[Peace-discuss] US masses ships and aircraft outside North Korea

[Roger Helbig]

This "news" source is about as reliable as Fox or one of the other far
right sources - it makes good propaganda!

Roger

On Mon, Oct 30, 2017 at 5:42 AM, Karen Aram via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

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> US masses ships and aircraft outside North Korea 30 October 2017
>
> US Defence Secretary James Mattis has again warned North Korea that the
> United States military is ready and able to obliterate the country of 25
> million people unless it abandons its nuclear arsenal. The threat, backed
> by an unprecedented US military build-up in North East Asia, places the
> region and the world on the brink of a catastrophic war.
>
> “I cannot imagine a condition under which the US would accept North Korea
> as a nuclear power,” he told reporters in Seoul on Saturday. “Make no
> mistake any attack on the United States or our allies will be defeated, and
> any use of nuclear weapons by the North will be met with a massive military
> response that is effective and overwhelming.”
>
> US war plans are offensive, not defensive, in character. Asked about the
> possibility of a pre-emptive US attack on North Korea to prevent a
> hypothetical attack on Seoul, Mattis confirmed, “yes, we do have those
> options”. Under OPLAN 5015, US and South Korean forces are primed for
> massive offensive strikes against North Korean nuclear, military and
> industrial facilities as well as “decapitation raids” by special forces to
> kill its top leaders.
>
> While Mattis insisted that “our goal is not war”, US President Trump has
> effectively ruled out any other option, short of North Korea’s total
> capitulation to Washington’s demands. Trump publically rebuked Secretary of
> State Rex Tillerson earlier this month for “wasting his time” in putting
> out diplomatic feelers for talks with North Korea.
>
> Trump is about to begin his first official trip to Asia this week,
> including to Japan, South Korea and China. Having threatened in the UN to
> “totally destroy” North Korea, he will undoubtedly use this incendiary
> threat not only to menace the Pyongyang regime but the entire region,
> particularly China which the US regards as its chief obstacle to global
> hegemony.
>
> Trump’s trip will take place amid a massive show of US military force near
> the Korean Peninsula, including:
>
> * Three US nuclear-powered aircraft carriers—the USS Ronald Reagan, the
> USS Nimitz and USS Theodore Roosevelt—which are in the region and preparing
> for joint exercises along with their associated strike groups. Each carrier
> is accompanied by between six to 10 warships, including cruisers,
> destroyers and nuclear submarines, and has an air wing of dozens of fighter
> jets and other military aircraft.
>
> * The USS Michigan, a nuclear-powered submarine armed with more than 150
> Tomahawk missiles, which docked in South Korea on October 17 ahead of joint
> exercises with the USS Ronald Reagan. The submarine also carries Navy
> SEALs, which in an earlier port call in April reportedly included the
> notorious SEAL Team Six that murdered Osama bin Laden.
>
> * All US military bases throughout the region, particularly in South
> Korea, Japan, Guam and Australia are without doubt on a high state of
> alert. The Pentagon has 28,500 military personnel in South Korea, around
> 54,000 in Japan and about 4,000 in Guam, along with a large number of naval
> vessels and warplanes. Australia acts as a de facto rear base for US
> Marines, warships and aircraft as well as housing key spy and
> communications bases. Two Australian frigates are due to arrive this week
> in South Korea for joint drills.
>
> * The Pentagon is set to deploy, for the first time, a squadron of F-35A
> Joint Strike Fighter jets and 300 personnel to the US base on the Japanese
> island of Okinawa. The advanced fifth-generation stealth fighters could
> well be used as part of a first wave to destroy North Korean air defences,
> opening the way for a massive air assault.
>
> * The US Air Force has carried out one military provocation after
> another—flying B-52 and B1-B strategic bombers close to North Korea.
> Yesterday, US Strategic Command, in charge of the nuclear arsenal, reported
> that it had flown a B-2 stealth bomber from the US to the Pacific to
> “familiarise aircrew” and to ensure “a high state of readiness and
> proficiency.” Unlike the B1-B, the state-of-the-art B-2 is nuclear capable.
>
> The flight underscores the ominous comments of US Vice President Mike
> Pence during a visit last Friday to Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota,
> which houses 26 nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and 150 nuclear
> intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) sites. Referring to North Korea,
> Pence declared: “Now more than ever your commander in chief [Trump] is
> depending on you to be ready. Stay sharp, mind your mission.”
>
> The Trump administration is preparing a war not just with conventional
> weapons, but with nuclear bombs—directed against North Korea and any other
> powers such as China and Russia that join the conflict. Last week, the Air
> Force announced that it was preparing to put its B-52 nuclear bombers back
> on 24-hour alert. At the same time, as reported by the *Guardian* yesterday,
> the Trump administration is drawing up a new Nuclear Posture Review, which
> will open the door for a range of new nuclear weapons and change the rules
> governing their use.
>
> The only conclusion that the North Korean regime can reach is that the
> country confronts the imminent threat of a US military onslaught, using
> conventional and/or nuclear weapons. The South Korean-based NKNews reported
> over the weekend that North Korea has been carrying out mass evacuation
> drills in cities and towns along the east coast.
>
> The world may be closer to the brink of nuclear war than at any time in
> history. During the extremely tense stand-off between the United States and
> Russia during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, both the American and Russian
> leaders worked to prevent a nuclear exchange that would have devastated the
> world.
>
> Trump, however, driven by the irresolvable contradictions of American and
> global capitalism, is proceeding with an unprecedented degree of
> recklessness to deliberately inflame flash points in Asia, as well as the
> Middle East and Eastern Europe. Embroiled in one political crisis after
> another at home, and facing mounting public hostility to his agenda of
> austerity and war, Trump is being propelled towards launching war as a
> means of diverting acute social tensions outwards against a foreign enemy.
>
> These same tensions are driving workers and youth in the United States and
> around the world into struggle to defend their living conditions, basic
> democratic rights and to prevent a conflict that would plunge the world
> into barbarism. That movement must find conscious expression in the program
> of socialist internationalism fought for by the International Committee of
> the Fourth International to put an end to the bankrupt capitalist system
> that engenders war and social misery.
>
> Peter Symonds
> WSWS.ORG <http://wsws.org>
>
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