Why We Can Be Cautiously Optimistic About North Korea

North Korea has been a major problem for world peace and a major security threat to the U.S and its allies for some time. But some recent developments suggest this may be changing.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un did something totally unprecedented when he crossed the border to talk peace, a formal end to the Korean War and the denuclearizing of the Korean peninsula with South Korean President Moon Moon Jae-in.And a formal meeting with President Trump appears to be upcoming.

The President himself mentioned it at a rally in Michigan on Saturday night, saying,“I think we will have a meeting over the next three or four weeks,” he said. “It’s going be a very important meeting, the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. But we’ll see how it goes. I may go in, it may not work out, I leave.”

Needless to say, there have been a fair amount of skeptical and cautionary statements about this development. Some of them are justified, others are simply based on partisan hatred of this president. And while I'm not prepared to schedule the party quite yet, I'm cautiously optimistic. Here's why.

Kim Jong Un has finally realized he isn't dealing with Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, but with a far different personality, someone who is committed to solving this problem whatever it takes. President Trump responding to Kim's threats by saying that "the button on my desk is bigger and it works" obviously had an effect. No one has ever talked to the North Koreans in quite that way, ever. Instead, they've be cosseted, bribed and simply ignored. Kim knows that President Trump is not going to respond to a missile fired over Japan by simply shrugging his shoulders and saying 'there's nothing we can do' as the Obama Administration did. And he's also had a number of incidents occur to let him know that things have changed.

North Korea's main trading partner is China, who have always been fond of having a pit bull on their border to distract attention from China's doings when they needed it. President Trump ended that by pressuring China to enact sanctions on the Kim regime that cut the trade by an estimated 90 percent. Apparently the Chinese have realized that North Korea has gotten out of control.

Another 'mysterious' incident involved North Korea's main nuclear testing area under Mantapsan Mountain. It was mostly destroyed when the entire mountain collapsed. While some people are calling it an earthquake caused by too much underground testing or too much tunneling, there's also a fair amount of evidence that the incident was man made and could very well have been a message from either the Chinese or the U.S. that it was time to get serious about dismantling the Nork's nuclear weapons program...or else. Kim Jong-Un is already saying that he will shut down all of his nuclear testing and research areas publicly, in front of foreign experts. So it looks like a case of message received, so far.

And finally, President Trump has surrounded himself with intelligent and savvy team members. John Bolton is one of the world's most knowledgeable experts on nuclear proliferation and non-proliferation, and our new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is no fool either, and Kim Jong-Un knows it. We're not talking about dealing with the likes of  Hillary Clinton, John Kerry or Madeline Albright here.

Finally, like most dictators, Kim Jong-Un is quite concerned with face and his personal prestige, especially with his oversized military. I doubt he would be risking that by making these gestures and saying what he's saying if it weren't a matter of sheer personal survival.

So for the above reasons, I'm cautiously optimistic. And if President Trump actually pulls this off, he does indeed deserve the Nobel Peace Prize...certainly far more than his predecessor Barack Obama.


Selah.

An American In Babylon - Trump's UN Speech

 

President Trump's UN speech attracted a fair amount of controversy among the chattering classes. It shouldn't have.

The United Nations has become a byword for useless, dysfunctional bureaucracy a mere 72 years after its founding.

Like Belshazzar's feast, it spends lavishly and conducts itself with opulence, but is rotted through with corruption and does little of any value while squatting in mordant self satisfaction.

Leave it to President Donald J. Trump to point out the wrong direction the UN has traveled since its founding in the aftermath of two devastating world wars, and to challenge it to change direction and become the force for good it was intended to be.



The president called for the UN and its members to reverse course, and to become what the UN was supposed to become on its inception...a group of sovereign, independent nations who prized freedom, democracy and peace and were willing to work together to promote them and to take action against rogue nations who threatened those ideals. If you read the original UN charter, you get a sense of just how far the UN today has removed itself from what it says.

Scandals like 'oil for food' where even the Secretary General's son was implicated in money laundering for Saddam Hussein to avoid UN sanctions abound. Countries like Iran routinely threaten genocide. And violate with impunity even UN Security Council series 7 resolutions like UNSC 1701, which called for the disarming of terrorist group Hezbollah and prohibiting UN members from rearming them. Iran and Syria rearmed Hezbollah without incurring any penalty whatsoever.

UN peacekeeping forces are more noted for trading food supplies for enforced prostitution, ignoring their supposed duties and allowing violence against civilians than for fulfilling their actual missions.

That's exactly why President Trump quoted Harry Truman, who stressed that the success of the United Nations depended on the “independent strength of its members.”

And unlike his predecessor, President Trump was unafraid to voice this simple truth;

“The United States of America,” Trump said, “has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world, and the greatest defenders of sovereignty, security, and prosperity for all.”

And our president was equally honest about confronting thoe rogue nations who threaten peace and security. He called out the disgusting regime of Kim Jong-un in North Korea, saying thatthe patience of the United States is great, but not inexhaustible. Asthe president explained, If North Korea persists in its policy of nuclear blackmail, the United States “will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” He continued: “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

Needless to say, the Leftist press worldwide fainted away collectively at that. But what President Trump said was the simple truth. The same is true about what President Trump had to say about the equally rogue, criminal regime of Iran, one of the world's biggest sponsors of terrorism, a foe of America who was openly complicit in 9/11.

The UN's ignoring of the Iranian regime's march towards nuclear weapons is so ingrained that they aren't even making an attempt to have it look like they're doing something. Not only has Iran has prohibited the UN from any inspection of their military facilities where there's been clear indications of manufacturing and testing nuclear weapons components, but the IAEA, the UN's nuclear watchdog now allows Iran to self inspect their nuclear facilities that the UN is allowed to get a glimpse of. To accuse the IAEA and the UN of gross negligence whenit comes to Iran is a gross understatement.

You see, President Trump wasn't just giving a display of American resolve. This was a direct challenge to the UN, plain and simple. The UN, after all is supposed to be the forum where dangerous regimes like Iran and North Korea are supposed to be addressed and dealt with. While Trump was quite clear that America could handle these rogue regimes on their own, He said it would be far better if the UN actually did what it was supposed to do and dealt with these major threats to world peace. “If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few,” Trump said in another memorable line, “then evil will triumph.”

Trump even had the intestinal fortitude to address Socialism.

No ideology has ever been so discredited by the evidence of history, but like a serially cheating wife or husband still offers hope to a long suffering spouse that this time, it will really be different. Except, of course, it never is.

Trump used the UN's failure to address the human tragedy now going on in Venezuela, once one of the richest countries on earth where Maduro's socialist regime is literally starving its population to death. It wasn't so long ago the Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and other Leftists were using Hugo Chavez and Venezuela as an example of how well socialism could work. Now, as the once rich country descends into poverty and chaos, they don't mention Venezuela any more.

“The problem in Venezuela,” Trump said, “is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.”

So how did President Trump's speech go over? To most of the delegates of the UN, not very well. Being publicly unmasked like that is the last thing they wanted, let alone being challenged to make the UN what it was created to be. And of course, Trump's usual political enemies in the press and in the Democrat party went predictably ballistic. But as usual, the president has hit another bulls eye when it come to talking to the American people and to friends of freedom everywhere.

Speaking truth to power is a Leftist cliche', but that is exactly what President Trump's UN speech did, in one of his finest moments.

Breaking: Obama Hid North Korean Rocket Component Transfers to Iran

US intelligence officials have now revealed that during the Iran nuclear negotiations, North Korea has sent several shipments of advanced missile components to the Iranian regime in violation of UN sanctions - and that the Obama Administration hid the violations from the UN.

Since September more than two shipments of missile parts have been monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies as they transited from North Korea to Iran, said officials familiar with intelligence reports who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Details of the arms shipments were included in President Obama’s daily intelligence briefings and officials suggested information about the transfers was kept secret from the United Nations, which is in charge of monitoring sanctions violations.

Critics of the U.S.-led nuclear framework agreement reached in Switzerland earlier this month have said one major deficiency of the accord is its failure to address Iran’s missile program, considered a key nuclear delivery system for the Islamist regime.

CIA spokesman Ryan Trapani declined to comment on the missile component shipments, citing a policy of not discussing classified information.

But other officials said the transfers included goods covered by the Missile Technology Control Regime, a voluntary agreement among 34 nations that limits transfers of missiles and components of systems with ranges of greater than 186 miles.

One official said the transfers between North Korea and Iran included large diameter engines, which could be used for a future Iranian long-range missile system.

President Barack Obama was given details of the shipments in his daily intelligence briefings (assuming he read them), but the officials said the information was hidden from the UN by the White House so that it would not take action on the sanctions violations.

This was confirmed by a spokesperson for Spain's mission to the UN, (which now overseas the UN's sanctions committee)who said the committee was not been told about the shipments by the US since Spain took over in January, 2015.

According to award winning reporter Bill Gertz, who broke this story, this is nothing new:

A classified State Department cable from October 2009 reveals that Iran is one of North Korea’s key missile customers.

The cable, made public by Wikileaks, states that since the 1980s North Korea has provided Iran with complete Scud missiles and production technology used in developing 620-mile-range Nodong missiles.

Additionally, North Korea also supplied Iran with a medium-range missile called the BM-25 that is a variant of the North Korean Musudan missile.

“This technology would provide Iran with more advanced missile technology than currently used in its Shahab-series of ballistic missiles and could form the basis for future Iranian missile and [space launch vehicle] designs.”

“Pyongyang’s assistance to Iran’s [space launch vehicle] program suggests that North Korea and Iran may also be cooperating on the development of long-range ballistic missiles.”

A second cable from September 2009 states that Iran’s Safir rocket uses missile steering engines likely provided by North Korea that are based on Soviet-era SS-N-6 submarine launched ballistic missiles.

That technology transfer was significant because it has allowed Iran to develop a self-igniting missile propellant that the cable said “could significantly enhance Tehran’s ability to develop a new generation of more-advanced ballistic missiles.”

“All of these technologies, demonstrated in the Safir [space launch vehicle] are critical to the development of long-range ballistic missiles and highlight the possibility of Iran using the Safir as a platform to further its ballistic missile development.”

Among other things, this could be setting the U.S. up for an EMP attack.

No wonder the Iranians insisted that their ballistic missiles program was off the table in any negotiations. Why the president agreed to it is another matter entirely, especially since he had to have known the sanctions he kept boasting about were being grossly violated.

U.N. sanctions imposed in 2009 on North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests prohibit the export of missiles and related technology, and obviously the president didn't want to make an issue of that either, even if it meant deceiving the UN and the P5+1.

There's no telling how far Iran is with its ballistic missiles, but they're obviously a lot farther along than they were since Barack Hussein Obama took over the White House in 2009. This president was simply willing to look the other way.

 

According to Gertz, both White House National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan and State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf declined to comment on this story.

Small wonder.

Are Iranian Ships Making A Dry Run For An EMP Attack On The US?

While the attention of the American people is directed elsewhere, some ominous developments are occurring. Along with an increasingly belligerent and hostile tone, upgrades in centrifuges and long range missile tests, Iran has announced a naval 'training mission' with two of its warships off our Atlantic coast.

At least one expert on Iran and EMP attacks, Peter Pry thinks the Iranians are doing a dry run for a future nuclear launch or an EMP attack off our coasts.

For those of you unfamiliar with an EMP attack, it involves a nuclear missile that explodes above the earth's atmosphere and sends out an electromagnetic pulse that fries all digital and computer electronics in the area affected.

Most vehicles simply stop running, along with all other machinery configured digitally..gas pumps, ATM machines, most cash registers, credit card readers, microwaves, cell and land line telephones, computers, toll gates and turnstiles, medical equipment, power stations, the Internet, a whole gamut of items we've simply grown used to as part of a 21st century civilization. All of the drones our current military is so reliant on are no longer controllable, and most aircraft and military vehicles become inoperable. The power grid and our missile defense systems go down.

Deliveries of all kinds, including food and fuel become difficult if not impossible, and any patients using pacemakers or hooked up to any medical equipment using digital electronics simply die.

Pry, president of EMPACT America thinks that the Iranians are simply making a dry run, with th eidea of preparing for a future assault:

“I think the Iranian Navy patrols off our coasts may be intended to lull us into complacency, to get the U.S. Navy accustomed to an Iranian naval presence in our hemisphere, so eventually they could contribute to 'Zero Hour' and the great day when the Mullahs decide to drop the nuclear hammer on America,” said Pry, who staffed a former congressional EMP commission.

“I think the Iranian Navy patrols are also intended to humiliate Obama and the United States for the Geneva [nuclear] interim agreement that Tehran interprets, correctly I think, as U.S. surrendering to the inevitability of a nuclear-armed Iran,” he added.

Pry also mentions that the Iranians have recently purchased Russia's Club-K missile launcher, which can be hidden in a container cargo box aboard a seemingly harmless freighter:

“I and my colleagues, including Reza Kahlili, who warned six months ago that these Iranian patrols were coming, think it more likely Iran would make an EMP attack by launching a missile off a freighter, so they could do the deed anonymously, and escape retaliation,” Pry explained.

“Iran has demonstrated the capability to launch a missile off a freighter. Iran has also purchased Russia's Club-K missile system. The Club-K is a complete missile launch system, disguised to look like a shipping container, that could convert any freighter into a missile launch platform. The Club-K, if armed with a nuclear warhead, could be used to execute an EMP attack.”



Keep in mind that the North Koreans have the same sort of capability, and they already have nuclear weapons and delivery systems.

It wasn't so long ago that the United States was free of such threats, thanks to the actions of Presidents Reagan and George HW Bush. Then came three successive presidents who had, shall we say, other priorities.

There was Bill Clinton, who helped the Chinese PLA make a Great Leap Forward in their military capabilities by signing off on shipping them high tech super computers, technology and software with military applications through companies like Democrat donor Loral that analysts like Jane's estimate allowed the Chinese to advance twenty years during his 8 years in office. He also essentially allowed North Korea to develop and enhance its nuclear weapons arsenal, as well as essentially ignoring Islamist terrorism on his watch.

There was George W. Bush, who knew full well that the Iranians had a clandestine nuclear weapons program going as early as 2005, but allowed former Secretary of State Condi Rice and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to talk him out of doing anything about it and to refuse to ship the Israelis the tools to do anything about it they requested from us, something Secretary Gates revealed in his latest book.

And of course, Barack Hussein Obama, who has essentially signed off on a nuclear armed Iran in favir of appeasing the Ayatollahs and likewise has chosen to ignore North Korea.

Need I even mention that all three of them also have refused to do anything much in terms of border security? And if you believe that it's only illegal aliens seeking jobs that have taken advantage of this, do a little research on things like Hezbollah cells here in America and links between al-Qaeda and Hezbollah and the Mexican drug cartels.

Elections have consequences. I pray we don't find out the hard way,but the stage is certainly being set for exactly that.

Kerry Attempts To 'Solve' Korea - By Offering Major Missile Concession To China

 

Senator Kerry is turning out to be quite an interesting Secretary of State, as I knew he would be.

Secretary Kerry is in China today in an attempt not to solve the problem of North Korea, but simply to reduce tensions.

Kerry's suggestion? Bribe China by removing our missile defense systems in the region.

The Obama Administration has waged a four year war on our missile defense systems,but you would think that they would have learned something from the recent events in Korea.

Our CIA has already concluded that the Norks have enough technology to attach a nuclear warhead to a ballistic missile in compact enough form to make a viable weapon able to threaten our allies and U.S. bases in Japan, South Korea, the western Pacific and possibly even Hawaii or Alaska.

Even worse, the North Koreans would have no problem putting this technology up for sale to the highest bidders.

The Kim regime only survives because of China's enablement. That needs to end, now.

A strong U.S. policy stance would be to tell the Chinese that this state of affairs is unsustainable any longer, that it affects our relationship, and that their assistance is needed to depose the Kim regime and destroy North Korea as a threat, illegal proliferation source and a possible user of nuclear weapons.In exchange, the U.S. could offer to allow China to put in place a regime of its choosing in North Korea to protect its borders, which is China's main interest anyway.

Instead, Kerry's immediate response is to offer to disarm American interests.

Let's take a look at Secretary Kerry's negotiating style:

In Beijing, Mr. Kerry met with the new president,Xi Jinping, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Premier Li Keqiang and State Councilor Yang Jiechi.

Mr. Yang said at a dinner with Mr. Kerry on Saturday night that China was committed to “the denuclearization process on the Korean Peninsula.” But the Chinese state councilor also stressed that the “issue should be handled and resolved peacefully through dialogue and consultation.”

To encourage the Chinese to deal with the North Korean nuclear problem, Mr. Kerry said that he had shared “very in-depth” information illustrating the danger of how a nuclear North Korea could promote the proliferation of nuclear arms in Asia and the Middle East.

Mr. Kerry said his aim was to find a way to revive the goals of the six-party talks on the North’s nuclear program, which have been stalled since 2009 when North Korea withdrew. The talks have included North and South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the United States.

Kerry offered to remove our missile defense batteries, shared “very in-depth” and probably classified information with the Chinese and has a goal of reviving the Six Party talks which have gone absolutely nowhere, and merely resulted in North Korea ending up with oil, food and trade concessions while giving up nothing in return.

In exchange, he got the Chinese to sign on to a vague, a pro forma statement about de-nuclearizing the Korean Peninsula with no concrete actions involved, and even that was qualified with a waffling commitment about how it should only be done “peacefully through dialogue and consultation.”

Secretary Kerry was far more effective at negotiating this sort of thing back in the Vietnam days, when he, Jane Fonda and others met in Paris in 1970 with North Vietnamese diplomats and agents to plot 'political strategy' to sabotage the U.S. war effort at home. As FBI files record, he made a second trip in 1971, accompanied by other members of Vietnam Veterans Against The War (VVAW), a group he was the spokesman and leader of.

Kerry himself admitted that he had made the trips and negotiated with the North Vietnamese and representatives of the 'Provisional Governemnt ( AKA The Viet Cong) in congressional hearings held April 22nd, 1971.





What else would you expect, even forty odd years later?

N. Korea Warns Foreigners To Leave South, Escape "Thermo-Nuclear War"

North Korea issued a new threat today, read out on North Korea's state television in a bulletin that interrupted normal programming.

The message, reported by the KCNA news agency, said that once war broke out "it will be an all-out war, a merciless, sacred, retaliatory war to be waged by (North Korea):

"It does not want to see foreigners in South Korea fall victim to the war," the agency quoted the Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee as saying.

"The committee informs all foreign institutions and enterprises and foreigners, including tourists...that they are requested to take measures for shelter and evacuation in advance for their safety."

In a separate announcement, North Korea said that it would "launch a missile tomorrow" likely a test firing of some kind. That's been the usual pattern..bellicose rhetoric followed by an act of aggression like a missile test...although the Norks have been increasing their aggression each time, combining nuclear tests with activities like sinking a South Korean naval vessel and shelling a South Korean island.

Right now, there are still about 28,000 U.S. military in South Korea, mainly stationed along the DMZ.So far, for all the talk of war, North Korea appears - and underline that word - to have not mobilized it's conventional forces, which far outnumber the combined U.S. and South Korean forces.

The South Korean capital of Seoul is within easy reach of North Korean artillery let alone missiles, but so far no diplomats have left and the bustling city appears to be engaging in business as usual, although I'm certain their military is on alert.

The same goes for Japan, where 3 Patriot Missile batteries co-developed by the U.S. and Israel have been deployed the protect the Kanto Plain, where most of Japan's big cites including Tokyo are and where most of its population lives.



Another unit has been stationed in Okinawa, site of U.S. bases as well as a place where Japan's south can be protected.

"The government is making utmost efforts to protect our people's lives and ensure their safety. As North Korea keeps making provocative comments, Japan, cooperating with relevant countries, will do what we have to do. For the moment, the most important thing is to implement sanctions under the UN Security Council resolutions," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters.

North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung's birthday is on April 15th, which could be the trigger for another North Korean 'demonstration.'

Stay tuned....

All Embassies Told To Evacuate N. Korea; Norks Deploy Another Long Range Missile

North Korea has told foreign embassies that they cannot guarantee diplomat's security as of April 10th,  sparking a huge exodus of embassy staffs from Pyonyang.

While America has no embassy in North Korea,about two dozen countries do, including Britain, which has confirmed that it was informed by the regime that its diplomats are at risk but also said in a statement it has no immediate plans to withdraw them.

North Korea has also deployed a second long range Musudan missile at launching sites on its east coast. The Musudan has an effective range of about 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers), more than enough to hit Japan and a number of other U.S. bases in the region, like Guam and Okinawa.Both missiles are reportedly locked and loaded on mobile launchers.

The Taepodong 1 has about twice that range.

 

In response, the U.S. is deliberately backing off. The Pentagon is no longer issuing statements about joint military exercises with South Korea, although the exercises, code named 'Foal Eagle,' are still ongoing.

'Our actions thus far have had their intended effect: they've shown our deterrence capability and our willingness to defend South Korea. We always make adjustment and if going quiet for a short period of time gives the North Koreans space to dial back their rhetoric, fine,' said one U.S. official.

Chinese and Russian diplomats are also urging calm to allow the tension to dissipate.

My personal analysis? We aren't headed for a war, at least not this time. At most, what we might see is a missile test, with the Norks firing a missile into the sea that passes over Japan.

I'm basing this on several things.

First, Kim Jong Un just took over. The bellicose rhetoric and military fervor is a way of getting his generals behind him and consolidating the succession.

Second, as I mentioned previously, there is a huge Chinese military buildup on the North Korean border.

While I was uncertain at the time exactly what the Chinese military buildup signified, new information has come to light.

One of my notorious Little Birdies responded to an e-mail and let me know that the Chinese sent a pretty direct message to Kim.

He had requested a few days ago that China send an envoy to North Korea "to coordinate strategy."

The Chinese promptly moved fresh troops to the borders and informed Kim that if he had something to discuss, it was his business to send an envoy to China rather than the other way around. That combined with the troop buildup was their way of reminding Kim that they made him and they can break him.

This has since been confirmed by a number of sources, including the
UK Express.

China is obviously telling Kim that in the event things get out of hand, they're perfectly capable of removing him.

So what we're seeing here by the Norks is sabre rattling designed to try and get concessions out of the west and black mail South Korea. That has worked before, and we will undoubtedly see whether it works again.

North Korea: Nuke Attack On U.S. "Today Or Tomorrow"

In a statement released by the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army, a nuclear attack on the U.S. has been approved and could be launched "today or tomorrow":

“The moment of explosion is approaching fast,” the North Korean military said, warning that war could break out “today or tomorrow”.

Pyongyang’s latest pronouncement came as Washington scrambled to reinforce its Pacific missile defences, preparing to send ground-based interceptors to Guam and dispatching two Aegis class destroyers to the region.

Tension was also high on the North’s heavily-fortified border with South Korea, after Kim Jong-Un’s isolated regime barred South Koreans from entering a Seoul-funded joint industrial park on its side of the frontier.

In a statement published by the state KCNA news agency, the Korean People’s Army general staff warned Washington that US threats would be “smashed by… cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means”.

“The merciless operation of our revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified,” the statement said.

'cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means”...could the Norks be thinks of launching an EMP attack?

Meanwhile, there is an ominous military buildup on Korea's border by China's People's Liberation Army(PLA):

The buildup appears linked to North Korea’s March 30 announcement that it is in a “state of war” with South Korea after the United Nations imposed a new round of sanctions following the North’s Feb. 12 nuclear test and because of ongoing large-scale joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises.

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troop and tank movements were reported in Daqing, located in northeastern Heilongjiang Province, and in the border city of Shenyang, in Liaoning Province.

Officials said one key military unit involved in the mobilization is the 190th Mechanized Infantry Brigade based in Benxi, Liaoning Province. The brigade is believed to be the PLA’s frontline combat unit that would respond to any regional conflict or refugee flows. Troops and tank movements also were reported in Dandong, in Liaoning Province.

Fighter jets were reported flying in larger numbers in Fucheng, Hebei Province, and in Zhangwu, in Liaoning Province, and Changchun, in Jilin Province.

This can be read in a number of ways.

It could be that the Obama Administration and the Chinese have come to a meeting of the minds and have decided to work together to put the cork in the Kim regime's bottle.Possible, especially if the Obama Administration did what I suggested earlier and offered to allow China to dictate who takes over once the Kims are gone.

Or it could simply be China's way of ensuring that any conflict doesn't stray over it's own borders.

Or, finally, it could be China's way of telling the world that they have Kim's back..particularly if a North Korean strike involves U.S. allies like South Korea and Japan, with Japan the most likely target.

We'll find out shortly.

North Korea Beats The War Drums

Things are ramping up...

As of today. North Korea has announced that it is in a "state of war" with South Korea.

"As of now, inter-Korea relations enter a state of war and all matters between the two Koreas will be handled according to wartime protocol," the North said in a joint statement attributed to all government bodies and institutions.

This follows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's announcement that the armistice that ended the Korean War is over and open threats to attack the U.S. and 'other enemies'.

The Norks have cut off all channels with South Korea, including a hot line between the two countries. And the U.S.? Well, we warned them that military confrontation would lead to - wait for it- "further isolation."

Yep, if he attacks South Korea,or Japan, we'll cut off his shipments of porn movies and film and pop music memorabilia.And be really, really upset with him.

On the bright side, Catherine Wilkinson, a Pentagon spokesperson, said the US would not be intimidated. "The United States is fully capable of defending itself and our allies against a North Korean attack. We are firmly committed to the defense of South Korea and Japan."

That's a bit weightier than threatening the Norks with "further isolation". But it remains to be seen whether we follow through.

The entire Korea situation is an example of how weakness and appeasement in response to aggression only brings on more of the same..and always at a higher cost.

The West made a huge and needless mistake agreeing to a partition of Korea after WWII, just as there was no reason not to demand that the Soviets pull their armies out of Eastern Europe after the Nazis were defeated.In Europe, President Roosevelt,steered by Soviet agents in his administration like Harry Dexter White, Lauchlin Curtie and Alger Hiss chose to believe Stalin's assurances, and so did Harry Truman, who kept the same Roosevelt advisers in place after FDR's death.

There's no question that America, as the sole atomic power after WWII, with an army in place and the Soviets decimated and dependent on the U.S. for military supplies couldn't have given Stalin an ultimatum he couldn't afford to refuse, sent the Red Army packing back to Russia and freed Eastern Europe.Even Stalin knew that the Red Army was not ready for another war.

The rationale for allowing a partition of Korea was more of the same. It was a bribe to the Russians to aid the U.S. in what was seen as the high cost prospective invasion of the Japanese home islands. Once that was unnecessary after Japan;s surrender, there was no reason to allow the partition of Korea and had Truman stood up to Soviets, they would have had no choice but to withdraw.

Truman later compounded the error by ignoring South Korean leader Sygman Rhee's frantic request for heavy weapons, artillery and increased military assistance as Rhee watched the Nork's Soviet sponsored military buildup on his borders. When the North Koreans invaded, our troops on the ground in South Korea lacked even enough basic ammo, let alone anti-tank weapons and they were completely overwhelmed and forced back to a narrow defensive redoubt.

Korea has been called the Forgotten War, but it was also an unnecessary one.

Even after the war started and General MacArthur had landed at Inchon and driven the enemy forces back to the Chinese border, Truman declined to take the steps that would have enabled victory - diplomatic negotiations with the Chinese that would have resulted in clear borders and a united Korea. That was possible even after the Chinese came in (as China always has when what they consider enemy forces are too close to their borders), although it might have required a few strikes on Chinese military installations as necessary once that happened to underline the need to Mao Tse Tung for a diplomatic solution.

It's worth remembering in this context that China only came in after Soviet assurances that they would back them..assurances which later proved as empty as the ones Stalin made to Roosevelt and Truman at Yalta.

Instead of solving the problem, we settled for an armistice that left a poisonous regime in place.

The Kim regime has been gaming the West ever since...seizing the odd U.S. ship here and there, making agreements it had no intention of keeping, issuing numerous threats, attacking South Korean ships and territory, and acting as a major rogue nuclear weapons proliferator - all without any significant action by the West,and especially by the U.S.

It's the Iranian story all over again.Aside from enabling the Kim regime to survive in the first place after blatant aggression, we've never made the North Koreans suffer any significant cost for their actions since. Is it any wonder they're upping the ante? Or that they have no fear of U.S.response whatsoever?

That's what comes of kicking the can down the road for half a century.

The key to this situation, of course, is China. The best way of handling this would be to make it crystal clear to the Chinese that the present regime, (especially since they're armed with nuclear weapons) is unacceptable and threatens the U.S./China relationship. If we're smart and take note of history, we would offer the Chinese our support and assistance in a team effort in getting the Kims out, their nukes destroyed. And we would offer them the carrot of our acquiescence in their putting another regime in power to their liking to act as a buffer on their border, which is essentially what China wants North Korea for anyway.

This is not something that's going to be solved by a well written, nicely delivered speech loaded on to a teleprompter. And it will be interesting to see how President Obama and his team handle this.

'Oh, How Do We Solve The Problem Of Korea' ?

 

Not exactly the sound of music, is it?

Now that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has announced that the armistice that ended the Korean War is over and is openly making threats to attack the U.S. and 'other enemies', the Obama Administration is springing into action.

New Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that the U.S. would move 14 new ground-based missile interceptors to Alaska in response.

The new interceptors will be based at Fort Greely, an Army launch site about 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska, and are projected to be fully deployed by 2017, Hagel said. The additions will bring the U.S.-based ground interceptor deployment from 30 to 44, including four that are based in California.

That will boost U.S. missile defense capability by 50 percent and "make clear to the world that the United States stands firm against aggression," he said in a briefing at the Pentagon.

2017?

2017?

After four years of downgrading U.S. missile defense, the Obama Administration appears to have decided that it's a useful bugger to have around after all. The reason it's going to take until 2017 is because we still have to build them and their launch sites.

Kim, meanwhile,  isn't waiting.Today he essentially fired a shot across Japan's bow by conducting another weapons test and launching some short range KN-02s into the Sea of Japan.

North Korea already has missiles that can reach America's West Coast, although such an attack is at the limits of their current technology as far as we know.U.S. Ally Japan is just short hop by comparison, and as Scott Kirwan points out in this article, Japan might end up proving to be the target Kim has in mind:

The North Korean regime would really like to hurt the United States. An attack on the US would contain the element of surprise, and is ideologically the best target. But it’s also the hardest to hit. The continental US is over 9000 km away, meaning the North would have to rely upon its longest range missile to fly in a suborbital trajectory, providing ample time for the US to determine its trajectory and likely target and to employ its anti-missile defense systems. It has tested such a missile twice, and neither test was a complete success as far as our intelligence has learned, so not only would the missile have to survive US countermeasures, it would also have to avoid falling apart.

If the North Koreans are rational even in their apparent craziness, the only target is Japan – likely a sprawling metropolis such as the Kanto containing Tokyo and Yokohama or the Kansai area where Nara, Kobe, Kyoto and Osaka sit. These areas would not require precision guidance systems beyond current North Korean capabilities and fall well within range of its Taepodong 1 missile that North Korea fired over Japan in 1998. An attack on Japan would temper the response by both China and South Korea: China would be hard pressed to punish the regime for attacking a foe China itself is threatening war against over the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, and both North and South Koreas hold deep historical animosities towards Japan for its treatment as a Japanese colony from 1910 to 1945.

If Japan was nuked by North Korea it cannot retaliate. It lacks nuclear weapons and its conventional forces do not have the capability for an invasion. Japan would therefore have to rely upon the United States. Would the US launch a nuclear attack against North Korea on Japan’s behalf? It’s not a given, and such uncertainty increases the risk of an attack on Japan.

The entire Korea situation is an example of how weakness and appeasement in response to aggression only brings on more of the same..and always at a higher cost.

There was no reason for the West to agree to a partition of Korea after WWII, just as there was no reason not to demand that the Soviets pull their armies out of Eastern Europe after the Nazis were defeated.In Europe, President Roosevelt,steered by Soviet agents like Harry Dexter White, Lauchlin Curtie and Alger Hiss chose to believe Stalin's assurances, and so did Harry Truman, who kept the Roosevelt advisers in place after FDR's death.

There's no question that America, as the sole Atomic Power after WWII couldn't have sent the Red Army packing back to Russia and freed Eastern Europe.The Soviet victory in WWII would not have happened without substantial U.S. aid, and even Stalin knew that the Red Army was not ready for another war.

The rationale for allowing a partition of Korea was similar. It was a bribe to the Russians to aid the U.S. in what Truman supposed was the prospective invasion of the Japanese home islands. Once that proved unnecessary after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was no reason to allow the partition of Korea and had Truman stood up to Soviets, they would have had no choice but to withdraw.

Truman later compounded the error by ignoring South Korean leader Sygman Rhee's frantic request for heavy weapons, artillery and increased military assistance as Rhee watched the Nork's Soviet sponsored military  buildup on his borders. When the North Koreans invaded, our troops on the ground in South Korea lacked even enough basic ammo, let alone anti-tank weapons and they were completely overwhelmed.

Korea has been called the Forgotten War, but it was also an unnecessary one.

Even after the war started and General MacArthur had pushed enemy forces back to the Chinese border, Truman declined to take the steps that would have enabled victory - diplomatic negotiations with the Chinese that would have resulted in clear borders and a united Korea. That solution was possible even after the Chinese came in (as China always has when what they consider enemy forces are too close to their borders), although it might have required a few strikes on Chinese military installations as necessary once that happened to underline the need to Mao Tse Tung for a diplomatic solution.

It's worth remembering in this context that China only came in after Soviet assurances that they would back them..assurances which later proved as empty as the ones Stalin made to Roosevelt and Truman.

Instead of that, we settled for an armistice that left a poisonous regime in place.

The Kim regime has been gaming the West ever since...seizing the odd U.S. ship here and there, making agreements it had no intention of keeping, issuing numerous threats, attacking South Korean ships and territory, and acting as a major nuclear weapons proliferator - all without any significant action by the West,and especially by the U.S.

 



It's the Iranian story all over again.Aside from enabling the Kim regime to survive in the first place after blatant aggression, we've never made the North Koreans suffer any significant cost for their actions since. Is it any wonder they're upping the ante? Or that they have no fear of U.S.response whatsoever?

North Korea Launches New Missile

The launch took place at 7:39 AM local time.

The North Koreans apparently laughed themselves sick at U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's threats of 'UN action' and went ahead anyway.

Japan is reported on full alert, and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda pledged to shoot the missile down if it strayed over Japanese airspace.

The North Korean excuse for this is that they were putting - wait for it - a weather satellite in orbit!

The path of the launch will take the missile southwest over the East China sea before releasing a satellite into orbit when the third stage fires over the Philippine Sea at about 15 degrees N latitude, give or take.

Essentially, this is a test of a a new ballistic missile, and probably a cover for a secret North Korean nuclear test as well. In North Korea's viewpoint, one could probably call this a commercial for present and future customers about what's available for sale,

Look for the UN Security Council to provide some humorous counterpoint with anothewr watered down and meaningless resolution.

Another Mysterious Explosion In Iran

This one targeted a steel plant in in the city of Yazd, located southeast of Tehran and east of Isfahan.

The Iranian's story was originally that some water had penetrated into the steel's melting pot but they later switched that to say that some ammunition brought to the factory had exploded. What ammunition would be doing at a steel plant is anybody's guess.

Another point of interest is that the Iranians admitted that out of the seven people killed, several were foreigners. Again, what foreigners would be doing at a steel plant is anyone's guess, especially during what are normally the plant's off hours...unless you look at another piece of the puzzle. Steel figures heavily in two Iranian projects related to their rogue nuclear program.

The Iranians plan to install new high-speed centrifuges of the IR2 and IR3 type at the new Fordu uranium enrichment site buried deep in the mountainside near the city of Qom. But building those centrifuges takes large quantities of a special steel, known as maraging steel, designed to take high heat and friction generated by the speed the centrifuges spin at.

The Iranians lack the expertise and technology to make it, so they've been buying it from North Korea (with Russia's connivance, of course). The German paper Die Welt newspaper recently reported that North Korea had sold both Iran and Syria a quantity of maraging steel fairly recently.

The steel is not only required for modern centrifuges but for the construction of exhaust systems for the engines used in ballistic missiles,the other project the Iranians are interested in.

That could account for both the mysterious explosion and the death of some foreign technicians if, say, somebody wanted to delay the Iranians building those centrifuges and missile engines by ensuring that there was an 'accident' at the steel plant.

Although of course, this could all be a coincidence.Maybe someone was just a little careless.

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