North Korea

Foreign Policy Diary - North Korea: Hydrogen Bomb Test (vid)

http://thesaker.is/foreign-policy-diary-north-korea-hydrogen-bomb-test/

"A new crisis is arising in the Korean Peninsula."

Or if it was one, it didn't work, and only the fission primary went off.

It would be kind of disrespectful to say they just faked it; we don't want them to unleash their powerful arsenal on us, after all.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorial_cartoon/2016/01/06/theo-moudaki...

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we don't want them to unleash their powerful arsenal on us, after all.

They're number 50, in terms of population, but have the world's fourth largest military.

So the question, for all Canadians, should be "how well can they swim?"

And honestly, if DPRK had sufficient troop ships to get their whole army to our shores, I think our biggest challenge would be dealing with the massive number of defectors.  It would make all of the Syrian refugees look like one family overstaying their vacation Visa.

DPRK announced the development of its first primitive nuke 7 years ago.

If the U.S. were hellbent on invading DPRK for their daikon, surely they'd have done so, say, 8 years ago?  When DPRK had no nukes, and GW was still the Head Cowboy?

Trump Vows To 'Solve North Korea' With or Without China

https://on.rt.com/87ni

The Only Sensible Path At This Point is Dialogue': Counter-Spin Interview with Hyun Lee on N Korea

https://www.newcoldwar.org/sensible-path-point-dialogue-counterspin-inte...

"...And we've become very confused in the United States, because the mainstream media like to exaggerate the North Korean nuclear threat, but we never get news of what the US has been doing over the past decades. And we should be very clear that what this is all about is actually US nuclear first-strike advantage against North Korea, and North Korea reacting to that by developing its deterrence capability...

There's just an unspoken acceptance of the legitimacy of the US doing things that, official enemies are not allowed to do..."

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Why N Korea Needs Nukes - And How To End That

From "Moon of Alabama -- where barflies get together".

Think I'm just making that up?  Go ahead and click, and get edjumacated, Alabama bar-style.  NDPP style!

For the record, the Moon Of Alabama site is named for a line in the Bertolt Brecht song Whiskey Bar(popularized by the Doors), which in turn was the name of the the webmaster's original site on DailyKos.

Though its political slant seems less Brechtian, and more isolationist Right(basically, alt-right in the current parlance). When Trump won last November, they posted a piece hailing his victory, and denouncing Democrats as "Manhattan party-goers" who only care about supposed trivialities like the rights of transgendered teenagers.

Pence Heading to Seoul, Possible US Aggression on Hold

http://sjlendman.blogspot.ca/2017/04/pence-heading-to-seoul-possible-us....

Vassals...

"...On Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned 'conflict could break out at any moment.' Pyongyang considers Trump 'unpredictable'. China is Pyongyang's key ally. In 1961, both countries signed the Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty. It obligates both nations to provide military and other aid if either one is attacked by a foreign power. The treaty remains in force until 2021.

It's Trump's call. His belligerence over diplomacy is great cause for concern."

Freeland: China Could Help Coax North Korea Into 'Civilized World'

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/freeland-china-could-help-coax-north-kore...

"She underlined her close relationship with Tillerson, who she said was grateful to have Canada's support for the Syria airstrikes."

Vassals...

Mr. Magoo wrote:

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Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty. It obligates both nations to provide military and other aid if either one is attacked by a foreign power. The treaty remains in force until 2021.

They've got their own NATO!  That's adorable.

Breaking news Magoo learns about 55 year old treaty.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

If I'm a few days late to the party, it's only because nobody whines about this treaty organization when they're whining about NATO and how awful it is.

How many countries did the signatories to this treaty bomb last year, in the last decade or over the course of  55 years. Now do the same thing for NATO. Your moral equivalency argument is absurd like many of your comments.

I just did simple math from the date the Treaty was signed. It will be 56 years later this year. You can celebrate it on the same day as you celebrate Canada Day.

NorthReport wrote:

With Trump's Russian connections he has the potential to reduce tensions in several of our planet's hotspots. Hopefully he does just that.  

LMAOROF 

That worked really well in Syria.

Well, for once we can set the "Doomsday Clock" back a second or two.

North Korea attempts, but fails, to launch missile

To be fair, I do find Trump's sabre rattling a bit unsettling.  But also to be fair, we haven't even had the "first 100 days" of Trump's bluster, but we've enjoyed DPRK's sabre rattling for decades.

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It's easy to dismiss Kim Jong-un as a madman.

It's not unreasonable to suggest that the (ongoing) geo-political climate on the peninsula and in the region explains much of DPRK's militarization, including their nuclear weapons program.

But what's supposed to explain the autocratic, dynastic "Emperor" government and all of its associated weirdness?

I think most folk outside of Korea would have a much greater understanding of all of this, and much more empathy for DPRK, if they (for example) had a democratic government of some sort, some personal freedoms, and suchlike.  But the whole "Dear Leader/Great Leader" silliness is kind of baked right in with the legitimate stuff so it's hard to know whether Kim (whichever one you wish) is building nukes to respond to a legitimate threat, or because he's out of his fern.

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I think it would make any country explore its range of military options.

Sure.  I think I said exactly as much.

But I was hoping someone could explain everything else.  What you euphemistically refer to as their "eclectic" government and such.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

But I was hoping someone could explain everything else.  What you euphemistically refer to as their "eclectic" government and such.

I wish I could provide an answer.  While I have extensive work experience with South Korean companies and employees and could offer opinions about the foibles of their society, I have no idea how that relates to North Korea.

Advocates Urge Trump to De-escalate with North Korea, Not Ratchet Up Threats & Military Aggression

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CHRISTINE HONG: You know, I think what we’re witness to is a kind of revisionism, both with Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Tillerson. They’ve made comments that Obama’s policy of strategic patience is a thing of the past. And I think that that fundamentally misconstrues what the nature of strategic patience was. You know, as you mentioned in your opening description, Obama waged a campaign of cyberwarfare against North Korea. And so, you know, far from being a kind of kinder, gentler or even softer policy toward North Korea, Obama’s policy toward North Korea was, in point of fact, one of warfare.

The other thing that I would mention with regard to this is, even the possibility of military action against North Korea, a military option, if you will, that’s—that was—it would be inconceivable, if the Obama administration hadn’t made the militarization of the larger Asia-Pacific region one of its topmost foreign policy objectives. And under the Obama strategic pivot to the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. concentrated its naval forces to a tune of 60 percent—to 40 percent in the Atlantic—in the Pacific region.

And so, you know, right now we have the situation in which the [Trump] administration is stating that all options are on the table. And I would want to remind your listeners and viewers that the United States performs the largest war games in the world with its South Korean ally twice annually. And in the course of performing these military exercises, it actually rehearses a number of things. It rehearses the decapitation of the North Korean leadership, the invasion and occupation of North Korea, and it also performs a nuclear first strike against North Korea with dummy munitions. And so, we have as one of the possibilities a nuclear—a preemptive nuclear strike against North Korea. That is the nature of the unhinged foreign policy that we’re seeing on the part of the Trump administration.

I would also say that even though North Korea and Kim Jong-un serves as a convenient foil, a kind of bad guy for U.S. foreign policy within the larger Asia-Pacific region, we have plenty of reason to be frightened of Donald Trump’s America-first foreign policy, which doesn’t serve Americans, much less anyone else around the world.

..one more

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Bruce Cumings, professor of history at the University of Chicago, you have raised the issue that the media treats every—every crisis with Korea separate and apart from the previous crises that have occurred. Could you talk about that?

BRUCE CUMINGS: Well, that’s right. It’s not only that, but each crisis is treated as if it has really no background. The fact is that American nuclear intimidation of North Korea goes back to the Korean War. After the Korean War, in 1958, we installed hundreds of nuclear weapons in the south, the first country to bring nuclear weapons onto the peninsula. And North Korea has, essentially, since the late 1950s, had to find a way to deter the U.S. from using those weapons. For decades, they built underground. They have something like 15,000 underground facilities of a national security nature. But it was inevitable that when threatened with nuclear weapons—and Chris is right: President Obama threatened North Korea with nuclear weapons many times by sending B-2 bombers over the south, dropping dummy bombs on islands and so on. It was just inevitable that North Korea would seek a deterrent.

And what is, to me, so insane about this—particularly this last weekend, when somebody purposely leaked to NBC that the U.S. was considering a preemptive strike, but what’s so terrible about it is that you essentially get a standoff, with North Korea having nuclear weapons, the U.S. having nuclear weapons, but North Korea not being able to use them anywhere without being turned into a charcoal briquette. That was General Colin Powell’s reference to what would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear weapon in anger. So, somehow, I think the Trump administration quite purposely ratcheted up the tension. A week ago it was talk of assassinating Kim Jong-un; this weekend, talk of a preventive strike. I don’t think Vice President Pence is right that what President Trump has done shows strength and resolve. It’s one of the easiest things to fling 59 cruise missiles into Syria. Apparently, the military has wanted to test this MOAB, "Mother of All Bombs," for some time, and it went ahead and did it. It’s not clear what the outcome of either strike is. And it seems that Mr. Trump, who ran on an anti-interventionist platform, is actually enjoying the toys that the military can provide to him, and perhaps using them in Korea, which would be a complete disaster.

Red Winnipeg wrote:

The leader of North Korea, it goes without saying, is reckless -- and now more than ever. Is he intentionally provoking Trump to attack North Korea?

I doubt it. He's probably hoping to get some sort of concessions out of the US and/or the South. At the very least, have an ex-president heading over there to negotiate something, like Carter on a few occassions starting in 1994, and Clinton a few years back when those two American  reporters ran in from China and got themselves hauled into prison.

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The leader of North Korea, it goes without saying, is reckless -- and now more than ever. Is he intentionally provoking Trump to attack North Korea?

He's definitely "acting out", as a child psychologist might say, but if Trump were to attack tomorrow, I certainly would not absolve him on the grounds that he "was provoked".

I think Trump is realizing how much fun it is to play Risk, but with real-life gamepieces.

..am i in the twilight zone? who is doing the provoking?

After the Korean War, in 1958, we installed hundreds of nuclear weapons in the south, the first country to bring nuclear weapons onto the peninsula.

David Shuster‏Verified account @DavidShuster

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Multiple intelligence sources: US govt "digital interference" (hacking) disrupted North Korea missile launch attempt. More @i24NEWS_EN

https://twitter.com/DavidShuster/status/853609572581474304

The US Pushed North Korea To Build Nukes: Yes or No?  

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/19/the-u-s-pushed-north-korea-to-bui...

"So the question is: What do we do now?"

Walkom: It's Time To End The Korean War

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2017/04/19/its-time-to-end-th...

"Here's an idea for cooling the nuclear tensions between North Korea and the United States. Why not start by negotiating an end to the Korean War? With Donald Trump as US president, that war is in danger of reigniting..."

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devastating the country far beyond what was necessary to fight the war.

But evidently, far less than what was necessary to win it.  Or else how did it end in an armistice rather than a victory?  It's pretty hard to call it "overkill" if it wasn't even enough.

I also found this little note, from Walkom's article, interesting:

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Technically, the war that began in 1950 when Pyongyang invaded South Korea is still ongoing.

So this fight began when the skinny kid smashed his glasses on the big bully's fist?  Or what?  The situation is all America's fault how again??

Vietnam is commonly held up as an example of a war that the U.S. didn't win.  So again, I wonder what we mean by "overkill".  Usually that term refers to far more of something than is necessary, whereas if they still lost then by definition it was LESS than necessary.