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October 18, 2017 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

“We Burned Down Every Town in North Korea”

A US soldier walks across Hamhung, North Korea, rubblized by carpet bombing in an undated photo.
Fall Quarterly 2017
By John LaForge

“We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, some way or another… Over a period of three years or so, we killed off, what, 20 percent of the population?” — General Curtis LeMay, in “Strategic Air Warfare,” by Richard H. Kohn

The US public wants to know why North Korea is so paranoid, militarily hostile and boastful—and why its leaders in Pyongyang point their fingers at the United States every time they test another rocket or bomb. Sixty five years ago, according to US Air Force General Curtis LeMay, “We burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea, too.” Today, the Pentagon is simultaneously bombing or rocketing seven different non-nuclear countries. On August 21, just as it does twice a year, some 17,500 US military personnel, with thousands of South Korean troops launched massive joint war games off the North’s coast, exercises that rehearse an invasion of the North where the two historical bookmarks cannot be considered separately.

The US regularly tests long-range ballistic nuclear missiles from Vandenberg Air Base, weapons that can obliterate the capital Pyongyang. On Aug. 31, the US flew two nuclear-capable B1 bombers near the demilitarized zone, accompanied by South Korea fighter jet bombers. Presidential administra­tions have routinely called North Korea “evil,” and a “state sponsor of terrorism.” US military officials call the tiny country a principle threat to US secu­rity. In 2002, according to Korean Policy Institute fellow Hyun Lee writing in the Summer 2017 Korean Quarterly, President G.W. Bush listed North Korea with seven countries that are potential targets of a pre-emptive US nuclear attack.

Yet it’s North Korea’s mostly failing rocket tests that are called “provocative” and “destabilizing” by the State Dept., the Council on Foreign Relations and the White House, regardless of which party is in power. In 1994, Bill Clinton said, “If North Korea ever used a nuclear weapon, it would no longer continue to ex­ist.” In April 2016, Barack Obama, speaking to CBS News, called the North’s President Kim Jong-un “er­ratic” and “irresponsible”—and went on to warn, “We could, obviously, destroy North Korea with our ar­senals.” Likewise, the current Defense Secretary Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis made an openly genocidal threat on August 8, saying the North must stop any action that would “lead to the end of its regime and the de­struction of its people,” Reuters reported. Pyongyang must wonder how to call off the dogs: It has said it will stop testing its nuclear weapons and missiles if the US halts its military exercises. In May 2016, it declared a “no first use” policy, pledging not to use nuclear weapons without first being attacked with them. In 1993, Lee reports, after the collapse of the USSR, the Pentagon under Bill Clinton, “announced that it was targeting some of its strategic nuclear weapons away from the former Soviet Union to North Korea.”

The literal mass destruction of North Korea and today’s threats of more should be considered in the context of the living memory of the older genera­tion. Robert Neer’s 2013 book Napalm (Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press), reports that Gen. Le­May, head of 21st Bomber Command, wrote, “We killed off over a million civilian Koreans and drove several million more from their homes…” Eighth Army chemical officer Donald Bode reportedly said, on an “average good day” pilots in the Korean War “dropped 70,000 gallons of napalm: 45,000 from the US Air Force, 10,000-20,000 by its Navy, and 4,000-5,000 by Marines”—who nicknamed the burning jellied gasoline “cooking oil.”

Neer reports that more bombs were dropped on Korea than in the whole of the Pacific theater during World War II—635,000 tons, versus 503,000 tons. “Pyongyang, a city of half a million people before 1950, was said to have had only two buildings left intact,” according to Neer.

Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States says, “Perhaps 2 million Koreans, North and South, were killed in the Korean war, all in the name of opposing ‘the rule of force.’” Bruce Com­ing’s history The Korean War, says, “of more than 4 million casualties … at least 2 million were civil­ians. … Estimated North Korean casualties num­bered 2 million including about 1 million civilians… An estimated 900,000 Chinese soldiers lost their lives in combat.”

An insider’s overview, according to Neer in Na­palm, comes from Gen. Douglas MacArthur. In May 1951, the former supreme commander testified to Congress, “The war in Korea has already almost destroyed that nation of 20 million people. I have never seen such devastation. I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach, the last time I was there. After I looked at that wreckage and those thousands of women and children … I vomited.”

 

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter, Weekly Column

September 27, 2017 by Nukewatch 2 Comments

Presidential Bomb Threats at the UN

By John LaForge

 Donald Trump denounced North Korea and its president Kim Jong-un as “depraved” before the United Nations Sept. 19, saying the nation “threatens the entire world with unthinkable loss of life.” Of course North Korea can barely feed itself, and yet has to defend itself against an onslaught of Western hostility, UN sanctions, and ongoing US/South Korean war games which are rehearsals for an invasion of the North. It tests rockets and bombs to be sure, just as the US and its allies and adversaries do all year round. It’s big business.

Trump’s claim that North Korea is threatening is preposterous since it has no deliverable nuclear weapons at all. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said last week that North Korea is no danger to the United States. In June 2016, the Institute for Science and International Security reported that Pyongyang may have between 13 and 21 warheads. The CIA, whose job it is find hostile weapons (even where they don’t exist) says Pyongyang has at most about 21. US intelligence agencies’ combined estimates are that while it may have miniaturized a nuclear warhead, North Korea has no missile that can drop them on the United States. The Federation of American Scientists is more skeptical and estimates it has “potentially produce[d] 10-20 nuclear warheads.”

Like an 8th grade imbecile contradicting himself repeatedly, Trump claimed that North Korean President Kim Jong-un “is on a suicide mission.” In April 2016 Trump had called him a “smart cookie.” Kim appears quite the opposite of suicidal since Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear programs are aimed at preventing a repeat of the Korean War in which, according to US Air Force General Curtis LeMay, “we burned down every town in North Korea.”

Trump asserted that, “[I]f the United States is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” Here is Trump in a nutshell: Condemning threats of “unthinkable loss of life” in one sentence, then making precisely the same threat in the next. Perhaps Trump knows nothing about the Korean War, but the idea that the United States might “have no choice” but to totally destroy an entire country is not just a deliberate lie and an outrage, it is intended to prepare the population to get comfortable with bloodlust and atrocities, and intended to teach children to embrace them as well.

Governments always have a choice about whether to begin bombing, and since North Korea has done absolutely nothing against the United States or its allies, Trump’s hate-filled spittle about total war is all the more monstrous. Delivered before the world’s largest peace group, Trump’s ghastly threat was a barbaric embrace of genocidal violence.

Trump must have for a moment believed that to “totally destroy North Korea” is a “thinkable loss of life,” as opposed to the “unthinkable” sort that he condemned. But if he did, — a big “if,” since Trump seems not to think that words have meaning, — then it is Trump himself who is depraved. He must be ostracized, stigmatized and shamed into resigning so his Administration of Hate can be replaced.

The United States’ destruction of North Korea from 1950 to ‘53, and today’s threats of more should, be considered in the context of the living memory of its older generation. Robert Neer’s 2013 book “Napalm” (Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. Press), reports that Gen. LeMay, head of 21st Bomber Command, wrote, “We killed off over a million civilian Koreans and drove several million more from their homes…” Neer reports that more bombs were dropped on Korea than in the whole of the Pacific theater during World War II — 635,000 tons, versus 503,000 tons. “Pyongyang, a city of half a million people before 1950, was said to have had only two buildings left intact,” according to “Napalm.”

Howard Zinn’s groundbreaking “People’s History of the United States” says, “Perhaps 2 million Koreans, North and South, were killed in the Korean war, all in the name of opposing ‘the rule of force.’” Bruce Cuming’s  history “The Korean War” (Modern Library, 2010) says, “[O]f more than 4 million casualties … at least 2 million were civilians. … Estimated North Korean casualties numbered 2 million including about 1 million civilians… An estimated 900,000 Chinese soldiers lost their lives in combat.”

According to Neer in “Napalm,” Gen. Douglas MacArthur testified to Congress in May 1951: “The war in Korea has already almost destroyed that nation of 20 million people. I have never seen such devastation. I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man, and it just curdled my stomach, the last time I was there. After I looked at that wreckage and those thousands of women and children … I vomited.”

Trump used the word “sovereignty” 21 times in his speech. The United States is devoted so convincingly to national sovereignty that it has maintained military occupations and shooting wars inside Afghanistan and Iraq for a combined total of 30 years and counting, and is simultaneously making war on five other sovereign states in the region. Add to the historical list of the attacked: Yugoslavia, Serbia, Iran, Bosnia, Somalia, Kuwait, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Lebanon, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Peru, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Guatemala, and of course Korea. Not a single UN delegate was aware of the president’s deceit or hypocrisy, which explains the roaring applause in the General Assembly during Trumps bomb threats.

Filed Under: North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Weekly Column

June 27, 2017 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

Chomsky on North Korea’s Provocations & Ours

U.S. Air Force attacking railroads south of Wonsan on the eastern coast of North Korea during Korean War.

Editor’s Note: In the context of a broader discussion, M.I.T. Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky, speaking in April in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was asked by Democracy Now news anchor Amy Goodman: “Do you think there is a possibility that the US would at­tack North Korea?” Chomsky’s answer is instructive in view of the ongoing US/South Korean wargames off the Korean coast which now involve two US air­craft carrier battle groups.

Noam Chomsky: I doubt it very much. The reason is very simple.

An attack on North Korea would unleash … a massive artillery bombardment of Seoul, the big­gest city in South Korea and right near the border, which would wipe it out including plenty of Ameri­can troops. As far as I can see, there is no defense against that.

Furthermore, North Korea could retaliate against American bases in the region where there are plenty of US soldiers. They’d be devastated; North Korea would be finished; so would much of the region. But if attacked, presumably they would respond, very likely. In fact the responses might be automatic. [National Security Advisor, General Herbert Ray­mond] McMaster at least, and [Secretary of De­fense, General James] Mattis understand this. How much influence they have, we don’t know. So I think an attack is unlikely.

But the real question is: Is there a way of dealing with the problem? There are a lot of proposals. Sanctions. A big new missile defense system—which is a major threat to China and will increase tensions there. Military threats of various kinds. Sending an aircraft carrier, the [USS Carl] Vinson to North Korea…. Those are the kind of proposals as to how to solve it.

Actually there’s one proposal that’s ignored. It’s a pretty simple proposal. Remember: the goal is to get North Korea to freeze its weapons and missiles systems.

So, one proposal is to accept their offer to do that. It sounds simple. They have made a proposal—China and North Korea—have proposed to freeze the North Korean missile and nuclear weapons sys­tems and the US instantly rejected it. And you can’t blame that on Trump. Obama did the same thing. A couple of years ago the same offer was presented, I think it was 2015, the Obama administration in­stantly rejected it.

And the reason is that it calls for a quid pro quo. It says in return the US should put an end to threaten­ing military maneuvers on North Korea’s borders, which happen to include, under Trump, sending of nuclear-capable B52s [and B1 and B2 bombers] fly­ing right near the border.

Maybe Americans don’t remember very well, but North Koreans have a memory of, not too long ago, when North Korea was absolutely flattened, liter­ally, by American bombing. There were literally no targets left.

I really urge people who haven’t done it to read the official American military histories, the Air Quarterly Review, the military histories describing this. They describe it very vividly and accurately. They say there just weren’t any targets left. So what could we do? Well, we decided to attack the dams, the huge dams—a major war crime. People were hanged for it at Nuremberg, but put that aside. And then comes an ecstatic, gleeful description of the bombing of the dams and the huge flow of water which was wiping out valleys and destroying the rice crop, “upon which Asians depend for surviv­al”—lots of racist comments—but all with exalta­tion and glee. You really have to read it to appreciate it. The North Koreans don’t have to bother reading it. They lived it.

So when nuclear-capable B52s [etc.] are flying on their border, along with other threatening military maneuvers, they’re kind of upset about it. Strange people. And they continue to develop what they see as a potential deterrent that might protect the regime, and the country in fact, from destruction. …

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter Tagged With: weapon

June 26, 2017 by Nukewatch Leave a Comment

North Korea and US Military and Nuclear Capability

Nukewatch chart by Kelly Lundeen

MILITARY & NUCLEAR CAPABILITY NORTH KOREA UNITED STATES
Active duty military personnel [1] 700,000 1.4 million
Military personnel near other state 0 [2] 28,500 in S. Korea;  50,000 in Japan
Military budget $7.5 billion[3] $587.8 billion[3] -to- $850 billion [4]
Number of nuclear warheads 0 confirmed, maybe 10 [5] 4,000 to 4,480 [6]
Nuclear weapon delivery systems [7] 0 450 missiles, 165 heavy bombers, [8] 12 Trident subs (1,900 total)
Number of annual military trainings carried out along the other’s borders 0 [14] 2 (South Korea)
Range of usable missiles < 2,800 miles [9] 8,000 miles [10]
Verbal threats of nuclear strike? Lots Lots
Pledge of “no first use” of nuclear weapons Yes [11] (May 7, 2016) No
Number of ballistic missile tests in 2017 9 [12] 6 [10, 12]
Number of ICBM tests in 2017 [13] 0 6 [10, 12]
Previous nuclear weapons attacks 0 2
Current shooting wars initiated 0 7: Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya
Civilians killed in conflicts since 2015 0 [15] 3,800-5,800 [16, 17]

Notes

[1] Global Fire Power.com, 2016

[2] For a relative comparison, consider North Korean troops in Mexico or Cuba

[3] Global Fire Power.com, 2017

[4] War Resisters League, “Where your income tax money really goes,” March 2017

[5] Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June 1, 2016

[6] Fed. Of Am. Scientists, “Status of World Nuclear Forces,” Apr. 4, 2017; and Bulletin of Atomic the Scientists, Dec. 14, 2016

[7] A delivery system is needed to get a warhead to its target.

[8] USAirForce.com

[9] The Atlantic, May 14, 2017

[10] Christian Science Monitor, May 9, 2017

[11] CNN, May 8, 2016; VOAnews.com, May 7, 2017

[12] ABC News, May 30, 2017

[13] An ICBM would be capable of reaching the other country’s territory.

[14] For a relative comparison, in Canada or Mexico

[15] Also, zero combatants were killed.

[16] Bureau of Investigative Journalism, May 31, 2017 (This includes coalition forces.)

[17] Airwars.com, Jan. 19, 2017.

 

 

Filed Under: Newsletter Archives, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Quarterly Newsletter

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