The Korean Penisula... The Next Military Engagement?

by:Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Liberty -vs- Tyranny

Is it surprising... I mean really?

As tensions on the Korean Peninsula heat up the Obama administration responds just as the GWB's administration would have, as well as all prior U.S administrations would likely have responded. No surprise because standing behind alliances is what America does.

The maniacal North Korean leadership has responded in a fashion that fuels concern, and the possibility of further hostilities. Up to and including a strike on the U.S. mainland. In fact (based on the following report) North Korean leadership has stated exactly that. We'll have to wait to see.

Should such a thing actually occur I personally am comfortable that the current President would take decisive and appropriate action in response. We all of course are hopeful this does not occur.

NK News – North Korea News - South Korean intelligence agencies have spotted increased activity on North Korean mid-to-long range missile platforms, an unnamed official told Yonhap in Seoul: “We are closely watching for the possibility of a missile launch,” the anonymous government source said.

Kim Jong Un signed off on a plan to ready his forces to target the U.S. mainland and American bases in East Asia following yesterday’s U.S.-led B-2 stealth bomber runs, the KCNA reported after the North Korean military conveyed an “emergency meeting” in the early hours of this morning.

In a photo published in the Korea Worker’s Party (KWP) paper the Rodong, plans for a strike on the U.S. mainland are clearly –and therefore probably deliberately– visible. The newspaper is widely distributed in cities, and often displayed in public places for easy viewing.

“He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets, ordering them to be on standby to fire so that they may strike any time the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in south Korea,” a KCNA report in English said.

Skip... For Photos and specifics Click Here.

“All the available technical evidence suggests that the North’s claims to be able to hit (let alone target precisely) geographical sites in the United States are highly implausible,” John Swenson-Wright, senior lecturer in East Asian International Relations at the University of Cambridge told NK NEWS.

“It seems reasonable to suppose that the target map is designed for home consumption and to create an impression of war-readiness for DPRK-citizens that is part of a wider policy of strengthening national resolve,” Swenson-Wright added. If the marks on the map are intended to demonstrate the flight path of a missile, they would most likely not be straight.

The development appears to be a tit-for-tat response to a U.S. stealth bomber training run Thursday that saw two B-2’s fly from Missouri to drop ordinance on an island in the southern half of the Korean peninsula. U.S. officials said the flights were not designed to raise tensions, but reduce them by bolstering deterrence in face of North Korea’s recent vitriolic provocations.

However, North Korea sees ongoing U.S. military drills as part of a plot to conduce a full-scale nuclear invasion of their country. This week, Pyongyang put its military on the highest level of alert possible and cut a second military hotline. A KCNA report published earlier today added to tensions by saying that the North Korean military was preparing to “blow up the strongholds of aggression…through precision strikes no matter where they are.”

Observers worry that, with tensions running high and two new leaders in Pyongyang and Seoul, there is significant potential for escalation in the event of military confrontation. Both Kim Jong Un and Park Geun-hye are under domestic pressure to show strong and decisive leadership in the face of each other’s threats, and a lack of direct communication between the two sides is worrying for some.

Could Korea be our next engagement? Being the policeman of the world insures we will continue to be engaged around the world as dictated by alliances signed many years ago both preceding and following WW II and the Cold War.

Indeed we are obligated to honor our agreements. Ill advised or not. Hindsight at best gives us the opportunity of not repeating errors of the past.

If anyone is actually paying attention.

Via: Memeorandum