Image by cool revolution via Flickr
by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
October 28, 2017
If anyone is still wondering why North Korea was being “provocative” in missile tests and repeatedly declaring what would seem to be a daunting arsenal (although there is still no irrefutable, concrete proof of deliverable, long range nuclear weapons capability) here is just a small taste of what it’s southern neighbor, in cahoots with Godfather America, has planned:
“Decapitation.”
“Kill the king and the regime will collapse. That is the rationale offered by South Korean military planners for a “decapitation unit” they are forming for the sole purpose of assassinating North Korea’s Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un. They are convinced that, in the ensuing chaos, North Korea’s leadership would disintegrate and abandon the nuclear programme on which he has staked his prestige.
““Decapitation means we have only one target,” said Choi Jin-wook, a long-time North Korea analyst at the government’s Korea Institute for National Unification. “It’s much simpler to eliminate the leader than attack military bases.”
“South Korea’s defence minister, Song Young-moo, has ordered a special forces “kill brigade” of crack commandos to spearhead the group. Fighter planes and guided missile destroyers would provide whatever support they needed.
“The ministry cited the successful test-firing of a German-made Taurus missile at a target off the south-west coast as an example of the weaponry that might be deployed in an attempt to kill the North Korean leader.
“The missile, with a range of 310 miles, flew about 150 miles, hitting its target in the Yellow Sea.”
South Korea of course is not threatened with being wiped off the face of the earth for test firing a missile in to the sea, as is its northern neighbor.
Think about the words “decapitation unit” – the horrific image which leaps in to any even semi-normal mind. This kind of plotting dwarfs even the horrors of deranged criminals literally decapitating in the Middle East. But then swathes of them too are US backed.
Perhaps “decapitation” is now casual verbal currency in US dominated political and military circles.
Chilling Principles of Defence Secretary Mattis.
It should also not be forgotten that in the Trumposphere, where General James Mattis is now Defence Secretary the General has some pretty arresting principles. Life is clearly very cheap and killing the most casual of undertakings:
A few of his views include:
“The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event. That said, there are some assholes in the world that just need to be shot.”
“Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.”
“Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in American democracy) and kill every one of them until they’re so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact.”
Precisely the “experiment in American democracy” inflicted most recently on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, with North Korea and Iran in their sights.
With thanks to William Blum, the list of US mass slaughtering “democracy” projects since 1949.
Talking of Afghanistan, here are General Mattis’ thoughts on democracy- spreading there:
“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway. So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it’s quite fun to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot. It’s fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like brawling.”
In the real world these are surely views which might well find the holder in a secure psychiatric unit, if not a maximum secure prison.
Diplomatic Overtures Ignored.
Contrast this to an ignored approach from the Korean Peninsular, where both Australia and North Korea have Embassies in Seoul.
On 28th September:
“The Embassy of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the Republic of Indonesia presents its compliments to the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia and has the honor to inform that the Foreign Affairs Committee of the DPRK Supreme People’s Assembly sent the open letter to the Parliaments of the different countries.
“ … the Embassy of the DPRK has further the honor to enclose hereby the above-mentioned letter.”
The preamble ends with diplomatic courtesies and “highest considerations.”
The letter in part (full document) written in the third person, reads as follows:
“Open Letter to the Parliaments of Different Countries.
“The letter noted that Trump, President of the U.S., styling itself ‘the superpower’, denied the existence of the DPRK, a dignified sovereign state (and threatened) ‘total destruction’ at the UN …
“The Foreign Affairs Committee of the DPRK … mission (is to) promote friendly and co-operative relations with the parliaments and peace-loving people of the countries around the world … based on the ideas of independence, peace and friendship, bitterly condemns the reckless remarks of Trump as an intolerable insult to the Korean people, a declaration of war against the DPRK and a grave threat to the global peace …
(From his first day in office, the President):
“has engaged in high handed and arbitrary practice, scrapping international laws and agreements (putting America first) at the expense of the whole world.”
Threats of annihilation and sanctions have denied the people of the DPRK “normal economic development, in breach of the UN Charter …”
Trump, the letter states:
“threatened to totally destroy the DPRK, a dignified, independent and sovereign State and a nuclear power. It is an extreme act of threatening to destroy the whole world.”
The correspondence concludes with the:
“… belief that the parliaments of different countries, loving independence, peace and justice will fully discharge their due mission and duty in realizing the desire of mankind for international justice and peace (and with vigilance) against the reckless moves of the Trump Administration trying to drive the world in to a horrible nuclear disaster.”
With Trump threatening that his finger is hovering over the nuclear button, few could surely disagree with much of the DPRK’s sentiments.
Donald Trump of course boasted menacingly to “totally destroy” North Korea in his address to the UN General Assembly on 19th September, the UN Charter’s fine founding words clearly unknown to him.
There has been a deafening silence from world governments regarding the above letter. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who visited South Korea in August, instead of reacting to a hand held out commented:
“I read this as showing that the collective strategy of allies and partners to impose maximum pressure and diplomatic and economic sanctions on North Korea is working … So I think that this shows they are feeling desperate, feeling isolated, trying to demonise the US, trying to divide the international community.”
However, Australia’s Lowy Institute Director of International Security, Euan Graham, was more positive, commenting:
“This is effectively an invitation to have high level access, to send an (Australian) delegation from Seoul.”
“Now would be a good time for Australia to exercise its still existing, even if on-off, diplomatic relations with the North.” (Sydney Morning Herald, 20th October 2017)
North Korea the Aggressor?
For anyone reading most of the Western media where the DPRK is the latest nation to be demonized, the best and most succinct summary of endless US betrayal since the armistice of July 1953 is this article, “Missed Opportunities For Peace in Korea“. Here is an excerpt from the early 1990’s onwards.
Remember too that the US had nuclear weapons in South Korea from the late 1950’s until 1991.
“In January 1993, president Bill Clinton announced the largest military war games ever (in which all sorts of nuclear weaponry featured).
“These took place in and around Korea’s shores in March. The DPRK reacted to a more belligerent environment by giving notice of intention to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it had joined in 1985. The North also demonstrated the viability of a medium-range missile, the Nodong 1, in May 1993.” If ever cause and effect were starkly demonstrated here is a prime example.
“Kim Il Sung died in July 1994 and his son, Kim Jong Il, replaced him as leader.
“In the early summer of that year the US government concluded that a military strike on Yongbyon – under serious consideration – would start a war with the North.
“But instead of war, influenced by a voluntary shutdown by the North of the Yongbyon reactor, talks led to the October Framework Agreement of 1994.
“Under this agreement, the North agreed to continue the reactor’s shutdown in exchange for light water reactors and a new relationship with the US.
“Loans and credits were to ease the agreement, and the US undertook to supply heating oil to tide over the North’s heating problems in the short term.
“The agreement called for full diplomatic relations and a US pledge not to threaten or target the North with nuclear weapons.
“Eloquently, no missile testing by the North proceeded between May 1993 and August 1998.
“In June 1998 the Pentagon staged simulated long-range nuclear attack drills against North Korea, and in October that year a US Lieutenant General spoke publicly about plans for replacing the North Korean regime, and of even beginning the project preemptively if there were solid grounds for expecting an attack.
“These developments hardly confirmed US commitment to developing a more co-operative relationship with the North.
“George W Bush’s ascension to president in 2001 produced a declaration from his advisers that the 1994 agreement was dead in the water. (Thus) in December 2002, the DPRK expelled the IAEA inspectors, restarted the Yongbyon reactor and withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
“Bush meanwhile, declared his intention of dealing with North Korea after Iraq.
“In spring 2003 the North made another offer to the US: it would scrap its nuclear development if the US would normalise relations and provide basic security guarantees.
“Six years later, in 2009, substantive talks involving Russia and China as well as Japan, the US and both Koreas had goals which included the normalising of diplomatic relations, an end to trade sanctions and acknowledgement of the North’s right to use nuclear energy.
“But these talks collapsed after both the US and the ROK rejected the North’s gradual dismantling of its nuclear weapons.
“In 2011 Kim Jong Il died and his second son, Kim Jong-un, became the North’s new leader.
The summary concludes:
“During these past three months the risk of war, indeed of nuclear war – not necessarily restricted to the Korean peninsula – has increased dramatically.”
General Mattis Visits South Korea.
General Mattis is, at time of writing, in South Korea, where he has delivered a near dead ringer copy of the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq. Washington’s mantra was that Iraq “threatened it’s neighbours” though even hostile neighbours responded that it did not. Iraq of course could destroy parts of the West “in 45 minutes.” It was a pack of lies.
Here’s Mattis: “North Korea has accelerated the threat that it poses to its neighbors and the world through its illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear weapons programs …” The situation had developed a “new urgency.”
Next month Trump is to visit South Korea, the man who has threatened to unleash on it’s small neighbour “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”
This is the man of whom twenty-seven eminent psychiatrists and psychotherapists have written in a just published book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: “We collectively warn that anyone as mentally unstable as this man simply should not be entrusted with the life-and-death powers of the Presidency.”
It is time for the world’s diplomats to respond to North Korea’s letter and rise to the urgent occasion, before it is too late for the region and very possibly the planet.
***
A Peace Treaty with North Korea — and you can sign it!
by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy
October 27, 2017
Alarmed by the threat of a nuclear war between the U.S. and North Korea, concerned U.S. peace groups have come together to send an open message to Washington and Pyongyang.
Click here to add your name to the People’s Peace Treaty.
The People’s Peace Treaty will be sent to the governments and peoples of Korea, as well as to the U.S. Government. It reads, in part:
Recalling that the United States currently possesses about 6,800 nuclear weapons, and has threatened the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea in the past, including the most recent threat made by the U.S. President in his terrifying speech to the United Nations (“totally destroy North Korea”);
Regretting that the U.S. Government has so far refused to negotiate a peace treaty to replace the temporary Korean War Armistice Agreement of 1953, although such a peace treaty has been proposed by Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) many times from 1974 on;
Convinced that ending the Korean War officially is an urgent, essential step for the establishment of enduring peace and mutual respect between the U.S. and DPRK, as well as for the North Korean people’s full enjoyment of their basic human rights to life, peace and development – ending their long sufferings from the harsh economic sanctions imposed on them by the U.S. Government since 1950.
The People’s Peace Treaty concludes:
NOW, THEREFORE, as a Concerned Person of the United States of America (or on behalf of a civil society organization), I hereby sign this People’s Peace Treaty with North Korea, dated November 11, 2017, Armistice Day (also Veterans Day in the U.S.), and
1) Declare to the world that the Korean War is over as far as I am concerned, and that I will live in “permanent peace and friendship” with the North Korean people (as promised in the 1882 U.S.-Korea Treaty of Peace, Amity, Commerce and Navigation that opened the diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Korea for the first time);
2) Express my deep apology to the North Korean people for the U.S. Government’s long, cruel and unjust hostility against them, including the near total destruction of North Korea due to the heavy U.S. bombings during the Korean War;
3) Urge Washington and Pyongyang to immediately stop their preemptive (or preventive) conventional/nuclear attack threats against each other and to sign the new UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons;
4) Call upon the U.S. Government to stop its large-scale, joint war drills with the armed forces of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and Japan, and commence a gradual withdrawal of the U.S. troops and weapons from South Korea;
5) Call upon the U.S. Government to officially end the lingering and costly Korean War by concluding a peace treaty with the DPRK without further delay, to lift all sanctions against the country, and to join the 164 nations that have normal diplomatic relations with the DPRK;
6) Pledge that I will do my best to end the Korean War, and to reach out to the North Korean people – in order to foster greater understanding, reconciliation and friendship.
Sign your name by clicking here.
Some noted signers:
Christine Ahn, Women Cross DMZ
Medea Benjamin, Code Pink
Jackie Cabasso, Western States Legal Foundation, UFPJ
Gerry Condon, Veterans For Peace
Noam Chomsky, Emeritus Professor, M.I.T.
Blanch Weisen Cook, Professor of History and Women’s Studies, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York
Joe Essertier, World Beyond War – Japan
Irene Gendzier, Emeritus Professor, Boston University
Joseph Gerson, Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security
Louis Kampf, Emeritus Professor, M.I.T.
Asaf Kfoury, Professor of Mathematics, Boston University
John Kim, Veterans For Peace
David Krieger, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
John Lamperti, Emeritus Professor, Dartmouth College
Kevin Martin, Peace Action
Sophie Quinn-Judge, Temple University (retired)
Steve Rabson, Emeritus Professor, Brown University
Alice Slater, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
David Swanson, World Beyond War, RootsAction
Ann Wright, Women Cross DMZ, Code Pink, VFP
After signing the petition, please use the tools on the next webpage to share it with your friends.
Background:
President Jimmy Carter, “What I’ve Learned from North Korea’s Leaders,” Washington Post, Oct. 4, 2017
Col. Ann Wright (Ret.), “A Path Forward on North Korea, “ Consortiumnews, March 5, 2017
Leon V. Sigal, “Bad History,” 38 North, Aug. 22, 2017
Prof. Bruce Cumings, “A Murderous History of Korea,“ London Review of Books, May 18, 2017
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015, 2016, 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. War Is A Lie: Second Edition, published by Just World Books on April 5, 2016. I’ll come anywhere in the world to speak about it. Invite me! Support David’s work.
from the archives:
North Korea Still Struggles with America’s Lethal Legacy by Felicity Arbuthnot
Anglo-American War Plan for North Korea by Finian Cunningham
Trump’s Reality Free Zone: Tweeting About Armageddon by Felicity Arbuthnot
John Pilger: The Problem is Not North Korea, Not Russia, Not China, The Problem is The United States
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Fewer than 10% must be aware of Fuhrer Sam’s Korean Holocaust. There’s a reason they call it the Forgotten War.
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It’s pretty basic really ~ how to make a living without depriving others (especially other species!) of the right to life, a viable habitat and a livelihood….don’t just defer to political pundits and media careerists, heed to your own ethical prompting and educate yourself.
Talk to others who share the same values ~ exchange perspectives, experience and ideas; then start organizing &/or get involved with existing groups and exercise your rights.
Once you get to that place, then the politics can kick in….
Yes, very well stated, David.