A week after conducting its third nuclear test, North Korea threatened neighboring South Korea with "final destruction," according to a Feb. 19 UPI report. On Tuesday, the rogue nation took its threats a step further and suggested via a propaganda video that threatens the United States with a WMD attack.
A Feb. 19 YouTube video uploaded by uriminzokkiri, a channel that is managed by North Korea's state media, shows President Barack Obama and American troops in flames. Obama is shown engulfed in fire after stepping off the Marine One chopper at the White House. The video also shows a nuclear warhead detonating.
The same channel produced a Feb. 5 video which shows New York City in rubble after suffering a massive missile attack. A few days after the media clip was published, dictator Kim Jong Un's regime produced an underground nuclear blast that resulted in a 5.1 magnitude tremor.
Tuesday's video alleged that America is "bullying" North Korea. A Korean message has been translated into English by NKNews.
North Korea has succeeded in proceeding with this nuclear test despite the United States’ increasingly unfair bully activities against North Korea. That United States that has no respect to others nor appreciation to equality…
It is not incorrect to state that the United States strong hostility policy and endless violence toward North Korea in the past 70 years has helped North Korea become one of the world’s strongest military power states.
The message appears to imply that Obama's perceived weakness on foreign policy will be met by military aggression by the North. Some foreign policy experts are advancing the theory that Kim Jong Un and his military advisers believe that the looming U.S. defense cuts are an opportunity to fill a power vacuum in the Pacific Rim. On Feb. 5, the U.S. Navy announced that it is withdrawing one aircraft carrier fleet from the Middle East due to lack of funding.
During the 2000s, then-President George W. Bush was attacked by Democrats and then-U.S. senator Barack Obama for describing Iran, North Korea, and Iraq as an "axis of evil" after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
In 2010, Obama - who had since won the White House - sent a letter to congress requesting that North Korea be de-listed from that axis of evil group. The letter stated that after the administration's assessment of the “conduct of the People’s Republic of Korea [a.k.a. North Korea],” rogue state “does not meet the statutory criteria to again be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.”
Three years later, Obama reversed his stance on Kim Jong Un's regime. In his Feb. 12 state of the union speech, the president said, "The regime in North Korea must know there will only achieve security and prosperity by meeting their international obligations . . . . [America will] lead the world in taking firm action in response to threats."
Iran may follow North Korea's footsteps. On Feb. 17, the Times of Israel reported that Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, the head of Iran's nuclear program, observed North Korea's third nuclear test. Intelligence sources informed the newspaper that Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi is pursuing technology that would allow Iran's military to install a nuclear warhead inside a ballistic missile.
This development (Iran-North Korea nuclear cooperation) was not reported by American media institutions, including the AP, Reuters, CBS, NBC, and Fox News.
The nuclear development cooperation appears to extend to long-range missile technology. According to the Times of Israel, "Iran’s Shahab-3 long-range missile is based on the North Korean Nodong-1 and is estimated to have a range of up to 2,000 kilometers. In December, Iranian agents were reportedly on hand in North Korea for a long-range missile test."
On Feb. 10, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared to a large rally in Tehran that "Iran is now a nuclear country". He also said that Iran's military will be introducing new missile technology in its arsenal in the coming weeks.
During a 2009 visit to France, the president regarded North Korea's weapons program as highly provocative. However, Obama also said during the press conference that the United States should not stop telling other nations they can't produce nuclear weapons if America itself doesn't change.
Earlier this month, the Center for Public Integrity published a report that the Obama administration has been planning on reducing America's nuclear arsenal by one-third. Additionally, sources informed the CPI that senior Obama advisers wanted the plan, which was devised last year, withheld from the public view prior to the November 2012 presidential elections.
Since taking office in 2009, Obama has taken the self-described position of "strategic patience" with North Korea. Tuesday's video shows a hardening stance by the North against what it considers as an aggressor in the Korean Peninsula. The Feb. 19 video adds:
Words spoken by the United States, a country that uses the law of jungle as the law of survival for fitness, is meaningless. As a result, North Korea’s high level nuclear test conducted against American imperialist invaders is a nuclear deterrent that protects our sovereignty.
Thus, the United States has practically guided North Korea towards nuclear testing and therefore needs to be considered as an American virtue.
North Korea’s third underground nuclear test! Let it be known once more that this is strictly our practical counter-measure for North’s safety and to protect its sovereignty from the aggressors. It is also a solemn warning that time is no longer on the side of the United States.
The people are watching. America should answer.
Regarding sequestration cuts and a looming power void in Asia, on November 2011, President Barack Obama proposed $487 billion in defense cuts (over the next decade) which Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said would create a "hollow force". (The president has since reversed course on sequestration and now opposes the automatic spending cuts.)
In Obama's 2011 speech, he said:
. . . some in Congress are trying to undo these automatic spending cuts. My message to them is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off ramps on this one.
On Tuesday, North Korean diplomat Jon Yong Ryong conveyed inflammatory statements during a U.N. Conference on Disarmament. Jon said, "As the saying goes, a new-born puppy knows no fear of a tiger. South Korea's erratic behavior would only herald its final destruction." Jon added that North Korea has taken a "resolute step for self-defense" and is prepared for "strong counter-actions to a foreign aggressor".
The diplomat also said that if the U.S. takes a hostile approach, Pyongyang "would be left with no option but to take the second and third stronger steps in succession".
U.S. ambassador Laura Kennedy responded with the following statement. "I . . . was particularly struck by the phrase 'heralding the destruction of the Republic of Korea' and find that language incredibly inconsistent with the goals and objectives that this body is intended to pursue."
Quote:
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last | Winston Churchill
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