Written by Finian Cunningham; Originally appeared at strategic-culture.org
Just as North and South Korea achieve important peaceful exchanges, Washington and its NATO allies appear to be moving with determination to sabotage the initiative for averting war on the East Asian peninsula.
Further, the reckless, gratuitous provocations beg the conclusion that the United States is indeed trying to start a war.
Meanwhile, unprecedented accusations this week by US President Donald Trump that Russia is supporting North Korea to evade United Nations sanctions also point to the danger that any conflict could spiral out of control to engulf world nuclear powers.
Moscow rejected the unsubstantiated claims leveled by Trump, saying that Russia is abiding by UN trade restrictions over North Korea, and that the American president’s allegations were “entirely unfounded”.
Trump’s verbal broadside suggests that Washington is trying to undermine the nascent talks between the two Koreas, talks which Russia and China have both applauded as a long-overdue diplomatic effort to resolve the Korean conflict.
Separately, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov deplored a summit held in Vancouver, Canada, earlier this week in which the US and 19 other nations – most of them NATO members – called for sharper sanctions on North Korea that go beyond the remit of the United Nations. The conference, co-hosted by Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, issued a stridently bellicose statement, calling in effect for North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons or face US-led military action.
Significantly, and pointedly, China and Russia were not invited to the Canadian summit.
Most of the attending states were part of the original US-led military force which fought against North Korea during the 1950-53 war. A war which killed as many as two million North Koreans.
Russia admonished that the conference was “harmful” to current peace talks between North and South Korea. China rebuked the Canadian event as being stuck in “Cold War thinking”.
The anachronism of countries like Britain, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands and Norway attending a conference on the Korean crisis while Asia-Pacific powers Russia and China being excluded was noted by Russia’s Sergei Lavrov. The anachronism is not only absurd, he said, it reprises a provocative “war summit” message.
Disturbingly, what the Vancouver gathering demonstrated was the willingness by the US and its allies to circumvent the United Nations Security Council and the previously established regional Six-Party forum involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the US.
At the Vancouver event, Tillerson laid out a belligerent agenda that was endorsed by the other attendees. The agenda included the precondition of North Korea giving up its nuclear program unilaterally; and it also flatly rejected the proposal made by Russia and China for a “freeze” in all military activities on the Korean Peninsula as a step to get comprehensive settlement talks going.
Tillerson made the following sinister ultimatum: “We have to recognize that that threat [of North Korea’s nuclear weapons] is growing. And if North Korea does not choose the path of engagement, discussion, negotiation, [that is, surrender] then they themselves will trigger an option [US military action].”
The US diplomat also warned that the American public must be “sober” about the possibility of war breaking out. Tillerson said the risk of such a war on the Korean Peninsula “continues to grow”. This was echoed by President Trump a day later in an interview with the Reuters news agency in which he also warned of possible war. It was the same interview in which Trump blamed Russia for aiding and abetting North Korea.
This sounds like US leaders are intensifying the conditioning of the American public to accept use of the military option, which they have been threatening for the past year in a pre-emptive attack on North Korea.
The Vancouver summit also called for proactive interdiction of international ships suspected of breaching UN sanctions on North Korea. That raises the danger of the US and its allies interfering with Russian and Chinese vessels – which would further escalate tensions.
These reprehensible developments are a reflection of the increasingly Orwellian worldview held by Washington and its partners, whereby “war is presented as peace” and “peace is perceived as war”.
Just this week, North and South Korea held a third round of peace negotiations in as many weeks. Even Western news media hailed “Olympic breakthrough” after the two adversaries agreed to participate in the opening ceremony of the forthcoming winter games next month as a unified nation under a neutral flag.
After two years of no inter-Korean talks and mounting war tensions on the peninsula, surely the quickening pace of peace overtures this month should be welcomed and encouraged. Russia, China and the UN have indeed endorsed the bilateral Korean exchange. Even President Trump said he welcomed it.
Nevertheless, as the Vancouver summit this week shows, the US and its NATO allies appear to be doing everything to torpedo the inter-Korean dialogue. Issuing ultimatums and warning of “military options” seems intended to blow up the delicate dynamic towards confidence and trust.
Two reports this week in the New York Times conveyed the contorted Orwellian mindset gripping Washington and its allies.
First, there was the report: “Military quietly prepares for a last resort: War with North Korea”. The NY Times actually reported extensive Pentagon plans for a preemptive air assault on North Korea involving a “deep attack” manned by 82nd Airborne paratroopers and special forces. The paper spun the provocative war plans as a “last resort”. In other words, war is sold here as peace.
Which raises the question of who is trying to wreck the Olympic Games being held in South Korea in February. For months, Western media have been warning that North Korea was intending to carry out some kind of sabotage. Now, it looks like the sabotage is actually coming from the US, albeit sanitized by the NY Times.
The second report in the NY Times had the telling headline: “Olympic détente upends US strategy on North Korea”.
So, let’s get our head around that display of dubious logic. A peaceful development of détente between two adversaries is somehow presented as a pernicious “upending of US strategy on North Korea”. In other words, peace is sold here as war.
Take for example this choice editorial comment from the NY Times in the second report: “This latest gesture of unity, the most dramatic in a decade, could add to fears in Washington that Pyongyang is making progress on a more far-reaching agenda.”
And what, one wonders, would that “far-reaching agenda” entail?
Again the NY Times elaborates: “White House officials warn that the ultimate goal of [North Korean leader] Mr Kim is to evict American troops from the Korean Peninsula and to reunify the two Koreas under a single flag… For the United States, the fear has been that North Korea’s gestures will drive a wedge between it and its ally, South Korea.”
Only in a perverse Orwellian worldview would an initiative to calm tensions and build peaceful relations be construed as something to “fear” and be opposed to.
Only in a perverse Orwellian worldview would peaceful dialogue provoke plans for pre-emptive war.
But that is precisely the kind of dystopian world that Washington and its lackeys inhabit.
Yeah, the real deal is a bit more fundamental, the western backed, and payed prestitutes and whorespondents, MSM, cant back track, cant back track on the AGW scam, cant back track on the wars started and kept alive thru lies and forgery’s, like the latest Iranian attempt, cant do that on NK.
The shoa must go on, they have no other options left, cant go back, thats our real problem.
The lies and forge’s have saturated the Norwegians tiny mind, to such an extent that I think the mountain monkeys from Norway actually believes their own propaganda, spoon feed thru decades, images of dead people, wild story’s of people feed to dogs, insane story’s made up about the people suffering solely because of the evil NK Gov.
Etc, not an single word about Blockades, sanctions, nothing, not a word about what UssA actually have done since the bloody 50s, and to then go an debate in Canada about what to do is so far out is funny.
They simply live an an alternative reality, like the utterly rotten TillerThing.
Stark raving lunatics, howling for death and destruction.
Its an shame, but so far I am glad the Koreans realize the truth, the real problem isnt NK, but the Imperial Banana republic UssA.
The rest of the whores just shows how degenerated they have become, and corrupt.
So far, I like everything I see, and I hope they agrees upon everything else.
No wounder the Jap f…. are nervous, when they know that the Korean dragon is rising.
peace
The satanic zionists are the puppet masters behind the curtain pulling the strings of their selected leaders.They dont care if the world goes up in flames as long as israhell survives and that they can pick up the pieces as they always have done after all the wars they created.
“the ultimate goal of [North Korean leader] Mr Kim is to evict American
troops from the Korean Peninsula and to reunify the two Koreas under a
single flag…”
Full stop.
If this is Kim’s plan, what might Moon’s be?
I guess USA’s plan is the same, minus the eviction? Maybe that is not even correct. A permanent outcast and armed nation on SKorea’s border actually fits better with long and short term US interests. Even if we did successfully invade it wouldn’t end in reunification.
Meanwhile, unprecedented accusations this week by US President Donald Trump that Russia is supporting North Korea to evade United Nations sanctions
but this is true.
which country allowed internet connection for NK after cutting them from it???
The internet belongs to everyone. That should be a great addition to the universal human rules.
Kim’s plan of a reunited Korea is much more sane than another “NATO” / US war . China and Russia must tell the US to back off , because the two Korean governments are in line with reality .
American talk of war is heading in the wrong direction .
They about to lose one of the important choke point in containing the two biggest rivals. Unified Korea = US go home.
Really surprised at the snubbing of Iran also , but you had nations that provided medical support and less than a 1000 men having big voices over those who made larger contributions, and equipment. The US at the time WW2 knew the Russians would be assured to pass the 38th parallel ,the US wanted to split the country in the middle and asked the Russians to halt there. Seems only one party back then was willing to be cooperative the other not so. The US was the one that go rid of the PRK which resented the division of the country and riots broke out causing it to be banned and outlawed, happens when countries don’t want foreign occupiers in their land anymore.
The more one reads and then looks at the motives it seems the US was using the UN as a cover for expansion of US territories so they can surround Russia. Now we see them trying to do the same to Iran and China only grew to prominence with after the civil war was ended by North Korea’s Help. They provided supplies and soldiers also a safe haven for non combatants. Funny how it was actually a failed invasion by South Korea that sparked it all , as they retreated then North Korea invaded the South and they asked for planes and tanks to try again. Why is it that things are never fully and honestly told to the world about the Korean war.
This was a tragic war for geopolitical gains by the US which cost 5 million lives, this is the true reason why it’s called “The Forgotten war “.
We may get WAR because AUTHORS like, BUT not limited to, Finian Cunningham FAIL to point the FINGER at Zionist Jews, who ,by-the-way, CONTROL the UNITED STATES of AMERIKA
If it comes about, this will be just another Ashkenazi JEW WAR and Finian is afraid to say that. His income may drop, if he does
Don’t feel badly, Finian, you’re par for the course and have lots of company with other “pretend-freedom fighters”
Keep in mind so-called “North” Korea REFUSES to succumb to the House of Rothschild BANKING SYSTEM and what Gutle Schnaper Rothschild stated:,“If my sons did not want wars, there would be none.” Gutle Schnaper Rothschild, wife of Amschel