The US and South Korea are planning new war games where they will simulate taking out North Korea’s military leadership, including the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday.
The drills will simulate targeting Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear sites plus bases needed to supply them. Sources familiar told The Daily Beast that the war games will end with a “decapitation” exercise where they attack North Korea’s command structure and take out Kim.
According to the report, the US will not publicly acknowledge that they are practicing killing Kim in the war games. Washington and Seoul haven’t held such exercises since President Trump canceled them in 2018 after meeting with Kim.
The last time the war games were held was in 2017, and Kim responded by ordering an underground nuclear weapons test. The North hasn’t launched a nuclear test since, but the US is risking provoking one by simulating Kim’s assassination.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and his South Korean counterpart, Lee Jong-sup, agreed to restart the drills last weekend. When they were held last about 50,000 South Korean troops, and 20,000 US troops participated.
The renewed war games come after South Korea’s new President Yoon Suk-yeol said he would strengthen military ties with the US. His predecessor, Moon Jae-in, was a proponent of peaceful reunification with the North, and Yoon has said he will take a tougher stance on Pyongyang.
Yoon seeks the return of US nuclear bombers and submarines to South Korean territory. The US removed all of its nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula in 1991.
The Biden administration has maintained that it’s open to talks with Pyongyang but hasn’t offered any incentives to bring them to the table, such as sanctions relief. The North restarted launching missile tests last year, and the US has been warning that they may be preparing for a nuclear test.
Does the US have a death wish or what? What was the TV series in which alien worms took over and ate the brains of politicians in DC? BrainDead, Tony Shaloub, 2016. It’s happening.
Now, that is my cup of tea! Some popcorn, a large, highly caffeinated soda and chocolate bars!
JOLT! COLA……………………we knew a high school basketball coach who would have his team down two before the game.
Stimulating!
Let me get this straight. I don’t possess the mental faculties that you do… So… We want war with Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, all at the same time? So… You’re saying that we would have an advantage from a surprise attack because they would never suspect we’re that stupid. Wow. That’s so… brilliant.
Us is running things in autopilot. There is no overall strategy. When u run a reactive strategy of poking and prodding that is belligerent and based on the notion of us being a hyper power this is how it ends up.
This actually works when the opponents simply don’t have the means to hit back but when they can poke back in conventional or unconventional way it’s….
The MIC cult is revving things up.
Like the parliamentary whip in the BBC “Hse of Cards” Washington has to repeatedly “put a bit of stick about” to “keep the bastards in line.”
Not autopilot. The Blob rules, and our political world is in denial about that.
Kinda like a World War?!
NA, “stupid” is a strong word… Highly moronic has a nicer ring to it…
Kinda like the LAST war. THE LAST WAR. It would be over.
Just a wild guess, if China attacks Taiwan then US attacks North Korea and puts military bases on its border in response.
Putting US bases in North Korea was always the goal of provoking NK. That and the trillion dollars of mineral assets NK has under its ground. The US has only two goals in its history: 1) hegemony, and 2) money.
Once again one has to ask how the US would respond if another country openly talked about doing a dry run simulating taking out Biden. And I’m talking about our government’s response and not the mass celebrations that would break out from coast to coast. Of course, that would only be the case if the dry run turned real.
Well, Wars, I for one would find it highly amusing 😁
Perhaps you could join Donna and me for Black (or in my case, White) Russians while viewing the entertainment.
Sounds like a plan. I know I would enjoy both of your company. I’ll have to skip the alcohol part of it and stick to the good herb.
No problem there, Wars! We’ve a garden with several plants ( yup, it’s legal here)…it’s our “cash crop” 😉
Mine too! Only mine is of the indoor variety.
One’s as good as the other! We’re fortunate to have a very private property where it’s fairly undetectable. We did fence it, because someone told us that deer would eat it! So far we haven’t seen any deer staggering about 🙂
I recall back in the late 70’s, before we had our farm, we’d grow it on our friends’ farm between the corn rows. We dried and smoked the entire plant: buds, leaves, stems, everything, which is why back then you could smoke half a joint without becoming paralyzed…heh.
I remember smoking “loners” which was where everyone had their own joint. So, you could “bogart that joint my friend”. But, yeah, the quality has improved a tad. Loners to two one-hitters.
It’s improved so much I’m no longer able to partake of it Wars!
But I’ve always been susceptible to the effects of any mind-altering substances. I can cop a good buzz on a single mixed drink. And in high school, when we’d do acid before classes started, people said “DON’T give **** more than a quarter hit of ANYTHING”! 😄
“”the US will not publicly acknowledge that they are practicing killing Kim in the war games””
hey it’s just a coincidence that our target practice guy looks exactly like your real guy!
An amazing coincidence!
We could send Kim Jong a voodoo doll with an amazing likeness to ByeDone.
And a box of pins.
The US is trying to get South Korea under the bus.
Again, the neocons need nukes to get used so they can bring theirs out of the tool kit.
And the moron Pentagon thinks assassinating Kim brings democracy to North Korea…!
Even if this is a ‘strategy’, it boggles the mind how the US even thinks this could possibly be a smart strategy…
How about having a nice sit down, with all those concerned and everyone bring a nosh, a little wine and break some bread.
Practicing assassinations is a bit cliche and overdone… It’s too movie-like. No Oscars though…
“President Kim, in the closet, with a blood drenched wrench, next to his body, bloody gushing from his skull, coating the floor…”
Well, we can look to the serial attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro to see that the CIA’s plots aren’t always foolproof.
So true, so true…! Some of the stuff they plotted for Fidel defies the imagination…
I can see Stallone starring in that one 😉
US leaders will keep trying until they provoke somebody to use nukes. Russia, China, North Korea, Iran? They are working all of them.
Why? This is nuts.
The Last Breaths of the Empire…!
And Mark…
That’s why I don’t have a great deal of worry about climate change.
We’re gonna go from “global warming” to nuclear winter. I have rarely felt anything so strongly.