North Korea Threatens First Strike on Washington
http://universalfreepress.com/2016/north-korea-threatens-first-strike-on-washington/Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jung Un ordered his nuclear forces to be prepared for launching and today “Beloved Leader” of the Socialist nation issued its latest belligerent threat. Kim warned of an indiscriminate “pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice” on Washington and the capital city of South Korea, Seoul. His threat came in reaction to the start of a three month long series of huge U.S.-South Korean military drills involving over 300,000 troops, surface ships, and aircraft including stealth fighters and bombers.
The North Korean leader has long been known for such belligerent threats, but since the first of the year the tone has become more ominous and dangerous after North Korea was able to launch a satellite into orbit in February. That proves that now Kim Jong Un has the capability to hit targets as far away as the United States. That launch, which was a violation of sanctions put on the rogue country by the United Nations was the second since the first of the year and followed a
Since Kim took power after his dictator father’s death in December 2011, he has consistently ignored U.N. Sanctions and pushed the country’s atomic weapons programs forward at a rapid pace. In response, the U.N. has implemented even harsher sanctions against the country and the United States and South Korea have expanded the already planned war games now underway. Pyongyang says the drills, which were set to start Monday and run through the end of April, are invasion rehearsals.
The North’s powerful National Defense Commission threatened strikes against targets in the South, U.S. bases in the Pacific and the U.S. mainland, saying its enemies “are working with bloodshot eyes to infringe upon the dignity, sovereignty and vital rights” of North Korea. “If we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies even right now, all bases of provocations will be reduced to seas in flames and ashes in a moment,” the North’s statement said.
A pre-emptive large-scale military strike that would end the authoritarian rule of the Kim dynasty is highly unlikely. There is also considerable outside debate about whether North Korea is even capable of the kind of “strikes” it threatens. The North makes progress with each new nuclear test — it staged its fourth in January — but many experts say its arsenal may consist only of still-crude nuclear bombs; there’s uncertainty about whether they’ve mastered the miniaturization process needed to mount bombs on ballistic missiles.
But North Korea’s bellicose rhetoric raises unease in Seoul and its U.S. ally, mostly because of the size of the army that the north keeps under arms at all times. In addition, a formal state of war still exists between the three countries and has since the North invaded the South back in the early 1950’s. In fact, the world’s most heavily armed border, is only an hour’s drive from the South Korean capital of Seoul and its 10 million residents.
The rival Koreas’ usual animosity occasionally erupts in bloody skirmishes — 50 South Koreans were killed in attacks in 2010 that Seoul blames on the North — and there is always a worry about an escalation of violence. Always ragged relations between North Korea and its rivals Seoul and Washington have worsened following North Korea’s nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket test last month that the United Nations declared was a test of banned ballistic missile technology.
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South Korea’s military says this year’s war games will be the largest ever staged, involving 300,000 South Korean military personnel and 17,000 from the United States. Analysts say one part of North Korea’s traditional anger over the drills is that they force the impoverished country to respond with its own costly war games. Responding to the North’s threat, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang Gyun said Monday that North Korea must refrain from a “rash act that brings destruction upon itself.”
In addition to the up-sized war games this year, the United States announced Two weeks ago that it was speeding up deployment of a new anti-ballistic missile system to both South Korea and Japan as a counter to any threat from the North to our allies or the United States’ interest in the area. But that system will not start to be deployed until at least the end of the year. That places Kim in a “use it or lose it” situation with the window of opportunity rapidly closing.
