The most sensible path, at this point, is for the US to end the Korean War, sign a peace treaty with North Korea, and withdraw its troops from the Korean peninsula - Hyun Lee, National Campaign to End the Korean War

[lo yeeOn]

Why the US government doesn't like NK's latest tests?

"[N]ot because it will attack the US; Washington doesn't truly believe
that," according Hyun Lee, a member of the National Campaign to End
the Korean War.

Then what might be the reason(s)?

One answer might be:

[I]f this encourages other countries around the world to follow the
example of North Korea, it threatens the nuclear non-proliferation
regime, which is essentially intended to ensure that only the
prominent five countries of the UN Security Council, and its allies,
like Israel, can have nuclear weapons and no one else.

That means that if other countries follow NK's example, exercising
hegemony by the US or Israel would be much, much harder.

See the Op-Ed piece below.

lo yeeOn

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/395334-north-korea-icbm-us/

The most sensible path, at this point, is for the US to end the Korean
War, sign a peace treaty with North Korea, and withdraw its troops
from the Korean peninsula, Hyun Lee, a member of the National Campaign
to End the Korean War, told RT.

. . .

RT: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said North Korea launching an
intercontinental ballistic missile is a new escalation of the threat
against the US. Is Pyongyang's new launch a game changer?

HL: Yes, but not because it will attack the US; Washington doesn't
truly believe that.

But more because this changes the US strategic calculus in the
region. North Korea now has the capacity to target the heart of the US
Pacific Command, which is located in Hawaii, as well as the West Coast
of the US continent. This means US policy of basically intimidating
countries through military might and collapsing uncooperative regimes
as it has done in the Middle East for decades: this is not going to
work vis-a-vis North Korea.

And if this encourages other countries around the world to follow the
example of North Korea, it threatens the nuclear non-proliferation
regime, which is essentially intended to ensure that only the
prominent five countries of the UN Security Council, and its allies,
like Israel, can have nuclear weapons and no one else.

North Korea is obviously not a party to the NPT; it is not a US ally
but now appears to have the capability to threaten a nuclear attack on
the US. This is why this missile test is a big deal and it makes
Washington very nervous. If the US wants North Korea to stop, then the
path is very clear - it has to stop its provocations and its military
exercises and then resolve the conflict fundamentally by signing a
peace treaty to end the ongoing state of war between the US and North
Korea.

RT: Is there an end to this vicious circle where opposite sides just
fire missiles trying to up the ante on each other?

HL: I think there is a clear path: North Korea, we should note, has
repeatedly offered to freeze its own nuclear and missile program in
exchange for a freeze of US provocation, including the very
provocative military exercises. I think the most sensible path at this
point is for the US to end the Korean War, sign a peace treaty with
North Korea, finally withdraw its troops from the Korean peninsula.
That is the only way to put the nuclear crisis to rest. Washington
knows that this is the answer. The only thing that is standing in the
way is, not surprisingly, the interest of the military-industrial
complex, which feeds off of perpetual war.

"If you are the Pentagon, and you are Donald Trump, you are not
about to pass up on the opportunity to fire off a few of the guns
and show the people what they are spending their money on. The North
Korea thing is filled with a lot of theatrics... What Russia and
China basically said is that North Korea has to stop its nuclear
program, and the US and South Korea have to stop their war games,
and we have to sit down and begin the negotiations. - Jim W. Dean,
managing editor at Veterans Today

[Byker]

Post by lo yeeOn
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/395334-north-korea-icbm-us/
The most sensible path, at this point, is for the US to end the Korean
War, sign a peace treaty with North Korea, and withdraw its troops from
the Korean peninsula, Hyun Lee, a member of the National Campaign to End
the Korean War, told RT.

What Would Happen If Kim Jong-Un Launched A Nuclear Strike?

RYAN PICKRELL
6:24 PM 04/14/2017

Dozens upon dozens of missiles take flight.

For years, the world had heard warnings, but most doubted the day would ever
come. Most missiles fall before allied defenses, but one finds its mark — it’s
the one that matters most. In a flash, hundreds of thousands, if not
millions of people perish.

Would North Korea fire off a nuclear weapon? No one knows for certain, but
what we do know is that the above scenario is exactly what an aggressive and
increasingly-powerful North Korea has been threatening for decades. While
the reclusive regime may have previously lacked the necessary weaponry, the
North now has the kind of capabilities to turn at least some of its threats
into promises.

The U.S. and its East Asian allies have strategic defense assets in
position, but war is full of uncertainties. “People think missile defenses
are a magic wand. They aren’t,” Jeffrey Lewis, a renowned arms expert, told
The Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF).

Here’s what happens if the North pulls the trigger.

What Would Happen If A Launch Appeared Imminent?

The U.S. and its allies in the region are by no means unprepared for a North
Korean nuclear attack.

The U.S. and South Korea both have preemptive strike plans for a situation
in which a North Korean nuclear attack appears imminent, and while Japan is
considering new options, it still relies heavily on U.S. defense.

South Korea has a three-stage defense system, the first stage of which is a
preemptive strike option designed to eliminate the North’s offensive
capabilities. The “Kill Chain” preemptive strike system detects signs of an
impending nuclear missile launch and strikes the North’s nuclear weapons
sites and missile bases with cruise missiles and other weaponry.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2016/11/205_217259.html

The U.S. and South Korea also have a joint response plan, Operations Plan
(OPLAN) 5015.

While the specifics for OPLAN 5015 are classified, the plan is believed to
consolidate previous contingency plans, specifically OPLAN 5029 (internal
instability in North Korea), OPLAN 5027 (preparations for an all-out war),
and a peacetime plan involving localized provocations from North Korea.
OPLAN 5015 is suspected to call for preemptive strikes on the North’s
essential military facilities and weapons, and possibly North Korean
leadership. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/oplan-5015.htm

In the event that a nuclear missile strike appeared imminent, allied forces
might attempt to eliminate the North’s missiles at launch. Mike Mullen, the
former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last year that the U.S.
could move to “take out launch capabilities on the launchpad” if North Korea
appeared poised to launch a nuclear armed-missile:
http://tinyurl.com/yazjck97

The U.S. and South Korea regularly train for such contingencies. For
example, during the annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises, U.S. and
South Korean troops practice a “4D” operational plan which involves
preemptive military options to detect, disrupt, destroy, and defend against
North Korean strikes. The focus is precision strikes on the enemy’s core
military facilities and weapons systems: http://tinyurl.com/juq3glq

The challenge is that more and more of North Korea’s missiles are on mobile
launchers and scattered about the country. Furthermore, the Korean People’s
Army (KPA) has started using solid-fueled missiles, which require
significantly less preparation time as they can be fueled in advance and
need only a limited crew. Solid-fueled missiles can be fired with less
warning and are much harder to track, making them less vulnerable to
preemptive strikes: http://tinyurl.com/y9vpvv5r

Another issue is that preemptive strikes on North Korea would be much harder
to justify diplomatically, especially if war breaks out in the aftermath,
which is practically guaranteed.

What If The Nukes Are Already In The Air?

If a North Korean missile makes it into the air, there are plans for that
situation as well.

South Korea and Japan rely on tiered missile defense.

Stage two of South Korea’s three-stage defense system is the Korea Air and
Missile Defense (KAMD) system, which is designed to intercept incoming
missiles. The U.S. is bolstering South Korean defense through the deployment
of a THAAD battery to South Korea, a process that began after North Korea
fired four missiles into the Sea of Japan a few weeks ago.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39188826

THAAD’s Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance (AN/TYP-2) X-band radar
can be configured to one of two settings: forward-base mode and terminal
mode. In the latter, the radar has a range of several hundred miles and can
facilitate the elimination of missiles in the terminal phase of flight. In
the former, the radar’s range is extended, making it possible for THAAD to
target projectiles in the initial or launch phase:
http://tinyurl.com/ya3929hd

To ease China’s concerns about the radar’s ability to peer into its
territory, the U.S. has agreed to configure THAAD in terminal mode. China
continues to express opposition to the deployment.

THAAD is an important step for South Korean missile defense.

“THAAD is better than anything South Korea has or will have for decades,”
Bruce Klingner, who specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior
research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, told TheDCNF,
“It is imperative that we deploy it to augment the defense of Korea and the
U.S. forces deployed there.”

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched during
a successful intercept test, in this undated handout photo provided by the
U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency. THAAD provides the U.S.
military a land-based, mobile capability to defend against short- and
medium-range ballistic missiles, intercepting incoming missiles inside and
outside the earth’s atmosphere. REUTERS/U.S. Department of Defense,

There are also a number of Aegis destroyers operating in the waters off of
South Korea. The U.S. has several in the region; Japan has six, and South
Korea has three. The Aegis ballistic missile system can track multiple
missiles simultaneously and intercept enemy projectiles as needed:
http://bit.ly/2tmS4P8

There are certain gaps in South Korea’s defense though. For starters, South
Korea’s KAMD is not incorporated into the broader allied defense system,
thus weakening its overall effectiveness. Also, the South is particularly
vulnerable to submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which the North
successfully tested last year.

Japan is much more “forward leaning” in its defense, Klingner notes. Japan
has Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-2 and 3 systems, Aegis destroyers and
SM-3 interceptors, and Japan is considering deploying THAAD and Aegis Ashore
units on Japanese soil to boost national defense.

The U.S. has ground-based midcourse defense systems in Fort Greely, Alaska
and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

Anti-missile systems have their limitations though.

Klingner remarked that “certainly, there is that possibility” that a
nuclear-armed ballistic missile could slip through allied defenses,
especially given that most regional missile defense systems have never been
tested in actual battle conditions.

“Missile defenses help reduce the threat, but they can’t eliminate it,”
Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program in the
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute
of International Studies at Monterey, commented.

In the simplest of terms, missile defense involves hitting a bullet with
another bullet, which is no easy task.

“Missile defense systems will never provide 100 percent effectiveness … The
addition of THAAD does not guarantee the protection of Seoul, but it does
add another piece to the constantly changing puzzle of defense,” Rodger
Baker, Vice President of Strategic Analysis at Stratfor, a geopolitical
intelligence platform, told TheDCNF.

North Korea is rapidly developing the capabilities necessary to skirt allied
ballistic missile defense systems.

“North Korea can probably build missiles (especially ER Scuds) faster and
more cheaply than we can build and deploy defenses,” Lewis noted. In recent
weapons tests and military drills, North Korea has practiced firing off
multiple missiles in rapid succession or simultaneously to overwhelm enemy
missile defense systems.

“This is a tactic called ‘salvo fire,’ which is designed to place greater
stress on all types of ballistic missile defenses. I don’t know how many
simultaneous attacks it would take to ‘saturate’ the battle-management
systems in use today by the U.S., South Korean, or Japanese militaries, but
the North Koreans seem determined to refine their salvo capabilities,”
Joshua Pollack, editor of The Nonproliferation Review and senior research
associate in the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the
Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, told TheDCNF.
“Even if it didn’t succeed in saturating the defenses, it would at least
more rapidly deplete the defense, which has a limited number of shots.”

“Enough simultaneous launches could overwhelm the THAAD system and increase
the risk of a nuclear-armed ballistic missile reaching its target in South
Korea,” Kelsey Davenport, director of Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms
Control Institute, told TheDCNF after North Korea launched three missiles at
the same time last September.

The simultaneous launch of multiple missiles is “basic missile defense
countermeasure,” Lewis told CNN. “One THAAD battery is not enough. We need
at least two, if not many more,” he told TheDCNF.

“The good news is that if defenses hold up against the first salvo, it’s
much easier to locate mobile missiles after they fire than before,” Pollack
explained, adding, “Ballistic missiles are very hot and bright upon launch,
so the point of origin can be detected by satellites very rapidly. Perhaps
the empty North Korean missile launch vehicles could be hunted down before
they have the chance to reload,” but there is no guarantee:
http://cnn.it/2tmtX38

What Would Be The Post-Launch Reaction?

Many people assume that in the event that North Korea carried out a nuclear
strike, successful or not, the U.S. would use nuclear weapons to turn the
North into a crater.

If they use a nuclear weapon, do we want to pave Pyongyang and kill a
million citizens? If the intent is to take out the leadership and that can
be done with precision guided munitions, is it in global interests to use
nuclear weapons? The answer is unclear.

“U.S. nuclear strategy is evolving away from an automatic ‘they use nukes,
we use nukes, we take out every city they have’ response,” Klingner told
TheDCNF, adding that if North Korea launches a nuclear strike, “it may not
be an automatic nuclear response if we can accomplish our objectives through
other means.”

The decision to use nuclear weapons to retaliate against North Korea would
be a political decision, one likely based on the resulting public outcry, as
well as the target and whether the attack was successful or not.

“The United States maintains and updates numerous scenarios for potential
military contingencies, and ones regarding North Korea are frequently
reviewed,” Baker told TheDCNF, “A limited North Korean action may initially
engender a large U.S. military buildup and emergency action in the United
Nations, but full military intervention would not likely be far behind.”

Once war breaks out, the situation quickly becomes much more complicated.
The U.S. and its allies have the advantage, but any war on the peninsula
would almost certainly be a high-casualty conflict.

While South Korea and Japan have their own armed forces, they would still be
largely reliant on the U.S. for defense in the event of a serious crisis.
South Korea does, however, have an independent strategy known as the Korea
Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR) plan, the third phase of the
country’s three-stage defense.

The KMPR plan involves using special forces to cripple North Korean assets
and eliminate the leadership. The South would also mobilize its missile and
artillery forces: https://goo.gl/1S7LwL

South Korea’s KMPR plan focuses on the complete annihilation of certain
essential pockets of Pyongyang.

“The North’s capital city will be reduced to ashes and removed from the
map,” an unnamed defense official revealed to The Korea Times, “Every
Pyongyang district, particularly where the North Korean leadership is
possibly hidden, will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and
high-explosive shells.” https://goo.gl/D9MCft

Japan is considering developing defensive, counter-attack capabilities, but
those discussions are still in the early phases.

Relying on conventional weapons alone, North Korea is unlikely to survive a
protracted military conflict, but this is where multiple weapons of mass
destruction come into play.

“North Korea could potentially cause massive damage to Seoul and its
surrounding areas” in a conflict, Dr. Bruce Bennett, a senior defense
researcher at the RAND Corporation, previously told TheDCNF. “If North Korea
restrains itself and only employs conventional weapons in an assault on
South Korea, it is unlikely to overwhelm South Korea’s defenses. But if it
uses weapons of mass destruction and other asymmetric approaches, the North
may be able to overcome South Korean defenses — there are always large
uncertainties in any war.”

“I’m confident of the outcome of that war, which would be the defeat of
North Korea,” former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told ABC reporters, “I
need to caution you … This is a war that would have an intensity of violence
associated with it that we haven’t seen since the last Korean War. Seoul is
right there on the borders of the DMZ, so even though the outcome is
certain, it is a very destructive war.” http://bit.ly/2sM0pxh

Who Would North Korea Bomb?

The North regularly threatens nuclear war against the U.S., which is
perceived in Pyongyang as the greatest threat to the country’s long-term
survival. It is unlikely, however, that North Korea has developed the
long-range missile technology required to strike the continental U.S.

Still, the North is working tirelessly to develop a reliable, nuclear-armed
intercontinental ballistic missile and may be there in a matter of years.

“There is a real possibility that North Korea will be able to hit the U.S.
with a nuclear-armed missile by the end of the first Trump term,” K.T.
McFarland, the deputy White House national security adviser, previously
remarked.

“We don’t know where they are on the path, but we know what path they are
on,” Klingner told TheDCNF.

North Korea has launched satellites using Taepodong-style rockets, which
could potentially serve as the technological foundation for an ICBM. The
country has developed improved rocket engines that are better than most
experts previously suspected. Also, the North appears to be working on two
road-mobile ICBMs, the KN-08 and KN-14.

But, while the North has made clear progress, they have not yet demonstrated
re-entry vehicle capability, and they are still developing a suitable
nuclear warhead.

Were North Korea to launch a nuclear-armed missile at a foreign enemy, the
two countries most likely to find themselves in the cross hairs are South
Korea and Japan, collectively home to roughly 180 million people and around
75,000 U.S. troops. In the event that North Korea decided to fire on either
of these two countries, a decision which the North would not take lightly,
the Korean People’s Army could strike military bases and strategic assets,
densely-populated civilian targets, or both.

Particularly disconcerting is that “the North Koreans say both,” Lewis
explained to TheDCNF. “They hope the shock will cause us to recoil, and if
it does not, they hope the damage slows us down.”

Several years ago, Pyongyang vowed that Tokyo would be “consumed in nuclear
flames,” and early last year, the North threatened to turn Seoul into a “sea
of flames.” Such threats are extremely common.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-usa-military-idUKKBN0H500L20140910

At the same time, North Korea has threatened, and even trained, to strike
strategic assets, major ports, and critical military bases.

Days after the U.S. and South Korea announced plans to deploy a Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile shield on South Korean soil, the
North said it would turn Seongju, the deployment site, into a “sea of fire
and a pile of ashes.” http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201607110028.html

When U.S. troops conduct joint military drills with allies for a possible
conflict on the Korean peninsula, North Korea often drills as well,
typically for a conventional or nuclear strike on allied troops, weapons,
and defense systems.

During last year’s Foal Eagle drills, annual joint military exercises
between the U.S. and South Korea for a contingency on the peninsula, North
Korea launchedtwo short-range missiles into waters off its east coast. “If
we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies even right now, all bases of
provocations will be reduced to seas in flames and ashes,” the North’s
state-run Korean Central News Agency reported at the time. Images of the
maps from the launch and open source analysis indicate that the Korean
People’s Army was rehearsing an attack on the port of Busan, where the USS
Ohio, a nuclear-powered submarine, had just arrived for a port call.
http://www.reuters.com/article/northkorea-missiles-idUSKCN0WB2SN
http://tinyurl.com/ydbwprxj

North Korea fired four extended-range scuds into the Sea of Japan during
this year’s drills. KCNA reported that the artillerymen of the KPA were
“tasked to strike the bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in
Japan.”

Open-source analysis of the maps shown in the North Korean propaganda videos
following the launch suggested that North Korea was simulating a nuclear
attack on U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan, where the only
forward-deployed squadron of Marine Corps F-35s is stationed.
http://tinyurl.com/ya5tzec7

“The U.S. and South Korea are practicing invading North Korea. North Korea
is practicing nuking those forces,” Lewis previously told TheDCNF, noting a
distinct change in North Korean missile launches.
http://tinyurl.com/ybqntcn3

Weapons reliability, as well as possible reunification goals, could impact
North Korea’s choice of target.

“North Korean missiles, while improved, are still not all that accurate.
Thus, while Pyongyang may prefer to target U.S. military facilities in Japan
with its limited nuclear arsenal, it may also choose to fire some missiles
toward large population centers in an attempt to rapidly shift the political
cost of conflict,” Baker told TheDCNF. “Pyongyang is less likely to use its
nuclear arsenal in strikes on South Korea, but may use chemical weapons to
disrupt and slow any U.S. advance,” he further commented.

Why Would North Korea Launch A Nuclear Missile?

North Korea believes that nuclear bombs are the only things that can
guarantee the country’s survival.

North Korea asserts that it fears nothing and will obliterate the U.S. and
its allies with its “treasured nuclear sword,” yet the reality is that
Pyongyang is deeply concerned that it may one day cease to exist, that it
will be destroyed by the U.S. and its strategic partners. As its future is
perpetually uncertain, the North believes that the only viable long-term
security option is the development of nuclear weaponry.
http://tinyurl.com/y966kpdg
http://bit.ly/2symzyQ

Kim Jong-un’s fears are major factors in whether or not North Korea decides
to launch a nuclear strike against another country. “I think that Kim
Jong-un will press the button if his rule and his dynasty are threatened,”
Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean official who defected last year,
explained. “He may do anything.” http://tinyurl.com/y8sf2alb

“Putting this in a North Korean perspective, they see themselves as facing
the world’s largest single military and nuclear power in a potential
conflict. The pursuit of nuclear weapons, then, is intended as a deterrent,
to counter their weaker military position,” Baker explained.

North Korea’s primary aspiration is “to stop a buildup of U.S. forces around
them and protect North Korea from the fate of Iraq,” Pollack told TheDCNF.
The aim is primarily nuclear deterrence.

Were North Korea to use a nuclear weapon, it would most likely be in the
event of a conflict, if a conflict appeared imminent, or if some external
factor posed an immediate threat to the country’s survival. How each side
perceives these conditions varies, making it difficult to determine which
actions might push the Pyongyang over the edge.

“It is not clear, for example, if they consider a limited strike against
their nuclear or missile facilities as an imminent threat, or if they would
initially respond with conventional systems,” Baker explained, “Though given
the military disparity, even a limited strike could be seen as the beginning
of a more concerned military effort, leaving the North needing to use its
WMDs quickly or risk having its capability knocked out.”

Despite North Korean threats, the probability that North Korea would choose
to launch a nuclear strike is relatively low, but at the end of the day, Kim
Jong-un, while not irrational or crazy as some suspect, is very much a
two-dimensional thinker who might decide to do the unthinkable if push came
to shove.

The North Korean nuclear threat is one that has puzzled world leaders for
decades, and the North’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and nuclear weaponry
is growing with each passing day. “There are, at the moment, no constraints
that would prevent North Korea from expanding its arsenal,” Lewis explained,
“We might not like the North Koreans, but they’ve pretty much found a way to
make sure we have to deal with them.”

http://www.5z8.info/startdownload_t6l5qw_worm

[lo yeeOn]

To accuse NK's leadership as
"while not irrational or crazy as some suspect, is very much a
two-dimensional thinker who might decide to do the unthinkable if
push came to shove..."

is a clear indication that the narrative from Washington against NK is
deeply biased and even malicious --- and as such most dangerous!

What does it mean "if push came to shove"?

So, NK keeps testing its missile technology and upgrading its defense
capabilities, that is for us to say we have been pushed and shoved?

China has gone through these tests to bring itself into the nuclear
power club under the communists. We let it because there was no
viable alternative otherwise. (As I point out below, only the US has
launched nukes --- and got away with it too.)

As I began my original post with a simple question-and-answer, I cited
Hyun Lee, a member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War and
a South Korean, concerning whether NK would make the first move in
starting a war with anyone. Hyun Lee's answer was succinct:

"Washington doesn't truly believe that".

To the countrary, US presidents have frequently declare that they
would keep all options on the table, including a first strike, a
nuclear strike, a decapitation strike, or anything they haven't yet
let us know.

The G.W. Bush administration has scuttled the Korean's Sunshine policy
and declared NK a part of his "Axis Of Evil" which included also Iraq
and Iran. Bush and or his officials repeatedly said that all options,
including a first (military) strike, were "on the table".

The Obama administration followed the same pattern. The appended
article below from 2014 reported that Obama's Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta threated N Korea with a "first strike".

Trump's administration followed the same idiotic rhetoric.

The US government has been the real aggressor in this confrontation
and the US government has a history of doing all those evil things
they have threatened to do to NK in other circumstances.

The US government was the first and only government to launch a
nuclear strike against another country - killing hundreds of poor
defenseless Japanese civilians overnight and millions endured lifelong
radioactive sickness. Nobody ever dared to sue us. Isn't it great to
be the world's most militarily powerful country? (Not really. I
believe that such a cocky and we-could-care-less attitude is the
genesis of "they hate our freedom" and terrorism against countries in
the West.)

The US government launched its first military strike against Iraq ---
based on false pretenses plus many years of heavy demonization against
the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein and his Baathist followers.

The US government has attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro, and other
heads of sovereign countries.

The US government has launched so many first strikes against so many
countries, from Somalia to Libya to Yemen to Afghanistan. How can we
not understand the nervousness of those governments the US government
has repeatedly demonized? Demonization is always the first salvo of
Washington's unquenched thirst for more bloody war.

Accusing NK's leaders as two-dimensional thinkers is such a dishonest
piece of propaganda because there is no evidence that they are and we
do not give them any room to manuever. All we give them is an
existential issue to focus on. We're boxing their options into a
single-minded existential one! Isn't it fantastic?

What my original post's message is precisely this:

"Washington doesn't really believe that" NK would make the first
military strike on any country, nuclear or conventional!

Therefore, if the American people can liberate ourselves from that
sub-3-d thinking, or narrative, Washington has imposed on us, then it
will have no choice but stop threatening others and start rebuilding
America by withdrawing US troops from the Korea peninsula and sign a
peace treaty with the North Korea.

It will save us a lot of money in the long term and save us a lot of
worry.

Why don't we give that a serious try?

What do we have to lose?

Why do we have to cause millions on the Korean peninsula to suffer the
horrible fate that Washington has made the defenseless people in the
Middle East, Afghanistan and now also Africa to suffer because the
Washington warmongers' have an unquenchable thirst for regime change?

It is so easy for the US propaganda to talk about our defense, as if
it truly care about the people. Yet it is Washington which is holding
all the cards but has stubbornly refused to use it and be an earnest
to goodness peacemaker, like all Christians should!

[If Washington truly cares about the people, it would have afforded us
national healthcare, regardless of our income. If Washington truly
cares about the people, it would not risk casualties to the American
soldiers sent there to be sitting ducks on the 38th parallel. If
Washington truly cares about the people, it would not risk creating
millions of Koreans refugees that we will have to surely absorbed.
Washington's claim of defense is not believable. It just wants to
start a war like it gave us a big whopper about Iraq's threat to US
major cities. If the people trust Washington even in this day and
age, we are doomed.]

That Washington's propaganda does not hold water shows because the
South Koreans are broadly protesting the installation of the THAAD
system the Obama administration railroaded into Seoul - even agreeing
to foot the very expensive one-plus billion annual expenses in order
to operate it, all at the American taxpayers' expenses, of course. It
shows because the South Koreans are not that worried about their
northern neighbors whom we tirelessly demonize. It shows because they
even overwhelmingly elected a president who wants no THAAD system in
his country and who wants to talk with his northern counterpart. It
shows because NK's two closest neighbors in China and Russia aren't
worried about NK's defense buildup enough to want to follow Nikki
Haley around and sing her tune in the UN. They both know that the
real aggressor is the United States! It might be hard for a proud
American to take. But the US is the real aggressor in the so-called
NK problem.

lo yeeOn

Subject: Is former CIA director Leon Panetta's "powerful sense that
war on [the Korean peninsula] was neither hypothetical nor remote" an
indication of "[t]ypical wooden-headedness on the part of a US
official" or something more systemic?

Is Panetta's "powerful sense that war [on the Korean peninsula] was
neither hypothetical nor remote" an indication of "[t]ypical
wooden-headedness on the part of a US official" (as a former top CIA
expert on Korea put it) or something more systemic?

When I say systemic, I am referring to the typical wooden-headedness
that is inherent with the way US foreign policies are set that can
adversely impact the lives of millions of innocent people in the world
for centuries to come.

The latter proposition has been expounded in great detail, using
historical evidence from the past three quarters century, by Kevin
Zeese and Margaret Flowers in the article entitled

"North Korea and the United States: Will the Real Aggressor Please
Stand Down?" (attached below)

One explanation that has a strong logical foundation for North Korea's
dictatorship to survive the length it has is the huge number of North
Koreans that were killed because of our geopolitical agenda with China
and the former USSR (and now Russia) that continues to effectively
remind those who are living today that disaster would befall upon them
as it befell upon their forebears, if they didn't stick together to
defend themselves against the foreign threats they believe to be
genuine.

So, a dictatorship relies on, among other things, propaganda to
survive, and we are providing plenty of it when our foreign policy
continues that of a divided Korea. Even the former top CIA expert on
the Korean affairs is telling us in no uncertain terms that Washington
is frightening even the South Koreans to death due to its lack of
concern for the lives of Koreans, from the north or the south. Many
North Koreans are still close relatives of those who live in the
south. And many South Koreans would rather have a unified Korea than
tens of thousands of US troops on their soil. Yet they are not free
to choose, because if Washington wants something, it gets it, by hook
or by crook.

Zeese et al wrote:

[The] historical context results in North Korea taking the threats
of the United States very seriously. It knows the US has been
willing to kill large portions of its population throughout history
and has seen what the US has done to other countries.

In 2002, President George W. Bush labeled North Korea part of the
"axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran. S. Brian Willson traveled
900 ground miles through six of North Korea's nine provinces, as
well as Pyongyang, the capital, and several other cities, talking
with dozens of people from all walks of life; all wanted to know
about the "axis of evil" speech. He found that North Koreans
"simply cannot understand why the US is so obsessed with them."

Of course, the North Korean government witnessed the "shock and awe"
campaign of bombardments against Iraq and the killing of at least
hundreds of thousands

Should we have to be reminded of the hundreds of thousands of innocent
victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who lived and died not far from the
homeland of the Koreans, north or south?

Did these victims of our atom bombs offend us Americans in any way
that could ever justify their horrible and painful deaths?

So, who are the monsters? Comparing George W Bush and his cabal and
the Kims and their henchmen, the choice is clear, if it is a binary
forced choice kind of answer you're asked to provide.

lo yeeOn

Panetta reveals US nuke strike plans on N. Korea, spurs controversy
Published time: October 16, 2014 04:41

http://rt.com/news/196360-panetta-memoir-north-korea/

US war plans against North Korea recently included the option of a
nuclear strike, former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
revealed in his memoirs, triggering major controversy.

READ MORE: The Kim is Back: North Korean leader makes first public
appearance in a month

Panetta described a 2010 briefing in Seoul by General Walter L. `Skip'
Sharp, the commander of US forces in South Korea, where it was made
clear that the nuclear option was on the table if North Korean forces
crossed into the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the North and the
South.

"If North Korea moved across the border, our war plans called for the
senior American general on the peninsula to take command of all US and
South Korea forces and defend South Korea - including by the use of
nuclear weapons, if necessary," Panetta wrote in `Worthy Fights: A
Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace'.

Panetta added that he left the briefing with "the powerful sense that
war in that region was neither hypothetical nor remote".

Panetta's revelations sparked various reactions: ranging from surprise
to indignation.

"Typical wooden-headedness on the part of a US official," a former top
CIA expert on Korea told Newsweek. "How in the world do we think
South Koreans will react to the news that the US is prepared to use
nuclear weapons on the peninsula? It doesn't reassure them, only makes
them think having the US bull in their china shop is maybe not such a
good idea."

Others said Panetta did not write anything unexpected. A "Joint
Vision" statement signed between US-South Korea in 2009 "references
extended deterrence to include the nuclear umbrella ... in many
respects, the information is not new," Korea expert at the Naval War
College Terence Roehrig said. "The United States has long had a
position that South Korea was under the US nuclear umbrella."

The US sent over tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula in
1958, but their deployment was only revealed in mid-1970s.

The Korean War took place in 1950-1953, with no peace deal ever signed
between North and South Korea. Thus the two countries remain
technically at war.

. . .

-----

North Korea and the United States: Will the Real Aggressor Please
Stand Down?

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, March 05, 2013

http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/03/05/north-korea-and-the-united-states-will-the-real-aggressor-please-stand-down/

Near the end of World War II, as Japan was weakened, Korean "People's
Committees" formed all over the country and Korean exiles returned
from China, the US and Russia to prepare for independence and
democratic rule. On September 6, 1945, these disparate forces and
representatives of the people's committees proclaimed a Korean
People's Republic (the KPR) with a progressive agenda of land reform,
rent control, an eight-hour work day and minimum wage among its
27-point program.

But the KPR was prevented from becoming a reality. Instead, after
World War II and without Korean representation, the US quite
arbitrarily decided with Russia, China and England, to divide Korea
into two nations "temporarily" as part of its decolonization. The
powers agreed that Japan should lose all of its colonies and that in
"due course" Korea would be free. Korea was divided on the 38th
parallel. The US made sure to keep the capital, Seoul, and key ports.
Essentially, the US took as much of Korea as it thought the Russians
would allow. This division planted the seeds of the Korean War,
causing a five-year revolution and counter-revolution that escalated
into the Korean War.

Initially, the South Koreans welcomed the United States, but US
Gen. John Hodge, the military governor of South Korea working under
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, quickly brought Koreans who had cooperated
with the Japanese during occupation into the government and shut out
Koreans seeking democracy. He refused to meet with representatives of
the KPR and banned the party, working instead with the right wing
Korean Democratic Party - made up of landlords, land owners, business
interests and pro-Japanese collaborators.

Shut out of politics, Koreans who sought an independent democratic
state took to other methods and a mass uprising occurred. A strike
against the railroads in September 1946 by 8,000 railway workers in
Pusan quickly grew into a general strike of workers and students in
all of the South's major cities. The US military arrested strike
leaders en masse. In Taegu, on Oct. 1, huge riots occurred after
police smashed picket lines and fired into a crowd of student
demonstrators, killing three and wounding scores. In Yongchon, on
Oct. 3, 10,000 people attacked the police station and killed more than
40 police, including the county chief. Some 20 landlords and
pro-Japanese officials were also killed. A few days later, the US
military declared martial law to crush the uprising. They fired into
large crowds of demonstrators in numerous cities and towns, killing
and wounding an unknown number of people.

Syngman Rhee, an exile who had lived in the US for 40 years, was
returned to Korea on MacArthur's personal plane. He initially allied
with left leaders to form a government approved of by the US. Then in
1947, he dispensed with his "left" allies by assassinating their
leaders, Kim Ku and Kim Kyu-Shik. Rhee consolidated power and the US
pushed for United Nations-sponsored elections in May 1948 to put a
legal imprimatur on the divided Koreas. Rhee was elected at 71 years
old in an election boycotted by most parties who saw it as sham. He
came to power in the midst of an insurgency.

On Jeju Island, the largest Korean island lying in a strategic
location in the Korea Strait, there continued to be protests against
the US military government. It was one of the last areas where
people's committees continued to exist. Gen. Hodge told Congress Jeju
was a truly communal area that is peacefully controlled by the
People's Committee," but he organized its extermination in a
scorched-earth attack.

In September, Rhee's new government launched a massive
counterinsurgency operation under US command. S. Brian Willson
reports it resulted in the killing of "60,000 Islanders, with another
40,000 desperately fleeing in boats to Japan. Thus, one-third of its
residents were either murdered or fled during the 'extermination'
campaign. Nearly 40,000 homes were destroyed and 270 of 400 villages
were leveled." It was an ugly attack, Iggy Kim notes: "Torture,
mutilation, gang rape and arbitrary execution were rife. . . a quarter
of the Jeju population had been massacred. The US embassy happily
reported: "The all-out guerilla extermination campaign came to a
virtual end in April with order restored and most rebels and
sympathizers killed, captured, or converted.'" This was the single
greatest masssacre in modern Korean history and a warning of what was
to come in the Korean War. As we will se, Jeju is part of the story
in Today's US asian escalation.

More brutality occurred on mainland Korea. On October 19, dissident
soldiers in the port city of Yosu rose up in opposition to the war in
Jeju. About 2,000 insurgent soldiers took control of the city. By
Oct. 20, a number of nearby towns had also been liberated and the
People's Committee was reinstated as the governing body. People's
courts were established to try police officers, landlords, regime
officials and other supporters of the Rhee dictatorship. This
rebellion was suppressed by a bloodletting, planned and directed by
the US military.

The Korean War followed. S. Brian Willson summarizes the war:

"The Korean War that lasted from June 1950 to July 1953 was an
enlargement of the 1948-50 struggle of Jeju Islanders to preserve
their self-determination from the tyrannical rule of US-supported
Rhee and his tiny cadre of wealthy constituents. Little known is
that the US-imposed division of Korea in 1945 against the wishes of
the vast majority of Koreans was the primary cause of the Korean War
that broke out five years later. The War destroyed by bombing most
cities and villages in Korea north of the 38th Parallel, and many
south of it, while killing four million Koreans - three million
(one-third) of the north's residents and one million of those living
in the south, in addition to killing one million Chinese. This was a
staggering international crime still unrecognized that killed five
million people and permanently separated 10 million Korean families."

Bragging about the massacre, USAF Strategic Air Command head General
Curtis LeMay, who blanket-bombed Japan in World War II and later ran
for vice president with segregationist George Wallace, summed it up
well, "Over a period of three years or so we killed off - what -
twenty percent of the population." Willson corrects LeMay, writing
"it is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th
Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8-9 million people
during the 37-month long "hot" war, 1950-1953, perhaps an
unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to
belligerence of another.

Context Today: Korea Targeted, Mock Attacks, Learning from Iraq and
Libya and the Asia Pivot

This historical context results in North Korea taking the threats of
the United States very seriously. It knows the US has been willing to
kill large portions of its population throughout history and has seen
what the US has done to other countries.

In 2002, President George W. Bush labeled North Korea part of the
"axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran. S. Brian Willson traveled
900 ground miles through six of North Korea's nine provinces, as well
as Pyongyang, the capital, and several other cities, talking with
dozens of people from all walks of life; all wanted to know about the
"axis of evil" speech. He found that North Koreans "simply cannot
understand why the US is so obsessed with them."

Of course, the North Korean government witnessed the "shock and awe"
campaign of bombardments against Iraq and the killing of at least
hundreds of thousands (credible research shows more than 1 million
Iraqis killed, 4.5 million displaced, 1-2 million widows and 5 million
orphans). They saw the brutal killing by hanging of the former US
ally, now turned into an enemy, Saddam Hussein. And, they can look to
the experience of Libya. Libya was an enemy but then began to develop
positive relations with the US. In 2003, Libya halted its program to
build a nuclear bomb in an effort to mend its relations with the US.
Then last year Libya was overthrown in a US-supported war and its
leader Moammar Gadhafi was brutally killed. As Reuters reports, "`The
tragic consequences in those countries which abandoned halfway their
nuclear programs... clearly prove that the DPRK (Democratic People's
Republic of Korea) was very far-sighted and just when it made the
(nuclear) option," North Korea's KCNA news agency said."

The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea. In November
2012 the US upgraded its weapons systems and announced an agreement
with Japan that would allow South Korea to bomb anywhere in North
Korea. In June 2012 the Pentagon announced that Gen.l Neil H. Tolley
would be removed as commander of US Special Operations in South Korea
after he revealed to a Japanese foreign affairs publication that
American and South Korean troops had been parachuting into North Korea
on spy missions. US troops and bases are not popular. Protests
erupted in 2002 after two Korean woman were killed and a court martial
found the US soldiers not guilty of negligent manslaughter. Several
pubs and restaurants put up signs saying "Americans Not Welcome Here."
In an August 2005 protest against US troops by 1,100 people, 10 were
injured by police. One month before that, 100 were injured in a
protest. In 2006 protesters occupied land on which the US planned to
expand a base, resulting in a conflict and their eviction followed by
installing barbed wire around the area to protect it from South
Koreans. The South Korean government banned a rally that was expected
to draw more than 10,000 protesters.

South Korea and the US regularly hold military exercises off the
Korean coast, which North Korea describes as planning for an
invasion. The United States claims these exercises are defensive in
nature to assure preparedness. Prior to the recent nuclear test,
Seoul and Washington conducted a joint naval exercise with a US
nuclear submarine off South Korea's east coast, followed by a joint
air force drill as well as live weapon exercises near a disputed sea
boundary between North and South Korea. These drills have gotten more
aggressive during the Obama administration and since the death of Kim
Jong-il, as outlined by geopolitical analyst Jen Alic here:

The first joint military exercises between the US and South Korea
since Kim Jong-il's death suddenly changed their nature, with new
war games including pre-emptive artillery attacks on North Korea.

. . .

Post by Byker

Post by lo yeeOn
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/395334-north-korea-icbm-us/
The most sensible path, at this point, is for the US to end the Korean
War, sign a peace treaty with North Korea, and withdraw its troops from
the Korean peninsula, Hyun Lee, a member of the National Campaign to End
the Korean War, told RT.

What Would Happen If Kim Jong-Un Launched A Nuclear Strike?
RYAN PICKRELL
6:24 PM 04/14/2017
Dozens upon dozens of missiles take flight.
For years, the world had heard warnings, but most doubted the day would ever
come. Most missiles fall before allied defenses, but one finds its mark
— it’s
the one that matters most. In a flash, hundreds of thousands, if not
millions of people perish.
Would North Korea fire off a nuclear weapon? No one knows for certain, but
what we do know is that the above scenario is exactly what an aggressive and
increasingly-powerful North Korea has been threatening for decades. While
the reclusive regime may have previously lacked the necessary weaponry, the
North now has the kind of capabilities to turn at least some of its threats
into promises.
The U.S. and its East Asian allies have strategic defense assets in
position, but war is full of uncertainties. “People think missile defenses
are a magic wand. They aren’t,” Jeffrey Lewis, a renowned arms expert, told
The Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF).
Here’s what happens if the North pulls the trigger.
What Would Happen If A Launch Appeared Imminent?
The U.S. and its allies in the region are by no means unprepared for a North
Korean nuclear attack.
The U.S. and South Korea both have preemptive strike plans for a situation
in which a North Korean nuclear attack appears imminent, and while Japan is
considering new options, it still relies heavily on U.S. defense.
South Korea has a three-stage defense system, the first stage of which is a
preemptive strike option designed to eliminate the North’s offensive
capabilities. The “Kill Chain” preemptive strike system detects signs of an
impending nuclear missile launch and strikes the North’s nuclear weapons
sites and missile bases with cruise missiles and other weaponry.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2016/11/205_217259.html
The U.S. and South Korea also have a joint response plan, Operations Plan
(OPLAN) 5015.
While the specifics for OPLAN 5015 are classified, the plan is believed to
consolidate previous contingency plans, specifically OPLAN 5029 (internal
instability in North Korea), OPLAN 5027 (preparations for an all-out war),
and a peacetime plan involving localized provocations from North Korea.
OPLAN 5015 is suspected to call for preemptive strikes on the North’s
essential military facilities and weapons, and possibly North Korean
leadership. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/oplan-5015.htm
In the event that a nuclear missile strike appeared imminent, allied forces
might attempt to eliminate the North’s missiles at launch. Mike Mullen, the
former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last year that the U.S.
could move to “take out launch capabilities on the launchpad” if North Korea
http://tinyurl.com/yazjck97
The U.S. and South Korea regularly train for such contingencies. For
example, during the annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises, U.S. and
South Korean troops practice a “4D” operational plan which involves
preemptive military options to detect, disrupt, destroy, and defend against
North Korean strikes. The focus is precision strikes on the enemy’s core
military facilities and weapons systems: http://tinyurl.com/juq3glq
The challenge is that more and more of North Korea’s missiles are on mobile
launchers and scattered about the country. Furthermore, the Korean People’s
Army (KPA) has started using solid-fueled missiles, which require
significantly less preparation time as they can be fueled in advance and
need only a limited crew. Solid-fueled missiles can be fired with less
warning and are much harder to track, making them less vulnerable to
preemptive strikes: http://tinyurl.com/y9vpvv5r
Another issue is that preemptive strikes on North Korea would be much harder
to justify diplomatically, especially if war breaks out in the aftermath,
which is practically guaranteed.
What If The Nukes Are Already In The Air?
If a North Korean missile makes it into the air, there are plans for that
situation as well.
South Korea and Japan rely on tiered missile defense.
Stage two of South Korea’s three-stage defense system is the Korea Air and
Missile Defense (KAMD) system, which is designed to intercept incoming
missiles. The U.S. is bolstering South Korean defense through the deployment
of a THAAD battery to South Korea, a process that began after North Korea
fired four missiles into the Sea of Japan a few weeks ago.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39188826
THAAD’s Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance (AN/TYP-2) X-band radar
can be configured to one of two settings: forward-base mode and terminal
mode. In the latter, the radar has a range of several hundred miles and can
facilitate the elimination of missiles in the terminal phase of flight. In
the former, the radar’s range is extended, making it possible for THAAD to
http://tinyurl.com/ya3929hd
To ease China’s concerns about the radar’s ability to peer into its
territory, the U.S. has agreed to configure THAAD in terminal mode. China
continues to express opposition to the deployment.
THAAD is an important step for South Korean missile defense.
“THAAD is better than anything South Korea has or will have for decades,”
Bruce Klingner, who specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior
research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, told TheDCNF,
“It is imperative that we deploy it to augment the defense of Korea and the
U.S. forces deployed there.”
A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched during
a successful intercept test, in this undated handout photo provided by the
U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency. THAAD provides the U.S.
military a land-based, mobile capability to defend against short- and
medium-range ballistic missiles, intercepting incoming missiles inside and
outside the earth’s atmosphere. REUTERS/U.S. Department of Defense,
There are also a number of Aegis destroyers operating in the waters off of
South Korea. The U.S. has several in the region; Japan has six, and South
Korea has three. The Aegis ballistic missile system can track multiple
http://bit.ly/2tmS4P8
There are certain gaps in South Korea’s defense though. For starters, South
Korea’s KAMD is not incorporated into the broader allied defense system,
thus weakening its overall effectiveness. Also, the South is particularly
vulnerable to submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which the North
successfully tested last year.
Japan is much more “forward leaning” in its defense, Klingner notes. Japan
has Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-2 and 3 systems, Aegis destroyers and
SM-3 interceptors, and Japan is considering deploying THAAD and Aegis Ashore
units on Japanese soil to boost national defense.
The U.S. has ground-based midcourse defense systems in Fort Greely, Alaska
and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Anti-missile systems have their limitations though.
Klingner remarked that “certainly, there is that possibility” that a
nuclear-armed ballistic missile could slip through allied defenses,
especially given that most regional missile defense systems have never been
tested in actual battle conditions.
“Missile defenses help reduce the threat, but they can’t eliminate it,”
Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program in the
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute
of International Studies at Monterey, commented.
In the simplest of terms, missile defense involves hitting a bullet with
another bullet, which is no easy task.
“Missile defense systems will never provide 100 percent effectiveness 
 The
addition of THAAD does not guarantee the protection of Seoul, but it does
add another piece to the constantly changing puzzle of defense,” Rodger
Baker, Vice President of Strategic Analysis at Stratfor, a geopolitical
intelligence platform, told TheDCNF.
North Korea is rapidly developing the capabilities necessary to skirt allied
ballistic missile defense systems.
“North Korea can probably build missiles (especially ER Scuds) faster and
more cheaply than we can build and deploy defenses,” Lewis noted. In recent
weapons tests and military drills, North Korea has practiced firing off
multiple missiles in rapid succession or simultaneously to overwhelm enemy
missile defense systems.
“This is a tactic called ‘salvo fire,’ which is designed to place greater
stress on all types of ballistic missile defenses. I don’t know how many
simultaneous attacks it would take to ‘saturate’ the battle-management
systems in use today by the U.S., South Korean, or Japanese militaries, but
the North Koreans seem determined to refine their salvo capabilities,”
Joshua Pollack, editor of The Nonproliferation Review and senior research
associate in the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the
Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, told TheDCNF.
“Even if it didn’t succeed in saturating the defenses, it would at least
more rapidly deplete the defense, which has a limited number of shots.”
“Enough simultaneous launches could overwhelm the THAAD system and increase
the risk of a nuclear-armed ballistic missile reaching its target in South
Korea,” Kelsey Davenport, director of Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms
Control Institute, told TheDCNF after North Korea launched three missiles at
the same time last September.
The simultaneous launch of multiple missiles is “basic missile defense
countermeasure,” Lewis told CNN. “One THAAD battery is not enough. We need
at least two, if not many more,” he told TheDCNF.
“The good news is that if defenses hold up against the first salvo, it’s
much easier to locate mobile missiles after they fire than before,” Pollack
explained, adding, “Ballistic missiles are very hot and bright upon launch,
so the point of origin can be detected by satellites very rapidly. Perhaps
the empty North Korean missile launch vehicles could be hunted down before
http://cnn.it/2tmtX38
What Would Be The Post-Launch Reaction?
Many people assume that in the event that North Korea carried out a nuclear
strike, successful or not, the U.S. would use nuclear weapons to turn the
North into a crater.
If they use a nuclear weapon, do we want to pave Pyongyang and kill a
million citizens? If the intent is to take out the leadership and that can
be done with precision guided munitions, is it in global interests to use
nuclear weapons? The answer is unclear.
“U.S. nuclear strategy is evolving away from an automatic ‘they use nukes,
we use nukes, we take out every city they have’ response,” Klingner told
TheDCNF, adding that if North Korea launches a nuclear strike, “it may not
be an automatic nuclear response if we can accomplish our objectives through
other means.”
The decision to use nuclear weapons to retaliate against North Korea would
be a political decision, one likely based on the resulting public outcry, as
well as the target and whether the attack was successful or not.
“The United States maintains and updates numerous scenarios for potential
military contingencies, and ones regarding North Korea are frequently
reviewed,” Baker told TheDCNF, “A limited North Korean action may initially
engender a large U.S. military buildup and emergency action in the United
Nations, but full military intervention would not likely be far behind.”
Once war breaks out, the situation quickly becomes much more complicated.
The U.S. and its allies have the advantage, but any war on the peninsula
would almost certainly be a high-casualty conflict.
While South Korea and Japan have their own armed forces, they would still be
largely reliant on the U.S. for defense in the event of a serious crisis.
South Korea does, however, have an independent strategy known as the Korea
Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR) plan, the third phase of the
country’s three-stage defense.
The KMPR plan involves using special forces to cripple North Korean assets
and eliminate the leadership. The South would also mobilize its missile and
artillery forces: https://goo.gl/1S7LwL
South Korea’s KMPR plan focuses on the complete annihilation of certain
essential pockets of Pyongyang.
“The North’s capital city will be reduced to ashes and removed from the
map,” an unnamed defense official revealed to The Korea Times, “Every
Pyongyang district, particularly where the North Korean leadership is
possibly hidden, will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and
high-explosive shells.” https://goo.gl/D9MCft
Japan is considering developing defensive, counter-attack capabilities, but
those discussions are still in the early phases.
Relying on conventional weapons alone, North Korea is unlikely to survive a
protracted military conflict, but this is where multiple weapons of mass
destruction come into play.
“North Korea could potentially cause massive damage to Seoul and its
surrounding areas” in a conflict, Dr. Bruce Bennett, a senior defense
researcher at the RAND Corporation, previously told TheDCNF. “If North Korea
restrains itself and only employs conventional weapons in an assault on
South Korea, it is unlikely to overwhelm South Korea’s defenses. But if it
uses weapons of mass destruction and other asymmetric approaches, the North
may be able to overcome South Korean defenses — there are always large
uncertainties in any war.”
“I’m confident of the outcome of that war, which would be the defeat of
North Korea,” former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told ABC reporters, “I
need to caution you 
 This is a war that would have an intensity of violence
associated with it that we haven’t seen since the last Korean War. Seoul is
right there on the borders of the DMZ, so even though the outcome is
certain, it is a very destructive war.” http://bit.ly/2sM0pxh
Who Would North Korea Bomb?
The North regularly threatens nuclear war against the U.S., which is
perceived in Pyongyang as the greatest threat to the country’s long-term
survival. It is unlikely, however, that North Korea has developed the
long-range missile technology required to strike the continental U.S.
Still, the North is working tirelessly to develop a reliable, nuclear-armed
intercontinental ballistic missile and may be there in a matter of years.
“There is a real possibility that North Korea will be able to hit the U.S.
with a nuclear-armed missile by the end of the first Trump term,” K.T.
McFarland, the deputy White House national security adviser, previously
remarked.
“We don’t know where they are on the path, but we know what path they are
on,” Klingner told TheDCNF.
North Korea has launched satellites using Taepodong-style rockets, which
could potentially serve as the technological foundation for an ICBM. The
country has developed improved rocket engines that are better than most
experts previously suspected. Also, the North appears to be working on two
road-mobile ICBMs, the KN-08 and KN-14.
But, while the North has made clear progress, they have not yet demonstrated
re-entry vehicle capability, and they are still developing a suitable
nuclear warhead.
Were North Korea to launch a nuclear-armed missile at a foreign enemy, the
two countries most likely to find themselves in the cross hairs are South
Korea and Japan, collectively home to roughly 180 million people and around
75,000 U.S. troops. In the event that North Korea decided to fire on either
of these two countries, a decision which the North would not take lightly,
the Korean People’s Army could strike military bases and strategic assets,
densely-populated civilian targets, or both.
Particularly disconcerting is that “the North Koreans say both,” Lewis
explained to TheDCNF. “They hope the shock will cause us to recoil, and if
it does not, they hope the damage slows us down.”
Several years ago, Pyongyang vowed that Tokyo would be “consumed in nuclear
flames,” and early last year, the North threatened to turn Seoul into a “sea
of flames.” Such threats are extremely common.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-usa-military-idUKKBN0H500L20140910
http://youtu.be/__-cEbpbLSI
At the same time, North Korea has threatened, and even trained, to strike
strategic assets, major ports, and critical military bases.
Days after the U.S. and South Korea announced plans to deploy a Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile shield on South Korean soil, the
North said it would turn Seongju, the deployment site, into a “sea of fire
and a pile of ashes.” http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201607110028.html
When U.S. troops conduct joint military drills with allies for a possible
conflict on the Korean peninsula, North Korea often drills as well,
typically for a conventional or nuclear strike on allied troops, weapons,
and defense systems.
During last year’s Foal Eagle drills, annual joint military exercises
between the U.S. and South Korea for a contingency on the peninsula, North
Korea launchedtwo short-range missiles into waters off its east coast. “If
we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies even right now, all bases of
provocations will be reduced to seas in flames and ashes,” the North’s
state-run Korean Central News Agency reported at the time. Images of the
maps from the launch and open source analysis indicate that the Korean
People’s Army was rehearsing an attack on the port of Busan, where the USS
Ohio, a nuclear-powered submarine, had just arrived for a port call.
http://www.reuters.com/article/northkorea-missiles-idUSKCN0WB2SN
http://tinyurl.com/ydbwprxj
North Korea fired four extended-range scuds into the Sea of Japan during
this year’s drills. KCNA reported that the artillerymen of the KPA were
“tasked to strike the bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in
Japan.”
Open-source analysis of the maps shown in the North Korean propaganda videos
following the launch suggested that North Korea was simulating a nuclear
attack on U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan, where the only
forward-deployed squadron of Marine Corps F-35s is stationed.
http://tinyurl.com/ya5tzec7
“The U.S. and South Korea are practicing invading North Korea. North Korea
is practicing nuking those forces,” Lewis previously told TheDCNF, noting a
distinct change in North Korean missile launches.
http://tinyurl.com/ybqntcn3
Weapons reliability, as well as possible reunification goals, could impact
North Korea’s choice of target.
“North Korean missiles, while improved, are still not all that accurate.
Thus, while Pyongyang may prefer to target U.S. military facilities in Japan
with its limited nuclear arsenal, it may also choose to fire some missiles
toward large population centers in an attempt to rapidly shift the political
cost of conflict,” Baker told TheDCNF. “Pyongyang is less likely to use its
nuclear arsenal in strikes on South Korea, but may use chemical weapons to
disrupt and slow any U.S. advance,” he further commented.
Why Would North Korea Launch A Nuclear Missile?
North Korea believes that nuclear bombs are the only things that can
guarantee the country’s survival.
North Korea asserts that it fears nothing and will obliterate the U.S. and
its allies with its “treasured nuclear sword,” yet the reality is that
Pyongyang is deeply concerned that it may one day cease to exist, that it
will be destroyed by the U.S. and its strategic partners. As its future is
perpetually uncertain, the North believes that the only viable long-term
security option is the development of nuclear weaponry.
http://tinyurl.com/y966kpdg
http://bit.ly/2symzyQ
Kim Jong-un’s fears are major factors in whether or not North Korea decides
to launch a nuclear strike against another country. “I think that Kim
Jong-un will press the button if his rule and his dynasty are threatened,”
Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean official who defected last year,
explained. “He may do anything.” http://tinyurl.com/y8sf2alb
“Putting this in a North Korean perspective, they see themselves as facing
the world’s largest single military and nuclear power in a potential
conflict. The pursuit of nuclear weapons, then, is intended as a deterrent,
to counter their weaker military position,” Baker explained.
North Korea’s primary aspiration is “to stop a buildup of U.S. forces around
them and protect North Korea from the fate of Iraq,” Pollack told TheDCNF.
The aim is primarily nuclear deterrence.
Were North Korea to use a nuclear weapon, it would most likely be in the
event of a conflict, if a conflict appeared imminent, or if some external
factor posed an immediate threat to the country’s survival. How each side
perceives these conditions varies, making it difficult to determine which
actions might push the Pyongyang over the edge.
“It is not clear, for example, if they consider a limited strike against
their nuclear or missile facilities as an imminent threat, or if they would
initially respond with conventional systems,” Baker explained, “Though given
the military disparity, even a limited strike could be seen as the beginning
of a more concerned military effort, leaving the North needing to use its
WMDs quickly or risk having its capability knocked out.”
Despite North Korean threats, the probability that North Korea would choose
to launch a nuclear strike is relatively low, but at the end of the day, Kim
Jong-un, while not irrational or crazy as some suspect, is very much a
two-dimensional thinker who might decide to do the unthinkable if push came
to shove.
The North Korean nuclear threat is one that has puzzled world leaders for
decades, and the North’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and nuclear weaponry
is growing with each passing day. “There are, at the moment, no constraints
that would prevent North Korea from expanding its arsenal,” Lewis explained,
“We might not like the North Koreans, but they’ve pretty much found a way to
make sure we have to deal with them.”
http://www.5z8.info/startdownload_t6l5qw_worm

[lo yeeOn]

Why should we trust North Korea less than we did China?

(Personally, I believe the Korean people, from the north as well as
the south, are noble people, as they are fully conscious of who they
are --- Korean people, which means "noble people".)

I believe they are honestly pursuing a program of deterrence for
self-preservation. They don't "eat grass" for nothing. They "eat
grass" so that they may live.

To accuse NK's leadership as
"while not irrational or crazy as some suspect, is very much a
two-dimensional thinker who might decide to do the unthinkable if
push came to shove..."

is a clear indication that the narrative from Washington against NK is
deeply biased and even malicious --- and as such most dangerous!

What does it mean "if push came to shove"?

So, NK keeps testing its missile technology and upgrading its defense
capabilities, that is for us to say we have been pushed and shoved?

China has gone through these kinds of tests to bring itself into the
nuclear power club --- under the communists. We let it because there
was no viable alternative otherwise and neither has China ever abused
its awesome power so far. (As I will point out below, only the US has
launched nukes --- and got away with it too.)

As I began my original post with a simple question-and-answer, I cited
Hyun Lee, a member of the National Campaign to End the Korean War and
a South Korean, concerning whether NK would make the first move in
starting a war with anyone. Hyun Lee's answer was succinct:

"Washington doesn't truly believe that".

To the contrary, US presidents have frequently declared that they
would keep all options on the table, including a first strike, a
nuclear strike, a decapitation strike, or anything they haven't yet
let us know.

The G.W. Bush administration has scuttled the Korean's Sunshine policy
and declared NK a part of his "Axis Of Evil" which included also Iraq
and Iran. Bush and or his officials repeatedly said that all options,
including a first (military) strike, were "on the table".

The Obama administration followed the same pattern. The appended
article below from 2014 reported that Obama's Defense Secretary Leon
Panetta threated N Korea with a "first strike".

Trump's administration followed the same idiotic rhetoric.

The US government has been the real aggressor in this confrontation
and the US government has a history of doing all those evil things
they have threatened to do to NK in other circumstances.

The US government was the first and only government to launch a
nuclear strike against another country - killing hundreds of thousands
of poor defenseless Japanese civilians overnight and millions endured
lifelong radioactive sickness or cancer.

And nobody ever dared to sue us. So, isn't it great to be the world's
most militarily powerful country?

Not really. I believe that such a cocky and we-could-care-less
attitude is the genesis of "they hate our freedom" and terrorism
against countries in the West.

The US government launched its first military strike against Iraq ---
based on false pretenses plus many years of heavy demonization against
the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein and his Baathist followers.

The US government has attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro, and other
heads of sovereign countries.

The US government has launched so many first strikes against so many
countries, from Somalia to Libya to Yemen to Afghanistan. How can we
not understand the nervousness of those governments the US government
has repeatedly demonized? Demonization is always the first salvo of
Washington's unquenched thirst for more bloody war.

Accusing NK's leaders of being two-dimensional thinkers is such a
dishonest piece of propaganda because there is no evidence that they
are and we do not give them any room to manuever. All we give them is
an existential issue to focus on. We're boxing their options into a
single-minded existential one! Isn't it fantastic?

What my original post's message is precisely this:

Washington doesn't really believe that NK would make the first
military strike on any country, nuclear or conventional!

Therefore, if the American people can liberate ourselves from that
sub-3-d thinking, or narrative which Washington has imposed on us,
then it will have no choice but stop threatening others and start
rebuilding America by withdrawing US troops from the Korea peninsula
and sign a peace treaty with the North Korea.

It will save us a lot of money in the long term and save us a lot of
worry.

Why don't we give that a serious try?

What do we have to lose?

Why do we have to cause millions on the Korean peninsula to suffer the
same horrible fate that Washington has made the defenseless people in
the Middle East, Afghanistan and now also Africa to suffer because the
Washington warmongers' have an unquenchable thirst for regime change?

It is so easy for the US propaganda to talk about our defense, as if
it truly care about the people. Yet it is Washington which is holding
all the cards but has stubbornly refused to use them and be an earnest
to goodness peacemaker, like all Christians should!

[If Washington truly cared about the people, it should have afforded us
national healthcare, regardless of our income. If Washington truly
cared about the people, it should not risk casualties to the American
soldiers sent there to be sitting ducks on the 38th parallel. If
Washington truly cared about the people, it should not risk creating
millions of Koreans refugees that we will have to surely absorbed.

Washington's claim of defense is not believable. It just wants to
start a war like it gave us a big whopper about Iraq's threat to US
major cities. If the people trust Washington even in this day and
age, we are doomed.]

That Washington's propaganda does not hold water shows because the
South Koreans are broadly protesting the installation of the THAAD
system the Obama administration railroaded into Seoul - even agreeing
to foot the very expensive one-plus billion annual expenses in order
to operate it, all at the American taxpayers' expenses, of course. It
shows because the South Koreans are not that worried about their
northern neighbors whom we tirelessly demonize. It shows because they
even overwhelmingly elected a president who wants no THAAD system in
his country and who wants to talk with his northern counterpart. It
shows because NK's two closest neighbors in China and Russia aren't
worried about NK's defense buildup enough to want to follow Nikki
Haley around and sing her tune in the UN. They both know that the
real aggressor is the United States! It might be hard for a proud
American to take. But the US is the real aggressor in the so-called
NK problem.

lo yeeOn

Subject: Is former CIA director Leon Panetta's "powerful sense that
war on [the Korean peninsula] was neither hypothetical nor remote" an
indication of "[t]ypical wooden-headedness on the part of a US
official" or something more systemic?

Is Panetta's "powerful sense that war [on the Korean peninsula] was
neither hypothetical nor remote" an indication of "[t]ypical
wooden-headedness on the part of a US official" (as a former top CIA
expert on Korea put it) or something more systemic?

When I say systemic, I am referring to the typical wooden-headedness
that is inherent with the way US foreign policies are set that can
adversely impact the lives of millions of innocent people in the world
for centuries to come.

The latter proposition has been expounded in great detail, using
historical evidence from the past three quarters century, by Kevin
Zeese and Margaret Flowers in the article entitled

"North Korea and the United States: Will the Real Aggressor Please
Stand Down?" (attached below)

One explanation that has a strong logical foundation for North Korea's
dictatorship to survive the length it has is the huge number of North
Koreans that were killed because of our geopolitical agenda with China
and the former USSR (and now Russia) that continues to effectively
remind those who are living today that disaster would befall upon them
as it befell upon their forebears, if they didn't stick together to
defend themselves against the foreign threats they believe to be
genuine.

So, a dictatorship relies on, among other things, propaganda to
survive, and we are providing plenty of it when our foreign policy
continues that of a divided Korea. Even the former top CIA expert on
the Korean affairs is telling us in no uncertain terms that Washington
is frightening even the South Koreans to death due to its lack of
concern for the lives of Koreans, from the north or the south. Many
North Koreans are still close relatives of those who live in the
south. And many South Koreans would rather have a unified Korea than
tens of thousands of US troops on their soil. Yet they are not free
to choose, because if Washington wants something, it gets it, by hook
or by crook.

Zeese et al wrote:

[The] historical context results in North Korea taking the threats
of the United States very seriously. It knows the US has been
willing to kill large portions of its population throughout history
and has seen what the US has done to other countries.

In 2002, President George W. Bush labeled North Korea part of the
"axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran. S. Brian Willson traveled
900 ground miles through six of North Korea's nine provinces, as
well as Pyongyang, the capital, and several other cities, talking
with dozens of people from all walks of life; all wanted to know
about the "axis of evil" speech. He found that North Koreans
"simply cannot understand why the US is so obsessed with them."

Of course, the North Korean government witnessed the "shock and awe"
campaign of bombardments against Iraq and the killing of at least
hundreds of thousands

Should we have to be reminded of the hundreds of thousands of innocent
victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who lived and died not far from the
homeland of the Koreans, north or south?

Did these victims of our atom bombs offend us Americans in any way
that could ever justify their horrible and painful deaths?

So, who are the monsters? Comparing George W Bush and his cabal and
the Kims and their henchmen, the choice is clear, if it is a binary
forced choice kind of answer you're asked to provide.

lo yeeOn

Panetta reveals US nuke strike plans on N. Korea, spurs controversy
Published time: October 16, 2014 04:41

http://rt.com/news/196360-panetta-memoir-north-korea/

US war plans against North Korea recently included the option of a
nuclear strike, former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
revealed in his memoirs, triggering major controversy.

READ MORE: The Kim is Back: North Korean leader makes first public
appearance in a month

Panetta described a 2010 briefing in Seoul by General Walter L. `Skip'
Sharp, the commander of US forces in South Korea, where it was made
clear that the nuclear option was on the table if North Korean forces
crossed into the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the North and the
South.

"If North Korea moved across the border, our war plans called for the
senior American general on the peninsula to take command of all US and
South Korea forces and defend South Korea - including by the use of
nuclear weapons, if necessary," Panetta wrote in `Worthy Fights: A
Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace'.

Panetta added that he left the briefing with "the powerful sense that
war in that region was neither hypothetical nor remote".

Panetta's revelations sparked various reactions: ranging from surprise
to indignation.

"Typical wooden-headedness on the part of a US official," a former top
CIA expert on Korea told Newsweek. "How in the world do we think
South Koreans will react to the news that the US is prepared to use
nuclear weapons on the peninsula? It doesn't reassure them, only makes
them think having the US bull in their china shop is maybe not such a
good idea."

Others said Panetta did not write anything unexpected. A "Joint
Vision" statement signed between US-South Korea in 2009 "references
extended deterrence to include the nuclear umbrella ... in many
respects, the information is not new," Korea expert at the Naval War
College Terence Roehrig said. "The United States has long had a
position that South Korea was under the US nuclear umbrella."

The US sent over tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula in
1958, but their deployment was only revealed in mid-1970s.

The Korean War took place in 1950-1953, with no peace deal ever signed
between North and South Korea. Thus the two countries remain
technically at war.

. . .

-----

North Korea and the United States: Will the Real Aggressor Please
Stand Down?

Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, March 05, 2013

http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/03/05/north-korea-and-the-united-states-will-the-real-aggressor-please-stand-down/

Near the end of World War II, as Japan was weakened, Korean "People's
Committees" formed all over the country and Korean exiles returned
from China, the US and Russia to prepare for independence and
democratic rule. On September 6, 1945, these disparate forces and
representatives of the people's committees proclaimed a Korean
People's Republic (the KPR) with a progressive agenda of land reform,
rent control, an eight-hour work day and minimum wage among its
27-point program.

But the KPR was prevented from becoming a reality. Instead, after
World War II and without Korean representation, the US quite
arbitrarily decided with Russia, China and England, to divide Korea
into two nations "temporarily" as part of its decolonization. The
powers agreed that Japan should lose all of its colonies and that in
"due course" Korea would be free. Korea was divided on the 38th
parallel. The US made sure to keep the capital, Seoul, and key ports.
Essentially, the US took as much of Korea as it thought the Russians
would allow. This division planted the seeds of the Korean War,
causing a five-year revolution and counter-revolution that escalated
into the Korean War.

Initially, the South Koreans welcomed the United States, but US
Gen. John Hodge, the military governor of South Korea working under
Gen. Douglas MacArthur, quickly brought Koreans who had cooperated
with the Japanese during occupation into the government and shut out
Koreans seeking democracy. He refused to meet with representatives of
the KPR and banned the party, working instead with the right wing
Korean Democratic Party - made up of landlords, land owners, business
interests and pro-Japanese collaborators.

Shut out of politics, Koreans who sought an independent democratic
state took to other methods and a mass uprising occurred. A strike
against the railroads in September 1946 by 8,000 railway workers in
Pusan quickly grew into a general strike of workers and students in
all of the South's major cities. The US military arrested strike
leaders en masse. In Taegu, on Oct. 1, huge riots occurred after
police smashed picket lines and fired into a crowd of student
demonstrators, killing three and wounding scores. In Yongchon, on
Oct. 3, 10,000 people attacked the police station and killed more than
40 police, including the county chief. Some 20 landlords and
pro-Japanese officials were also killed. A few days later, the US
military declared martial law to crush the uprising. They fired into
large crowds of demonstrators in numerous cities and towns, killing
and wounding an unknown number of people.

Syngman Rhee, an exile who had lived in the US for 40 years, was
returned to Korea on MacArthur's personal plane. He initially allied
with left leaders to form a government approved of by the US. Then in
1947, he dispensed with his "left" allies by assassinating their
leaders, Kim Ku and Kim Kyu-Shik. Rhee consolidated power and the US
pushed for United Nations-sponsored elections in May 1948 to put a
legal imprimatur on the divided Koreas. Rhee was elected at 71 years
old in an election boycotted by most parties who saw it as sham. He
came to power in the midst of an insurgency.

On Jeju Island, the largest Korean island lying in a strategic
location in the Korea Strait, there continued to be protests against
the US military government. It was one of the last areas where
people's committees continued to exist. Gen. Hodge told Congress Jeju
was a truly communal area that is peacefully controlled by the
People's Committee," but he organized its extermination in a
scorched-earth attack.

In September, Rhee's new government launched a massive
counterinsurgency operation under US command. S. Brian Willson
reports it resulted in the killing of "60,000 Islanders, with another
40,000 desperately fleeing in boats to Japan. Thus, one-third of its
residents were either murdered or fled during the 'extermination'
campaign. Nearly 40,000 homes were destroyed and 270 of 400 villages
were leveled." It was an ugly attack, Iggy Kim notes: "Torture,
mutilation, gang rape and arbitrary execution were rife. . . a quarter
of the Jeju population had been massacred. The US embassy happily
reported: "The all-out guerilla extermination campaign came to a
virtual end in April with order restored and most rebels and
sympathizers killed, captured, or converted.'" This was the single
greatest masssacre in modern Korean history and a warning of what was
to come in the Korean War. As we will se, Jeju is part of the story
in Today's US asian escalation.

More brutality occurred on mainland Korea. On October 19, dissident
soldiers in the port city of Yosu rose up in opposition to the war in
Jeju. About 2,000 insurgent soldiers took control of the city. By
Oct. 20, a number of nearby towns had also been liberated and the
People's Committee was reinstated as the governing body. People's
courts were established to try police officers, landlords, regime
officials and other supporters of the Rhee dictatorship. This
rebellion was suppressed by a bloodletting, planned and directed by
the US military.

The Korean War followed. S. Brian Willson summarizes the war:

"The Korean War that lasted from June 1950 to July 1953 was an
enlargement of the 1948-50 struggle of Jeju Islanders to preserve
their self-determination from the tyrannical rule of US-supported
Rhee and his tiny cadre of wealthy constituents. Little known is
that the US-imposed division of Korea in 1945 against the wishes of
the vast majority of Koreans was the primary cause of the Korean War
that broke out five years later. The War destroyed by bombing most
cities and villages in Korea north of the 38th Parallel, and many
south of it, while killing four million Koreans - three million
(one-third) of the north's residents and one million of those living
in the south, in addition to killing one million Chinese. This was a
staggering international crime still unrecognized that killed five
million people and permanently separated 10 million Korean families."

Bragging about the massacre, USAF Strategic Air Command head General
Curtis LeMay, who blanket-bombed Japan in World War II and later ran
for vice president with segregationist George Wallace, summed it up
well, "Over a period of three years or so we killed off - what -
twenty percent of the population." Willson corrects LeMay, writing
"it is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th
Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8-9 million people
during the 37-month long "hot" war, 1950-1953, perhaps an
unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to
belligerence of another.

Context Today: Korea Targeted, Mock Attacks, Learning from Iraq and
Libya and the Asia Pivot

This historical context results in North Korea taking the threats of
the United States very seriously. It knows the US has been willing to
kill large portions of its population throughout history and has seen
what the US has done to other countries.

In 2002, President George W. Bush labeled North Korea part of the
"axis of evil" along with Iraq and Iran. S. Brian Willson traveled
900 ground miles through six of North Korea's nine provinces, as well
as Pyongyang, the capital, and several other cities, talking with
dozens of people from all walks of life; all wanted to know about the
"axis of evil" speech. He found that North Koreans "simply cannot
understand why the US is so obsessed with them."

Of course, the North Korean government witnessed the "shock and awe"
campaign of bombardments against Iraq and the killing of at least
hundreds of thousands (credible research shows more than 1 million
Iraqis killed, 4.5 million displaced, 1-2 million widows and 5 million
orphans). They saw the brutal killing by hanging of the former US
ally, now turned into an enemy, Saddam Hussein. And, they can look to
the experience of Libya. Libya was an enemy but then began to develop
positive relations with the US. In 2003, Libya halted its program to
build a nuclear bomb in an effort to mend its relations with the US.
Then last year Libya was overthrown in a US-supported war and its
leader Moammar Gadhafi was brutally killed. As Reuters reports, "`The
tragic consequences in those countries which abandoned halfway their
nuclear programs... clearly prove that the DPRK (Democratic People's
Republic of Korea) was very far-sighted and just when it made the
(nuclear) option," North Korea's KCNA news agency said."

The United States stations 28,500 troops in South Korea. In November
2012 the US upgraded its weapons systems and announced an agreement
with Japan that would allow South Korea to bomb anywhere in North
Korea. In June 2012 the Pentagon announced that Gen.l Neil H. Tolley
would be removed as commander of US Special Operations in South Korea
after he revealed to a Japanese foreign affairs publication that
American and South Korean troops had been parachuting into North Korea
on spy missions. US troops and bases are not popular. Protests
erupted in 2002 after two Korean woman were killed and a court martial
found the US soldiers not guilty of negligent manslaughter. Several
pubs and restaurants put up signs saying "Americans Not Welcome Here."
In an August 2005 protest against US troops by 1,100 people, 10 were
injured by police. One month before that, 100 were injured in a
protest. In 2006 protesters occupied land on which the US planned to
expand a base, resulting in a conflict and their eviction followed by
installing barbed wire around the area to protect it from South
Koreans. The South Korean government banned a rally that was expected
to draw more than 10,000 protesters.

South Korea and the US regularly hold military exercises off the
Korean coast, which North Korea describes as planning for an
invasion. The United States claims these exercises are defensive in
nature to assure preparedness. Prior to the recent nuclear test,
Seoul and Washington conducted a joint naval exercise with a US
nuclear submarine off South Korea's east coast, followed by a joint
air force drill as well as live weapon exercises near a disputed sea
boundary between North and South Korea. These drills have gotten more
aggressive during the Obama administration and since the death of Kim
Jong-il, as outlined by geopolitical analyst Jen Alic here:

The first joint military exercises between the US and South Korea
since Kim Jong-il's death suddenly changed their nature, with new
war games including pre-emptive artillery attacks on North Korea.

. . .

Post by Byker

Post by lo yeeOn
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/395334-north-korea-icbm-us/
The most sensible path, at this point, is for the US to end the Korean
War, sign a peace treaty with North Korea, and withdraw its troops from
the Korean peninsula, Hyun Lee, a member of the National Campaign to End
the Korean War, told RT.

What Would Happen If Kim Jong-Un Launched A Nuclear Strike?
RYAN PICKRELL
6:24 PM 04/14/2017
Dozens upon dozens of missiles take flight.
For years, the world had heard warnings, but most doubted the day would ever
come. Most missiles fall before allied defenses, but one finds its mark
— it’s
the one that matters most. In a flash, hundreds of thousands, if not
millions of people perish.
Would North Korea fire off a nuclear weapon? No one knows for certain, but
what we do know is that the above scenario is exactly what an aggressive and
increasingly-powerful North Korea has been threatening for decades. While
the reclusive regime may have previously lacked the necessary weaponry, the
North now has the kind of capabilities to turn at least some of its threats
into promises.
The U.S. and its East Asian allies have strategic defense assets in
position, but war is full of uncertainties. “People think missile defenses
are a magic wand. They aren’t,” Jeffrey Lewis, a renowned arms expert, told
The Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF).
Here’s what happens if the North pulls the trigger.
What Would Happen If A Launch Appeared Imminent?
The U.S. and its allies in the region are by no means unprepared for a North
Korean nuclear attack.
The U.S. and South Korea both have preemptive strike plans for a situation
in which a North Korean nuclear attack appears imminent, and while Japan is
considering new options, it still relies heavily on U.S. defense.
South Korea has a three-stage defense system, the first stage of which is a
preemptive strike option designed to eliminate the North’s offensive
capabilities. The “Kill Chain” preemptive strike system detects signs of an
impending nuclear missile launch and strikes the North’s nuclear weapons
sites and missile bases with cruise missiles and other weaponry.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2016/11/205_217259.html
The U.S. and South Korea also have a joint response plan, Operations Plan
(OPLAN) 5015.
While the specifics for OPLAN 5015 are classified, the plan is believed to
consolidate previous contingency plans, specifically OPLAN 5029 (internal
instability in North Korea), OPLAN 5027 (preparations for an all-out war),
and a peacetime plan involving localized provocations from North Korea.
OPLAN 5015 is suspected to call for preemptive strikes on the North’s
essential military facilities and weapons, and possibly North Korean
leadership. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/oplan-5015.htm
In the event that a nuclear missile strike appeared imminent, allied forces
might attempt to eliminate the North’s missiles at launch. Mike Mullen, the
former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last year that the U.S.
could move to “take out launch capabilities on the launchpad” if North Korea
http://tinyurl.com/yazjck97
The U.S. and South Korea regularly train for such contingencies. For
example, during the annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises, U.S. and
South Korean troops practice a “4D” operational plan which involves
preemptive military options to detect, disrupt, destroy, and defend against
North Korean strikes. The focus is precision strikes on the enemy’s core
military facilities and weapons systems: http://tinyurl.com/juq3glq
The challenge is that more and more of North Korea’s missiles are on mobile
launchers and scattered about the country. Furthermore, the Korean People’s
Army (KPA) has started using solid-fueled missiles, which require
significantly less preparation time as they can be fueled in advance and
need only a limited crew. Solid-fueled missiles can be fired with less
warning and are much harder to track, making them less vulnerable to
preemptive strikes: http://tinyurl.com/y9vpvv5r
Another issue is that preemptive strikes on North Korea would be much harder
to justify diplomatically, especially if war breaks out in the aftermath,
which is practically guaranteed.
What If The Nukes Are Already In The Air?
If a North Korean missile makes it into the air, there are plans for that
situation as well.
South Korea and Japan rely on tiered missile defense.
Stage two of South Korea’s three-stage defense system is the Korea Air and
Missile Defense (KAMD) system, which is designed to intercept incoming
missiles. The U.S. is bolstering South Korean defense through the deployment
of a THAAD battery to South Korea, a process that began after North Korea
fired four missiles into the Sea of Japan a few weeks ago.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39188826
THAAD’s Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance (AN/TYP-2) X-band radar
can be configured to one of two settings: forward-base mode and terminal
mode. In the latter, the radar has a range of several hundred miles and can
facilitate the elimination of missiles in the terminal phase of flight. In
the former, the radar’s range is extended, making it possible for THAAD to
http://tinyurl.com/ya3929hd
To ease China’s concerns about the radar’s ability to peer into its
territory, the U.S. has agreed to configure THAAD in terminal mode. China
continues to express opposition to the deployment.
THAAD is an important step for South Korean missile defense.
“THAAD is better than anything South Korea has or will have for decades,”
Bruce Klingner, who specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs as the senior
research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, told TheDCNF,
“It is imperative that we deploy it to augment the defense of Korea and the
U.S. forces deployed there.”
A Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor is launched during
a successful intercept test, in this undated handout photo provided by the
U.S. Department of Defense, Missile Defense Agency. THAAD provides the U.S.
military a land-based, mobile capability to defend against short- and
medium-range ballistic missiles, intercepting incoming missiles inside and
outside the earth’s atmosphere. REUTERS/U.S. Department of Defense,
There are also a number of Aegis destroyers operating in the waters off of
South Korea. The U.S. has several in the region; Japan has six, and South
Korea has three. The Aegis ballistic missile system can track multiple
http://bit.ly/2tmS4P8
There are certain gaps in South Korea’s defense though. For starters, South
Korea’s KAMD is not incorporated into the broader allied defense system,
thus weakening its overall effectiveness. Also, the South is particularly
vulnerable to submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which the North
successfully tested last year.
Japan is much more “forward leaning” in its defense, Klingner notes. Japan
has Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC)-2 and 3 systems, Aegis destroyers and
SM-3 interceptors, and Japan is considering deploying THAAD and Aegis Ashore
units on Japanese soil to boost national defense.
The U.S. has ground-based midcourse defense systems in Fort Greely, Alaska
and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Anti-missile systems have their limitations though.
Klingner remarked that “certainly, there is that possibility” that a
nuclear-armed ballistic missile could slip through allied defenses,
especially given that most regional missile defense systems have never been
tested in actual battle conditions.
“Missile defenses help reduce the threat, but they can’t eliminate it,”
Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program in the
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute
of International Studies at Monterey, commented.
In the simplest of terms, missile defense involves hitting a bullet with
another bullet, which is no easy task.
“Missile defense systems will never provide 100 percent effectiveness 
 The
addition of THAAD does not guarantee the protection of Seoul, but it does
add another piece to the constantly changing puzzle of defense,” Rodger
Baker, Vice President of Strategic Analysis at Stratfor, a geopolitical
intelligence platform, told TheDCNF.
North Korea is rapidly developing the capabilities necessary to skirt allied
ballistic missile defense systems.
“North Korea can probably build missiles (especially ER Scuds) faster and
more cheaply than we can build and deploy defenses,” Lewis noted. In recent
weapons tests and military drills, North Korea has practiced firing off
multiple missiles in rapid succession or simultaneously to overwhelm enemy
missile defense systems.
“This is a tactic called ‘salvo fire,’ which is designed to place greater
stress on all types of ballistic missile defenses. I don’t know how many
simultaneous attacks it would take to ‘saturate’ the battle-management
systems in use today by the U.S., South Korean, or Japanese militaries, but
the North Koreans seem determined to refine their salvo capabilities,”
Joshua Pollack, editor of The Nonproliferation Review and senior research
associate in the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the
Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, told TheDCNF.
“Even if it didn’t succeed in saturating the defenses, it would at least
more rapidly deplete the defense, which has a limited number of shots.”
“Enough simultaneous launches could overwhelm the THAAD system and increase
the risk of a nuclear-armed ballistic missile reaching its target in South
Korea,” Kelsey Davenport, director of Nonproliferation Policy at the Arms
Control Institute, told TheDCNF after North Korea launched three missiles at
the same time last September.
The simultaneous launch of multiple missiles is “basic missile defense
countermeasure,” Lewis told CNN. “One THAAD battery is not enough. We need
at least two, if not many more,” he told TheDCNF.
“The good news is that if defenses hold up against the first salvo, it’s
much easier to locate mobile missiles after they fire than before,” Pollack
explained, adding, “Ballistic missiles are very hot and bright upon launch,
so the point of origin can be detected by satellites very rapidly. Perhaps
the empty North Korean missile launch vehicles could be hunted down before
http://cnn.it/2tmtX38
What Would Be The Post-Launch Reaction?
Many people assume that in the event that North Korea carried out a nuclear
strike, successful or not, the U.S. would use nuclear weapons to turn the
North into a crater.
If they use a nuclear weapon, do we want to pave Pyongyang and kill a
million citizens? If the intent is to take out the leadership and that can
be done with precision guided munitions, is it in global interests to use
nuclear weapons? The answer is unclear.
“U.S. nuclear strategy is evolving away from an automatic ‘they use nukes,
we use nukes, we take out every city they have’ response,” Klingner told
TheDCNF, adding that if North Korea launches a nuclear strike, “it may not
be an automatic nuclear response if we can accomplish our objectives through
other means.”
The decision to use nuclear weapons to retaliate against North Korea would
be a political decision, one likely based on the resulting public outcry, as
well as the target and whether the attack was successful or not.
“The United States maintains and updates numerous scenarios for potential
military contingencies, and ones regarding North Korea are frequently
reviewed,” Baker told TheDCNF, “A limited North Korean action may initially
engender a large U.S. military buildup and emergency action in the United
Nations, but full military intervention would not likely be far behind.”
Once war breaks out, the situation quickly becomes much more complicated.
The U.S. and its allies have the advantage, but any war on the peninsula
would almost certainly be a high-casualty conflict.
While South Korea and Japan have their own armed forces, they would still be
largely reliant on the U.S. for defense in the event of a serious crisis.
South Korea does, however, have an independent strategy known as the Korea
Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR) plan, the third phase of the
country’s three-stage defense.
The KMPR plan involves using special forces to cripple North Korean assets
and eliminate the leadership. The South would also mobilize its missile and
artillery forces: https://goo.gl/1S7LwL
South Korea’s KMPR plan focuses on the complete annihilation of certain
essential pockets of Pyongyang.
“The North’s capital city will be reduced to ashes and removed from the
map,” an unnamed defense official revealed to The Korea Times, “Every
Pyongyang district, particularly where the North Korean leadership is
possibly hidden, will be completely destroyed by ballistic missiles and
high-explosive shells.” https://goo.gl/D9MCft
Japan is considering developing defensive, counter-attack capabilities, but
those discussions are still in the early phases.
Relying on conventional weapons alone, North Korea is unlikely to survive a
protracted military conflict, but this is where multiple weapons of mass
destruction come into play.
“North Korea could potentially cause massive damage to Seoul and its
surrounding areas” in a conflict, Dr. Bruce Bennett, a senior defense
researcher at the RAND Corporation, previously told TheDCNF. “If North Korea
restrains itself and only employs conventional weapons in an assault on
South Korea, it is unlikely to overwhelm South Korea’s defenses. But if it
uses weapons of mass destruction and other asymmetric approaches, the North
may be able to overcome South Korean defenses — there are always large
uncertainties in any war.”
“I’m confident of the outcome of that war, which would be the defeat of
North Korea,” former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter told ABC reporters, “I
need to caution you 
 This is a war that would have an intensity of violence
associated with it that we haven’t seen since the last Korean War. Seoul is
right there on the borders of the DMZ, so even though the outcome is
certain, it is a very destructive war.” http://bit.ly/2sM0pxh
Who Would North Korea Bomb?
The North regularly threatens nuclear war against the U.S., which is
perceived in Pyongyang as the greatest threat to the country’s long-term
survival. It is unlikely, however, that North Korea has developed the
long-range missile technology required to strike the continental U.S.
Still, the North is working tirelessly to develop a reliable, nuclear-armed
intercontinental ballistic missile and may be there in a matter of years.
“There is a real possibility that North Korea will be able to hit the U.S.
with a nuclear-armed missile by the end of the first Trump term,” K.T.
McFarland, the deputy White House national security adviser, previously
remarked.
“We don’t know where they are on the path, but we know what path they are
on,” Klingner told TheDCNF.
North Korea has launched satellites using Taepodong-style rockets, which
could potentially serve as the technological foundation for an ICBM. The
country has developed improved rocket engines that are better than most
experts previously suspected. Also, the North appears to be working on two
road-mobile ICBMs, the KN-08 and KN-14.
But, while the North has made clear progress, they have not yet demonstrated
re-entry vehicle capability, and they are still developing a suitable
nuclear warhead.
Were North Korea to launch a nuclear-armed missile at a foreign enemy, the
two countries most likely to find themselves in the cross hairs are South
Korea and Japan, collectively home to roughly 180 million people and around
75,000 U.S. troops. In the event that North Korea decided to fire on either
of these two countries, a decision which the North would not take lightly,
the Korean People’s Army could strike military bases and strategic assets,
densely-populated civilian targets, or both.
Particularly disconcerting is that “the North Koreans say both,” Lewis
explained to TheDCNF. “They hope the shock will cause us to recoil, and if
it does not, they hope the damage slows us down.”
Several years ago, Pyongyang vowed that Tokyo would be “consumed in nuclear
flames,” and early last year, the North threatened to turn Seoul into a “sea
of flames.” Such threats are extremely common.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-usa-military-idUKKBN0H500L20140910
http://youtu.be/__-cEbpbLSI
At the same time, North Korea has threatened, and even trained, to strike
strategic assets, major ports, and critical military bases.
Days after the U.S. and South Korea announced plans to deploy a Terminal
High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile shield on South Korean soil, the
North said it would turn Seongju, the deployment site, into a “sea of fire
and a pile of ashes.” http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201607110028.html
When U.S. troops conduct joint military drills with allies for a possible
conflict on the Korean peninsula, North Korea often drills as well,
typically for a conventional or nuclear strike on allied troops, weapons,
and defense systems.
During last year’s Foal Eagle drills, annual joint military exercises
between the U.S. and South Korea for a contingency on the peninsula, North
Korea launchedtwo short-range missiles into waters off its east coast. “If
we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies even right now, all bases of
provocations will be reduced to seas in flames and ashes,” the North’s
state-run Korean Central News Agency reported at the time. Images of the
maps from the launch and open source analysis indicate that the Korean
People’s Army was rehearsing an attack on the port of Busan, where the USS
Ohio, a nuclear-powered submarine, had just arrived for a port call.
http://www.reuters.com/article/northkorea-missiles-idUSKCN0WB2SN
http://tinyurl.com/ydbwprxj
North Korea fired four extended-range scuds into the Sea of Japan during
this year’s drills. KCNA reported that the artillerymen of the KPA were
“tasked to strike the bases of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces in
Japan.”
Open-source analysis of the maps shown in the North Korean propaganda videos
following the launch suggested that North Korea was simulating a nuclear
attack on U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan, where the only
forward-deployed squadron of Marine Corps F-35s is stationed.
http://tinyurl.com/ya5tzec7
“The U.S. and South Korea are practicing invading North Korea. North Korea
is practicing nuking those forces,” Lewis previously told TheDCNF, noting a
distinct change in North Korean missile launches.
http://tinyurl.com/ybqntcn3
Weapons reliability, as well as possible reunification goals, could impact
North Korea’s choice of target.
“North Korean missiles, while improved, are still not all that accurate.
Thus, while Pyongyang may prefer to target U.S. military facilities in Japan
with its limited nuclear arsenal, it may also choose to fire some missiles
toward large population centers in an attempt to rapidly shift the political
cost of conflict,” Baker told TheDCNF. “Pyongyang is less likely to use its
nuclear arsenal in strikes on South Korea, but may use chemical weapons to
disrupt and slow any U.S. advance,” he further commented.
Why Would North Korea Launch A Nuclear Missile?
North Korea believes that nuclear bombs are the only things that can
guarantee the country’s survival.
North Korea asserts that it fears nothing and will obliterate the U.S. and
its allies with its “treasured nuclear sword,” yet the reality is that
Pyongyang is deeply concerned that it may one day cease to exist, that it
will be destroyed by the U.S. and its strategic partners. As its future is
perpetually uncertain, the North believes that the only viable long-term
security option is the development of nuclear weaponry.
http://tinyurl.com/y966kpdg
http://bit.ly/2symzyQ
Kim Jong-un’s fears are major factors in whether or not North Korea decides
to launch a nuclear strike against another country. “I think that Kim
Jong-un will press the button if his rule and his dynasty are threatened,”
Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean official who defected last year,
explained. “He may do anything.” http://tinyurl.com/y8sf2alb
“Putting this in a North Korean perspective, they see themselves as facing
the world’s largest single military and nuclear power in a potential
conflict. The pursuit of nuclear weapons, then, is intended as a deterrent,
to counter their weaker military position,” Baker explained.
North Korea’s primary aspiration is “to stop a buildup of U.S. forces around
them and protect North Korea from the fate of Iraq,” Pollack told TheDCNF.
The aim is primarily nuclear deterrence.
Were North Korea to use a nuclear weapon, it would most likely be in the
event of a conflict, if a conflict appeared imminent, or if some external
factor posed an immediate threat to the country’s survival. How each side
perceives these conditions varies, making it difficult to determine which
actions might push the Pyongyang over the edge.
“It is not clear, for example, if they consider a limited strike against
their nuclear or missile facilities as an imminent threat, or if they would
initially respond with conventional systems,” Baker explained, “Though given
the military disparity, even a limited strike could be seen as the beginning
of a more concerned military effort, leaving the North needing to use its
WMDs quickly or risk having its capability knocked out.”
Despite North Korean threats, the probability that North Korea would choose
to launch a nuclear strike is relatively low, but at the end of the day, Kim
Jong-un, while not irrational or crazy as some suspect, is very much a
two-dimensional thinker who might decide to do the unthinkable if push came
to shove.
The North Korean nuclear threat is one that has puzzled world leaders for
decades, and the North’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and nuclear weaponry
is growing with each passing day. “There are, at the moment, no constraints
that would prevent North Korea from expanding its arsenal,” Lewis explained,
“We might not like the North Koreans, but they’ve pretty much found a way to
make sure we have to deal with them.”
http://www.5z8.info/startdownload_t6l5qw_worm