Korean Crossroads: US Wish for Pre-emptive Action 'Prelude to Global Warfare'

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North Korea: Beyond the Cold War Theatrics, is there Really a Nuclear Threat to the US?

By Patrick Henningsen

Global Research, April 06, 2013

21st Century Wire

Region: Asia

Theme: US NATO War Agenda

In-depth Report: NORTH KOREA

The recent show of force by the United States marks one of the lowest points in modern diplomacy, but beyond the geopolitical theatrics it turns out that very little is actually known about the North Korean threat.

North Korea’s recent series of weekly verbal provocations towards Seoul and their ally the US – should be taken seriously in diplomatic terms, but is Pyongyang’s bark worse than its bite?

Instead of taking the high road of international diplomacy, Obama’s war hawks chose a more neoconservative approach by baiting the North with a nuclear-capable B-2 Stealth flyover of the country by the US, by F22 aerial exercises and a US Navy Destroyer parked off the South Korean peninsula this week. Further fanning the flames, China also mobilised some of its own troops and military assets along the North Korean border.

Dear Leader: N.Korean propaganda is bolstered by Washington DC’s own validation of it.

The regime in Pyongyang is clearly one on the brink of collapse. The reality is that the crypto-Marxist North Korean nation is one of the planet’s most marginalized states, not only on a diplomatic level, but also on an economically too – as evidenced by the state’s extreme internal propaganda designed to reinforce the state’s unworldly narrative for its own population.

Knowing full well that North Korea is already being strangled economically – effectively being starved by blanket UN and other sanctions, is it such a wise move for the US to poke them further?

As the young Kim Jung-un carries on his late father’s tradition of surreal state-run propaganda campaigns, so does the United States carry on with its own, slightly more sophisticated brand of propaganda as well. For the average American, their general grasp of geopolitical risk and strategy is still on the level of the film Team America, and Washington knows this, and has regularly attempts to pass off shallow intelligence as definitive, and building its foreign policy on top of this.

Still, amongst all the public war chatter back and forth between the US, South Korea and North Korea, one serious question is being mostly ignored – with regards to Pyongyang, what is exactly real, and what is fiction? If we ask this question, then the next most logical question naturally follows: to what degree is Washington DC inflating the threat from North Korea, and why?

The US  ‘War Economy’

One can also be argued that there a very powerful vested interests in the US corporate structure who have and will continue to benefit from a heated arms build-up, and will certainly use the North Korea threat as a justification to push forward in spending, especially in light Washington’s new-found austerity culture ushered in through recent budget sequestrations. America’s new pivot towards Asia provides the catch-all policy net, while the two-way propaganda duel between the two countries provides the fear needed to justify a new military build up in the region.

In recent weeks and months, experts in Washington and the UN have been at pains to clarify and actually prove the full scope and ability of the North Korean nuclear threat, which so far are mostly theatre and little substance.

Pyongyang’s nuclear tests

Beyond all the flamboyant rhetoric from the succession of Dear Leaders, and beyond all of their spectacular military parades, there is very little proof that North Korea is advanced in its military prowess and nuclear abilities than many are led to fear in the United States and Western Europe. Their recent nuclear test on February 19^th of this year was a perfect example of this.

US officials have speculated that North Korea has upgraded its nuclear capabilities from plutonium, to much more effective enriched uranium ‘HEU’ type warhead.

When no such evidence, or tell-tale physical data, was picked up from North Korea’s recent test – including readings taken from Japanese aircraft and multiple monitoring stations in South Korea, it prompted US officials to claim that the North Koreans merely “went to some length to try to contain releases. One possible reason to try to contain releases is secrecy, so we don’t know very much about their nuclear testing.”

In a recent report published in the Washington Post today, a former senior Obama administration official admitted there is no evidence of any such advancement, saying, “We’re worried about it, but we haven’t seen it”, and adding, “They cooperate in many areas, especially missiles. Why it hasn’t yet extended to the nuclear program is frankly a mystery.”

These type of statements leaked into the media are seemingly always done under anonymity, perhaps because those people issuing them are in fear in of losing their jobs because their intelligence assessment does not jibe with US foreign policy rhetoric, nor does it promote the need for an expensive arms race.

Likewise, following North Korea’s previous test in 2009, US officials were on record as saying that unfortunately, the blast ‘left no detectable traces’.

Not convinced that North Korea’s capabilities are anything less than the most advanced, one U.S. official with access to the classified data on the tests derides the lack of evidence, claiming that: “Still, it would not be surprising for North Korea to take extra steps to prevent outsiders from gaining insights into its nuclear capability”, said other.

As is the case with Iran, politicians in Washington and their corporate media partners have sought to validate the nuclear threat in such a way that suggests a pre-emptive strike may be necessary in order to save lives. Although we are used to hearing this every day in the US and Europe, that concept of a preemptive strike has been used as far back as Japan, and most recently in the context of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq and now again in Syria.

Constantly, we see US officials sculpting the narrative in order to fit into a preconceived conclusion. Very sophisticated propaganda indeed.

Attaching North Korea to Iran

The big danger with Washington and its allies’ polarising approach to foreign policy today is that it is eerily remnant of the type of power-politics that led the world into two previous world wars.

In order to joint North Korea and Iran at the hip, links are needed, and speculation is then used in order to build the type of theoretical case that one often sees emanating from the mouths of both hosts and guests on networks such as FOX News, CNN and the BBC, which is then taken on by the general populace as a genuine threat, skillfully articulated by an official source. Although less blunt than Kim Jung-un’s style of state-run propaganda, it’s just as effective in the end.

Iran has been attached to North Korea through Washington DC’s ‘Axis of Evil’ concept, after pursuing its own nuclear power program.

Still, there is no actual hard evidence to show that North Korea and Iran are sharing uranium enrichment technology, which is of course countered by US officials by claiming that, ‘the sharing of enrichment know-how would be harder to spot than missile know-how’.

Again with Syria, the North Koreans are thought to have signed a technology exchange agreement with Damascus over a decade ago, which U.S. officials ‘think’ led to the construction of a secret reactor near Deir al-Zour which the Israelis bombed in 2007. Did this facility have anything to do with nuclear weapons? We’ll never know for sure, and neither will the intelligence community based on the ambiguous comments by US officials.

Breaking the international nuclear monopoly

Most of the western narrative of rogue nuclear threats stems from the alleged exploits of Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan, who is accused of peddling black-market enrichment technology to various foreign governments. The reality is much more complex and might surprise followers of A.Q. Khan’s résumé of international intrigue. Both North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs have made strides mostly through the help of two countries… the US and Britain.

Former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was key in doing the deal which allowed Swiss technology giant ABB to supply North Korea with two nuclear power plants located near Kumho, on North Korea’s east coast. The US would have known full well when this took place in 2000, that any waste material from the two reactors might eventually be used towards creating weapons-grade material.

Likewise, Iran’s first functional nuclear reactor at the University of Tehran was designed and built by the US and Britain during the Shah regime. From this technology, Iran was able to replicate and expand the domestic nuclear energy and medical isotope capabilities.

Linking either Iran, or Syria, to the nuclear activities of North Korea based on conjecture and half-baked intelligence would be a mistake by US politicians and overzealous policy think tanks in Washington. If we continue to see this happening, then you can wager that the west may be working hard to create an Axis of Evil with whom to do battle with at a future date.

The reality behind all of the nuclear arms rhetoric from the west is that there exists an international cartel monopoly on the building, engineering and fuel transportation in the nuclear power industry. Notice that North Korea said on Tuesday that it would restart its nuclear reactor. Some report that this is to feed its atomic weapons programme, but it’s hardly mentioned in the western media and political circles that North Korea has energy independence needs too. The situation with Iran is almost identical, who itself is also being starved and put under extreme economic sanctions as well.

Both countries need energy independence and both countries are more or less operating outside of the international nuclear cartel. The nuclear industry’s global cartel has three main players who divide the trade amongst themselves exclusively. Production material is handled by France, production systems are handled by the United States, and reprocessing is done by the British. One could easily argue then, that both North Korea and Iran have been labeled as ‘Axis of Evil’ because it is seen as competition.

China’s stewardship of North Korea

It stands to reason that Pyongyang sits in the shadow of its superpower neighbor and chief, China. Many an analyst or pundit will tell you that they cannot make a move, much less pick a fight with the West without China knowing or endorsing such a move.

Even a major nuclear test carried out by Pyongyang is of interest to China considering its proximity and the many risks involved in testing nuclear weapons.

If North Korea launched any nuclear strike against the US, South Korea or Japan, if would almost certainly result in retaliation by the US. The fall-out from any military nuclear detonation by the United States inside North Korea, would certainly be of chief concern to the Chinese. Central planners in Washington also know that any major escalation with North Korea will not only involve China, but Japan and Russia too, which would also be a pretext more a multi-regional war.

Taking all this into account, it’s highly unlikely that unless North Korea wanted to become extinct, or the US and its allies wanted to spark an all-out third world war intentionally, it’s hard to see this drama playing out in the way that the US media and Washington DC politicians and experts are alluding to.

Risks of military confrontation

The regime in Pyongyang is one of the most over-the-top and bizarre governments on earth, and they are certainly totalitarian in nature. North Korea may have the motivation to lash out at an international community that has imposed collective economic punishment upon them for so long, it’s clear that should they challenge the US and its allies in the region, they have neither the resources, nor the capability to sustain any kind of meaningful military campaign. What they probably need right now, more than anything is food.

The US B-2 fly-by of North Korea should tell the world all they need to know about the true nature of the North Korean threat.

On Friday, South Korean officials admitted that to their knowledge, North Korea is not targeting the US mainland with nuclear missiles, which contradicts official government propaganda coming out of both North Korea and the US. So the US is merely validating Pyongyang propaganda – on more levels than one. If, for whatever reason, the Washington DC wanted to replace the current South Korean regime, or to harden Japan’s pro-American resolve, then pressurizing the North Korean regime would be one path to achieve  that outcome.

Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this hyping of a confrontation in the region is that either side – is that the North Koreans or the US might make just one fatal technical error or mistake resulting in a shooting match, followed by a nuclear strike. Even worse and much less remote than some would care to admit, is the possibility of a staged false flag event that could be used to plunge the situation into a new war (it would not be the first time in history that the US has chosen such a route to war).

People can speculate on the risks of war from either side of any potential conflict, but in this case, Washington DC’s ‘pivot towards Asia’ is very real indeed, and more and more assets are being deployed to US bases around China, as well as the Middle East and Africa. The United States already occupies and maintains hundreds, if not thousands of military installations and sites all over the world – and in these times of economic cuts, the military industrial complex requires more deployments of troops and more orders of equipment, as well as new conflicts in which to test newer technology. Leases on bases in places like the DMZ, Japan and the Philippines need to be renewed also, in order to preserve those dollar havens overseas. The US depends on opening new bases in these locations to spread its military seed overseas. This is how the machine has functioned since World War II, through the Cold War, and this is exactly how it is functioning today.

To fuel this giant military economy there needs to be a constant threat of an enemy attack. US politicians are all too willing to validate any mythological threat which will help to drive the military industrial complex which pays for their political careers.

Many have argued that in 2013, this empire is unsustainable. Some have even gone so far as to call it insane, but it will carry on nonetheless – unless American voters decide otherwise. It is the most dangerous game of monopoly the world has ever seen. How long can it continue? Presently, there are more conflicts and resource wars going on around the globe than at any other time in history, and the danger of a multi-regional conflict is drawing nearer with every day that our international leadership fails to see how 21^st century power-politics are threatening global stability and peace.

Let’s seriously hope that cooler heads, and some common sense, prevails in the end.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/north-korea-beyond-the-cold-war-theatrics-is-there-really-a-nuclear-threat-to-us/5330059

Deployments of B-1 Strategic Bombers, E-6 “Doomsday” Planes SECRETLY to Korea: Is This What Pentagon Wanted?

Post Categories: Afghanistan

Zero Hedge | Sunday, April 7, 2013, 21:30 Beijing

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First the US fanfared the placement of two F-22 Raptors in the Osan airbase of South Korea. Then it demonstratively launched a B-2 stealth bomber on a training mission over a South Korean gunnery range.

Then it deployed an anti-ballistic missile defense system to Guam and positioned two guided-missile destroyers in the waters near Korea.

And now, courtesy of the Aviationist, we learn that the Pentagon has escalated once more in an ongoing cat and mouse game with North Korea, of who blinks first, and dispatched several B-1 (“Bone”) Lancer strategic long-range bombers to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.

1B Lancer Long-Range Strategic Bomber |Jet Fighter Picture

What is different this time, however, is that unlike the previous very public and widely trumpeted reciprocal escalation steps, this particular deployment has been kept secret from the public (at least the broader public), “a fact that could be the sign that the U.S. is not only making symbolic moves (as the above mentioned ones), but it is preparing for the worst scenario: an attack on North Korea.”

How has the Aviationist learned this?

From his station in Amarillo, Texas, author, investigative journalist, technologies expert Steve Douglass heard something interesting. In a message he sent us on Facebook he said:

“Late last night I monitored “DARK flight of seven” on PRIME (311.000 MHZ STRATCOM PRIMARY) asking for current weather for UAM [airport code for Guam - Andersen Air Force Base]. On the frequency of 251.100 Mhz, DARK flight also was calling for “GASSR 11 and GASSR 12? (KC-135s)  for “Tanker drag to BAB [Beale AFB, California]“.

“Dark” is the standard radio call sign for the 7th Bomb Wing’s B-1s based at Dyess AFB, near Abilene, Texas.

Even if U.S. bombers routinely deploy to Guam (where at least two B-2s are reportedly already based), the fact that seven “Bones” were apparently moving together is something a bit unusual, even if they were not going to Andersen AFB (they might need the weather report for UAM because it was an alternate airfield or simply a stopover on their way to somewhere else).

Actually, it’s also weird that some many big bombers were flying together (as the “flight of seven” heard by Douglass seems to suggest) since a standard ferry flight of multiple planes would normally see the aircraft move individually.

And, another strange thing is that the pilot talked about their destination in the clear: if they wanted it to be secret, they would speak on secure radios.

Nevertheless, this might have been a non-standard deployment; a move ordered hours after U.S. satellites and spyplanes from South Korea and Japan had spotted North Korean missiles being readied for launch.

What is even more curious is that instead of merely serving as very expensive deterrence props, the squadron has a very offensive role, and is preparing for attack:

Earlier [Douglass] had intercepted an interesting communication off a military satellite in which an Ellsworth AFB’s B-1B, callsign “Slam 1?, was training to hit a “missile facility” in Snyder, Texas.

A practice run for a mission in the DPRK with a school bus depot standing in for the real thing?

Maybe.

American B-1 bomber pilots have reportedly shifted their training programs, focusing on in East Asia, more than Afghanistan and the Middle East. And, above all, any training mission has many similarities with actual sorties that would be flown against a real enemy in combat.

Anyway, Douglass has recorded an audio snippet of the exercise (available here). Based on the coordinates for Snyder, Texas here‘s the target on Google Maps.

Finally, and most disturbing, is that another aircraft also in the process of deployment is none other than the E-6 Mercury “Doomsday” plane, which are among the pinnacle in US Airforce nuclear war preparedness, tasked with “providing command and control of U.S. nuclear forces should ground-based control become inoperable” and whose core functions include conveying instructions from the National Command Authority to fleet ballistic missile submarines and also to further command post capabilities and control of land-based missiles and nuclear-armed bombers.

You can read more about the military air activity recently monitored by Steve Douglass in an extremely interesting article he posted on his blog that not only summarize the contents of the messages he sent to The Aviationist, but provides some more details about the alleged overseas deployment of E-6 Mercury “doomsday” planes from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.

Perhaps to Kim Jong-un the military escalation to nuclear war is only one big joke, but to the US it is increasingly appearing very serious.

And perhaps this is precisely what the Pentagon wanted all along?

Zero Hedge, April 6, 2013

http://www.infowars.com/us-secretly-deploys-b-1-strategic-bombers-e-6-doomsday-planes-near-north-korea/

April 08, 2013

"We learned the lesson in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan: be strong."

What North Koreans Think

by STANSFIELD SMITH

I recently returned from a late March trip to North Korea [Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, DPRK], along with 45 others, through Koryo Tours. On that tour I had the opportunity to discuss with the Korean tour guides their views on the current situation.  I only recall the DPRK view mentioned here once in the corporate media, when Dennis Rodman returned with a message from new President Kim Jong. The message was “I don’t want war, call me.”  Nobel Peace Prize winning President Obama refused to accept it, evidently preferring an escalating threat of a regional nuclear war to talking.  I asked my Korean tours guides to be interviewed so I could present their views to US people. 

Has the DPRK made proposals for peaceful national reunification? 

Yes, now we have options:  the historic option of a federal republic, and the recent option.  In our history we proposed three principles for reunification: that the North and South unite the country independently of foreign forces, that we reunify peacefully, and that we work together over the years to create the unity of the whole nation.

Our historic option is a federal republic: a central government concerned only with national defense and diplomacy, and two local governments, North and South, handling all other issues.

But recently the situation on the peninsula is deteriorating. There are no signs of resolving the issue.  If South Korean provocations continue, war will break out and we are prepared to fight. Because the situation has deteriorated, that is why we invalidated the 1953 ceasefire agreement. Now there is no contact between North and South. Now there are no phone lines between North and South, there is no hotline.

Now the US and South Korea plan is that the DPRK will collapse. The situation continues to deteriorate. They are playing a dangerous game.

Japan is also very hostile. The present government is very rightwing.  It is trying to build a strong military using “dangerous” DPRK as a pretext to justify turning its self-defense force into a regular army. Not only the DPRK, but many Asian countries are concerned with this right-wing Japanese resurgence.

The American people should ask the US government to change its hostile policy. Make America aware of the real situation in the Korean peninsula. Ask the American government to sign a peace treaty and push for diplomatic ties with the DPRK.

Why did the DPRK feel the need to develop a nuclear bomb?

Koreans had to deal with the reality of nuclear weapons twice before. Many thousands of Korans were used as slave labor by the Japanese in World War II, and many of these were forced labor workers in Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb.

Later, in the U.S. war in Korean, U.S. General MacArthur wanted to drop 50-70 atomic bombs along the China-Korea border to create a belt of land people cannot live on or cross.

Later in the Pueblo incident in 1968, when the DPRK captured a U.S. spy ship in our waters, President Johnson aircraft carriers with nuclear weapons to Korea. And in 1969 when the U.S. E-C spy plane was shot down over our territory, the U.S. again threatened us with a nuclear attack.

The “Team Spirit” US-South Korea war exercises from the 1970s to the 1990s practiced with using nuclear bombs.

The DPRK joined the International Atomic Energy Agency and became a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty member in 1985.  We wanted to develop cooperation in the field of nuclear energy. Our purpose for joining was to be safe from nuclear attack. But the threat has continued.

In 1994 with our agreement with the US, we froze our nuclear program. In exchange, President Clinton and the US promised to supply us with a light water reactor. As we now know, Clinton only made those promises because the US thought the DPRK would collapse, and so did not need to honor the agreement. We allowed nuclear inspections until 1999, to show that our nuclear power was only for peaceful purposes. The US broke the agreement in 2002 under Bush, and we resumed using our nuclear power plant.

The Yugoslav war showed us that we need to defend ourselves. We learned from the US that the US has no justice, no fairness. The US respects only power. So the DPRK developed nuclear weapons to have power.

The DPRK needs to allocate resources to meet people’s needs but must spend money on nuclear weapons to protect and defend our country. We learned the lesson in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan: be strong.

The DPRK negotiated with the U.S., but the U.S. broke agreements, and increased sanctions five times. When the DPRK would agree to some terms, the U.S. would raise the ante. The U.S. had said we cannot have nuclear power, because we could use it for bombs. We cannot have satellites because the missiles we send them into space with can be used as military missiles. These they these things can have dual purpose, one civilian, one military.  They deny us food because they say it can be used to feed the military. If we kept going along with this, they would say we cannot have kitchen knives because we could use them for fighting.

There are slave states and noble states. Noble states develop their own technological infrastructure, GPS, weather reporting, etc., so need satellites. These days satellites are used for many things. If your country doesn’t have your own technology, you end up a slave state, dependent on other countries.  Noble countries are in control of their own development and have a future.

Maybe without nuclear weapons we could already have been attacked by the US in a war. Now our people can live more peacefully. The people of the DPRK are proud we have nuclear weapons, they are a guarantee of peace.  Only we on our own can safeguard the peace.

The US has over 1000 nuclear weapons in South Korea – nuclear artillery, nuclear missiles, nuclear bombs, nuclear landmines.

The DPRK has called for a nuclear free Korean peninsula, but this call has been ignored. Now that we saw no choice but to develop nuclear weapons to defend ourselves, we are sanctioned. This is a double standard insulting to our people.

What do the people of the DPRK think of the US/UN sanctions? How do these sanctions affect the people here?

We have been used to coping with U.S. sanctions since 1945.  Our people think the sanctions are a clear example of a double standard and a misuse of the UN Security Council. There is no justification for them. Sanctions were applied because of our nuclear bomb tests and satellite launches.

Since World War II there have been 9000 missile/ satellite launches. Four were by the DPRK. There have been 2000 nuclear tests, 3 by the DPRK. But the UN never made a resolution or imposed sanctions against any country for doing that, only the DPRK.

This is a double standard by the UN. It is a misuse of the UN Security Council by the US.  Other countries are like US puppets to go along with this.

The sanctions affect every household, every individual in the DPRK. There are power cuts, a heating and energy shortage, a food problem. Even you visiting tourists are affected by the sanctions, as you see with your hotels. [in Pyongyang water and lights were only on certain hours of  the day; in other towns it was even less].  There is a lack of oil and spare parts for machinery.

The sanctions threaten any country that trades with the DPRK, so that they must choose who they want to trade with, the DPRK or other countries. Our trade now is really only with China.

How is the food situation now and what role is the US playing?

The food situation is still not satisfactory, and we are still trying to cover our basic food needs with the help of food imports and foreign aid.  Repeated US sanctions have stopped food aid. The sanctions have made the food situation worse.

At present US NGOs [Non-governmental organizations] give only some, limited, token medical aid and no food aid. For a period of 7-8 years there was no food aid from the US.  The US sanctions are interfering with solving the food situation. It has cut its food aid, and even interferes with other countries providing food aid.

What is the main emphasis in the DPRK’s economic plan now [for the last several years the country had a military first policy]?

The DPRK now emphasizes two points: agricultural production and light industry. Light industry is what you call textiles, food processing, toys, furniture, shoes, and so on.  We want to invest and develop more these two areas.  We want to improve the living standard of people. We focus on these two even if the situation is dangerous. Even if war is coming, we will focus on agriculture and light industry until war starts.  We must work harder on developing agriculture and light industry.

Now with the nuclear bomb, the DPRK is a little safer and can turn from self-defense spending to light industry and consumer goods investment.  You saw in Pyongyang a big conference of 10,000 delegates from light industries all over the country.  They are here to discuss and exchange ideas about how to improve light industry, what has worked in their factories, what has problems, and how to solve them.

How are relations with South Korea since the Sunshine Policy?

[Started by South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and continued by President Roh Moo-hyun, from the years 1998-2008.  In this period of less chilly relations between North and South, the heads of state of the two countries met in 2000 and again in 2007. Cooperative business developments began, several thousand South Korean tourists visited the North. Kaesong Industrial Park in the DPRK was opened.]

Since 2008 South Korea has shown only confrontation. There has been no cooperation. South Korea has broken all agreements we have made during the Sunshine policy. There is no more cooperation, no tourism from the South, no engagement.  Now relations are only negative, there are no positive signs.  This is because of both US pressure and a South Korean decision.  South Korea President Lee Myung-bak is a right-wing businessman, who changed the situation, just  like Bush reversed Clinton’s even moderate degree of cooperation.

The present South Korea president is Park Geun-hye, daughter of South Korean military dictator Park  Chung-hee , who was an officer in the Japanese Imperial Army. Cooperation has changed to confrontation. South Korea thinks military pressure on the North, combined with sanctions, will make the DPRK collapse.

Stansfield Smith recently spent a week in North Korea. He can be reached at: stansfieldsmith@yahoo.com

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/04/08/what-north-koreans-think/

Chossudovsky: Korean Crossroads: US Wish for Pre-emptive Action 'Prelude to Global Warfare' - YouTube

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLdPpFsNLvE

6시간 전 - 업로더: GlobalResearchTV

The real threat of the escalation of hostilities on the Korean peninsular - and consequently the world - comes ...

 

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Korean Crossroads: US Action 'Prelude to Global Warfare'

by grtv

The real threat of the escalation of hostilities on the Korean peninsular - and consequently the world - comes not from North Korea, but from the United States itself, political analyst Michel Chossudovsky told RT.

The director of the Centre for Research on Globalization and professor of economics at the University of Ottawa believes it is the US which is trying to light a match.

"Just a few weeks ago it was revealed that the Pentagon had implemented a so-called playbook, which was to ratchet up tension with North Korea. During the war games it has dispatched [nuclear capable planes]... We have to put it in historical perspective, because these threats have been ongoing for more than half a century, since the end of the Korean War," he said.

Chossudovsky also added that it does not seem at all that the world is serious in its intentions at curbing nuclear threats as such: "Looking at US nuclear doctrine, we have a $32 billion refurbishing of nuclear weapons, which is barely acknowledged by the mainstream media. We have a $10 billion refurbishing of tactical nuclear weapons, which can be launched from a B-2 bomber, which have currently been deployed. And then we have a Senate decision which says that nuclear weapons are harmless to the surrounding civilian population and can be used in the conventional war theater."

When asked what tactics could possibly be implemented to avert the current crisis, Chossudovsky said that he sees a way out if "the people across the land, in Western countries, come to realize that the United States and NATO are a threat to global security, and if they wish to wage a pre-emptive nuclear war on any country in the world, that is a prelude to global warfare."