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.
Umm . . .
https://militarybases.com/overseas/south-korea/
Cmon now! That’s South Korea, North Korea is the buffer zone between South Korea and US military bases and China. Military bases in North Korea is completely different than South Korea. SMH
You should be shaking your head to clear the fog.
If China attacks Taiwan and the US attacks North Korea, no one will be building new bases anywhere in the region, either for a long time or forever. Guess why that is.
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.
No one even remotely sane wants nukes to be used, and that includes the vast majority of neocons. There are plenty of neocons, and liberal interventionists, playing chicken with the risk of nuclear weapons use, of course.
Not talking about sane people, talking about neocons. No such thing as sane fanatics. Israel needs to use nukes but they need someone else to use them first, hence the Ukraine, Taiwan, and N. Korea situations, all of which are being pushed toward the use of nukes, the first two by the US and the last by N. Korea. Israel needs to be freed up to nuke Iran to remove it from the nuclear threshold, which compromises the nuclear hegemony Israel not implausibly believes it requires to maintain its existence.
As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Got any?
1) That Iran is on the threshold of nuclear weapons, and that this threatens Israel’s regional nuclear hegemony, is commonly acknowledged.
2) That Israel considers its regional nuclear hegemony necessary for its survival can be established by a google search. The Israeli PM made a thinly veiled reference a few days ago, there are many quotes.
3) There is common bafflement why Biden would push the war in Ukraine and Pelosi would push China on Taiwan. Biden and Pelosi are two elderly and clearly confused people surrounded by neocons.
4) The seeming objective of 3) is to force US use of nuclear weapons either in response to an otherwise unstoppable Russian invasion of Ukraine or in response to an otherwise unstoppable Chinese invasion of Taiwan, both initially resisted by the US with conventional weapons.
5) There is common bafflement on this page why the US would threaten the life of a sketchy individual with nuclear weapons.
6) The seeming objective of 5) is to precipitate N. Korean use of nuclear weapons in response to a US threat against the security of that country and the life of its leader.
7) The JCPOA has stalled. Israeli attempts to get the US to attack Iran have failed, and Israeli murders of Iranian nuclear scientists have not stopped the Iranian nuclear program.
8) The only way Israel can neutralize the Iranian nuclear capability is with nuclear weapons. Conventional weapons would not be sufficient. Israeli use of nuclear weapons would have the additional benefit of making the Israeli nuclear arsenal a demonstrated deterrent for the other countries in the region.
9) Israel can either nuke Iran 1) out of the blue, to universal horror and its possible demise, or 2) in the wake of the chaos following US or N. Korean use of nuclear weapons, after the nuclear taboo has been broken. The second option is much preferred.
10) Granted one can never completely discount simple government idiocy, but other than that no other theory seems to fit the facts.
Not a single word of that posts constitutes evidence that neocons need or want nukes. You are merely speculating and your speculation has led you to a conclusion that is improbable in the extreme.
Maybe take a break and refresh your memory about the meaning of the word “evidence.”
It’s commonly acknowledged Israel has nuclear weapons. As for the rest, everything I wrote is either common knowledge or ready inference. What points do you question? I notice your response is short on specifics.
Got online to check and the latest post up top-
“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”
… Yes indeed. “Why”? Got any thoughts, Red?
One problem with that, Ted.
Iran doesn’t have nukes and according to their government, is not pursuing them.
That, of course, does not preclude IsraHell from nuking Iran, the former repeating ad nauseum that Iran IS pursuing nuclear weapons.
Why would Iran still be willing to sign on to JCPOA if that were true?
I trust the religious leadership of Iran, who condemn nuclear weapons, thousands of times more that those of IsraHell and Amerikkka.
IsraHell WILL be the first quasi-nation to initiate an attack. It’s a vicious, “sh*tty little country” and knows perfectly well that Big Brother Amerikkka wouldn’t condemn it.
It makes no difference what Iran’s stated or actual nuclear intent is. The Iranian capability is there and would eventually be exercised, at which point the game would probably be over. Israel won’t let that happen.
So, capability = eventually exercised? Only in the Israeli/Saudi/American view. And what does “the game would probably be over” mean? For whom? If you think Iran would actually nuke Israel, or that any Muslim state would, you don’t understand them at all. There’s a reason why there is a fatwa against nuclear weapons, and Jerusalem remains the third holiest site in Islam.
You guys really don’t get this. It’s not about intent, it’s about capability, one Israel possesses and can’t allow any other ME country to possess. Nuclear weapons decide who is ultimately in charge, and Israel has to be. By “game over” I mean that once Iran had a demonstrated nuclear capability it could no longer be struck by Israel. Israel’s strategic dominance would be gone. Given their circumstances the end of their existence, at least in the present form, would be a matter of time, and probably not all that much of it. Israel cannot tolerate Iran having the capability to build nuclear weapons. This requires destroying Iran’s nuclear program.
It’s not that we don’t get this. It’s that your initial statements don’t unpack your actual position. As I said in my previous post, you sounded like you were taking the Israeli position uncritically.
I am. The Israeli position is what they act on. They won’t listen to me anyway.
Iran on the threshhold of nuclear weapons commonly acknowledged? No, commonly asserted and routinely debunked.
LOL. Iran itself acknowledges it could build nuclear weapons on short order. They have the material and the technology is eighty years old.
They’ve been “six months away from the Bomb” since 1996 (Simon Perez). Yes, the tech is out there. By that logic every country is six months away from the Bomb. But they don’t have a nuclear weapons programme, is the point. Verified since 2003, I might add. Continuously. It’s like the internet conspiracy against asparthame, resulting in it being the most tested substance on the planet and yet people still keep insisting it’s bad for you: the Iranians are about to “wipe Israel off the map”, based on a mistranslation of a line quoted by a guy who isn’t there anymore. You can’t even say “wipe off the map” in Farsi (I recall Raimondo’s excellent article on this, where he quote the line in transliterated Farsi, showing the word “regime” was basically the same, I recommend it, a good read). They are not now and never have been some great existential threat to Israel, with its existing 200 nukes. The Iranians have not attacked another state in over 200 years. Of course, they are sympathetic–everyone is, supposedly–to the Palestinians, but they weren’t even involved in the first Arab-Israeli war, nor any subsequent conflicts.They have a fatwa against nuclear weapons, and Jerusalem is the 3rd holiest site in Islam. I don’t understand why, despite being against Israeli policy, you frequently repeat their biased statements of Iran. I think what happens is you present the Israeli view (it will be “necessary” to attack Iran) and it comes across as your own. It’s not hepful. And moreover, I think perhaps it takes the Israelis too much at their word. Has it not occured to you that Israel needs some great enemy to justify its own policies of apartheid, mass conscription and indoctrination, illegal colonialism by proxy settlers, etc.? That while they continue to provoke Iran and others (indeed, attacking Syria is really attacking Iran, etc.), maybe they know full well they can’t take Iran on, but it’s a convenient enemy so Israelis have something even bigger to be scared of?
And like I just posted on the other thread, Blinken said a few days ago the US will use nuclear weapons to “defend the vital interests of the United States, its allies, and partners”. “Defending the vital interests”, whatever that means, of “partners”, whoever those are, is a dramatic lowering of the nuclear threshold. We’re being prepped for the use of nuclear weapons.
I’m an aerospace engineer and know enough about nuclear weapons to realize how close Iran is to having them. I also know all the facts you present, I remember reading Raimondo’s articles. Current Iranian intent is immaterial. Think of the British destruction of the French fleet in North Africa. The simple fact is that from the Israeli perspective another country in the Middle East, particularly one not aligned with the US, cannot be permitted to have even the immediate capability to build nuclear weapons. Iran actually acquiring nuclear weapons, which they could at their sole discretion, would arguably mean the end of Israel, and it’s not an option the Israelis intend to leave open. FWIW I’ve publicly pointed out Israel is a Jewish South Africa and will no more persist into the 22nd century than slavery in America persisted into the 20th, and I’ve seen the Israeli army dealing with Palestinians, but again that’s beside the point. And if you think Israel doesn’t see things the way I’m saying then look at their actions. They don’t need to demonize Iran, they’re surrounded by enemies anyway. Their targeting of Iran is genuine. Israel exists by force, and what they increasingly lack in conventional superiority has been backed up by nuclear hegemony since the 70s. Maintaining that monopoly is an existential imperative for them, perhaps correct but certainly genuine. They’re going to continue in their efforts to see the Iranian nuclear program destroyed, failing which they intend to do it themselves by direct action, and it will probably be nuclear. It looks like they’re trying to get the nuclear taboo broken, they need the firepower, they need the terror, and hitting a hot reactor would be a radiological event anyway.
Why would IsraHell “need” nuclear weapons when it has 95% of Amerikkkan congresswhores in its pocket?
Contrary to popular belief, there is in fact no mutual defense treaty between the US and Israel. And Israel doesn’t count on anybody. Indeed, they’ve done their best to get the US to take out Iran but have failed. If you want something done right, ….
If Israhell nukes Iran, the entire Middle East will go up in flames.
Conventional weapons will be used against IsraHell and they will reciprocate with nukes.
I might add that China would NOT be happy. Hello, WWIII.
If Israel nukes Iran, at least in the short term any country in the region that doesn’t want to get nuked its own self will STFU. Egypt likes Cairo, Iraq like likes Baghdad, Syria like Damascus, etc.. But beyond that the simple shock of it will harden the world against Israel. That’s why they need the nuclear taboo broken by another country, preferably Russia or China but more likely the US. If it all happens it will be interesting to watch the media and politicians peddle it.
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.