones, will have limited impact unless China should decide to limit its oil shipments, banking services, and other ongoing aid to North Korea.
Anyone Ready for an Act of War, like a Naval Blockade?
Another factor limiting the effectiveness of sanctions has been the unwillingness of the U.S. and other nations to enforce sanctions with a naval blockade, which would be an act of war. And it would be an act of war against a Chinese ally, enforced in the waters off the Chinese mainland.
The announced nuclear test in February came a few weeks after the Security Council had voted unanimously for a resolution in favor of tightening sanctions on North Korea for launching a three-stage rocket in December.
At this point, no one is claiming that North Korea actually has any nuclear warheads, or any actual capacity to deliver one anywhere.
But North Korean [DPRK] bristling continued on April 4, as an unnamed army official suggested [10]that[10]:
“…the moment of explosion is approaching fast. No one can say a war will break out in Korea or not and whether it will break out today or tomorrow…. The responsibility for this grave situation entirely rests with the U.S. administration and military warmongers keen to encroach upon the DPRK’s sovereignty and bring down its dignified social system with brigandish logic.”
Anonymous U.S. Official Wonders About U.S. Over-reacting
The same day, at the Pentagon, an unnamed Defense Department official, took a look in the mirror and referred to U.S. bellicosity about its own military actions, saying:
“We accused the North Koreans of amping things up, now we are worried we did the same thing…. We are trying to turn the volume down. We are absolutely trying to ratchet back the rhetoric. We become part of the cycle. We allowed that to happen.”
In South Korea, which would likely suffer most from an outbreak of hostilities, one observer there considered the North Korea news reporting “all hype.” Adam Hogue graduated from Keene State College in New Hampshire in 2011 and has been living and working in South Korea ever since. On April 2, [11]he[11] wrote:
“There is a need to create a culture of panic in the United States and, arguably, everywhere else where the major media conglomerates have established news outlets….
“As I have heard from my mother, father, sister, friends, the New York Times, CNN and NPR, North Korea is suddenly big news. They are now something to fear. They are something threatening, mysterious and suddenly worthy of all the news headlines in the western-world. There is an urgent message being told that now is a time to panic and react….
“But, that message is not coming from my co-workers at school or from the Korean news or from my neighbors; it is a message from the media.”
American Paranoid Policy Heightened since 9-11
So it seems, in answer to the paranoia question at the beginning of this piece: the U.S. appears to have a comfortable lead in maintaining delusions of being threatened.
While the threats to North Korea are real and existential, that doesn’t preclude some paranoia at the same time: consider the suggestion [13]that[13] the 2010 torpedo-sinking of a South Korean ship – blamed on North Korea and raising war fears – was actually a false flag operation by the Israeli navy using a state-of-the-art German submarine [Israel [12]has[12] a small fleet, armed with nuclear-warhead missiles].
On January 29, 2002, in his first State of the Union address, President George Bush declared that North Korea was part of “an axis of evil” along with Iraq and Iran – nations that, while not an axis in the usual sense, got grouped by President Bush’s belief that they were all developing weapons of mass destruction with which “to threaten the peace of the world.”
Still searching for those weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. has [14]now[14] offered to sell South Korea 60 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter stealth bombers at a discount price of $180 million per plane. If the North Koreans are paying attention, they will not feel immediately threatened by this possible sale of a plane that is at least five years from being operational and still struggling in its test phase.
The F-35 may be more of an economic threat to South Korea.
Notes
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/world/asia/north-korean-missile-moved-to-coast.html?hp&_r=1&
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Combat_System
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Armistice_Agreement
[10] http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/04/politics/koreas-u-s-/index.html
[11] http://www.policymic.com/articles/32263/north-korea-news-is-all-hype
[13] http://abundanthope.net/pages/Political_Information_43/ISRAEL-S-SECRET-WAR-AGAINST-NORTH-KOREA.shtml
http://www.globalresearch.ca/u-s-to-america-be-afraid-the-north-koreans-are-coming/5330817
NATO head Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been dispatched to Seoul for high level consultations.
The official disclaimer is that this has nothing to do with the ongoing US-DPRK confrontation. “The trip was long-planned and not connected with North Korean threats of nuclear war”.
Rasmussen is slated to meet the newly-elected President Park Geun-hye, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and Defence Minister Kim Kwan Jin.
Although unconfirmed, Rasmussen will likely also meet up with military brass of the South Korea-US Combined Forces Command.
When asked if the trip was in any way linked with rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, a NATO official candidly responded that
“Rather than the current crisis, it would instead cover Afghanistan where non-member South Korea has contributed some 350 troops to NATO-led forces fighting the Taliban” (NATO official statement quoted by AFP, April 9, 2013)
It is worth noting that Rasmussen’s presence in Seoul coincides with the visit by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
What is at stake are high level discussions.
The presence of Rasmussen also confirms that NATO has taken on a global military mandate well beyond the confines of the so-called “Atlantic region”.
It also points to the possible military involvement at some future date of NATO member states in the Korean Peninsula.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/head-of-nato-dispatched-to-south-korea/5330767
With tensions on the Korean peninsula soaring to include threats of nuclear war, frustration is mounting at what US policy experts see as the failure of all efforts to rein in North Korea.
Decades of threats have waxed and waned despite myriad attempts to reach out for talks or punish the regime, as seen recently in the tightening of UN sanctions.
North Korea watchers see a familiar pattern in which the communist state ramps up threats or takes actions such as missile launches or nuclear tests in a bid to show anger and force concessions from the United States.
Observers saw parallels between the latest crisis and 1994 when Pyongyang took on a bellicose tone as it faced pressure over its nuclear program at a time of political transitions in both North and South Korea.
The 1994 crisis ended when former US president Jimmy Carter flew to Pyongyang, setting the stage for a joint energy project that has been the inspiration for several initiatives since.
“I still don’t find any of the latest North Korean rhetoric that shocking. It’s perfectly predictable,” said Joel Wit, a former State Department official who was in charge of implementing the 1994 energy agreement.
“The difference this time is that they have nuclear weapons,” said Wit, now a scholar at Columbia University.
North Korea has threatened to attack the United States with nuclear weapons, although experts doubt it is able to. The United States, in turn, carried out runs by its nuclear-capable B-2 bomber as part of exercises with South Korea.
Other new factors in the latest crisis include question marks over North Korea’s young leader Kim Jong-Un and growing unhappiness from China over its smaller ally’s insolence.
Bruce Cumings, chairman of the history department at the University of Chicago and the author of several books on North Korea, said the 24-hour news environment had also changed the dynamics behind Pyongyang’s threats.
“You get instant attention on the World Wide Web which is so different than when I used to read their Central News Agency reports in the early ‘90s that would come a week late through Tokyo and you never knew if anyone would pay attention,” he said.
But Cumings said that North Korea’s tactics followed a pattern dating to even before the 1950-53 Korean War, when the communist leadership would threaten to destroy the South’s army.
“It is always the case with North Korea that when its back is put to the wall, it lashes out and it creates problems. It says: ‘If you want to sanction us, this is what you’re going to get’,” he said.
Cumings warned that tensions “are inevitable as long as the United States and South Korea are not willing to engage with North Korea.” “The North Koreans go about things in the worst way — they are their own worst enemy — but they keep saying that they want to talk to the United States in particular,” he said. But President Barack Obama’s administration has ruled out what is widely considered North Korea’s main aim — its symbolic recognition as a nuclear weapons state, seen by the regime as critical to ensure its survival.
The Obama administration, after long hesitation, last year sealed an aid-for-disarmament agreement with North Korea that fell apart in a matter of weeks after Pyongyang attempted to test a rocket.
The previous administration of George W. Bush similarly swung widely in its approach to North Korea. Bush famously grouped North Korea as part of an “axis of evil” and under his watch Pyongyang tested its first nuclear device.
But Bush, like Bill Clinton before him, tried late in his term to seal a historic far-reaching agreement with North Korea.
Some US conservatives criticized the Bush outreach and have called for an entirely new approach. Representative Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has called on the United States to avoid any future deals with North Korea and instead aim at toppling the regime.
The CNN reported on Wednesday that Clifford Hart, who is the US envoy for six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, met with Han Song-ryol in New York in mid-March.
In the meeting the US official called for North Korea to refrain from taking ‘provocative actions,’ the report said, adding that Washington had also urged Pyongyang to return to diplomacy. However, nothing came of the meeting and US officials made no new offers.
The meeting was described as part of the so-called New York channel that is a method of direct communication between the US and North Korea.
White House spokesman Jay Carney has said that Washington has a “channel of communications with the North Koreans, and we utilize that channel.”
In March, the US and South Korea began joint military exercises that saw the controversial participation of the US nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers.
On April 3, the Pentagon announced a decision to deploy an advanced anti-missile system to the Pacific island of Guam to protect the US military bases and the 6,000 American military personnel there.
The moves promoted Pyongyang to step up its war rhetoric and move two medium-range Musudan missiles to its eastern coast.
The North Korean army on April 4 said it had received permission to launch preemptive ‘nuclear’ strikes on the US.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/10/297527/us-north-korea-officials-met-secretly/
We’re already at war in numerous countries all over the world.
But top economic advisers warn that economic factors could lead to a new world war.
Kyle Bass writes:
Trillions of dollars of debts will be restructured and millions of financially prudent savers will lose large percentages of their real purchasing power at exactly the wrong time in their lives. Again, the world will not end, but the social fabric of the profligate nations will be stretched and in some cases torn. Sadly, looking back through economic history, all too often war is the manifestation of simple economic entropy played to its logical conclusion. We believe that war is an inevitable consequence of the current global economic situation.
Martin Armstrong writes this week:
We will be updating the Cycle of War. Obviously, it is time once again. Especially since that model also hit to the day 3 times in a row.
Similarly, Larry Edelson wrote an email to subscribers entitled “What the “Cycles of War” are saying for 2013″, which states:
Since the 1980s, I’ve been studying the so-called “cycles of war” — the natural rhythms that predispose societies to descend into chaos, into hatred, into civil and even international war.
I’m certainly not the first person to examine these very distinctive patterns in history. There have been many before me, notably, Raymond Wheeler, who published the most authoritative chronicle of war ever, covering a period of 2,600 years of data.
However, there are very few people who are willing to even discuss the issue right now. And based on what I’m seeing, the implications could be absolutely huge in 2013.
Former Goldman Sachs technical analyst Charles Nenner – who has made some big accurate calls, and counts major hedge funds, banks, brokerage houses, and high net worth individuals as clients – saysthere will be “a major war starting at the end of 2012 to 2013”, which will drive the Dow to 5,000.
Veteran investor adviser James Dines forecast a war is epochal as World Wars I and II, starting in the Middle East.
Nouriel Roubini has warned of war with Iran. And when Roubini was asked:
Where does this all lead us? The risk in your view is of another Great Depression. But even respectable European politicians are talking not just an economic depression but possibly even worse consequences over the next decade or so. Bearing European history in mind, where does this take us?
He responded:
In the 1930s, because we made a major policy mistake, we went through financial instability, defaults, currency devaluations, printing money, capital controls, trade wars, populism, a bunch of radical, populist, aggressive regimes coming to power from Germany to Italy to Spain to Japan, and then we ended up with World War II.
Now I’m not predicting World War III but seriously, if there was a global financial crisis after the first one, then we go into depression: the political and social instability in Europe and other advanced economies is going to become extremely severe. And that’s something we have to worry about.
Billionaire investor Jim Rogers notes:
A continuation of bailouts in Europe could ultimately spark another world war, says international investor Jim Rogers.
***
“Add debt, the situation gets worse, and eventually it just collapses. Then everybody is looking for scapegoats. Politicians blame foreigners, and we’re in World War II or World War whatever.”
Marc Faber says that the American government will start new wars in response to the economic crisis:
We’re in the middle of a global currency war – i.e. a situation where nations all compete to devalue their currencies the most in order to boost exports. And Brazilian president-elect Rousseff said in 2010:
The last time there was a series of competitive devaluations … it ended in world war two.
Jim Rickards agrees:
Currency wars lead to trade wars, which often lead to hot wars. In 2009, Rickards participated in the Pentagon’s first-ever “financial” war games. While expressing confidence in America’s ability to defeat any other nation-state in battle, Rickards says the U.S. could get dragged into “asymmetric warfare,” if currency wars lead to rising inflation and global economic uncertainty.
As does Jim Rogers:
Trade wars always lead to wars.
And given that many influential economists wrongly believe that war is good for the economy … many are overtly or quietly pushing for war.
Moreover, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said that the Iraq war was really about oil , and former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. And seethis and this. If that war was for petroleum, other oil-rich countries might be invaded as well.
And the American policy of using the military to contain China’s growing economic influence – and of considering economic rivalry to be a basis for war – are creating a tinderbox.
Finally, multi-billionaire investor Hugo Salinas Price says:
What happened to [Libya’s] Mr. Gaddafi, many speculate the real reason he was ousted was that he was planning an all-African currency for conducting trade. The same thing happened to him that happened to Saddam because the US doesn’t want any solid competing currency out there vs the dollar. You know Gaddafi was talking about a golddinar.
Indeed, senior CNBC editor John Carney noted:
Is this the first time a revolutionary group has created a central bank while it is still in the midst of fighting the entrenched political power? It certainly seems to indicate how extraordinarily powerful central bankers have become in our era.
Robert Wenzel of Economic Policy Journal thinks the central banking initiative reveals that foreign powers may have a strong influence over the rebels.
This suggests we have a bit more than a ragtag bunch of rebels running around and that there are some pretty sophisticated influences. “I have never before heard of a central bank being created in just a matter of weeks out of a popular uprising,” Wenzel writes.
Indeed, some say that recent wars have really been about bringing all countries into the fold of Western central banking.
Numerous economic organizations and economists also warn of crash-induced unrest, including:
An analyst says China recognizes that the US is using North Korea’s belligerence to build up its military presence as a direct nuclear threat against China.
In the background of this there has been frightening escalation of rhetoric and threats from both North Korea and the US in the Korean peninsula. The US military build up in the area includes a chemical weapons battalion sent to South Korea and B-2 nuclear capable bombers as well as F-22 stealth fighter jets that have participated in drills in the area. North Korea has reacted to this provocation saying a nuclear war with the United States could start at any time. The US is also undertaking military drills with the Philippines and Japan has openly condemned North Korea’s threats without saying anything about the provocative escalation of US actions.
Press TV has interviewed Mike Billington, Executive Intelligence review, Leesburg about this issue.
According to Tom Heneghan’s Intelligence Briefing’s Blog, Kim Jong-un has just received a load of money from the USA.
“It can now be reported that a P140 U.S. aircraft cargo plane left Langley, Virginia at 3:30 p.m. EST destination North Korea.
“The U.S. team is headed by former Clinton Administration official, North Korean bag man Bill Richardson.
“Kim is receiving these bribe funds in exchange for his playing a role in a scripted ‘black op’ that is designed to effect worldwide financial markets.”
Continued here: Tom Heneghan’s EXPLOSIVE Intelligence Briefing’s Blog - Myspace
“U.S. military planes flew from an air base in Guam to Pyongyang and back on April 7, 2012, and again on a longer visit lasting from Aug. 18-20, the sources said.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/korean_peninsula/AJ201302150084
“It is believed that those aboard included Sydney Seiler, director for Korea at the U.S. National Security Council, and Joseph DeTrani, who headed the North Korea desk at the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. DeTrani left the post in May.
“They met with North Korean officials and discussed policies….
“The third visit that The Asahi Shimbun has confirmed is one that took place in November 2011.”
(PolicyMIC) -While aggressive war, drone strikes, and a global network of military bases are the most visible aspects of American hegemonic power, what is often overlooked is the U.S. policy of training, assisting, and subsidizing foreign militaries. Although these actions are largely covert and discreet, they serve the same purpose of hegemonic control, diminish peace and national security, and help contribute to the subjugation of foreign citizens.
The training of foreign militaries to serve the interests of the American state goes all the way back to at least the Cold War. The U.S. used taxpayer money and weapons to subsidize foreign governments and militaries that were “anti-communist” even if the regimes were incredibly brutal and ruthless. All an authoritarian had to do was refer to his political opponents as “communists” and the Americans came rushing in.
In nearly every continent, the U.S. taught extremely fascistic, right-wing governments the art of cracking down on domestic dissent, jailing and torturing political opponents, centralizing power, making deals beneficial to American corporations, and employing death squads. Cheaper and less visible than directly invading and overthrowing governments the U.S. didn’t like, sock puppet dictators were the preferred means of implementing policy.
The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 left very little justification for an American imperial position throughout the globe, yet those same Cold War policies were not only not discarded, but expanded upon. Back in 2010, President Obama and the Pentagon began implementing a strategy with a larger emphasis on “combat operations” and military-to-military coordination. U.S. Special Forces are now operating in (at least) 75 countries, teaching their governments more efficient means of subjugating their populations, creating chaos, and serving the interests of the American empire.
Syria is the most recent example of this policy. While publicly claiming that the U.S. is helping build schools and hospitals in Syria, the Associated Press and New York Times reports document that the U.S. is training and arming Syrian “rebels” opposing the Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad. With the help of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, most of the weapons are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, many of whom belonging to groups that just a few years ago were killing U.S. Marines in Iraq.
President Obama, secretly and without the consent of Congress, sent more than 150 Special Forces to Jordan to train the anti-Assad fighters on the use of sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons.
What is even more disturbing is that the Syrian “rebels” have most likely already used chemical weapons, have a reputation for beheading prisoners, and that U.S. support is prolonging the conflict in the region. The reasons for U.S. intervention are of course complicated and multifaceted, but it most likely has to do with attempts to destabilize Iran’s strongest ally and what the Romans called divide et impera.
Syria may be the most dangerous example of the Obama administration’s enhanced policy of covert military training and assistance, but unfortunately it is nowhere near the only one. In Mali, along with building a brand new drone base, U.S. AFRICOM chief General Carter Ham admitted that while training Mali’s military, they “skipped ethics.” Targeting dissidents based on ethnicity and executing them is a staple of the U.S.-trained Mali government.
In Indonesia, the Obama administration resumed training and assisting an elite Indonesian military unit whose members have been convicted of massive human rights abuses in East Timor. U.S.-trained forces in Guatemala have incredibly close ties to some of the region’s most violent drug cartels and are notorious for their brutal treatment of civilians during the Guatemalan civil war.
A report from the Washington Office on Latin America details a U.S. policy called “the Merida Initiative” designed to “help the region’s militaries take on internal security roles” and use American police to train local police. Although President Obama publicly denounced the 2009 military coup in Honduras, Wikileaks cables later revealed that the Obama administration had members of the State Department meet with the illegitimate new Honduran “president” to help coordinate the implementation of the Merida Initiative.
The policy of militarizing, arming, and subsidizing foreign governments, especially those with well-known and documented human rights abuses and commissions of war crimes, appears to be a staple of the Obama administration’s foreign policy. But these policies help contribute to the spread of dictatorships, humanitarian crises, and instability while making the possibility of resentment and blowback much more likely.
It is becoming more and more clear that the bipartisan consensus policy of military interventionism is a threat to peace and security. Neutrality and non-intervention, as the Founders recommended, is a far more practical alternative and is still the best way to spread the American values our politicians are so fond of endorsing.
North Korea warns foreigners to leave South
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/09/us-korea-north-idUSBRE93408020130409
‘On verge of nuclear war’
PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea on Tuesday urged all foreign companies and tourists in South Korea to evacuate, saying the two countries are on the verge of nuclear war. The new threat appeared to be an attempt to keep the region on tenterhooks over its intentions.
Japan Deploys Patriot Missiles to Defend Tokyo
Japan has deployed Patriot
missiles in and around central Tokyo as a defensive measure should North Korea decide to launch an attack amid rising tensions in the Korean Peninsula.
Tokyo has moved three Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) surface-to-air missile launchers, according to the defence ministry. Two more batteries are likely to be stationed at other places.
Pyongyang warns foreigners to evacuate S. Korea, Japan deploys Patriot missiles
Yonhap: Kim Jong-un orders mass artillery production for “rapid pre-emptive attack”
SEOUL, April 6 (Yonhap) — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un recently ordered the country’s arms industry workers to increase their production of artillery, a television report out of Pyongyang showed Saturday.
“Once the war breaks out, we have to destroy the enemies’ key military locations and government institutions with a quick and sudden strike,” Kim was quoted as saying. “We must absolutely guarantee the quality of our artillery and shells to ensure a rapid pre-emptive attack on our enemies.”
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/northkorea/2013/04/06/34/0401000000AEN20130406001800315F.HTML
North Korea urges foreigners in South to evacuate
https://twitter.com/timesofindia
John McCain warns of ‘accidental war’ with North Korea
North Korea, Russia Putin’ Warn’s About Grave Danger of Nuclear War
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22065348
BEIJING – China called Tuesday for the protection of citizens from all countries and warned against “chaos” on the Korean peninsula after North Korea urged foreigners in South Korea to evacuate.
Beijing, a key backer of its defiant neighbor, has repeatedly urged calm and restraint despite spiraling tensions since Pyongyang tested a third nuclear bomb in February and reacted angrily to resulting UN sanctions.
The isolated regime said Tuesday the peninsula was headed for “thermo-nuclear” war and advised foreigners in South Korea to consider evacuation.
“North Korea says it will fire missiles into the Pacific Ocean on April 10 & that these missiles will pass over Japan.”- Sankei Shimbun
https://twitter.com/PrinceofSydney
Japan vows to shoot down North Korean missiles “even if it is just a test”
South Korea Believes North Could Launch Missile Test As Soon As Tomorrow
Read more:
Japan deploys Patriot antimissile system in downtown Tokyo
http://stratrisks.com/geostrat/11746
Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com
An aerial footage by Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK, showed launchers equipped with Patriot surface-to-air missiles being deployed at three bases of Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) on Monday.
One of the ASDF bases is on the outskirts of capital city of Tokyo and another is located in the city of Kakamigahara in Gifu prefecture.
On March 30, North Korea declared that it is in a “state of war” with South Korea, warning that any provocation by Seoul and Washington will trigger an all-out nuclear war.
Pyongyang also warned that if Washington and Seoul launched a preemptive attack, the conflict “will not be limited to a local war, but develop into an all-out war; a nuclear war.”
On Monday Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that a possible nuclear conflict on the Korean Peninsula would be far more destructive than the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986.
The North
(globalpost.com) Korean army said it has final approval to launch “merciless” military strikes against the United States, including the use of nuclear weapons.
In a statement published by the North’s official KCNA news agency, the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army said the United States had been formally informed that its “reckless nuclear threat” would be “smashed by strong will of all the united service personnel… and cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means,” according to Reuters.
More from GlobalPost: Pentagon: Missile defense system deployed to Guam in response to North Korea
“The moment of explosion is approaching fast,” the statement reads, warning that war could break out “today or tomorrow.”
“The merciless operation of our revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified,” it read.
According to South Korean news agency Yonhap, the statement also said the North would “take a series of strong, actual military countermeasures as the Supreme Command solemnly declared at home and abroad.”
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Wednesday that the hermit kingdom’s threats presented a “real and clear danger” to the United States and its allies, South Korea and Japan.
“They have nuclear capacity now, they have missile delivery capacity now,” said Hagel. “We take those threats seriously, we have to take those threats seriously.”
The Pentagon confirmed earlier on Wednesday that an advanced ballistic missile defense system was being sent to Guam to protect US interests as a precaution against North Korea’s threats.
Also on Wednesday, the North barred South Korean workers from the joint Kaesong industrial park. Earlier in the week, Pyongyang said it was restarting the Yongbyon nuclear reactor to step up production of nuclear weapons materials.
The North has condemned the US deployment of advanced weapons such as B-52 and B-2 bombers, F-22 fighters, and a nuclear-powered submarine and destroyer to the Korean Peninsula for annual joint military drills with the South, Yonhap noted.
North Korea threatened a “pre-emptive” nuclear strike against the United States last month, and last week its supreme army command ordered rocket units to be combat ready, according to Agence France-Presse.
China’s foreign ministry said, “All sides must remain calm and exercise restraint and not take actions which are mutually provocative and must certainly not take actions which will worsen the situation,” according to The Daily Telegraph.
More from GlobalPost: North Korea bars entrance to Kaesong industrial park
