Truth or Propaganda? “North Korea Threatens ‘Nuclear War’ Over Troop Exercises”

  Posted by - July 25, 2010 at 1:56 am - Permalink - Source via Alexander Higgins Blog
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If you have been reading the headlines lately you may be been led to believe that North Korea has threatened an all out nuclear war in response to joint US and South Korea military exercises being ran in South Korea this weekend.

Here are some of the headlines in the news.

BBC – North Korea warns of nuclear ‘sacred war’

North Korea says it will use its “nuclear deterrent” in response to joint US-South Korean military exercises this weekend.

Pyongyang was ready to launch a “retaliatory sacred war” at any time, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

The Guardian – North Korea threatens ‘nuclear war’ over troop exercises

Pyongyang ramps up the tension over this weekend’s joint US-South Korean wargames in the Sea of Japan

North Korea has threatened to use its “nuclear deterrent” in response to planned military exercises by the US and South Korea this weekend.

The regime promised a “retaliatory sacred war” amid increased tensions on the Korean peninsula over the March sinking of a South Korean navy vessel, which Seoul and Washington blame on Pyongyang.

North Korea’s National Defence Commission (NDC), headed by leader Kim Jong-il, issued the threat today for what it called a second “unpardonable” provocation for again being blamed for the incident in which 46 sailors died.

“The army and people of the [North] will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises,” the commission said in a statement run on the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

N.Korea threatens nuclear response to naval war games

North Korea threatened on Saturday to respond with nuclear weapons to a major US-South Korean naval exercise starting this weekend, saying it was ready for a “retaliatory sacred war”.

The threat came from the powerful National Defence Commission (NDC), chaired by leader Kim Jong-Il, as tensions grew over the sinking of a South Korean warship which Seoul and Washington blame on Pyongyang.

The Independent – US military drills ‘will trigger nuclear response’

North Korea vowed to respond with “powerful nuclear deterrence” to the joint US and South Korean military exercises poised to begin today, saying the drills would prompt a “retaliatory sacred war”.

The allies’ defence chiefs said the drills would send a clear message to Pyongyang to stop its “aggressive” behaviour. North Korea has been blamed for the deaths of 46 South Koreans in the sinking of the warship Cheonan in March. North Korea strongly denies any involvement.

ABC News (via the Associated Press) – N Korea Threatens ‘Nuclear Deterrence’ Over Drills

N Korea threatens ‘nuclear deterrence’ if US, South Korea carry out weekend military drills.

North Korea threatened Saturday to mount a powerful nuclear response to upcoming joint U.S.-South Korean military drills, calling the exercises an “unpardonable” provocation on top of wrongly blaming Pyongyang for the sinking of a South Korean warship.

North Korea’s powerful National Defense Commission, led by leader Kim Jong Il, warned that its troops would counter the move to hold military maneuvers involving a nuclear-armed U.S. supercarrier with a “retaliatory sacred war.”

“The army and people of the DPRK will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises to be staged by the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces,” North Korea’s official news agency in Pyongyang quoted an unnamed commission spokesman as saying, referring to the country by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Those headlines are absolutely frightening and there are literally thousands of similar articles in the news.

But are the headlines true or are they simply propaganda for the US Government hat for some reason seems hellbent on waging war against North Korea?

The actual press release from North Korea does not state that North Korea will respond with ‘Nuclear War’ if the military drills which is what the media is leading reader to believe.

In my opinion the quotes from North Korea’s press release are being taken out of context and even the claim that North Korea has threatened Nuclear war over the war games scheduled this weekend is a manufactured claim.

After reading the full text of the North Korea press release I came to the conclusion that North Korea has stated they retaliate with nuclear deterrents if the US and South Korea attacks with nuclear weapons first.

Here is the full text of the original press release from the North Korean news service.

NDC States to Counter US-S. Korea War Exercises with Nuclear Deterrence

Pyongyang, July 24 (KCNA) — The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet forces finally went into reckless actions against the DPRK after having frantically pushed ahead with the moves to stifle the DPRK under the pretext of the “Cheonan” case.

A spokesman for the DPRK National Defence Commission issued a statement on Saturday clarifying the principled stand of the army and people of the DPRK in this regard.

It said: The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet forces are planning to stage joint naval exercises in the East Sea of Korea from July 25 to 28, the “Ulji Freedom Guardian” joint exercises and joint anti-submarine exercises in the West Sea of Korea from August 16 to 26 and different ceaseless joint naval exercises from late in August to early in September and other drills. All these war maneuvers are nothing but outright provocations aimed to stifle the DPRK by force of arms to all intents and purposes.

If the publication of the results of investigation into the “Cheonan” case which was faked up by the U.S. imperialists at instigation of their puppet forces was the first reckless military provocation to the DPRK, the joint naval maneuvers they are to stage even with nuclear strike means involved under the pretext of the above-said case amount to an unpardonable second military provocation to the DPRK, the statement noted, and continued:

The chief architect of the warship case seems to send a “message as deterrence” to somebody while staging offensive exercises under the pretext of the forged case after falsifying its truth. This is as reckless an act as waking up a sleeping tiger.

The DPRK National Defence Commission re-clarifies the following principled stand as regards this abnormal situation where the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces are threatening this land with a nuclear war under the pretext of the “Cheonan” case:

The army and people of the DPRK will legitimately counter with their powerful nuclear deterrence the largest-ever nuclear war exercises to be staged by the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces.

The more desperately the U.S. imperialists brandish their nukes and the more zealously their lackeys follow them, the more rapidly the DPRK’s nuclear deterrence will be bolstered up along the orbit of self-defence and the more remote the prospect for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will be become.

The army and people of the DPRK will start a retaliatory sacred war of their own style based on nuclear deterrent any time necessary in order to counter the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet forces deliberately pushing the situation to the brink of a war.

Now that the U.S. imperialists are persisting in their direct military provocations in gross violation of the spirit of the September 19 joint statement in which they promised not to attack or invade the DPRK with either nuclear or conventional weapons, it is a natural option of the army and people of the DPRK to take corresponding all-out retaliatory measures.

The army and people of the DPRK will take all steps to the last to thoroughly probe the truth behind the case under the situation where the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet forces persistently and deliberately link the DPRK with the “Cheonan” case.

It is a legitimate and sovereign right to protect the honor and dignity of the DPRK for them to probe the truth about the despicable “fabrication” and “charade.”

The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet forces will keenly realize what high price they will have to pay for their reckless military provocation rendering the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the worst phase under the pretext of the “Cheonan” case.

To give the media credit, some of the more responsible news agencies do point out that North Korea makes such alleged threats routinely when the US runs joint military operations.

Pyongyang routinely threatens war when South Korea and the U.S. hold joint military drills, which North Korea sees as a rehearsal for an attack on the North. The U.S. keeps 28,500 troops in the South to deter against aggression, but says it has not intention of invading the North.

But it in reality it doesn’t even appear that North Korea has even made the threat and has only promised retaliation if attacked first during the course of the exercises.

Furthermore, in the past North Korea has referred to tests of nuclear explosives using the term ‘nuclear deterrent’.

An official communique read out on North Korean state radio said another round of underground nuclear testing had been “successfully conducted… as part of measures to enhance the Republic’s self-defensive nuclear deterrent in all directions”.

The Huffington Post also points out that North Korea doesn’t even have the technology to mount nuclear devices on missiles.

Though the impoverished North has a large conventional military and the capability to build nuclear weapons, it is not believed to have the technology needed to use nuclear devices as warheads.

While the US is claiming that  North Korea is threatening Nuclear War the fact is that North Korea has called for a peace treaty with the US.

North Korea has even asked the US to resume negotiations for a nuclear non proliferation agreement but instead of accepting the US has refused stating such talks will not resume until North Korea admits it sank a South Korea ship back in March.

“The sanctions will deepen the hostile policy against the North,” Ri said, urging the US to focus instead on resuming stalled six-party talks over the North’s nuclear weapons programme and other issues.

…

South Korea and the US have said the North must admit responsibility for the attack on the Cheonan – which a South Korean-led investigation concluded was sunk by a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine – before talks can resume.

North Korea has denied any role in sinking the ship, and reiterated the point in bilateral talks on Thursday with Southeast Asian foreign ministers.

The problem is that while the US claims to have “absolute proof” that North Korea sank the South Korea warship facts about the sinking seem to indicate that the US allegations are not.

In fact the LA Times points out that the many discrepancies in the US Government’s version of the sinking.

Doubts surface on North Korea’s role in ship sinking

Some in South Korea dispute the official version of events: that a North Korean torpedo ripped apart the Cheonan.

Reporting from Seoul — The way U.S. officials see it, there’s little mystery behind the most notorious shipwreck in recent Korean history.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calls the evidence “overwhelming” that the Cheonan, a South Korean warship that sank in March, was hit by a North Korean torpedo. Vice President Joe Biden has cited the South Korean-led panel investigating the sinking as a model of transparency.

Really? A model of transparency? I guess you could say that if you are using the US Government’s definition of transparency.

The US Government refused several request to allow North Korea to do their own investigation and have continually refused to released the full findings of the official investigation.

But challenges to the official version of events are coming from an unlikely place: within South Korea.

Armed with dossiers of their own scientific studies and bolstered by conspiracy theories, critics dispute the findings announced May 20 by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, which pointed a finger at Pyongyang.

They also question why Lee made the announcement nearly two months after the ship’s sinking, on the very day campaigning opened for fiercely contested local elections. Many accuse the conservative leader of using the deaths of 46 sailors to stir up anti-communist sentiment and sway the vote.

The critics, mostly but not all from the opposition, say it is unlikely that the impoverished North Korean regime could have pulled off a perfectly executed hit against a superior military power, sneaking a submarine into the area and slipping away without detection. They also wonder whether the evidence of a torpedo attack was misinterpreted, or even fabricated.

I would also add that the investigation also found that the alleged torpedo used to sink the ship is supposedly made out of the same aluminum alloy that North Korean torpedoes are made from.

The problem with that allegation is the whole world knows how secretive of a nation North Korea is and it is highly unlikely that any intelligence agency has been able to perpetrate their military and retrieve either a North Korean torpedo or documents outline the manufacturing process.

I would love to know just how the panel came to such a conclusion.

“I couldn’t find the slightest sign of an explosion,” said Shin Sang-chul, a former shipbuilding executive-turned-investigative journalist. “The sailors drowned to death. Their bodies were clean. We didn’t even find dead fish in the sea.”

Shin, who was appointed to the joint investigative panel by the opposition Democratic Party, inspected the damaged ship with other experts April 30. He was removed from the panel shortly afterward, he says, because he had voiced a contrary opinion: that the Cheonan hit ground in the shallow water off the Korean peninsula and then damaged its hull trying to get off a reef.

“It was the equivalent of a simple traffic accident at sea,” Shin said.

The Defense Ministry said in a statement that Shin was removed because of “limited expertise, a lack of objectivity and scientific logic,” and that he was “intentionally creating public mistrust” in the investigation.

So a dissenting member of the panel who came to the conclusion that the South Korean ship sank after running into a reef was pulled from the international panel because “limited expertise, a lack of objectivity and scientific logic”.

Then why was he assigned to the panel in the first place? That makes absolutely no sense.

The North Korean Press service also point us to another South Korean Investigator, Ri Jong In, who also came to the conclusion that the ship sank after running into a reef.

Ri Jong In also pointed out that metal fragments found in the water from the supposed explosion had so much rust on them it would have taken 10 years to rust so much, which indicates the pieces of metal were planted to make it look like an explosion occurred and did not actually come from the ship.

The doubts about the Cheonan have embarrassed the United States, which will begin joint military exercises Sunday in a show of unity against North Korean aggression. On Friday, an angry North Korea warned that “there will be a physical response” to the maneuvers.

Two South Korean-born U.S. academics have joined the chorus of skepticism, holding a news conference this month in Tokyo to voice their suspicions about the “smoking gun:” a piece of torpedo propeller with a handwritten mark in blue ink reading “No. 1″ in Korean.

“You could put that mark on an iPhone and claim it was manufactured in North Korea,” scoffed one of the academics, Seunghun Lee, a professor of physics at the University of Virginia.

Lee called the discovery of the propeller fragment five days before the government’s news conference suspicious. The salvaged part had more corrosion than would have been expected after just 50 days in the water, yet the blue writing was surprisingly clear, he said.

“The government is lying when they said this was found underwater. I think this is something that was pulled out of a warehouse of old materials to show to the press,” Lee said.

South Korean politicians say they’ve been left in the dark about the investigation.

“We asked for very basic information: interviews with surviving sailors, communication records, the reason the ship was out there,” said Choi Moon-soon, an assemblyman with the Democratic Party.

The legislature also has not been allowed to see the full report by the investigative committee, only a five-page synopsis.

Not allowing interviews with sailors, hiding communication records and not releasing the full report by the international committee even to the South Korean legislature certainly sounds like the “model of transparency” that Joe Biden was referring to.

That must be the same model of transparency the US Government is following for the BP Gulf Oil Spill.

“I don’t know why they haven’t released the report. They are trying to cover up small inconsistencies, and that has cost them credibility,” said Kim Chul-woo, a former Defense Ministry official who is now an analyst with the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, a government think tank.

A military oversight body, the Board of Inspection and Audit, has accused senior naval officers of lying and concealing information.

“Military officers deliberately left out or distorted key information in their report to senior officials and the public because they wanted to avoid being held to account for being unprepared,” an official of the inspection board was quoted as telling the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

The Cheonan, a 1,200-ton corvette, sank the night of March 26 about 12 miles off North Korea. The first report issued by Yonhap, the official South Korean news agency, said the ship had been struck by a torpedo, but soon afterward the story changed to say the ship sank after being grounded on a reef.

The military repeated that version for days. The audit board found that sailors on a nearby vessel, the Sokcho, who fired off 35 shots with a 76-millimeter cannon around the time of the sinking, were instructed to say they’d been shooting at a flock of birds, even though at first they had said they’d seen a suspected submarine on radar.

On April 2, as Defense Minister Kim Tae-young was testifying before the National Assembly, a cameraman shooting over his right shoulder managed to capture an image of a handwritten note from the president’s office instructing him not to talk about North Korean submarines.

Such inconsistencies and reversals have fueled the suspicions of government critics. U.S. officials, however, say the panel’s conclusion is irrefutable.

Rear Adm. Thomas J. Eccles, the senior U.S. representative on the panel, said investigators considered all possibilities: a grounding, an internal explosion, a collision with a mine. But they quickly concluded that the boat was sunk by a bubble-jet torpedo, which exploded underneath the vessel and didn’t leave the usual signs of an explosion, he said.

“The pattern of damage was exactly aligned with that kind of weapon,” Eccles said in a telephone interview. “Torpedoes these days are designed to drive underneath the target and explode. They use the energy of their explosion to make a bubble that expands and contracts. It is designed to break the back of the ship.”

Pyongyang, meanwhile, denies involvement in the sinking and calls the accusation against it a fabrication.

South Koreans themselves appear to be confused: Polls show that more than 20% of the public doesn’t believe North Korea sank the Cheonan.

Wi Sung-lac, South Korea’s top envoy for North Korean affairs, says the criticism from within has made it difficult to get China and Russia on board to punish Pyongyang for the attack.

“They say, ‘But even in your own country, many people don’t believe the result,’ ” Wi said.

So why such misleading propaganda against North Korea by the US?

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