lo yeeOn
2017-09-12 02:31:31 UTC
Implicit in this reminder was the addendum that the United States
would take no steps to denuclearize its own approach to dealing with
North Korea (Washington dangles a nuclear sword of Damocles over
Pyongyang) and would continue to carry out annual rehearsals for an
invasion. --Stephen Gowans (see below)
We the American people should recognize that only peace will bring
prosperity. So, it is totally false to think that
"If thousands die, they're going to die over there..."!
Don't believe that line of argument for even a nanosecond!
Even the "cakewalk" invasion of Iraq with an unprecedented aura of
"shock'n awe" and decades of actually softening of the rather backward
ME country of Iraq carried a price-tag of hundreds of thousands of
innocent people's lives before our puppets over there got a chance to
hang Saddam Hussein.
In the case of Korea, it wouldn't be only thousands of North Koreans
to die. Rather it would be tens of thousands of North and South
Koreans who would all die in the first days if we struck NK first.
(If we don't strike, nothing will happen! The South Koreans all know
that. And that's why their newly elected president Moon Jae-in still
retains an approval rate above 70%, even after the North has test-fired
their nukes and missiles. And at the same time many from the South
continue to be unhappy about the THAAD system we are forcing them to
take.)
And President Moon continues to hold out against a preventive strike
against his Northern neighbor.
It's not acceptable to sacrifice innocent Koreans from the North or
the South. Even if some of us hate Kim Jong-un, it's not up to us in
the US to attack and go to war against North Korea.
People the world around love prosperity. And we the American people
are no exception. In fact we in America champion money more than
anywhere else on earth. Everything is monetized in America. That's
why the stock market is very sensitive about Washington starting
another war.
Therefore, we the American people should not be encouraging the
war-like neocons to use their bullhorns to guide the administration's
foreign policy (toward North Korea, toward Iran, toward Syria, toward
Venezuela, toward Russia, or toward China).
The neocons are using the bullhorns because they don't trust Trump to
make the right decision from their POV; they have next-to-no concern
about America and of course even less for any Koreans.
But if we are smart, we know that using the bullhorns to conduct
foreign policy is no way to make America look good or even start
recovering our standard of living.
We the American people should start seeing our future in terms of a
peaceful co-existence with other countries. We have the most awesome
defense in the world. And our deterrence system came out of the best
of American scientists - which works and does not depend on preventive
attacks against anybody. So, we should stop believing the neocons and
start rebuilding America with a vision of peace and prosperity with
everybody.
On the 16th anniversary of 9/11, we the American people must not
forget that it was the lives of three thousands of innocent people
that were sacrificed. We the American people are decent people and we
don't want that to happen to thousands of living and breathing
Koreans, do we?
So, it's all wrong for our leaders to say:
"If thousands die, they're going to die over there..."!
If you are a 100% Christian American, you can see that starting a war
over there is not an option. But even if you are not, if you are a
decent human being, you can see that if thousands of Americans should
not die, then we should not make thousands of non-Americans die.
Many people in the world have seen our belligerent way and that's why
`freeze-for-freeze' makes sense. After we have conducted these
military drills with South Korea since the 1970s, the world can see
that we are in fact the provocative party. And after we have
repeatedly condemned the North as a part of the "axis of evil" and
after we have recruited SEALS to assassinate Osama bin Laden and then
included a decapitation plan in our joint military exercises with
South Korea, how can we honestly say that we are not provocative?
For this reason, it makes a lot of sense to be a peace maker and trade
in our boots and bases in South Korea for a peaceful, denuclearized
Korean peninsula.
I know it is hard to give up our bases and our boots, but why not, if
peace means prosperity for everyone?
lo yeeOn
--------------
1) Hard to see that our annual military exercises at North Korea's
doorsteps isn't provocative
What China wants on North Korea
https://qz.com/1069014/what-china-wants-on-north-korea/
. . .
1. Enacting a freeze for freeze
China has been arguing that the US and South Korea should suspend
their joint military exercises, held annually since the 1970s, in
exchange for the North stopping its missile launches and nuclear
tests. The proposal - called "dual suspension" or "suspension for
suspension" by China and sometimes referred to by analysts as "freeze
for freeze" - was introduced by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in
March, and prominently put forward last month after the UN passed its
latest sanctions on Pyongyang. China also wants to see the removal of
the THAAD anti-missile system recently deployed in South Korea.
China's stance, backed by Russia, is a no-go for the US.
"We firmly reject any false equivalency between North Korea's illegal
nuclear and missile programs, which are enormously destabilizing and
have been repeatedly condemned by the UN Security Council, and our
long-standing joint activities with our allies, which are transparent
and defensive in nature," said US ambassador Robert Wood in August.
. . .
----------
But consider this:
Rehearsal for Invasion: Pentagon Leads 300,000 Troops in Anti-DPRK War
Games March 13, 2017
By Stephen Gowans
https://mltoday.com/article/2700-pentagon-leads-over-300-000-troops-in-a-rehearsal-for-an-invasion-one-week-after-the-white-house-announces-it-s-considering-military-action-against-north-korea/91
The United States and South Korea are conducting their largest-ever
military exercises on the Korean peninsula [1], one week after the
White House announced that it was considering military action against
North Korea to bring about regime change. [2] The US-led exercises
involve:
* 300,000 South Korea troops
* 17,000 US troops
* The supercarrier USS Carl Vinson
* US F-35B and F-22 stealth fighters
* US B-18 and B-52 bombers
* South Korean F-15s and KF-16s jetfighters. [3]
While the United States labels the drills as "purely defensive" [4]
the nomenclature is misleading. The exercises are not defensive in the
sense of practicing to repel a possible North Korean invasion and to
push North Korean forces back across the 38th parallel in the event of
a North Korean attack, but envisage an invasion of North Korea in
order to incapacitate its nuclear weapons, destroy its military
command, and assassinate its leader.
The exercises can only be construed as "defensive" if undertaken as
preparation for a response to an actual North Korean first-strike, or
as a rehearsed pre-emptive response to an anticipated first strike. In
either event, the exercises are invasion-related, and Pyongyang's
complaint that US and South Korean forces are practicing an invasion
is valid.
But the likelihood of a North Korean attack on South Korea is
vanishingly small. Pyongyang is outspent militarily by Seoul by a
factor of almost 4:1, [5] and South Korean forces can rely on more
advanced weapons systems than can North Korea. Additionally, the South
Korean military is not only backed up by, but is under the command of,
the unprecedentedly powerful US military. A North Korean attack on
South Korea would be suicidal, and therefore we can regard its
possibility as virtually non-existent, especially in light of US
nuclear doctrine which allows the use of nuclear weapons against North
Korea. Indeed, US leaders have reminded North Korean leaders on
numerous occasions that their country could be turned into "a charcoal
briquette". [6] That anyone of consequence in the US state truly
believes that South Korea is under threat of an attack by the North is
risible.
. . .
The exercises are being carried out within the framework of Operation
Plan 5015 which "aims to remove the North's weapons of mass
destruction and prepare ... for a pre-emptive strike in the event of
an imminent North Korean attack, as well a "decapitation" raids
targeting the leadership.[7]
In connection with decapitation raids, the exercises involve "US
Special Missions Units responsible for the killing of Osama bin Laden
in 2011, including SEAL Team Six. [8] According to one newspaper
report, the "participation of special forces in the drills...may be an
indication the two sides are rehearsing the assassination of Kim Jong
Un." [9]
A US official told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that "A bigger
number of and more diverse US special operation forces will take part
in this year's...exercises to practice missions to infiltrate the
North, remove the North's war command and demolish its key military
facilities. [10]
Astonishingly, despite participating in the highly provocative
exercises - which can have no other consequence than to rattle the
North Koreans and place them under imminent threat - the South Korean
ministry of national defense announced that "South Korea and the US
were keenly monitoring the movements of North Korean soldiers in
preparation for possible provocations". [11]
The notion that Washington and Seoul must be on the alert for North
Korean `provocations', at a time the Pentagon and its South Korean
ally are rehearsing an invasion and `decapitation' strike against
North Korea, represents what East Asia specialist Tim Beal calls a
"special sort of unreality". [12] Adding to the unreality is the fact
that the rehearsal for an invasion comes on the heels of the White
House announcing urbi et orbi that it is considering military action
against North Korea to bring about regime change.
In 2015, the North Koreans proposed to suspend their nuclear weapons
program in exchange for the United States suspending its military
exercises on the peninsula. The US State Department peremptorily
dismissed the offer, saying it inappropriately linked the United
States' "routine" military drills to what Washington demanded of
Pyongyang, namely, denuclearization. [13] Instead, Washington
"insisted the North give up its nuclear weapons program first before
any negotiations" could take place. [14]
In 2016, the North Koreans made the same proposal. Then US president
Barack Obama replied that Pyongyang would "have to do better than
that". [15]
At the same time, the high-profile Wall Street-directed Council on Foreign Relations released a task force report which advised Washington against striking a peace deal with North Korea on the grounds that Pyongyang would expect US troops to withdraw from the peninsula. Were the United States to quit the peninsula militarily, its strategic position relative to China and Russia, namely, its ability to threaten its two near-peer competitors, would be weakened, the report warned. Accordingly, Washington was adjured to refrain from promising Beijing that any help it provided in connection with North Korea would be rewarded by a reduction in the US troop presence on the peninsula. [16]
Earlier this month, China resurrected Pyongyang's perennial proposal.
"To defuse the looming crisis on the peninsula, China [proposed] that,
as a first step, [North Korea] suspend its missile and nuclear
activities in exchange for a halt in the large scale US - [South
Korea] exercises. "This suspension-for-suspension" the Chinese
argued, "can help us break out of the security dilemma and bring the
parties back to the negotiating table". [17]
Washington rejected the proposal immediately. So too did Japan. The
Japanese ambassador to the UN reminded the world that the US goal is
"not a freeze-for-freeze but to denuclearize North Korea". [18]
Implicit in this reminder was the addendum that the United States
would take no steps to denuclearize its own approach to dealing with
North Korea (Washington dangles a nuclear sword of Damocles over
Pyongyang) and would continue to carry out annual rehearsals for an
invasion.
Refusal to negotiate, or to demand that the other side immediately
grant what is being demanded as a precondition for talks, (give me
what I want, then I'll talk), is consistent with the approach to North
Korea adopted by Washington as early as 2003. Urged by Pyongyang to
negotiate a peace treaty, then US Secretary of State Colin Powell
demurred. "We don't do non-aggression pacts or treaties, things of
thatnature," Powell explained. [19]
. . .
--------------
2) Nikki Haley called the Russia-China proposal of
`freeze-for-freeze/suspension-for-suspension'
"insulting"
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/11/china-urges-north-korea-to-take-seriously-bid-to-halt-nuclear-program.html
Chinese U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi called on North Korea to "take
seriously the expectations and will of the international community" to
halt its nuclear and ballistic missile development, and called on all
parties to remain "cool-headed" and not stoke tensions.
Liu said relevant parties should resume negotiations "sooner rather
than later." To kick-start talks, China and Russia have proposed a
dual suspension of North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile testing
as well as U.S. and South Korean military exercises.
"We think it's a big mistake to underestimate this Russia, China
initiative. It remains on the table at the Security Council and we
will insist on it being considered," Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily
Nebenzia told the Security Council.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has called the
proposal insulting.
would take no steps to denuclearize its own approach to dealing with
North Korea (Washington dangles a nuclear sword of Damocles over
Pyongyang) and would continue to carry out annual rehearsals for an
invasion. --Stephen Gowans (see below)
We the American people should recognize that only peace will bring
prosperity. So, it is totally false to think that
"If thousands die, they're going to die over there..."!
Don't believe that line of argument for even a nanosecond!
Even the "cakewalk" invasion of Iraq with an unprecedented aura of
"shock'n awe" and decades of actually softening of the rather backward
ME country of Iraq carried a price-tag of hundreds of thousands of
innocent people's lives before our puppets over there got a chance to
hang Saddam Hussein.
In the case of Korea, it wouldn't be only thousands of North Koreans
to die. Rather it would be tens of thousands of North and South
Koreans who would all die in the first days if we struck NK first.
(If we don't strike, nothing will happen! The South Koreans all know
that. And that's why their newly elected president Moon Jae-in still
retains an approval rate above 70%, even after the North has test-fired
their nukes and missiles. And at the same time many from the South
continue to be unhappy about the THAAD system we are forcing them to
take.)
And President Moon continues to hold out against a preventive strike
against his Northern neighbor.
It's not acceptable to sacrifice innocent Koreans from the North or
the South. Even if some of us hate Kim Jong-un, it's not up to us in
the US to attack and go to war against North Korea.
People the world around love prosperity. And we the American people
are no exception. In fact we in America champion money more than
anywhere else on earth. Everything is monetized in America. That's
why the stock market is very sensitive about Washington starting
another war.
Therefore, we the American people should not be encouraging the
war-like neocons to use their bullhorns to guide the administration's
foreign policy (toward North Korea, toward Iran, toward Syria, toward
Venezuela, toward Russia, or toward China).
The neocons are using the bullhorns because they don't trust Trump to
make the right decision from their POV; they have next-to-no concern
about America and of course even less for any Koreans.
But if we are smart, we know that using the bullhorns to conduct
foreign policy is no way to make America look good or even start
recovering our standard of living.
We the American people should start seeing our future in terms of a
peaceful co-existence with other countries. We have the most awesome
defense in the world. And our deterrence system came out of the best
of American scientists - which works and does not depend on preventive
attacks against anybody. So, we should stop believing the neocons and
start rebuilding America with a vision of peace and prosperity with
everybody.
On the 16th anniversary of 9/11, we the American people must not
forget that it was the lives of three thousands of innocent people
that were sacrificed. We the American people are decent people and we
don't want that to happen to thousands of living and breathing
Koreans, do we?
So, it's all wrong for our leaders to say:
"If thousands die, they're going to die over there..."!
If you are a 100% Christian American, you can see that starting a war
over there is not an option. But even if you are not, if you are a
decent human being, you can see that if thousands of Americans should
not die, then we should not make thousands of non-Americans die.
Many people in the world have seen our belligerent way and that's why
`freeze-for-freeze' makes sense. After we have conducted these
military drills with South Korea since the 1970s, the world can see
that we are in fact the provocative party. And after we have
repeatedly condemned the North as a part of the "axis of evil" and
after we have recruited SEALS to assassinate Osama bin Laden and then
included a decapitation plan in our joint military exercises with
South Korea, how can we honestly say that we are not provocative?
For this reason, it makes a lot of sense to be a peace maker and trade
in our boots and bases in South Korea for a peaceful, denuclearized
Korean peninsula.
I know it is hard to give up our bases and our boots, but why not, if
peace means prosperity for everyone?
lo yeeOn
--------------
1) Hard to see that our annual military exercises at North Korea's
doorsteps isn't provocative
What China wants on North Korea
https://qz.com/1069014/what-china-wants-on-north-korea/
. . .
1. Enacting a freeze for freeze
China has been arguing that the US and South Korea should suspend
their joint military exercises, held annually since the 1970s, in
exchange for the North stopping its missile launches and nuclear
tests. The proposal - called "dual suspension" or "suspension for
suspension" by China and sometimes referred to by analysts as "freeze
for freeze" - was introduced by Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in
March, and prominently put forward last month after the UN passed its
latest sanctions on Pyongyang. China also wants to see the removal of
the THAAD anti-missile system recently deployed in South Korea.
China's stance, backed by Russia, is a no-go for the US.
"We firmly reject any false equivalency between North Korea's illegal
nuclear and missile programs, which are enormously destabilizing and
have been repeatedly condemned by the UN Security Council, and our
long-standing joint activities with our allies, which are transparent
and defensive in nature," said US ambassador Robert Wood in August.
. . .
----------
But consider this:
Rehearsal for Invasion: Pentagon Leads 300,000 Troops in Anti-DPRK War
Games March 13, 2017
By Stephen Gowans
https://mltoday.com/article/2700-pentagon-leads-over-300-000-troops-in-a-rehearsal-for-an-invasion-one-week-after-the-white-house-announces-it-s-considering-military-action-against-north-korea/91
The United States and South Korea are conducting their largest-ever
military exercises on the Korean peninsula [1], one week after the
White House announced that it was considering military action against
North Korea to bring about regime change. [2] The US-led exercises
involve:
* 300,000 South Korea troops
* 17,000 US troops
* The supercarrier USS Carl Vinson
* US F-35B and F-22 stealth fighters
* US B-18 and B-52 bombers
* South Korean F-15s and KF-16s jetfighters. [3]
While the United States labels the drills as "purely defensive" [4]
the nomenclature is misleading. The exercises are not defensive in the
sense of practicing to repel a possible North Korean invasion and to
push North Korean forces back across the 38th parallel in the event of
a North Korean attack, but envisage an invasion of North Korea in
order to incapacitate its nuclear weapons, destroy its military
command, and assassinate its leader.
The exercises can only be construed as "defensive" if undertaken as
preparation for a response to an actual North Korean first-strike, or
as a rehearsed pre-emptive response to an anticipated first strike. In
either event, the exercises are invasion-related, and Pyongyang's
complaint that US and South Korean forces are practicing an invasion
is valid.
But the likelihood of a North Korean attack on South Korea is
vanishingly small. Pyongyang is outspent militarily by Seoul by a
factor of almost 4:1, [5] and South Korean forces can rely on more
advanced weapons systems than can North Korea. Additionally, the South
Korean military is not only backed up by, but is under the command of,
the unprecedentedly powerful US military. A North Korean attack on
South Korea would be suicidal, and therefore we can regard its
possibility as virtually non-existent, especially in light of US
nuclear doctrine which allows the use of nuclear weapons against North
Korea. Indeed, US leaders have reminded North Korean leaders on
numerous occasions that their country could be turned into "a charcoal
briquette". [6] That anyone of consequence in the US state truly
believes that South Korea is under threat of an attack by the North is
risible.
. . .
The exercises are being carried out within the framework of Operation
Plan 5015 which "aims to remove the North's weapons of mass
destruction and prepare ... for a pre-emptive strike in the event of
an imminent North Korean attack, as well a "decapitation" raids
targeting the leadership.[7]
In connection with decapitation raids, the exercises involve "US
Special Missions Units responsible for the killing of Osama bin Laden
in 2011, including SEAL Team Six. [8] According to one newspaper
report, the "participation of special forces in the drills...may be an
indication the two sides are rehearsing the assassination of Kim Jong
Un." [9]
A US official told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that "A bigger
number of and more diverse US special operation forces will take part
in this year's...exercises to practice missions to infiltrate the
North, remove the North's war command and demolish its key military
facilities. [10]
Astonishingly, despite participating in the highly provocative
exercises - which can have no other consequence than to rattle the
North Koreans and place them under imminent threat - the South Korean
ministry of national defense announced that "South Korea and the US
were keenly monitoring the movements of North Korean soldiers in
preparation for possible provocations". [11]
The notion that Washington and Seoul must be on the alert for North
Korean `provocations', at a time the Pentagon and its South Korean
ally are rehearsing an invasion and `decapitation' strike against
North Korea, represents what East Asia specialist Tim Beal calls a
"special sort of unreality". [12] Adding to the unreality is the fact
that the rehearsal for an invasion comes on the heels of the White
House announcing urbi et orbi that it is considering military action
against North Korea to bring about regime change.
In 2015, the North Koreans proposed to suspend their nuclear weapons
program in exchange for the United States suspending its military
exercises on the peninsula. The US State Department peremptorily
dismissed the offer, saying it inappropriately linked the United
States' "routine" military drills to what Washington demanded of
Pyongyang, namely, denuclearization. [13] Instead, Washington
"insisted the North give up its nuclear weapons program first before
any negotiations" could take place. [14]
In 2016, the North Koreans made the same proposal. Then US president
Barack Obama replied that Pyongyang would "have to do better than
that". [15]
At the same time, the high-profile Wall Street-directed Council on Foreign Relations released a task force report which advised Washington against striking a peace deal with North Korea on the grounds that Pyongyang would expect US troops to withdraw from the peninsula. Were the United States to quit the peninsula militarily, its strategic position relative to China and Russia, namely, its ability to threaten its two near-peer competitors, would be weakened, the report warned. Accordingly, Washington was adjured to refrain from promising Beijing that any help it provided in connection with North Korea would be rewarded by a reduction in the US troop presence on the peninsula. [16]
Earlier this month, China resurrected Pyongyang's perennial proposal.
"To defuse the looming crisis on the peninsula, China [proposed] that,
as a first step, [North Korea] suspend its missile and nuclear
activities in exchange for a halt in the large scale US - [South
Korea] exercises. "This suspension-for-suspension" the Chinese
argued, "can help us break out of the security dilemma and bring the
parties back to the negotiating table". [17]
Washington rejected the proposal immediately. So too did Japan. The
Japanese ambassador to the UN reminded the world that the US goal is
"not a freeze-for-freeze but to denuclearize North Korea". [18]
Implicit in this reminder was the addendum that the United States
would take no steps to denuclearize its own approach to dealing with
North Korea (Washington dangles a nuclear sword of Damocles over
Pyongyang) and would continue to carry out annual rehearsals for an
invasion.
Refusal to negotiate, or to demand that the other side immediately
grant what is being demanded as a precondition for talks, (give me
what I want, then I'll talk), is consistent with the approach to North
Korea adopted by Washington as early as 2003. Urged by Pyongyang to
negotiate a peace treaty, then US Secretary of State Colin Powell
demurred. "We don't do non-aggression pacts or treaties, things of
thatnature," Powell explained. [19]
. . .
--------------
2) Nikki Haley called the Russia-China proposal of
`freeze-for-freeze/suspension-for-suspension'
"insulting"
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/11/china-urges-north-korea-to-take-seriously-bid-to-halt-nuclear-program.html
Chinese U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi called on North Korea to "take
seriously the expectations and will of the international community" to
halt its nuclear and ballistic missile development, and called on all
parties to remain "cool-headed" and not stoke tensions.
Liu said relevant parties should resume negotiations "sooner rather
than later." To kick-start talks, China and Russia have proposed a
dual suspension of North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile testing
as well as U.S. and South Korean military exercises.
"We think it's a big mistake to underestimate this Russia, China
initiative. It remains on the table at the Security Council and we
will insist on it being considered," Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily
Nebenzia told the Security Council.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has called the
proposal insulting.