Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
August 09, 2019

North Korea Dislikes U.S. Plans To Occupy It

The borg in Washington DC will not be happy about Trump siding with the North Korean chairman Kim Jong Un:

US President Donald Trump told reporters Friday he agreed with Kim Jong Un's opposition to US-South Korea war games, after receiving what he was a new letter from the North Korean leader.

"I got a very beautiful letter from Kim Jong Un yesterday," Trump said. "It was a very positive letter."

"He wasn't happy with the war games," Trump added, referring to new military exercises between US forces and the South Korean military that began this week.

"As you know, I've never liked it either. I've never been a fan. And you know why? I don't like paying for it," the US leader said.

Trump received Kim's three-page letter on Thursday after Pyongyang undertook four missile tests in the past two weeks that it said were a response to the joint exercises between the South and the United States.

We once explained how the usually big U.S.-South Korean maneuvers lead to economic pain in North Korea:

Each time the U.S. and South Korea launch their very large maneuvers, the North Korean conscription army (1.2 million strong) has to go into a high state of defense readiness. Large maneuvers are a classic starting point for military attacks. The U.S.-South Korean maneuvers are (intentionally) held during the planting (April/May) or harvesting (August) season for rice when North Korea needs each and every hand in its few arable areas. Only 17% of the northern landmass is usable for agriculture and the climate in not favorable. The cropping season is short. Seeding and harvesting days require peak labor.

The southern maneuvers directly threaten the nutritional self-sufficiency of North Korea. In the later 1990s they were one of the reasons behind a severe famine. (Lack of hydrocarbons and fertilizer due to sanctions as well as a too rigid economic system were other main reasons.)

On Trump's order the current maneuvers in South Korea have been toned down. They no longer involve a huge mobilization of forces as they are mostly done in software and as staff exercises. North Korea no longer needs to counter mobilize for them.

But Kim Jong Un is still bitching about the issue:

On Tuesday North Korea threatened more weapons tests, and said the US-South Korea war games were "an undisguised denial and a flagrant violation" of the diplomatic process between Pyongyang, Washington and Seoul.

Why is he so miffed?

The reason is likely not the form of this year's maneuver but its content:

The current joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises involve simulations of stabilizing North Korea after it has been occupied and conventional warfare has come to an end.

The U.S. and South Korea downsized the drills under a promise by U.S. President Donald Trump to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore last year, so now they mostly consist of computer simulations.

Government sources here said the second part of the exercises beginning on Aug. 17 starts at an imaginary point 90 days after the outbreak of a war, when stabilization operations get underway.

The stabilizing drill has not been included in previous exercises which were based on the assumption that North Korea's military would be neutralized around 90 days after a war breaks out.

It is probably a bit provocative when a neighboring country is training to occupy yours. I for one would find that an aggressive behavior and would think about how to counter it.

Who, by the way, came up with that illusory 90 days assumption? Does anyone really believe that South Korean and U.S. troops would be welcome with flowers and candy? Does anyone believe that Russia and especially China, which both border North Korea, would stay out of such a war?


bigger

These people need to read up on the Korea War. When the U.S. crossed into North Korea and moved towards the Chinese border Mao mobilized hundreds of thousands and pushed the U.S. troops back to the 38th Parallel, the starting line of that war.

The strategic interest that China had back then is still valid today. It is hard to believe that it today will be more willing to allow U.S. troops right on its border than it was in 1950.

Posted by b on August 9, 2019 at 18:13 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Thanks for the Korea update b

When you are empire that maintains control via wars and the rest of the world doesn't want you to start another one, you keep pushing until you get your war on or collapse trying.....we hope for the latter

This should push North and South Korea together because South Korea must see that it is being abused as a pawn in the geo-political chessboard and will be the losers if war comes again to keep empire thinking they are still in control

The rest of the world needs to STOP buying US Treasuries and then this would all come to an abrupt halt.

Empire is showing clearly to the world, including some of the brainwashed/braindead, that they have no morals and fealty except to the God of Mammon global private finance cult.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 9 2019 18:41 utc | 1

@psyhohistorian

That is precisely why Trump is the best President the U.S. could have now. He strips the silk glove off the iron fist for all to see.

Posted by: JasonT | Aug 9 2019 18:44 utc | 2

These people need to read up on the Korea War.

Actually, these people need to be locked away. Either in a high security prison, or in a mental ward.

The fact that the repeated goal of the US regime is to starve people to death, to sanction countries that are dissenting from their policies into immeasurable hardship, and to pave the path to violent aggression - speak war - to incapacitate as much of the population as possible to have a cake walk into the target Nation, are practices that are not new. But they were never this persistent and expansive than under the present US regime.

In regards to Trump, it just occurred to me that he represents something movie goers know from detective flicks - the Good Cop - Bad Cop team. In the case of Trump, he is that in personal union. He is the 'Good President - Bad President' in one persona. I never saw a movie like that, but wouldn't it be interesting to see that?

Maybe Trump and Kim Jong Un do have a bromance that developed during their personal meetings. Who knows? What I do know though, is the double standard displayed by Trump (the bad President part) in regards to Venezuela. Yes, I know, there is no oil in North Korea - but a bunch of nukes that can now easily reach Hawai'i and allegedly the US mainland. Who would want to find out?

The sad fact is, that if Maduro would have spent Venezuela's money on nukes, the US regime would not blockade it, nor stealing its assets, or shipments of urgently needed food and medicine. In the end it boils down to the sad fact - no nukes, no deterrence of the US regime. Kim Jong Un knew that all along. And to remember how he was mocked and ridiculed by the Western presstitutes still rings in my ears.

Posted by: nottheonly1 | Aug 9 2019 18:46 utc | 3

Trump is on record as saying that North Korea could be a prosperous country. They could have all the benefits of democracy including fast food outlets and shiny new shopping malls and perhaps even a US missile base or two. All they have to do is disarm and adjust their attitude.

Posted by: dh | Aug 9 2019 19:12 utc | 4

In Venezuela we see the weakness associated with "democracy." Rather than entrenched dictators who ruthlessly put down opposition, Venezuela had democratically elected leaders who felt that a softer rule was the way to go. Failure to lock up the folks who tried to oust Chavez, and Guaido who is trying to oust Maduro, meant that these folks were free to continue the operation of overthrow (supported by US "interests").

North Korea's devastation (over 1/3 of its population) at the hands of the US is something that they aren't going to forget about any time soon (and nor should they).

The longer you can keep Trump talking the shorter the time until he's out of office, him and his swamp creatures. It's up to US voters to shift the tide: perhaps the last opportunity to assume the path of peace.

Posted by: Seer | Aug 9 2019 19:14 utc | 5

What does kim Jong Un have on Trump? Strange behavior?

Posted by: snake | Aug 9 2019 19:20 utc | 6

Thank you nottheonly1 #3, Trump certainly is the dual good/bad cop persona all in one. Then that is overlaid with the ham acting of the 'professional' wrestling genre in his presentation. The same goes for thr USA and South Korean military morons who do their war 'games' pantomime exery year. What a hoax, and a deadly hoax.

At least Kim jong un has positioned the yankee agressor to a slightly less malign position for now.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Aug 9 2019 19:29 utc | 7

"The strategic interest that China had back then is still valid today. It is hard to believe that it will be more willing to allow U.S. troops right on its border than it was in 1950."

And China is at least ten times stronger today than it was mere months after the conclusion of a war which had lasted more than two decades.
The nuclear monopolising United States missed the bus in Korea and it did so because it was beaten, its army was demoralised and exposed. It was reduced to the criminality of carpet bombing not only the North but the many areas in the south which wanted unity and socialism and got instead death squads and bombers.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 9 2019 19:47 utc | 8

>"Does anyone really believe that South Korean and U.S. troops would be welcome with flowers and candy? Does anyone believe that Russia and especially China, which both border North Korea, would stay out of such a war?"

Oh hell yes. Their names are John Bolton and Mike Pompeo.

Posted by: BraveNewWorld | Aug 9 2019 19:48 utc | 9

Strangely enough, I totally agree with DJT's take on take on the joint maneuvers, but beyond provocative, the're unnecessary.

But hey, does DJT really mean what he says? If he does, cancel the damn thing, and encourage North & South to work it out themselves.

I think DJT's bosses think otherwise.

As stated above, IMO it's "good cop, bad cop strategy...

Posted by: ben | Aug 9 2019 20:17 utc | 10

Yes. It’s time for education. I took that idea seriously enough to track down the suppressed 700 pg Sept. 1952 report by the International Scientific Commission on US biowarfare attacks on North Korea and China during the Korean War. (It cost me some $100s to do this, so I put my money where my mouth is.) I made that document easy to read and fully searchable. The ISC investigation was headed by one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century, Joseph Needham. Download and read this remarkable document yourself, along with my introduction, and pass it along to others. Btw, I don’t make a dime from this link, and provide all this as a purely public service:
https://link.medium.com/x2cMJsTl1Y

Posted by: Jeff Kaye | Aug 9 2019 20:23 utc | 11

Here is an article that looks at how Washington recent manoeuvres have created a new global arms race:


https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-new-global-arms-race.html


The United States will be able to continue to develop its arsenal of mid-range missiles which can be used to "kill two birds with one stone", Russia and most particularly China, a nation which is rapidly developing its domestic nuclear and conventional missile arsenal both of which are seen as a major threat to America's role as the sole global "police force".

Posted by: Sally Snyder | Aug 9 2019 20:24 utc | 12

Seer @5 pointed out that "North Korea's devastation ... at the hands of the US is something that they aren't going to forget about any time soon"

The truly interesting thing is that even though civilians in South Korea were also incinerated by the hundreds of thousands by American napalm, or just rounded up, lined up in trenches, shot, and then buried by bulldozer where they fell, the younger generations in South Korea have forgotten the horrors inflicted upon them by the US in that war.

How is it that the population on the "Free©" side of the Demilitarized Zone had the details of the most significant event in their country's recent history scrubbed from their minds? And yet the North is accused of brainwashing for teaching their children what really happened!

America's war on Korea is not the only case where the western narratives are 180° out of sync with reality.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 9 2019 20:31 utc | 13

The simulations were probably required by the Deep State before they would agree to the downgrading of the war games.

Posted by: lysias | Aug 9 2019 20:48 utc | 14

If there is one comforting thing we can learn from B's post on the Americans' current military manoeuvres with the South Koreans, it is that the US continues with its delusions of invincibility, the "moral righteousness" of its idiotic crusades and its trust in technology and computer simulations over real life.

Anyone familiar with that story about that computer simulation of the US in battle against a Middle Eastern enemy, in which the general tasked with leading the enemy side did what he believed the enemy would do to defend itself and ended up winning the war? The general was then told his side wasn't "playing" by the rules of the simulation, by which the US always had to be the victor. I believe the general then refused to continue with the simulation exercise. I think it was called Millennium 2000 but I may be wrong on this.

I should think any US / Sth Korean simulations on invading and stabilising Nth Korea will be just as woefully idiotic as to be in the realm of Hollywood sci-fi fantasy. The worry is that Hollywood script-writers are being employed to write such scenarios for the Pentagon.

Posted by: Jen | Aug 9 2019 21:05 utc | 15

JK @ 11; Thanks for the link. Another "brick in the wall" of evidence that tells the world
about the evils of our latest empire, in the past, as well as the present.

And all this, in an effort to gain hegemony for a few malignant human beings over power and money...

If there was a "biblical god", it would surely destroy humanity..

Again, thanks!!

Posted by: ben | Aug 9 2019 21:10 utc | 16

It may be interesting to get familiar with precisely how the Korean War began...I.F. Stone says that the South invaded the North. Then, after a brief pause, the North counter-attacked. See> The Hidden History of the Korean War, 1950–1951 Forbidden Bookshelf, Book 10 · Forbidden Bookshelf
by Mark Crispin Miller Editor · I. F. Stone Author

The South, of course, was a proxy client of the US occupation of Korea, just as the North was a client of USSR.

The affair was and is part of curating tension to control working class people in the US via a pogrom against the Left (McCarthy et al), support the MIC, and ultimately, to dominate Eurasia - all of it.

So far, the results are not terribly encouraging...are they?

Remember, these guys always double... They'll invade or attack again in a rhyme with 1950.

Posted by: Walter | Aug 9 2019 21:28 utc | 17

I don't see why North Korea is worried now that they have nuclear weapons and can do much more damage to the US and its allies than can be done to North Korea. For instance, a super-EMP weapon (200KV/meter) with just a minimal nuclear weapon (1-5 KT-50KV/meter) to set it off would destroy the US "civilization". There are a lot of interesting US and UK government reports on the effect of such an EMP attack.

Posted by: Krollchem | Aug 9 2019 21:41 utc | 18

What're ya gonna do against the United Sadists of America.

Posted by: bjd | Aug 9 2019 21:44 utc | 19

"On Trump's order..."-B

Ha!, again why do people think Trump is in charge of anything a man who can barely put two coherent sentences together? This is not hyperbole just study his speech patterns.

Trump's main puppet master Sheldon Adelson wants to build casinos in North Korea, it all about business.

"After his historic summit with Kim Jong Un last month, Donald Trump noted the business potential of North Korea, as seen from a property developer’s point of view. Speaking to reporters, he said, “Think of it from a real estate perspective. You have South Korea, you have China, and they own the land in the middle. How bad is that, right? It’s great.”

Late last month, Sheldon Adelson, a casino mogul and friend of Trump’s, also made reference to North Korea’s economic potential, according to a report yesterday (July 8) in Casino News Daily. Speaking at a charity event in Jerusalem, Adelson said he hoped Trump would get the North and South to end the Korean War, of which he was a veteran, so that he could go there again—this time not to fight, but to open up one of his casinos."

"When Trump met with Kim last month, he showed him a video promoting the economic promise of North Korea, with speedboats and skyscrapers. He told reporters later: “As an example they have great beaches. You see that whenever they’re exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said, boy, look at that view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo? And I explained, I said, you know, instead of doing that you could have the best hotels in the world right there.”"

https://qz.com/1323555/sheldon-adelson-wants-to-open-a-casino-in-north-korea/

Posted by: O | Aug 9 2019 21:46 utc | 20

Thanks snake #6, I don't think Kim has anything on Trump other that the deft hand of a well informed and competent politician. Trump has neither of those to counter the charm of Kim.

For Trump he is just doing a home run demonstrating his prowess and peacemaking skills. I surmise most USAians don't give a sh!t much about North Korea and Trump just needs a stage to strut upon with no great risk. The crowd that votes for Trump like the spectacle as they don't have the wit to see through it. Dems likewise.

Trump just wants eight years and the golden handshake at the end and knows that any war anywhere right now will not give him that dividend. That is probably the only thing that constrains him (other than perhaps epstein matters).

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Aug 9 2019 22:19 utc | 21

Posted by: Jeff Kaye | Aug 9 2019 20:23 utc | 11

Thank you for that!

Aussie journalist Wilfred Burchett also wrote about this from first hand / eyewitness experience.
You might be interested in The Bug Offensive by Wilfred, and Wormwood and a Shocking Secret of War: How Errol Morris Vindicated My Father, Wilfred Burchett by his son George Burchett.

His books on Korea during and after the War are also excellent, “This Monstrous War” 1953; “Plain Perfidy – The Plot To Wreck Korean Peace” 1954, co-authored with Alan Winnington; “Koje Unscreened” 1953, also with Winnington; and “Again Korea” 1968.

Posted by: Desolation Row | Aug 9 2019 22:19 utc | 22

IMO, the impediment to peace and unification resides in South Korean Fascists cultivated initially by the Japanese Occupation, then by MacArthur/US Army/CIA, the most recent of which was Moon's predecessor who was Impeached, arrested, tried, and imprisoned--which tells you they're still very active, resilient, and receive plenty of support from the Empire. Currently, the big todo is with Japan--again. This item provides some info on what's happening and why:

"Moon said it needed to see how Japan would act, but he noted that his government had been prepared for the worse-case scenario right after Japan's tighter regulations on the three materials last month.

"The president vowed to take Japan's export restrictions as an opportunity to reduce import dependence on Japan and expand the development of homegrown parts and materials, while continuing diplomatic efforts to resolve the trade issue with Japan.

"Moon reiterated his position that Japan's action was an "economic retaliation" against the South Korean top court's rulings that ordered some of Japanese companies to compensate the South Korean victims who were forced into hard labor without pay during the 1910-45 Japanese colonization of the Korean Peninsula."

As you read, the memory of Japan's boot and WW2 still resounds as is provided by this good article which addresses the core basis for the current standoff:

"Relations between Japan and South Korea have been dealt a significant blow following a ruling against the wartime forced labor of Koreans handed down by the Supreme Court of Korea on October 30 last year. In response to the lawsuit brought by those commonly known by the name 'conscripted factory workers,' the Korean court ruling is premised on the understanding that 'Japanese colonial rule was imposed by force and as such was Illegal from the outset.' The court ruled that under illegal colonial rule, people who were mobilized to Japanese companies have the right to seek compensation."

Imagine the chaos such a decision would sow within the USA over the issue of black chattel slavery and their legal right for reparations.

So, this years anti-DPRK drills have a much different context than any previous drills as the age-old enemy is far more in focus than the one preferred for by RoK's fascists and the CIA.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 9 2019 22:25 utc | 23

"...I.F. Stone says that the South invaded the North. Then, after a brief pause, the North counter-attacked."

Stone was right: Synghman Rhee was certain that his US led, Japanese trained forces would easily beat the North.

"The South, of course, was a proxy client of the US occupation of Korea, just as the North was a client of USSR."

No. The real difference between the two 'states' was that the North was nobody's client, its forces were battle hardened in many years struggle against Japan in Manchuria and Korea. And it was supported by large numbers of southern Resistance bases. It represented the Korean national liberation struggle. Many of its units had been integrated with the PLA.
As to the South its ruling class was made up of the collaborators with Japan which had ruled the country since 1910. During that time just about any Korean with wealth and power had become a friend of the Japanese Empire. Its police was the old Japanese led Police force and its military had fought on Japan's side in the war.
The South feared the socialist committees which had sprung up, spontaneously when the defeat of Japan became predictable and which ruled large areas in the country-notwithstanding US sponsorship of its puppet.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 9 2019 22:26 utc | 24

Desolation Row @22--

Excellent listing that reveals just how fascistic the USA was during Truman's administration, which Ike did nothing to stop, allowing the Dulles Brothers to run wild--they were far worse than Pompeo and Bolton.


Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 9 2019 22:39 utc | 25

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 9 2019 22:39 utc | 25

The Dullest Bros, it has been said, were also Fundamentalist Christians.

Posted by: Desolation Row | Aug 9 2019 22:50 utc | 26

bevin @24--

Yes, quite correct!

There's an aspect found in many Asian cultures that vastly differs from that of Europeans and their descendants--The Culture of Shame--which is difficult for the latter to comprehend and interact with. This essay attempts to explain. An internet search will provide hundreds of other essays, some good, some disgusting--it's important to keep in mind the impact Orientalism has on all such evaluations and attempted analyses.

One very important drawback within such a culture is the difficulty in coming to grips with past realities that cause current realities on both an individual/familial level and that of the entire society. One commenter above said South Korean youth aren't aware of the past; that's very false. What they are is ashamed of that past--it degrades their honor and makes discussion of that past onerous. What the court decision discussed above did was to resurrect that past and expose the collective shame of both Japanese and Koreans. We in the "West" often wonder why the sins of the past just can't be confessed, atoned for, and for life to carry on without being weighed down by that past stigma. It's because it's a part of a centuries old cultural system that can't be overturned on a whim. After some reflection, most can see there're positives and negatives with such a culture just as there are with ours--IMO, all cultures are dysfunctional to some degree as we're human and thus incapable of creating perfection from our imperfection.

When it comes to the events of Korea's colonization by Japan, events during WW2, events during what we call the Korean War, then the events over the past 65+ years, there's likely some excellent works in Korean dealing with them within the context of Korean culture--but they're all in Korean. The same would exist for Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, and China, all of whom share the same cultural core. It should also be easy to see and appreciate how susceptible such cultures are to becoming dominated by an authoritarian system that you become shamed into doing anything about. The psychology of the East is not the same as that of the West. And that difference permeates all aspects of society and culture.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 9 2019 23:21 utc | 27

Posted by: Desolation Row | Aug 9 2019 22:19 utc | 22

Yes, thanks. I’m very familiar with Wilfred Burchett’s work. Interested readers can read or download the very important book, Koje Unscreened, online. It tells the story of massive POW abuse by the US during the Korean War, incl. allegations of experiments on prisoners, and the prison uprisings by North Korean prisoners against US & UN camp authorities:
https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/koje.pdf

Posted by: Jeff Kaye | Aug 9 2019 23:37 utc | 28

@ bevin | Aug 9 2019 22:26 utc | 24 , yeah, you're right. However the client status arises from geographic factors...China and Russia. So while I agree, I would propose that NK was in client status, simply less so than the South. And one can make a case for the original status of North as more or less free from client status. Simply put, they immediately had to get materials from some outside source, ergo, became "client" as the conflict evolved.


Posted by: Walter | Aug 9 2019 23:40 utc | 29

Posted by: bevin | Aug 9 2019 22:26 utc | 24

Yes, bevin, all that is true. What isn’t generally known is that the socialist committees that sprang up after the Japanese were defeated were themselves dismantled when the US ruled South Korea via US military occupation government from Sept 1945 to Aug. 1948.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Military_Government_in_Korea
See also https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/Vietnam/43jung_kimsoft_cheju_page

Posted by: Jeff Kaye | Aug 9 2019 23:45 utc | 30

@6

..." What does kim Jong Un have on Trump? Strange behavior?"... Nothing, he knows he is facing a loser.

Trump is in my opinion a definite zero, and unfit for his position, morally also. Epstein has nothing on him (sexually), or Trump would not have made it to the White House. The deep state would have killed him politically long time ago. The only thing he got from Epstein was Melania, after Epstein of course!

Posted by: Taffyboy | Aug 10 2019 0:17 utc | 31

Does anyone really believe that South Korean and U.S. troops would be welcome with flowers and candy?

Oh, yes, North Korea is not a country like most countries in Europe, including France, which fell under Hitler as the most finished prostitutes.

Posted by: UN observer | Aug 10 2019 0:30 utc | 32

Walter @17 pointed out that "...the South invaded the North..."

It should be clarified that this was not a single invasion. On numerous occasions between 1945 and the North's counter-offensive in 1950 there were significant forces from the South (what we nowadays call "death squads", though many of these murder incursions were battalion or greater in strength) that raided the North to murder "communists". Whole towns full of "communists" in the North were rounded up and systematically executed (men, women, seniors, children, pets, everyone) by bands of Korean fascists all of which were lead by American troops. As bevin has pointed out these fascists were the former collaborators with the Japanese occupation while the "communists" were the Korean resistance to that occupation. This gets little attention in western history books (and the history books that South Korean kids study in school!) because if you cannot kill all "communists" at will, then who can you kill when you feel like killing?

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 10 2019 0:34 utc | 33

Posted by: Jeff Kaye | Aug 9 2019 23:37 utc | 28

Jeff, figured that might be the case, but you never know.

You are the first person I’ve interacted with who has heard of him. Very glad to meet you,if only on the interwebs.

I was introduced to Burchett’s work through his reporting from Vietnam. Was very impressed!
Bought more books, and then more. Everything he wrote I found fascinating, and my respect for the man increased.

I can’t type much more, already over did it, arthritic hands… and old age.

Thanks for the link to Koje, I will share it, not that anyone will read it, but at least I try.

Posted by: Desolation Row | Aug 10 2019 0:38 utc | 34

@45

Lately that are so many missiles fired by NK, including one ballistic one that flew right over Japan that would have make for a perfect anti-missile target, but not one THAAD/Aegis/Patriot was ever fired to stop any of them.

Really shows just how much confidence the "invincible" Empire has in their shiny toys and their commitment to "defend" their SK/Japan "allies" aka convenient cannon fodder.

Thus, the Empire will rather keep spinning that "we are doing nothing to stop NK missiles because we love peace" PR story, than being exposed as "our super-advanced weapons don't even work against a country that our propagandists have been proclaiming as terminally weak since forever".

Posted by: JW | Aug 10 2019 0:40 utc | 35

Posted by: nottheonly1 | Aug 9 2019 18:46 utc | 3

The sad fact is, that if Maduro would have spent Venezuela's money on nukes, the US regime would not blockade it, nor stealing its assets, or shipments of urgently needed food and medicine. In the end it boils down to the sad fact - no nukes, no deterrence of the US regime. Kim Jong Un knew that all along. And to remember how he was mocked and ridiculed by the Western presstitutes still rings in my ears.

Gaddafi believed the sweet promises of his Western "partners" and poured for it with his life. His death is a good lesson for many other leaders who do not want to stand in front of Uncle Sam in a dog pose, on all fours and with his pants down. Kim Jong Un understands this well.

Posted by: UN observer | Aug 10 2019 0:43 utc | 36

Excellent analysis of the Korean situation. If the US would just step aside and let the two Korea's trade and interact they would become one within a generation.

What isn’t generally known is that the socialist committees that sprang up after the Japanese were defeated were themselves dismantled when the US ruled South Korea via US military occupation government from Sept 1945 to Aug. 1948

They used the young as death squads to break up any hint of socialism or communism. I think China picked up on this idea and used in in their "Cultural Revolution" under Mao. Brainwash the youth and give them some power and money do do your work.

It is also noted that the imperial Japaneses trained Koreans officers became the cadre of the South Korean government while those fighting the Japanese became the North Korean government. China owed a huge debt to the North. Some of their most effective units in Manchuria were Koreans fighting under Mao.

Once the fighting was completed those units were released back to the North. Syngman Rhee of the South was bloviating about warring with the North with nothing to back it up. After numerous border incidents, mostly instigated by the South, the well trained Manchurian divisions attacked the south.

It appears Stalin goaded the North into attacking with grand promises of help. He pulled advisors out and cut off supplies the week they attacked. There was talk in the US back then of playing the China card against Russia and Stalin feared that greatly. Once he pulled his advisors out he told Mao in effect that the war was his to win or lose. In other words, he covered his ass by engineering a war between China and the US. He did use the war to train his pilots in the latest aviation techniques. The South Korean president thought he could win a war with the North and pushed that hard. He was a hero in the US propaganda.

Had MacArthur and some others had their way he would have nuked them from one end of the country to the other. Failing that, he dropped bombs, fire sticks and napalm to literally burn every inch of civilization. A massive amount of ordinance was used.

Peace and reunification could be had if we did not have the conga line of idiots in the bureaucracy. The horrors of life in the North could be put to an end.

Posted by: dltravers | Aug 10 2019 0:54 utc | 37

In 1950-52, most Chinese industry was still in Manchuria, what in Chinese is called the Northeast, Dongbei. So MacArthur's bombing plan would had an effect.

Posted by: lysias | Aug 10 2019 2:15 utc | 38

Would have had

Posted by: lysias | Aug 10 2019 2:18 utc | 39

I was told when I was in U.S. military intelligence that most of the pilots flying North Korean planes during the Korean War were in fact Russian pilots. We were of course listening to their radio transmissions. So the Soviets did more than nothing for the North Korean side.

Posted by: lysias | Aug 10 2019 2:24 utc | 40

@45 Of course those pilots could have been Koryo-saram. There was over half a million Korean exiles in Russia at the time.

Posted by: dh | Aug 10 2019 2:45 utc | 41

I find it interesting that most every discussion about the current situation in Korea ends up replaying the runup to the War and its many atrocities perpetrated by the Outlaw US Empire that it's never been brought to justice for, while mostly ignoring the contemporary issues. I tried.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 10 2019 2:55 utc | 42

Re: Russia support for DPRK
Suggested reading -
Jonathon Spence, The Search For Modern China (1991)
Famous mainstream history book by Yale professor
Describes how USSR supported DPRK, how/where China's heavy industry was located, how the Japanese took control of iron and coal industries in Manchuria in the 1930's.

Posted by: oldman22 | Aug 10 2019 3:20 utc | 43

@#5 I'd prefer no swamp, as opposed to your suggestion that a swamp of another color would somehow taste more peaceful. In case you are unawares the swamp is still there regardless as to which color the American people have lied to themselves about voting for.

Posted by: Tannenhouser | Aug 10 2019 3:25 utc | 44

Re: psychohistorian | Aug 9 2019 18:41 utc | 1 "The rest of the world needs to STOP buying US Treasuries and then this would all come to an abrupt halt."

With all due respect, I don't think it is quite that simple. The US has been using its enormous off-book reserves to by up huge volumes of Treasury notes and bonds that have been dumped, thus monetizing US debt while simultaneously holding down interest rates, which otherwise should have been going through the roof. Most of this is apparently being done via the Exchange Stablization Fund (ESF), which is also used to rig not only the bond markets, but also the stock markets, commodities, precious metals, etc. It also seems likely that at least some portion of the $21 trillion (probably much more, but that much is documented) that has been stolen from the Federal government is being used by the ESF for these purposes.

If you are not familiar with the ESF, you can listen to Eric deCarbonnel and Rob Kirby Documentation and explanations of the missing $21 trillion can be found on the Solari Report also see this article in Forbes

When US dollars and Treasuries are no longer accepted by other nations in exhange for goods and services, then the US military will not longer be financed by the rest of the world. (I expect gold or commodity-backed trade notes or something along those lines to be required for payment, i.e. payment backed by something tangible and not simply worthless fiat/debt) Whether or not we can escape a nuclear war before we arrive at this circumstance remains to be seen.


Posted by: Perimetr | Aug 10 2019 3:45 utc | 45

This is the second time in a fortnight that President Teflon has strayed off the reservation/ agenda set by AmeriKKKa's Permanent Bureaucracy, as Putin refers to The Swamp.

Last week Trump made an offer to help Russia to subdue its Arctic forest wildfires by sending US water-bombing planes. This week he has scaled down a US-SK military pantomime to save money. If nothing else, each of these gambits can be seen as Trump down-playing the threat from two of the Swamp's artificial enemies-of-convenience.

The Swamp will be less than delighted with this turn of events but re-asserting their authority over POTUS Trump won't be easy. He's been a proficient multi-tasker all his life so keeping The Swamp off balance whilst planning and executing his next gambits will be a snack - and fun to watch...

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 10 2019 3:55 utc | 46

Many thanks for all the contributions to this discussion. Especially to bevin for showing that "North Korea" is essentially the present manifestation of the Korea liberation movement.

A national liberation struggle against colonial rule explains everything. We've seen this struggle elsewhere, or do I mean everywhere?

And karlof1, the Shame of South Korea, as shown in the excellent article you linked, would seem in this context like the dissonance between the occupying narrative and the ancestral one still beating like the eternal heart of the nation, to the north.

Maybe I'm being too poetic. But maybe it will take some poetry - as well as the power that comes from the barrel of a gun - for a new reality to allow the South to triumph over its oppression, and thereby and thus to move beyond its shame?

~~

It seems to me that South Korea wishes it could think of its economy as a Singapore, and its society as dynamic, but knows that its history (and present reality) is of defeat and not independence - and it is stuck in time. It is more like Hong Kong, another society trying to get past its colonial past but having only the tools and entanglements forced on it by its masters, who still infect its governance.

I like the thought that North Korea is the future of the whole Korea, and in this sense it is of course the pure continuity of its past. South Korea faces nothing less than destiny. How it manages this greatest of all challenges, we shall see.

Posted by: Grieved | Aug 10 2019 4:00 utc | 47

@Krollchem #18
You keep repeating the same falsehood.
EMP effects fall off over distance just like anything else. A small weapon would affect several hundred mile radius, but would not affect the entire or even a large percent of the United States.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 10 2019 4:53 utc | 48

@Walter #17
It should be noted that North Korea was a heavy industry zone while South Korea was farming - an economic division created by the Japanese.
So ironically it was "freedom loving" farmers fighting against Communist industrialists. This is one reason why the US bombed the crap out of North Korea. Both the Kim Il-Sung and Syngman Rhee were "guests" of the Soviet Union and the United States, respectively.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 10 2019 5:03 utc | 49

Sometimes the US president just lets it slip...

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-marine-one-departure-59/
Remarks by President Trump Before Marine One Departure
Issued on: August 9, 2019
South Lawn
9:49 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: It was a great letter. He talked about what he’s doing. He’s not happy with the testing. It’s a very small testing that we did. But he wasn’t happy with the testing; he put that in the letter. But he also sees a great future for North Korea. And so we’ll see how it all works out.

In the meantime, I say it again: There have been no nuclear tests. The missile tests have all been short-range. No ballistic missile tests. No long-range missiles. We got back, and we’re getting back — as we speak, we’re getting back a lot of our fallen heroes. You know that. They’re coming back into and through Hawaii. And we got back our hostages.

So I thought the letter — I just got it yesterday. It was hand-delivered and it wasn’t touched by anybody. They literally take it from North Korea to my office. We have a system. It’s the old-fashioned system. You don’t have to worry about leaks. Something nice about that system.

Q Mr. President, what do you mean that he wasn’t happy with the missile tests? He carried them out. He ordered them.

THE PRESIDENT: No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t happy with the tests — the war games. The war games on the other side, with the United States. And as you know, I’ve never liked it either. I’ve never liked it. I’ve never been a fan. You know why? I don’t like paying for it. We should be reimbursed for it, and I’ve told that to South Korea. But I don’t like it either. But I said, “Do this,” because this was a big test. This was a turnover of various areas to South Korea. I like that because that’s what should happen.

Curiously, the ever-gullible press didn't pick up on the phrase!

Posted by: powerandpeople | Aug 10 2019 5:13 utc | 50

un observer @ 42

It appears? Somewhat "highly likely" or facts?

Actually it was in a book on my shelf that I cannot now find. A researcher went to the archives in Russia after the Soviet union fell and found some documents "proving" Stalin's plan to do just that. It makes some sense and the quotations are there because I sort of have to believe whereas I cannot read Russian.

And yes, as I pointed out, many pilots were Russian to train in combat on the new aviation techniques. Jets were brand new as far as that type combat. They tried to train North Koreans and found something interesting. After one sortie they completely collapsed because they were so malnourished. It would take the the Russians 3-6 months of feeding them a proper diet just to get their body strength up to where they could fly regularly. Then the real training would begin. As far as everything else, the Russians pulled out.

Posted by: dltravers | Aug 10 2019 5:17 utc | 51

un observer @ 42

Some of that documentation and the books are mentioned here...

Did Stalin Lure the United States into the Korean War? New Evidence on the Origins of the Korean War

The Epstein Documents are coming out...

Posted by: dltravers | Aug 10 2019 5:28 utc | 52

OMG it's Jeff Kaye @ 11!

Thank you! Your work in particular, and that of the anti-APA torture effort, have been a deep inspiration and lodestar. I'll never forget The Day the Tide Turned, as does my stomach, even now.

Also want to thank you for being the first to tell me, years ago, prolly Firedoglake, that I was making the Romantic argument, albeit unawares.

I began an independent social-psych project at UWashington way back when (ok, 80s) under Prof. Keating, focusing on the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis of C. Daniel Batson. We disagreed on the characterization of the self/other distinction: that it "must be maintained" (pers. comm.), vs. essential semi-permeability: from every cell of our bodies, to Sagittarius A*, there is no absolute discontinuity to be found, only imposed divisions of consensus or convenience.

I've kept, unwrinkled, for c.30y, a photocopy of "Some Aspects of De-Individuation in a Group," (Festinger, Pepitone, and Newcombe, 1955), one of the founding articles of that line (baiting crowds, bystander apathy, Milgram, etc.). I can now suture it to this.


Last spring I had an experience I liken to that of a alchemist in his shed, only my unexpectedly super-potentiated situation didn't blow up exogenously. That's right: I blew my mind inside out, and *back again (it's the latter part, like landing a parachute jump, that makes or breaks you).

Only this spring, in an on-line *introductory course (now my favorite ever, and I'm just 6 credits shy of a masters, and there's more classes to come from the DPA, woohoo) did I learn, in Ellenberger (1963), just what that, and you, meant (he called it a "creative illness," later Maslow developed it as a "peak experience" modeled after enlightenment).

When it comes to "seeing the light," in fact, I've been there, done that, *replicated, and charted it (also dementia-care certified nursing assistant), ffs. Take that, mainstream psych.

Now, I'm a mythopoet who knows it, one of the many types that used to get sent to

Posted by: TheOtherDave | Aug 10 2019 6:04 utc | 53

about John Bolton... sorry, OT

Disinformation:

Canadian Inspector Reveals Bolton’s Involvement in Money Laundering
https://ifpnews.com/exclusive/canadian-inspector-reveals-boltons-involvement-in-money-laundering/

Bolton’s Corruption, Money Laundering and Non-Transparent Financial Relationships
https://www.usjournal.net/news-line/boltons-corruption-money-laundering-and-non-transparent-financial-relationships/

Truth:
U.S. Intel Officials Eye Disinformation Campaign Targeting John Bolton’s Family
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-biggest-bombshells-in-newly-unsealed-jeffrey-epstein-documents

Fake Twitter Account Drives Media Coverage
https://medium.com/@geoffgolberg/fake-twitter-account-drives-media-coverage-188f74ab99ed

Posted by: onlooking | Aug 10 2019 6:29 utc | 54

correct link:

U.S. Intel Officials Eye Disinformation Campaign Targeting John Bolton’s Family
https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-intel-officials-eye-disinformation-campaign-targeting-john-boltons-family

Posted by: onlooking | Aug 10 2019 6:34 utc | 55

OMG It's Jeff Kaye @ 11, and my post @ 58 was truncated! A link to the Atlas Obscura article on a certain infamous Parisian institution did it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(For the sake of a clear record)

OMG it's Jeff Kaye @ 11!

Thank you! Your work in particular, and that of the anti-APA torture effort, have been a deep inspiration and lodestar. I'll never forget The Day the Tide Turned, as does my stomach, even now.

Also want to thank you for being the first to tell me, years ago, prolly Firedoglake, that I was making the Romantic argument, albeit unawares.

I began an independent social-psych project at UWashington way back when (ok, 80s) under Prof. Keating, focusing on the Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis of C. Daniel Batson. We disagreed on the characterization of the self/other distinction: that it "must be maintained" (pers. comm.), vs. essential semi-permeability: from every cell of our bodies, to Sagittarius A*, there is no absolute discontinuity to be found, only imposed divisions of consensus or convenience.

I've kept, unwrinkled, for c.30y, a photocopy of "Some Aspects of De-Individuation in a Group," (Festinger, Pepitone, and Newcomb, 1955), one of the founding articles of that line (baiting crowds, bystander apathy, Milgram, etc.).

Last spring I had an experience I liken to that of a alchemist in his shed, only my unexpectedly super-potentiated situation didn't blow up exogenously. That's right: I blew my mind inside out, and back again (it's the latter part, like landing a parachute jump, that makes or breaks you).

Only this spring, in an on-line *introductory course (now my favorite ever, and I'm just 6 credits shy of a masters, and there's more classes to come from the Depth Psychology Alliance, woohoo) did I learn, in Ellenberger (1963), just what that, and you, meant (he called it a "creative illness," later Maslow developed it as a "peak experience" modeled after enlightenment).

When it comes to "seeing the light," in fact, I've been there, done that, *replicated, and charted it (also dementia-care certified nursing assistant), ffs. Take that, mainstream psych.

Now, I'm a mythopoet who knows it, one of the many types that used to get sent to La Salpetrière. For good and ill, I'm afraid. It's comorbid with some schizoid aspects. There, my cohorts came to the attention of all the greats: Janet, Adler, Jung; and that other guy, too.

Can you imagine?! I'm like my own, thawed out, Ice Age Man.

Efforts to take that old tyme Romantic position, and work it for all it's worth, proceed apace.

I am very, very much obliged, and I bow, most humbly, in your virtual direction.

Posted by: TheOtherDave | Aug 10 2019 7:21 utc | 56

karlof1 @27

There's an aspect found in many Asian cultures that vastly differs from that of Europeans and their descendants--The Culture of Shame--which is difficult for the latter to comprehend and interact with.

So maybe it is a form of cognitive dissonance on the South Koreans to be ashamed of the past and therefore believe the present situation is "freedom and democracy". Perhaps western cognitive dissonance is required to not see the similarity with the present situation in Europe.

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 10 2019 7:58 utc | 57

The US is not going to occupy North Korea. All the US can do , is to close the military bases in South Korea, go home. The reunification of Koreas will be a feather in Pres. Trump's hat-he is about to finish the job, SAVE LOTS OF MONEY.

Posted by: Friar Ockham | Aug 10 2019 8:04 utc | 58

@Posted by: William Gruff 34
This gets little attention in western history books (and the history books that South Korean kids study in school!) because if you cannot kill all "communists" at will, then who can you kill when you feel like killing?

From the dark ages to 1945 it was the jews. I guess they had to find others to victimize as scapegoats. Humans struggle with the humanities, don't they?

I'd've preferred to underline the bold above, but that didn't occur. Is that feature disabled here?

Posted by: aye, myself & me | Aug 10 2019 8:13 utc | 59

It was the moral impression created by the American actions in Korea that brought George Blake (the famous commie spy was a POW in NK and thus an eye witness) to become what he became.

In this way the secondary effects of violence tend to outweigh the primary effect. George B (from wiki)> " At a secret meeting arranged with his guards, he volunteered to work for the Soviet Union's spy service, the KGB.[11] In an interview Blake was once asked, "Is there one incident that triggered your decision to effectively change sides?", to which Blake responded, "It was the relentless bombing of small Korean villages by enormous American Flying Fortresses. Women and children and old people, because the young men were in the army. We might have been victims ourselves. It made me feel ashamed of belonging to these overpowering, technically superior countries fighting against what seemed to me defenceless people. I felt I was on the wrong side ... that it would be better for humanity if the Communist system prevailed, that it would put an end to war" "

Blake> (November 2017) " "[Russia now has]the difficult and critical mission" of saving the world "in a situation when the danger of nuclear war and the resulting self-destruction of humankind again have been put on the agenda by irresponsible politicians. It's a true battle between good and evil"

.......................
During the 1950-51 phase, by the way, US jets strafed Soviet Aircobras at their base inside the Soviet Union...they claimed a navigation error... A signal to Stalin? This event perhaps out to be researched as to the actual purpose of the attack on USSR by nominally UN airforce...

Posted by: Walter | Aug 10 2019 8:33 utc | 60

Thanks Desolation Row #35, greetings from another Burchett fan. Loved the guy and his writing. Followed him closely throughout the Vietnam war of liberation and to his brief return to Australia. He will always be a patriot of the people.

Posted by: uncle tungsten | Aug 10 2019 9:39 utc | 61

UN observer @ 58

3) There was talk in the US back then of playing the China card against Russia and Stalin feared that greatly.

That is in the link I sent you, there is even more, do some research

5) In other words, he covered his ass by engineering a war between China and the US.

If you read Stalin's letter in the link I sent you, that is what he said. I place it in my in crude US terms.

4) Once he pulled his advisors out he told Mao in effect that the war was his to win or lose.

That is also in the link. The part about the advisors in not in there. Do some research, I can link to other books if you want to buy them.

1) Stalin goaded the North into attacking with grand promises of help.

https://www.apnews.com/adf271706570fbe753e6783955675e60

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a620788.pdf

2) He pulled advisors out and cut off supplies the week they attacked.

yes it happened.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/intesociscierevi.88.3.01?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Download it, read the book, do some research

Posted by: dltravers | Aug 10 2019 9:43 utc | 62

@ 26 Desolation row.
The Dulles Brothers were fundamentalist Christians. No they were not. Satanists certainly.
‘By their actions shall they be known’.
Springs to mind...

Posted by: Beibdnn. | Aug 10 2019 12:37 utc | 63

Just heard on the news, Jeffrey Epstein is said to have committed suicide.

Posted by: Russ | Aug 10 2019 13:02 utc | 64

**BREAKING**

It is reported that J. Epstein has "committed suicide".

Posted by: librul | Aug 10 2019 13:19 utc | 65

Poignant lines in Bette Midler's song "Hello in There", where she is thinking about her kids:

John and Linda live in Omaha.
Joe is somewhere on the road.
We lost Davy in the Korean war.
I still don't know what for, don't matter any more.

Posted by: Guy Thornton | Aug 10 2019 13:21 utc | 66

It is reported that J. Epstein has "committed suicide".

Or was he helped to die to silence him forever?

NYT:

Last month, a week after being denied bail, Mr. Epstein was found unconscious in his cell at the jail in Manhattan with marks on his neck, and prison officials were investigating the incident as a possible suicide attempt.

It was not immediately clear on Saturday whether the authorities had put in additional safeguards to watch him after the incident last month.

Posted by: onlooking | Aug 10 2019 13:27 utc | 67

@ Posted by: dltravers | Aug 10 2019 5:17 utc | 56

Anglo-Saxon researchers are not reliable -- even when they claim they had direct access to Soviet archives.

Even when a researcher has access to an archive, you still have his/her bias. This is what we see, e.g. with the "Holodomor" farce: American and Australian "historians" go to the Soviet archives already with their conclusion preconceived, and go to the documents which, by a faint association, will "surely" demonstrate their hypothesis. Since 99.9999% of the public their books are aimed at (i.e. an Anglophone public) will not read the books but will read the headlines at the MSM about the books, they will automatically believe their conclusions -- which was the initial goal of these "reasearchers" from the beginning.

Dig into my old comments here in this blog about the Holodomor case (the Australian researcher who is used as a base to the Wikipedia English page about it). He uses Soviet archive's documents -- but the correlation is very creative, to say the least (absurd indirect evidence such as levels of grain storage in 1932, the infamous census of 1937 etc. etc.). Creative association and extrapolation of documental and archaeological evidence is acceptable in History only when we're talking about very ancient periods, where there's nothing much we can do about.

Wars are always multifaceted events: it's never one man or one incident. To simply blame "Stalin in a soap opera" episode on it is an idealist vision of History.

You can have evidence. Without critical analysis, you don't have History.

Posted by: vk | Aug 10 2019 13:29 utc | 68

Posted by: Walter | Aug 10 2019 8:33 utc | 65

During the 1950-51 phase, by the way, US jets strafed Soviet Aircobras at their base inside the Soviet Union...they claimed a navigation error... A signal to Stalin? This event perhaps out to be researched as to the actual purpose of the attack on USSR by nominally UN airforce...

My Brief War with Russia
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1990/03/04/my-brief-war-with-russia/0fe9d000-9796-4c6c-9df4-77a956bf5e96/

Posted by: onlooking | Aug 10 2019 13:40 utc | 69

The Swamp's movers and shakers seem to have drawn their underlying philosophy and attitude to Humanity from the turmoil of the Dark Ages. The top echelon deserve at least SOME kudos for their demonstrated ability to persuade an 'educated' 20th Century audience that...

"The Earth is flat and there be dragons!"

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 10 2019 13:48 utc | 70

The only time the Soviet Union officially fought the US was in brutal air combat

In October 1944, WWII was still raging all across Europe. On the Eastern Front, Red Army troops in Yugoslavia were making their way to bolster other Soviet forces in the region when American P-38 Lightning fighters started raining lead on them.

In response, the Soviet Air Force launched two groups of its premiere fighter of the time, the Yakovlev Yak-3. The Yaks fought the Yanks for a good 15 minutes over the Yugoslav (now Serbia) town of Niš. No one knows exactly how or where the error started, but each side fought the other viciously, thinking they were fighting Nazis.

https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/the-only-time-the-soviet-union-officially-fought-the-us-was-in-brutal-air-combat

Posted by: onlooking | Aug 10 2019 13:49 utc | 71

Peter Lee found this gem:

South Korea and Japan should bury the historical hatchet -- Countries are natural allies against assertive China

Who cares about massacres and genocides of the past? You're both liberal democracies now!

Westerners don't care about genocides. It only matters when it serves their anti-communist propaganda.

Posted by: vk | Aug 10 2019 13:59 utc | 72

Guy Thornton @ 78

The song "Hello in There" was written by John Prine.

Posted by: donkeytale | Aug 10 2019 14:08 utc | 73

@vk #84
The author of the article, Michael Breen, works for the Korea Times. I wonder if the Korea Times is as representative of Korean views and the Moscow Times represents Russians.
Agreed, ludicrous premise given the economic warfare Korea has waged on Japanese industries.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 10 2019 14:09 utc | 74

vk @ 80

Agreed but there were also Chinese and Russian researchers who did the same thing and found a similar story. The original story of the Korean story I would call the lies of history forced upon us.

While I read I know that researchers misinterpret and come to the wrong conclusions. My interpretation may be wrong in parts but I think on the whole it is pretty accurate.

Obtaining the Russian documentation at the end of the old cold war certainly blew the long held assumptions wide open and some new scholarship was created on the issues.

Posted by: dltravers | Aug 10 2019 14:15 utc | 75

80 @ vk

Without critical analysis, you don't have History.

Can he multiply twice two?

Posted by: first grader | Aug 10 2019 15:08 utc | 76

c1ue@52

The EMP of nuclear detonations at low altitude and ground level are highly limited by the thickness of the atmospheric window. The EMP from High altitude nuclear detonations (HEMP) is no so limited be the thickness of the atmospheric window and thus impact a wider area. In addition, metal structures such as wires and pipelines serve as antenna to focus the over voltages over longer distances. When I spoke of super-EMP weapons these release most of their energy as gamma radiation which as you know is more penetrating and can be of a lower total yield.

An example of HEMP is “Starfish Prime, a 1962 nuclear detonation about 400 kilometers above Johnston Island in the Central Pacific. However, effects, felt 900 miles away in Hawaii, included failure of street lighting systems, tripping of circuit breakers, triggering of burglar alarms, and damage to a telecommunications relay facility. We learned after the Cold War that 1962 Soviet high altitude nuclear tests damaged overhead and underground buried cables out to 350 miles and caused surge arrester burnout, spark-gap break-down, blown fuses, and power-supply interruption. Modern electronics would have suffered greater damage.”

“Three similar Soviet tests that same year over Kazakhstan caused far greater effects, with power grid generating station failures, underground power line fusing, and failures of 1962-era military hardware -- long before the far more vulnerable and ubiquitous microchips that power today’s world.”

Here is one of dozens of links for more information:
https://inldigitallibrary.inl.gov/sites/STI/STI/INL-EXT-15-35582.pdf

Posted by: Krollchem | Aug 10 2019 17:05 utc | 77

I agree with vk about history and there's more. I could easily be wrong but I'm not aware of any single country that has trustworthy independently verifiable tamper-resistant record-keeping exposed to the public and certainly not about the reasoning and decision-making happening out of view of the public ie.: one doesn't even have the ability to truly say what or how much is missing.

Thus no accountability either. This applies as much to local minutia as to world events.

Of course there's not much hope of keeping track of what is kept off any books either, be it coffee breaks or golf courses, now or 70 years ago.

So much detail is simply not in any official records. There are natural explanations of course and documenting details often isn't a priority, dissemination and finding what might be available is also an issue, but in some cases it is obvious to begin with that there might be motives not only to lose documentation but to never create any.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Aug 10 2019 19:43 utc | 78

Jeff Kaye | Aug 9 2019 20:23 utc | 11

There have been many responses -- some quite erudite -- to your posting of the ISC report, so I will say simply, thank you most sincerely for providing us with that earth-shaking eye-opener. It is a true public service you are doing, and should be appreciated by all who see your notice.

Posted by: AntiSpin | Aug 11 2019 3:31 utc | 79

This bromance narrative is alarming if we remember how the late Mr. Khaddafi was treated less bad for a while.
(And the phone conversations between him and Blair)
I fully agree with Trump as playing the good cop while the staff he installed stab everybody in the back and
are in perpetual attack mode. Trumpy is taking everybody for a ride, wise-guy style.

Posted by: Mishko | Aug 11 2019 13:41 utc | 80

Wilfred Burchett’s work ... download the very important book, Koje Unscreened, online. It tells the story of massive POW abuse by the US during the Korean War, incl. allegations of experiments on prisoners, and the prison uprisings by North Korean prisoners against US & UN camp authorities:
https://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/koje.pdf
Posted by: Jeff Kaye | Aug 9 2019 23:37 utc | 28

Thank you for this very important link. I had never heard of the US death camps at Koje. People who have not read it should do so.

The murderous and criminal US behaviour on Koje seems to have been even more brutal and inhuman than the Nazi death camps.

It is incomprehensible that human beings could act in such a non-human manner, and this just a few years after the end of the 2nd World War.

Posted by: BM | Aug 11 2019 15:54 utc | 81

@Krollchem #89
The report you linked to says the Starfish Prime effects on Hawaii were "U.S. atmospheric test programs in1962, the Starfish Prime test detonation over the Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean and some electronic and electrical systems in the Hawaiian Islands over 1400 kilometers away, caused failure of street lighting, tripped circuit breakers, and damaged a telecommunications relay facility."
This doesn't constitute catastrophic damage.
The same report talks about Kazakhstan: "Soviet atmospheric testing during the same year impacted South Central Asia causing damage to overhead and underground buried cables, surge arrestor burnout spark-gap breakdown, blown fuses, and power supply failure. The antenna affect caused buried cable damage at 600 kilometers", however,
a) Is this catastrophic? No
b) Is this different than natural occurrences, such as from wildfires and squirrels? The greatest threat today is squirrels.
You seem to be under the impression that electrical grids are otherwise untroubled in normal operation, whereas in reality - they are constantly under repair. There was a huge power outage in the NorthEast in 2003; in 2017, there were nearly simultaneous major power outages in San Francisco, LA and New York.
There is a huge difference between damage - which occurs all the time - and destruction which cannot be repaired in a, say, 1 week period.
Your pronouncements of doom due to any single HEMP are vastly overstated, certainly when starting with "a nuclear explosion over the US" at any altitude.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 11 2019 16:30 utc | 82

Jeff Kaye | Aug 9 2019 20:23 utc | 11

Publishing this is a real public service. Thank you very much for doing this. There really is no substitute for information. I knew Joseph Needham personally. He was a very sincere man and no b*llsh*tt*r. I heard him lecture on the subject and I am convinced that he was convinced that the US had waged Germ-warfare on the Koreans and Chinese. He would not have been easy to fool, either.
I think he must have been widely believed by the British scientific establishment, in spite of a pretty poisonous campaign to pooh-pooh his findings by the msm, because he was able to continue his scientific work/career as a biochemist and Sinologist after the publication of the Report and was even elected Master of Caius College, Cambridge some years later.

Posted by: foolisholdman | Aug 11 2019 17:48 utc | 83

O | Aug 9 2019 21:46 utc | 20

There is something that the US needs more from North Korea than a site for a casino. 90% of the world's tungsten comes from China. 90% of the rest of the World's tungsten is in North Korea. If Trump's easy-to-win trade war with China turns really nasty....

Posted by: foolisholdman | Aug 11 2019 17:58 utc | 84

karlof1 | Aug 9 2019 22:39 utc | 25

Excellent listing that reveals just how fascistic the USA was during Truman's administration, which Ike did nothing to stop, allowing the Dulles Brothers to run wild--they were far worse than Pompeo and Bolton.

I can't find references for it but I have a vague memory that says that the Brothers Dulles were the ones who wrote the Treaty of Versailles.

Posted by: foolisholdman | Aug 11 2019 18:36 utc | 85

UN observer | Aug 10 2019 1:09 utc | 42

It appears Stalin goaded the North into attacking with grand promises of help.
It appears? Somewhat "highly likely" or facts?

If you look at the history of China and the surrounding countries in the last two centuries it makes sense if you assume that NONE of the big powers wanted China as a big power and that includes Stalin's USSR. How else to explain the USSR abstaining on the vote to send UN forces to combat the North Koreans? And how to explain his Urging the NKs into a war and then pulling all support out the next week? Or how to explain the US, in 1945 giving Chiang Kai-shek "just enough weapons to defeat the Communists" and no more? (Of course, they underestimated how unpopular Chiang was with his own troops!)

Posted by: foolisholdman | Aug 11 2019 19:00 utc | 86

That last part about 90 days...China has been explicit on that. They said if NK starts a war, they will stay out of it. But if the US starts it and looks to be winning, they will enter the war as they did before. That's one main reason Trump has been negotiating instead of beating his chest like he did before.

And even if they didn't, Pentagon war games reportedly have indicated that US casualties in the first ninety days would be fifty thousand or more. That's another reason Trump is willing to negotiate. Even he can't survive as President that kind of hot war, even if the neocons don't care.

NK may have old military hardware, but they have a lot of it - more tanks and artillery than anyone except Russia. Plus they're highly motivated - they don't fight like conscripted Arabs do. And NK terrain is the worst kind for US forces - forested, hilly, deep valleys. And NK has been preparing for war with the US for fifty years with bunkers and tunnels all over the place - read, Vietnam times a hundred. So fifty thousand US casualties might be a "best case" estimate.

Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Aug 11 2019 21:55 utc | 87

c1ue@94

I do not dispute that the US electrical grid infrastructure is in poor shape or that squirrels can cause electrical outages (once lost power for several days due to squirrel damage at a nearby transformer substation.

You should realize that modern microelectronic circuits are more easily damaged by overvoltages than those in the 1960s.

However, if you wish to dispute a few dozen governmental reports, including the one I cited, good luck.

Overall you are correct that the dangers of HEMP is minor compared to the resultant full scale nuclear war that would likely result from such an attack on the US using a high altitude nuclear detonation. I have the knowledge, skills and aptitude to survive such a nuclear war and the nuclear winter consequences - do you?

Posted by: Krollchem | Aug 12 2019 15:10 utc | 88

@Krollchem #100
I've actually read a number of the detailed reports.
The monetary loss from a nuclear HEMP would be considerable, but it would not end society in the US or cause millions of deaths. The microelectronic parts are also neither irreplaceable nor sources of catastrophic failure. The major power grid failures tend to be either software (i.e. the microelectronics is made to work incorrectly) or a major transformer failure.
As an electrical engineer, I actually understand the electrical grid. Do you?
As for surviving a nuclear war and nuclear winter: not at all clear why this is relevant.
But let's riff on this a while. If you're living in an urban area, you're toast no matter what you do. Even if you have shelter and food/water, you'll have tens to hundreds of thousands of people who want what you have.
If you live in a rural area - few people actually are completely off grid, or are truly self-reliant in materials, energy and food. Stockpiling is ok for a few years, but surviving a true societal breakdown is a generational setup. Even if you can farm and sew and tan and woodwork and blacksmith and mine and provide health care, the rural area has to be far away from a large number of people, has to not be in the wind pattern/watershed as a nuked area, has to not have large petrochemical processing, chemical manufacturing, coal or nuclear power plant or similar sources of hazardous materials nearby.
In general, the vast, vast majority of survivalists really can't do it.
More importantly, would you want to be living - mostly all alone - in a post-nuclear holocaust America? I'd think the better choice is to just leave.
Whatever you want to say about Peter Thiel and the other New Zealand billionaire holocaust fleers, that part of the world is relatively good in survival terms. Of course, you'd have to get there and the sheep farmers would have to accept you. And this assumes NZ doesn't get a pill, too as it is part of Five Eyes.
Anyway, fun thinking about it.
Spending any amount of time or resources to protect against it, if you're not a billionaire, is stupid and a waste.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 12 2019 15:23 utc | 89

c1ue@101

Those of us with a STEM training often fail to consider the human stress response to a crisis. It is the loss of communication and modern electronics that will cause panics and even warband outbreaks (Toynbee term) that result in the most deaths.

Yes the grid and modern electronic devices can be rebuilt if chip factories are not also fried. Likewise large transformers can be rebuild, abet slowly. In the meantime, how will most snowflakes survive without heating cooling, cooking, communications, water pumps, ATMs, automotive ignition systems, and hot showers?

I welcome your comments on spent nuclear fuel storage ponds and their potential for the fuel to rupture in case of loss of power. Yes I recognize this civilian fuel is not as dangerous as the highly depleted N-reactor metallic uranium fuel rods at Hanford that were rupturing.

You may be interested in the following article on the science of HEMP that provides a background on the Ionosphere interaction with nuclear detonations:
https://electromagneticpulse.weebly.com/

A sudden HEMP attack is not without a strong nuclear weapons counter-attack that can easily result in full scale nuclear war.

Not a problem surviving such a war if away from cities and upwind from targets, in which case radiation is the least of concerns. The global cooling is what will really do most of the killing with the resultant starvation. As for the super-rich in NZ they will generally be killed by their security forces who will take over their bunkers.

There are other triggers to consider such as the potential for non-nuclear global cooling as discussed in the following article:
https://abruptearthchanges.com/2019/06/14/the-next-grand-solar-minimum-has-very-likely-begun-nasa-predicts-lowest-solar-cycle-in-200-years/

Posted by: Krollchem | Aug 13 2019 20:28 utc | 90

Again, I disagree with your commentary.
The true cause of mass death in a modern society is the medium or long term disruption of transportation and supply chains.
Would a massive power interruption of 1 week cause mass starvation? No, at least at the present moment because the transportation grid is significantly independent of the electric grid (gasoline driven).
As for your rejoinder on the supply of semiconductors: there are roughly 25-16 bit microcontrollers for every person on Earth. PLCs which are not in operation - will not be affected by HEMP unless in extremely close proximity to an extremely large blast.
Again, the real problem isn't the control electronics: these are easily replaced. The major transformers, however, are not. A grid-level transformer can weigh over 400 tons, takes years to build and is not trivially transported or emplaced. To put this in perspective: a pole top transformer is around 5-10 KVa. Municipal level transformers are in the 500-1500 KVa level. The grid-scale transformers are 100,000 KVa. There are plentiful supplies of pole top transformers, reasonable supplies of municipal level and few to no backups for the grid scale transformers.
In any case, as you seem to discount the ubiquity of products which are in use, everyday, good luck.
While there are sources for refined metal such as cars, there are far fewer sources for anything else including clothing, medicine, fuel, food, power and water. Productivity without combustion fueled sowing/harvesting/transport and fossil fueled fertilizers is very low - poor societies aren't poor because they don't have money, it is because they simply aren't productive enough to generate sufficient extras to invest into greater productivity - whether a road, dam or education. As a lark, I tried doing some harvesting using a cradle scythe once. That was the most miserable day in my experience to that point. Most of the Midwest is simply not economically viable beyond just food for survival without tractors and trains.

Posted by: c1ue | Aug 15 2019 19:29 utc | 91

Your comments on the limited effects of HEMP on the US infrastructure are supported by the EPRI in their recent study titled “EPRI EMP Report & Grid Security:
https://www.eei.org/issuesandpolicy/cybersecurity/Documents/EPRI%20EMP%20Report%20-%20Grid%20Security%20-%20Key%20Messages.pdf

They also published an extensive report titled “High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse and the Bulk Power System Potential Impacts and Mitigation Strategies”
http://highfrontier.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-04-29-EPRI-Report.pdf

In contrast, the Highfrontier organization considers the EPRI report to be deeply flawed by its limited focus on static test of the transmission portion of electric power grid in its paper titled “An Erroneous EPRI EMP Report!”
http://highfrontier.org/may-7-2019-an-erroneous-epri-emp-report/

From what I understand the EPRI report doesn’t consider the effects of EMP on non-grid tied electronic devices. Is it reasonable to believe that such stand alone devices (e.g. cell phones, unplugged computers, and pacemakers) are immune from HEMP effects? This appears to be the stance of companies , such as EMPShield that fast subnanosecond whole house cutoff devices will protect all electronic devices within the house.

In contrast, the military favor heavy shielding of their systems with Faraday cages and fiber optic connections to the hardened structures. Have the military and IEEE (STD 299) overstated the HEMP threat by detailing specifications for EMP protection:
http://www.gb.nrao.edu/IPG/ShieldedEnclosureSpec.pdf

You will note a deep political tinge to the conflicting reports as the government want to spend taxpayers money and the EPRI doesn't want to spend more of their potential profits.

Looking forward to your response as I am here to learn. Thanks.

Posted by: Krollchem | Aug 17 2019 15:13 utc | 92

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