Massive numbers of North Korean troops are marching through the streets of Pyongyang today, marching as part of the nation’s most important holiday, the “Day of the Sun,” which commemorates the 105th anniversary of the birth of the nation’s founder, Kim Il-Sung.
It’s always a holiday with a lot of military pomp, but this year is different, as a US carrier strike group heads to the Korean Peninsula, and soaring tensions between the US and North Korea has China warning that it believes the conflict could break out “at any moment.”
China and Russia are both urging the two nations to calm the situation down, with Russia urging the two sides to both show restraint, while China cautioned each not to go down a path that would lead to an “irreversible route” to a massive war on the Korean Peninsula.
Neither the US nor North Korea seems interested in deescalation at this point, however, with the Trump Administration keen to continue to ratchet up pressure, openly talking about military intervention and suggesting that they can “solve” the problem of North Korea unilaterally.
North Korea is also unwilling to show any signs of backing down under US pressure, insisting that hey are willing to fight a war if President Trump wants one, and threatening nuclear retaliation against US forces in South Korea, as well as across the region.
At the same time, North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister downplayed reports that a nuclear test was imminent, something many fear would lead to a US attack. The minister, Han Song Ryol, insisted that North Korea would carry out a test “when they see fit.”
Though a test over the weekend, as rumored, wouldn’t be totally ruled out by Han’s comments, it seems unlikely that North Korea would present that as a time they “see fit,” when a test conducted right now would obviously be designed to try to needle the US.
Either way, the Pentagon confirmed they are preparing “military options” against North Korea, and haven’t totally ruled out the possibility of a preemptive US attack, though officials did deny that a decision to conduct such an attack has already been made.
Without S.Korea signing on to US action against N.Korea, the US loses S.Korea and any support for a US missile presence there. That isn’t going to happen. US interest in the Koreas is strictly tactical, as is common throughout the world. Global hegemony for the purpose of one empire. PNAC.
Behind the scenes things are happening that are not the business of the news outlets. One major development is that the US is installing a missile system in S.Korea that will be there as a threat to China, under the pretense of it being a defense of S.Korea.
That would be worth considering as the root cause of the whole affair. But definitely not coming out of Trump’s empty head. N. Korea is playing its role on behalf of its master, China.
In the next few weeks or maybe months, the story will unfold and China’s best interests will be that upon which eventual decisions will be made.
I knew Trump would become the nightmare we would regret. This should have been all too telling during the election process. The man was such a liar (pathological at that) and contradictory that it should be shocking at to see him in light of our foreign policy of total belligerence. Believe me, Hillary was a nightmare as well but for all to think this guy would be any better in regards to foreign policy, is wishful thinking. When you have a man as narcissistic as Trump and devoid of telling the truth with his finger on the button so to speak, we are not too removed from a Kim Jong Un. If there ever was a time to talk about impeachment, it would be now.
There’s no reason to think that Hillary would have been as bad as Trump. Haven’t you figured out by now that she said things during the campaign that were extremist in order to play against Trump? Remember Trump’s lies about Russia? Remember Hillary’s lies to counter them?
And as for your comments on Kim, you’ve been propagandized to accept that another one of the US’s enemies is as bad as the US propagandists have made him out to be.
Think about it. Saddam, Ghaddafi, Kim, all insane because of US needs and then they fall victim to the real insanity that runs roughshod over small countries of the world.
Hillary’s record at Foggy Bottom was that of a warmonger.
She hired Ms. Nuland off of DICK CHENEY’s staff and put her in charge of destroying relations with Russia. She also pushed and backed the pivot to asia policy that has destroyed relations with China.
And of course with Hillary playing Dick Cheney’s role in starting the war that destroyed the Libyan state and the whole ‘we came, we saw, he died’ ugliness with the death of Qaddafy. And of course her support for the Iraq war and pretty much every other war that’s come along. No one can remember a war that Hillary didn’t support.
Hillary’s problem is that her track record had become so extensive that her lies and the lies of her supporters could no longer cover it up.
Even with Trump doing all of this, I still firmly believe that Hillary was the ‘Greatest Evil’ in the last election. We’d have been at war two months ago if Hillary had won. But hey, I’m sure the Clinton Foundation would have had a great quarter before the mushroom clouds erupted.
Did not know Ms Nuland came from Cheney’s staff . but sure did ring true to Cheney . Trump is now deviating from Cheney enough to suit me
Yeah sure, the world would be at war by now with Hillary. I’m o.k. with that if it helps you to start facing reality of the present.
Your president is a psychopath and many experts have said that, even without a personal evaluation of Trump.
As Trump starts to learn enough to be involved in foreign policy, the situation becomes much more dangerous. Right now he’s being directed by his generals on his every move.
All though you forgot to mention Milosevic although he has been some what exhonorated 10 years after his death or questionable murder , Even Egypt’s Dictator Murbank the Muslim brotherhood over threw . But of course the worst thug of all the popular Russian Christian former KGB agent Putin . I don’t know about Kim but all the other guys you mentioned were replaced total disaster
Milosevic exonerated. The rest is totally garbled and not even readable. Try again or preferably, just shut up.
Your country’s saving grace is almost certainly the fact that Trump is not involved in foreign policy. He doesn’t understand it and so his generals are doing the job. That can change over time as Trump becomes more bold and that’s when it becomes a lot more serious.
An appropriate comparison right now would be between Hillary and Trump’s general. I wouldn’t make a prediction on which would be worse for the world.
Isn’t it unusual for China to make such dramatic, alarmist statements? It could of course be a bluff, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if they had reason to believe something was brewing.
China knows exactly what is happening in N.Korea, just as the US knows exactly what is happening in Israel. And in both cases the proxies are following orders.
Start to think of that as the logical explanation and the pieces begin to fall into place.
Why shouldn’t North Korea have atomic weapons? The US has been threatening this nation since the Korean war started (it has not ended). Just more b.s. for the military industrial complex to continue to rape the Amerikan citizens.
Mr. Raidmondo mentions in his article that the ‘Sunshine Policy’ that tried to start in the 1990’s was nixed by both the Bush admin arrival in DC and a new hardline government in Seoul.
We know Bush was installed by a coup after he lost an election. Press analysis after it was all over showed that Gore really did win Florida.
I wonder if the CIA and the American deep state ‘interfered’ with the South Korean elections that put their hardline government into place?
Was the Korean flashpoint on its way to being resolved two decades ago, but ‘manipulation’ of elections in both the US and S.Korea stopped it? Is this how the world ends?
If Gore had won the election we would not have had different foreign policy . Both parties have had much the same foreign policy all along . Bad foreign policy of interference in every bodies business while doing a very poor job of running our own business . Trump showed some promise at being different or at least he talked of another different plan . But Trump looks more and more like the same NWO policy we have had all along .
This is bad. I have a friend in Seoul due to Trumps immigration crackdown. If we drop bombs on North Korea they will shell the ever loving Christ out of Seoul. All I can do is pray but being an agnostic I can’t even be sure someone else is on the other end of the line. Just another stupid f**king war. More macho straight men trying to prove their manhood through mass murder. I know this is an over-simplification but war is so f**king stupid. That’s all I have left to say at this point. War is so f**king stupid.
A little more complicated comrade and you being an American prevents you from visualizing the whole story.
China will not permit a US strike on N.Korea, any more than the US would allow a strike against it’s proxy state, Israel.
It would mean a lot more than the destruction of S.Korea. It shouldn’t be hard at this point in the game to understand that China and Russia are drawing a line in the sand. N.Korea is vital to China’s interests.
I’ll even postulate that Kim is acting on China’s directions.
Which is somewhat reassuring because it’s not just a US strike on N.Korea anymore, it’s a strike against China.
And again, the wild card is the psychopath Trump!
We are the reason N korea and Russia are so poor if they feel they have to arm themselves to defend against us taking them over like we did to Yugoslavia . No question in my mind Yugoslavia would still be a country if the United States had not been interfering and dropping bombs in that country . We improved nothing but have been making all these countries worse off . NATO has taken over where the NAZIs left off . The United States should be ashamed of all the trouble we have caused , It never would have been possible with out fake news and a lying media constantly lying with propaganda about everything .
Only if the U.S. shoots first. Its becoming pretty clear now that China and North Korea aren’t in any mood to start anything.
Although, Great Leader is probably ROFLOL about how easy it is to match MOAB and Trump Trump in the headlines; just fire off a dud missile launch.
Infinitely cheaper than MOAB, kills no-one, and realistically is not particularly threatening except to American warhawk egos. All those failed missile launches can’t be for real; its on-purpose.
As a Korean War veteran, I find it beyond outrageous that my US Government has never really negotiated in good faith with North Korea and China (both of which are still technically at war with the US under the 1953 cease-fire agreement [not peace treaty] that ended the armed conflict) to finally reach a peace treaty. The closest thing was the agreement during the Clinton Administration in the late 1990’s, under which North Korea agreed to suspend its nuclear weapons program in exchange for the US’s promise to build two light-water nuclear power plants in North Korea — and my Government not only failed to build the two nuclear power plants within the agreed multi-year time period, but in fact did not even begin the construction of those promised plants by the end of the agreed construction period. While I disagree with Trump on almost everything he has ever said, during his presidential campaign he did utter at least one sensible idea: Why not sit down directly with the government of North Korea (and of China), find out what their current requests/demands are, and discuss whether the US Government can meet those requests/demands without compromising our legitimate national interests? I say “legitimate” advisedly, because over the past half-century I have become increasingly aware that my Government’s concept of negotiating with another nation concerning our “national interests” has been comprised of dictating whatever terms my Government’s current leaders deem appropriate for The World’s Sole Superpower. Thus, I am not sanguine about the outcome of my proposed direct negotiations with North Korea (and China); but at least such negotiations are more promising than the “isolate them,” “threaten them,” “destabilize them,” “regime-change them” tactics that our Great Leaders have been vainly employing against disliked foreign governments for the past many decades.