• U.S. stirs up hornet’s nest to ensure military presence in region
By The Staff at AFP
When North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il died from a heart attack in December 2011 and was replaced by his 28-year-old youngest son Kim Jong-un, tensions rose in South Korea and the United States, and troops were put on high alert. The mainstream media is now portraying Kim Jong-un as a spoiled kid, playing with matches. He has nukes and seeks to be taken seriously by threatening to attack the U.S. and S. Korea, apparently for no reason.
The Pentagon, we are told, has even canceled military exercises in S. Korea in order not to provoke this enfant terrible. But is there a behind-the-scenes game being played?
Since the end of the Korean War 60 years ago, which divided North and South Korea and left millions of Koreans dead, N. Korea’s position has been consistent. Officials there want a treaty to officially end the Korean War. They want the reunification of Korea, the end of U.S. occupation of S. Korea and a discontinuation of annual month-long U.S.-S. Korean war games. They want direct talks with Washington to resolve these issues, but Washington has refused all of the above.
Instead, the U.S. has taken a hard line against N. Korea over the years. Crippling sanctions have been imposed on the nation, especially since 2006, when it detonated its first nuclear bomb.
N. Korea sees the U.S. and these war games as hostile and a threat to its sovereignty. This year the provocations were stepped up to actually simulate a nuclear missile attack on N. Korea. B-2 bombers were used, for the first time, along with nuclear-capable B-52 and F-22 bombers. After the first round of war games started in early February, N. Korea conducted her third-ever nuclear test, in defiance of United Nations orders. The state-run Korean Central News Agency reported: “The nuclear test was conducted as part of measures to protect our national security and sovereignty against the reckless hostility of the United States that violated our republic’s right for a peaceful satellite launch.”
Although the mainstream media has presented Kim Jong-un as mentally unstable, in reality he has been systematically provoked by the U.S. in order to escalate tensions in the area.
The Wall Street Journal reported on April 3 that the Pentagon was following a step-by-step plan, dubbed the “playbook,” drawn up months in advance and approved by the Obama administration earlier in the year. The playbook was drawn up by former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and “supported strongly” by his successor, Chuck Hagel and is just one aspect of Obama’s so-called “pivot to Asia”: a comprehensive diplomatic, economic and military strategy aimed at ensuring the continued U.S. domination of Asia.
Obama’s chief target is not economically-bankrupt N. Korea, but its ally, China, which Washington regards as a dangerous rival. Driven by the deepening global economic crisis, the U.S. is using its military might to assert hegemony over Asia.
