A warning that Washington would shoot down North Korea's next missile test?
A restatement of past policy?
Or simply just what it seemed: a straightforward threat of annihilation from the president of the United States?
Officials and pundits across Asia struggled Wednesday to parse Donald Trump's vow Tuesday at the U.N. General Assembly to "totally destroy North Korea" if provoked.
In a region well used to Pyongyang's pursuit of nuclear weapons generating a seemingly never-ending cycle of threats and counter-threats, Trump's comments stood out.
South Korea officially played them down, while some politicians worried that Trump's words signaled a loss of influence for Seoul.
Tokyo focused on his mention of Japanese citizens abducted by the North.
Analysts across Asia expressed surprise, worry, even wry amusement, in one case, that Trump's words seemed to mirror threats normally emanating from North Korean state media.
Amid the speculation, the focus of Trump's belligerence, North Korea, remained silent in the hours after the speech.
Officials from the office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal who has advocated dialogue with the North while being forced into a hawkish position by the North's weapons tests, called Trump's words a signal of Washington's strong resolve to deal with the North, but also essentially a repetition of the basic stance that all options will be considered when confronting Pyongyang.
Trump has previously threatened the North with "fire and fury." Pyongyang responded to those past remarks with a string of weapons tests, including its sixth and most powerful nuclear detonation and two missiles that flew over U.S. ally Japan.
Park Soo-hyun, a Moon spokesman, said that Trump's comments "reaffirmed the need to put maximum sanctions and pressure against North Korea's nuclear and missile provocations" so that Pyongyang realizes that abandoning its nuclear weapons is the only way forward.
Marcus Noland, a North Korea specialist with the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said in an online post that Trump's threat will feed a long-standing North Korean narrative that claims that the United States poses an existential threat.
"With those words, President Trump handed the Kim regime the soundbite of the century. It will play on a continuous loop on North Korean national television," Noland wrote.
North Korea's regular weapons tests are an attempt to create an arsenal of nuclear missiles that can threaten U.S. troops throughout Asia and the U.S. mainland. Pyongyang tested its first two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July and claims that it can now accurately reach the U.S. homeland, though outside experts say the North may still need more tests before its weapons are fully viable.
Each new test pushes the nation that much closer to that goal.
Some South Korean opposition politicians saw the comments as another sign that South Korea is losing its voice in international efforts to deal with the North's nuclear program.
Trump's U.N. speech came days after U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis created unease in South Korea by saying without elaboration that the United States has military options against North Korea that wouldn't involve the destruction of Seoul.
The South Korean capital is within easy artillery range of the huge array of North Korean weapons dug in along a border only an hour's drive from greater Seoul's 25 million people.
Kim Su-min, a lawmaker in the People's Party, expressed worry that South Korean officials heard nothing from Washington before both Mattis' and Trump's remarks.
"The government should comprehensively review its diplomatic and national security system and do its absolute best so that our stance on critical issues related to the existence of our country and the lives of our people doesn't go ignored," Kim said.
Diplomacy meant to rid the North of its nukes has been moribund for years, and Pyongyang has made huge strides over the last several years in its quest for nuclear tipped missiles that can reach anywhere in the world.
Trump has pushed Beijing, which is the North's only major ally, to do more to influence Pyongyang's behavior, so far to no avail.
A Chinese expert on North Korea was surprised by the vehemence of Trump's speech, saying "his rhetoric is full of military force."
Cheng Xiaohe of Renmin University said in an interview that he initially thought that "the U.S. had nearly declared war on North Korea." The speech signals that "if North Korea conducts another missile test, the U.S. is very likely to intercept."
Officials in Tokyo, meanwhile, welcomed a reference by Trump to North Korea's abduction of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and '80s.
"I think it means an understanding has gotten through" to the United States and other countries, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura said, according to Kyodo News service.
Trump said, "We know it kidnapped a sweet 13-year-old Japanese girl from a beach in her own country to enslave her as a language tutor for North Korea's spies."
The girl, Megumi Yokota, was one of at least 17 people that Japan says North Korea kidnapped.
Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Kookmin University in South Korea, described Trump's threats as similar to the type of bluffing that North Korea has used for decades.
"It's a bit funny to see how the U.S. president behaves in exactly the same way, using exactly the same words his North Korean counterparts have been using for decades," Lankov said.
Rhetoric that isn't followed by action will eventually undermine the U.S. image internationally. "It makes American threats far less efficient," he said.
Lankov said he expects North Korea to respond to Trump's threats with "equally powerful ... equally comical" and "probably more ridiculous rhetoric."
The five-bedroom house in New York's Long Island suburbs — listed for nearly $1.3 million — boasts a southern exposure and proximity to a country club.
But here's what's more interesting:
The seller, a Chinese national named Sun Sidong, has been linked by American security experts to a network of Chinese companies under Treasury sanctions for helping companies and individuals who support North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
According to Chinese corporate filings, Sun is the listed owner of Dandong Dongyuan Industrial Co., which has shared an email address with another Chinese company, Dandong Zhicheng Metallic Material Co., a coal exporter suspected of helping North Korea evade sanctions.
The coal company and "four related front companies" were targeted by a federal search warrant allowing prosecutors to secretly monitor their financial transactions at eight U.S. banks, seizing any funds stemming from illegal sanctions-busting, according to a May federal court ruling.
The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell of Washington, D.C., said the eight American financial institutions — Bank of America, Wells Fargo, BNY Mellon, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, and Standard Chartered Bank — had already processed upwards of $700 million in prohibited transactions involving North Korea since 2009. The ruling does not allege any wrongdoing by any of the banks.
On Tuesday, the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Dandong Zhicheng Metallic Material Co. and its primary shareholder in response to "attempted evasion of U.S. sanctions."
That shareholder, a Chinese businessman named Chi Yupeng, was also named in a civil complaint filed Tuesday by the Justice Department seeking a money laundering penalty against the firm, as well as the seizure of $4 million in funds allegedly laundered for North Korea's ruling party. The complaint alleges that front companies controlled by Chi Yupeng comprise one of the largest financial facilitators for North Korea.
Chi Yupeng hung up on NBC News several times when asked for comment.
The Justice Department also moved to seize nearly $7 million from a Singapore firm over similar allegations, and Treasury levied sanctions against a number of other Chinese and Russian entities — 16 in total — it accused of helping North Korea evade sanctions.
The government's investigation was supported by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), a non-profit U.S. think tank, is part of a new get-tough approach to North Korean sanctions that began in the Obama administration and is accelerating under President Trump, current and former U.S. officials say.
While it's widely assumed that North Korea has for years been subjected to punishing international pressure as it defied the world and advanced toward a nuclear missile capability, the sanctions against North Korea have been full of holes, experts say — far less restrictive, for example, than the measures that brought Iran to the nuclear bargaining table.
Sun's Great Neck house is an example of how the alleged sanction-busting networks can stretch around the globe, even to the luxe suburbs of Long Island. "The fact that you have somebody who's engaged in trade that is potentially not just sanctioned, but dangerous, and that individual then invests in real estate in the United States reflects that there are holes in the system," NBC News National Security Analyst Juan Zarate said.
The North Korea sanctions targeted specific military technology, "but what you didn't see until quite recently are these kind of broader sanctions to go after the North Korean economy as a whole," said Peter Harrell, who was the deputy assistant secretary for counter threat finance and sanctions in the State Department from 2012 to 2014.
Nor was there an aggressive enforcement effort against banks and individuals doing business with Pyongyang. As a result, the North Korean economy has grown steadily over the last decade, analysts say. And while the country as a whole remains extremely poor, the elite live relatively well amid a building boom of gleaming skyscrapers in the capital.
"Until February of 2016, U.N. sanctions against North Korea were strong on paper but poorly enforced, and U.S. sanctions against North Korea were comparatively weak — weaker than our sanctions against Belarus and Zimbabwe," said Joshua Stanton, a North Korea expert and former Army officer.
Now, that is changing — though it may be too late. North Korea tested a missile that many experts say could strike the U.S. mainland, and American intelligence officials say the country may be months away from being able to mount a nuclear warhead on such a missile.
Still, aided by new sanctions imposed in the past year, the Trump administration is moving to increase economic pressure on North Korea, by targeting the Chinese companies that have for years helped the North fund its military activities.
"Justice is stepping it up by going after the Chinese banks," said Anthony Ruggiero, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who served as the nonproliferation advisor to the U.S. delegation to the 2005 Six-Party Talks on North Korea.
In June, the U.S. Treasury Department designated China's Bank of Dandong — based in a city on the North Korean border that serves as a center of trade between the two countries — to be a "primary money laundering concern." It said the small bank "acts as a conduit for illicit North Korean financial activity." Two Chinese individuals were also targeted in the government's action.
Last September, the Justice Department charged Dandong-based businesswoman Ma Xiaohong with evading sanctions and laundering millions of dollars for North Korea. Ma has not made a court appearance and her whereabouts are unclear.
Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., recently introduced a bill that would cut off entities that do business in North Korea, including the top ten Chinese importers of North Korean goods, from using the American financial system.
In August, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed new sanctions meant to pressure Pyongyang's export revenue. They crack down on North Korea's primary exports — including iron, iron ore, coal, lead, lead ore and seafood — and target banks and joint ventures with foreign companies.
C4ADS, which focuses on international security, uses sophisticated software and business records to map links between companies involved with North Korea.
In June, the group published a report — titled "Risky Business" — naming Sun, who owns the Great Neck house, as part of a network that may be exporting technology that could be used in North Korea's missile program.
Chinese business records cited by C4ADS show Sun owns 97 percent of Dandong Dongyuan Industrial Co. Ltd., a general-purpose trading firm whose businesses include the sale of automobiles, machinery, natural resources, and general household products, the report says. NBC News confirmed that the records show Sun as primary shareholder.
Customs records indicate the firm has exported to three countries: North Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the United States. From 2013 to 2016, the company sent $28 million worth of material to North Korea, the records show.
For example, Dandong Dongyuan Industrial Co. sent North Korea a shipment of radio navigational aid apparatus valued at nearly $800,000 in June 2016, the C4ADS report said. Experts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies concluded that "this category might contain guidance devices for ballistic missiles."
NBC News reviewed shipment data from Panjiva, which tracks global trade. It shows more than 60 shipments of items by Sun's company to North Korea that fall into the category of "nuclear reactors, boilers, machinery and mechanical appliances; parts thereof." This broad category is set by the country of origin, in this case the Chinese government. Experts say dual-use items like these help the Kim regime evade sanctions that are explicitly designed to prevent its nuclear capability.
"The danger with the export of dual-use items is that they appear to be legitimate. These are things that could be used for normal purposes," Zarate said. "You have parties that are willing to export what are really dangerous items to a regime that has been sanctioned, and trying to use the cloak of legitimate commerce in order to do that."
C4ADS also links Sun to a ship carrying arms from North Korea to an unknown destination. In August 2016, a cargo vessel flying a Cambodian flag was intercepted by Egyptian authorities entering the Suez Canal with parts for 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades aboard. The grenade parts were hidden under 2,300 tons of iron ore, which is one of the newly banned mineral exports targeted by the U.N.'s recent sanctions program.
According to shipping records reviewed by NBC News, one of Sun Sidong's companies owned the vessel from April 2012 until August 2014, when ownership was transferred to a company controlled by Sun Sihong, who according to C4ADS is Sun's sister.
In 2015, Sun registered a New York-based company called Dongyuan Enterprise USA. On March 2, it received a shipment of "used furniture" from Dandong Dongyuan Industrial Co., Sun's Chinese company. Originally shipped from Dandong, the cargo traveled to the U.S. from Busan, South Korea, according to its bill of lading.
The real estate agent who brokered the sale of the Great Neck home to Sun recalled that the family was expecting furniture to arrive from China.
Sun, whose U.S. company operates out of a New York City address he does not own, bought the Great Neck property near the country club for $1.1 million in December 2016.
The house is already on the market again. Sun's U.S. real estate broker told NBC News that's because Sun "doesn't want to do business here."
One lesson of Sun's activities is that targeting a small number of key actors could put a severe dent in North Korean's effort to evade sanctions, according to David Johnson, the executive director of C4ADS.
"The networks that perpetrate sanctions evasion for North Korea are limited, centralized, and vulnerable," Johnson said. "That is, we can touch them, there are very few pressure points, and we can make a major impact."
NORTH KOREAN CHILDREN ARE TRAINED TO HATE USA ("AMERICAN BASTARDS"):
NORTH KOREAN GOVT STARVES ITS CHILDREN AND TEACHES HATRED OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION.
THIS EXPLAINS KIM JONG UN'S GREAT DISDAIN FOR AMERICA.
REGIME CHANGE STARTS WITH THE YOUTH.
THE UNITED STATES MUST HELP TO LIBERATE NORTH KOREA'S CHILDREN (PRAY).
Sources: Newsweek, CNN, ATI, NTDTV, Youtube
*** HOW NORTH KOREAN CHILDREN ARE TAUGHT TO HATE AMERICANS
Most North Korean children have never seen an American in person. But they get an eyeful of them at a massive museum in the town of Sinchon that is devoted to educating them on U.S.-North Korean history.
It’s not baseball and apple pie here. At the ominously named Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities, Americans are a sinister lot: scheming missionaries, marauding soldiers, and masters of torture.
This is a museum in a farming town south of Pyongyang that has been rebuilt as a mecca to anti-Americanism. All spring and summer, North Korean schoolchildren will be making field trips here to cement what is an integral part of their education: hatred of the United States military and a mission to seek revenge.
For North Koreans, the 1950–53 Korean War that pitted the North Koreans and Chinese against U.S.-led United Nations troops — known in Pyongyang as the Fatherland Liberation War — remains in full tilt. The two sides may have signed a ceasefire in 1953, but the war still looms large in the North Korean psyche.
We in the United States often call the Korean conflict the “Forgotten War.” My high school history textbook in Minnesota devoted barely a paragraph to it, and, growing up as the child of Korean immigrants, I knew almost nothing about a war my own parents survived as children. But the war is very much alive and present in North Korea, and the standoff with the United States figures prominently in their propaganda, identity, and policy.
Understanding how North Korea sees the United States is integral to divining how to change the tenor of the tense U.S.–North Korea relationship, which persistently threatens to erupt again into military conflict.
The arrival of a new president, a Republican, in Washington after eight years of a Democrat in the White House means that there is an opening for change. How best to take advantage of that opening, however, is a tricky question when 25 years of U.S. bids to negotiate with North Korea have not stopped Pyongyang from building nuclear weapons.
The North Koreans have been waiting and watching to see what the Trump administration comes up with. But Pyongyang’s patience will be limited.
In November 2008, as the Associated Press news agency’s Seoul bureau chief, I made my first trip to North Korea just weeks after Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election. Knowing that I was a journalist, and no doubt instructed to pump me for information about the president-elect, our North Korean tour guide latched onto me and grilled me: What did Obama think about North Korea? Would he be open to meeting the leader of North Korea?
During his presidential campaign, Obama had suggested he would be open to engaging North Korea if the situation were right, an interpretation that I relayed to the North Korean guide. But just months into Obama’s presidency, North Korea launched a banned long-range rocket and followed that up by testing a nuclear device, making it difficult for the U.S. administration to do anything but lead the chorus of international condemnation of Pyongyang for its defiance of UN Security Council resolutions explicitly barring such activity.
Washington tends to look at North Korea’s behavior solely from the view of the message Pyongyang is trying to tell America. But at the time, in April 2009, Pyongyang had reason at home for staging such theatrical provocations: then-leader Kim Jong Il had emerged from a coma and had just made his first public appearance after months of speculation about his health and North Korea’s stability.
The regime needed something big to reassure the people that the republic was intact, and still feisty, and that Kim was able to defend them against the United States.
North Korea systematically uses the fear of an outside threat to spur and inspire national pride and unity. And often, that need to rally the people in order to ensure stability outweighs any advances that North Korea’s diplomats have made in repairing relations with the United States.
In December 2011, I reported exclusively that North Korea and the United States were negotiating a groundbreaking dealthat promised food and aid in exchange for a freeze of Pyongyang’s nuclear program. The news hit the wire as Kim Jong Il lay dead from a heart attack, unbeknownst to me and the rest of the world.
Kim Jong Il’s death was announced the next day as I was en route to North Korea to open the AP’s new Pyongyang bureau, a project I was told that Kim had personally approved. Some read North Korea’s willingness to allow the U.S.-based news agency into Pyongyang as a sign of new openness toward Washington.
His death, and the rise of his young son, Kim Jong Un as leader, seemed to offer another chance at changing the tone of the relationship. Two months later, on February 29, 2012, envoys from Pyongyang and Washington signed a pact on restrictions on North Korea’s missile development programs that became known as the Leap Day Deal.
But it was only a matter of weeks when, as part of celebrations marking the centenary of the birth of his late grandfather, President Kim Il Sung, North Korea launched a long-range rocket in bold defiance of the United States and their Leap Day Deal — not to mention the UN and the Security Council’s ban on rocket activity considered to be a test of missile technology.
The Obama administration eventually adopted a policy of “strategic patience” on North Korea, refusing to get riled up by Pyongyang’s rhetoric and avoiding overtures that would appear to reward bad behavior. The aim was to discourage North Korea from using provocations as a bartering chip.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department turned the screws on the North Koreans with a series of increasingly specific sanctions aimed at thwarting its ability to build bombs and missiles and putting a financial pinch on members of the party elite.
But bomb-making materials continued to slip through China’s porous border into the country, and the missile test-launches and nuclear tests continued — at a much faster pace with Kim Jong Un in power than ever before.
During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump suggested that he would take a very different approach on North Korea. “I would speak to him,” he told Reuters that May.
That certainly got the apparatchiks’ attention in Pyongyang.
In 1994, Kim Il Sung met with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter at the height of a nuclear crisis. And Kim Jong Il managed to sit down with Bill Clinton in 2009 when the former U.S. president flew to Pyongyang to negotiate the release of two American journalists.
However, no sitting U.S. president has held a summit with a North Korean leader, and the optics of an American head of state shaking hands with Kim Jong Un would be propaganda gold for the North Koreans. That would be the antithesis of strategic patience, and the North Koreans relished the notion. For four months, there were no missile or nuclear tests in North Korea.
Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign comments worried South Koreans, who do not want to be left out of decisions relating to the North. After all, they have the most to lose if the “thermonuclear” war that the North Koreans threaten breaks out.
Many South Koreans also bristled at Trump’s campaign characterizations of their country as a rich nation that is freeloading off the United States in trade and military support. But South Koreans were also preoccupied by political upheaval at home: a corruption investigation reaching the presidential Blue House and top corporations; months of protests in downtown Seoul; the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye; and campaigning in advance of a snap election set for early May.
Since taking office, President Trump has reaffirmed the longstanding U.S.–South Korean alliance. He has taken a tougher approach on North Korea, with his secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, saying, “All options are on the table” — including military strikes.
On April 7, Trump ordered an airstrike on a Syrian airfield, which Tillerson said was meant to send a strong message to America’s adversaries, including North Korea. That shift in attitude has won over conservatives in South Korea. However, with progressive Moon Jae-in winning the May 9 elections in a landslide, South Korea now has a leader who advocates engagement with the North.
Having a liberal government in the Blue House after nearly 10 years of a conservative administration will prompt a shift in alliances and policy across the region.
Those of us who watch North Korea knew there was a narrow window of opportunity — and that this young man who rules the nation is not a paragon of patience. When Kim vowed on New Year’s Day to perfect a ballistic missile designed to strike the mainland United States, Trump blasted back with a tweet: “Won’t happen!”
Three weeks later, the North Koreans fired off a warning salvo — a test-launch of a new intermediate-range ballistic missile — just as Trump was sitting down with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. A series of missile tests has followed, and satellite imagery suggests North Korea may be poised to detonate another nuclear device underground.
Kim Jong Un clearly is enjoying having these big guns at his disposal — and is basking in the show of strength the missiles and nuclear weapons provide. Garnering global attention is part of the strategy.
Is he truly willing to get rid of the one “treasured sword,” as state media calls the nuclear program, that has been so useful in pulling the country together? Without nuclear weapons and the pretext of defense, North Korea would have to rely on its own economy to keep the country intact.
Instead of setting the stage for improved relations, North Korea imprisoned two Americans on espionage and anti-state charges. Kim has also poured resources into amping up the propaganda against the Americans, suggesting that hatred of the United States would become an even bigger part of North Korean education and policy.
North Korea needs an enemy. The regime needs a villain for its people to hate. There is no indication that the regime will let go of that hatred anytime soon.
The museum in Sinchon is a prime example. Tucked down a street in south Hwanghae Province, the original museum was created to serve as a repository of alleged American atrocities. Plain and unassuming, the old building housing the relics was flanked by massive mosaics that hinted at the anger contained within: a grandmother in traditional dress, hair askew, shaking her fist at the “wily Americans” and calling on fellow North Koreans to seek “a thousandfold revenge.”
Inside, room after room catalogued the alleged war crimes committed by Americans, from the Presbyterian missionaries accused of seeking to brainwash Koreans with religion to the “Hitlerite” American soldiers they claim systematically tried to exterminate the townspeople in the early months of the Korean War.
Display cases offered what they called proof: some 3,000 artifacts dug up from the soil, including skulls, bones, ID cards, simple woven shoes. A 2009 book on the museum published by Pyongyang’s Foreign Languages Publishing House says that more than 35,000 people, a quarter of the county’s population, were killed during a 52-day rampage.
After a 2014 visit to Sinchon, Kim Jong Un called for an upgrade. The simple building on a grassy knoll was replaced by a palatial museum that is a veritable house of horrors, with room after room graphically bringing to life the gruesome atrocities attributed to the Americans.
The renovated museum opened in late July 2016, in time for the anniversary of the Korean War ceasefire (which the North Koreans call “Victory Day,” even though the fighting ended in a truce).
A visit there is like walking through the set of a horror movie; visitors can walk right up to the tableaus and can practically smell the blood and hear the screams.
In one tableau shown in photos published by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency in July 2016, a life-sized American soldier yanks the hair of a young Korean woman tied to a tree as another American sinks a knife into her heart. In another room, suffused in red light as though drenched with blood, American soldiers drive nails into a Korean woman’s head. Rabid glee distorts their faces.
The grisly scenes are meant to be lifelike. But are they accurate? Many in South Korea and the United States question the veracity of the claims that such killings were carried out by American troops. While the bones and personal artifacts appear genuine, on my own visits to the museum I did not see any items that directly proved or implicated American involvement.
With few, if any, formal challenges to the claims, North Korea has forged ahead in attributing the deaths to the “American imperialists.” In a 2010 North Korean book called The Sinful American Aggressors’ Imperialism of Korea , a grainy, black-and-white photo is characterized as showing one American soldier scrawling the phrase “I can’t sleep without killing” in a notebook. “The Americans are slaughterers who brutally massacred our people,” the book informs the reader over 308 pages of unattributed allegations.
“American bastards”
Throughout my visits to the Sinchon Museum, our North Korean guide repeatedly referred to Americans as miguk nom, or “American bastards.” He knew I was American, but did not even blink in using this epithet to my face in nearly every sentence he spoke.
Because I am an ethnic Korean and did not look anything like the blond scarecrows depicted on the walls of the museum, I did not appear “American” to him, and the slur was never meant to offend me. The phrase is simply so fixed in his mind that the two words are inextricable.
However, the North Koreans I met in the street loved meeting Americans. Whenever they spotted my non-Korean colleagues, the children called out, “Hello, how are you? Hello, how are you?” They were always excited to practice their English, and usually more curious than scared of the foreigners in their presence. Like children everywhere, they loved America’s cultural exports, Winnie the Pooh and Snoopy, in particular.
In my years traveling to North Korea, almost never did I hear a North Korean refer to an “American” without automatically attaching the word “bastard” to it. It was a constant reminder of the psychologically rooted hatred of the United States that remains so deeply entrenched in the North Koreans’ education, culture, and ideology — even if what they crave is a chance to sit at the table with the Americans.
KIM JONG UN IS USING FOOD DISTRIBUTION MONEY TO DEVELOP MORE NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
CHINA KNOWS THIS BUT DOESN'T CARE.
Sources: Asia Press, Fox News, CNN, The Guardian, BBC News, Newsweek, Youtube
**** Unicef warns of severe child malnourishment in North Korea
About 25,000 children in North Korea require immediate treatment for malnutrition after a drought cut food production by a fifth and the government reduced rations, Unicef has warned.
The UN’s children’s fund is asking for £12.6m ($18m) in donations for its North Korea work as part of a global £1.9bn humanitarian appeal for children.
It said the money needed for its work had doubled in three years, driven by global conflicts and extreme weather that were forcing growing numbers of children from their homes and exposing millions more to food shortages, violence, disease and abuse.
For the first time, it said a quarter of the worldwide appeal would go towards educating children in emergencies, focusing on 5 million children affected by the Syrian civil war, which is now in its fifth year.
In North Korea, Unicef said severe drought during 2015 in four agricultural provinces led to a 20% reduction in crop production compared with 2014.
“The impact of this will continue into 2016. Cereal rations were reduced, impacting the nutritional and health status of women and children,” it said in a statement.
International aid appeals for North Korea are often severely underfunded as foreign governments try to pressure Pyongyang to curtail its nuclear ambitions.
Aid workers warn that whenever North Korea conducts nuclear weapon trials – such as the hydrogen bomb test this month – foreign funds dry up. During 2015, Unicef received only 38% of the £15.5m North Korea appeal.
The hermit nation suffered a famine in the 1990s that killed as many as a million people, and the country still relies heavily on foreign aid.
“The severe drought last year reduced food production and children’s access to safe, clean water,” Unicef’s representative in North Korea, Timothy Schaffter, told the Guardian.
“Without safe water, children are at greater risk of diarrhoea, which is a leading cause of malnutrition and death. We have reports of a 72% increase in diarrhoea among children under five in the most severely drought-affected provinces.
“If we are unable to secure additional funding, our supplies of essential medicines will start running out in March, nutrition supplies will be depleted by mid-year, and our highly successful immunisation programme will run out of basic vaccines before the year’s end.”
In its global 2016 appeal, the bulk of the funds sought would provide life-saving aid needed for Syria and the resultant refugee crisis in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, Unicef said.
It called for £126m for children in Yemen, where 10 million children are in urgent need of humanitarian aid, and said it needed £17.9m to help children in Burundi, one of the poorest countries in the world, and where a political crisis has led to street fighting and mass displacement.
About one in nine children worldwide are living in conflict zones, said Unicef which warned of donor fatigue: protracted crises in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan were all less than 40% funded in 2015.
“In the past few months I have seen with my own eyes children pushed beyond the boundaries of human suffering in Burundi, north-east Nigeria and along the migrant and refugee route in Europe,” said Afshan Khan, Unicef’s director of emergency programmes.
Extreme weather posed a further risk to children. “Climate change, deforestation and the worsening El Niño weather system are pointing to more frequent and intense disasters in 2016, impacting a larger number of children in east Asia and the Pacific,” Unicef regional emergency adviser Carmen van Heese said.
The impact of El Niño in the Pacific islands had caused typhoons and floods, Unicef said. Drought warnings are in force for Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu and Palau.
“Children and families are struggling to cope with one of the worst El Niño cycles ever recorded, with more frequent and intense cyclones expected in 2016,” Unicef said, warning of further malnutrition and crop failures.
KIM JONG UN STARVES MILLIONS OF HIS PEOPLE FOR NUKES, USA DOES NOTHING:
USA GIVES N. KOREA PERMISSION TO STARVE ITS CITIZENS, INCLUDING CHILDREN.
USA IGNORES N. KOREA'S PRISON CAMPS.
IS THE USA AFRAID OF KIM JONG UN??
Sources: Newsweek, Youtube
**** NORTH KOREA'S KIM JONG UN IS STARVING HIS PEOPLE TO PAY FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Roughly 18 million people in North Korea are not getting enough food, a United Nations report released this week found. That means 70 percent of the isolated nation's population relies on food assistance to get by, including 1.3 million children under the age of five.
"Amidst political tensions, an estimated 18 million people across DPRK [North Korea] continue to suffer from food insecurity and undernutrition, as well as a lack of access to basic services," the U.N. report said. "Furthermore, 10.5 million people, or 41 percent of the total population, are undernourished."
North Koreans also need basic healthcare and sanitation, the U.N. report determined. Without safe water or better sanitation and hygiene, diarrhea and pneumonia have become the leading cause of death for children under five, the report said.
The report comes as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un tested his latest bomb project this week, which suggests that Pyongyang prioritizes its robust military budget over feeding the nation's starving population. State rations of cereals and potatoes were reduced last year from 380 grams per person per day to just 300 grams, the U.N. report found. That's less than a pound of food a day.
"Fluctuations over the year are normal," the report said, adding that state "rations are consistently lower than the government target of an average of 573g per person per day."
North Korea is home to about 25 million people. About 5.6 million people were hit hard by natural disasters such as floods and drought between 2004 and 2015. But North Korea spends about 24 percent of its gross domestic product on its army, navy and air force. In contrast, the worldwide military spending average is 2 percent of GDP, according to a 2015 State Department report.
Kim's latest missile launch failed this week within seconds of being launched. But earlier this month, Pyongyang fired four missiles that landed near Japanese waters. And the more North Korea angers the world with its nuclear weapons development, the more that charities and world leaders have cut down on donations, making it even harder for North Koreans to get food, the U.N. report said.
"Consequently, critical needs of some of the most vulnerable have not been met. More predictable funding is urgently required to ensure the immediate needs of the most vulnerable are addressed," the report said.
NORTH KOREA & CHINA'S BRUTAL COMMUNISM CAN NO LONGER BE IGNORED:
CHINA SUPPORTS NORTH KOREA'S COLD, BLOOD-THIRSTY REGIME.
USA LEADERS & US MILITARY MUST ENGAGE NOT IGNORE.
Sources: FoxNews, Youtube
***** North Korea is a threat to the US and so is China
President Trump on Friday declared that the “era of strategic patience with the North Korean regime has failed,” thankfully turning the page on the Obama Administration's disastrous policies towards Pyongyang.
But America’s woes in Asia don’t stop with North Korea. In fact, the challenge Washington faces in that vital part of the world are much bigger. The good news is that the Trump Administration does have a narrow window to do something about it—before it's too late.
Now is the time for Washington to end the era of “strategic patience” with another rogue regime, one that is not only aiding North Korea’s military rise but is also on a crash course to dominate the Asia-Pacific.
That country is none other than the People’s Republic of China.
To be fair, the challenge China has posed to U.S. national security always seems to be get placed on the backburner, to be dealt with another day—something both Democrat and Republican administrations are guilty of.
The reasons are obvious. Years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, a great recession like no other, a Syrian civil war that seems never ending, tensions with Russia and now an epic struggle to ensure ISIS is simply no more have all ensured Beijing gets a pass for its actions -- time and time again.
President Trump on Friday declared that the “era of strategic patience with the North Korean regime has failed,” thankfully turning the page on the Obama Administration's disastrous policies towards Pyongyang.
But America’s woes in Asia don’t stop with North Korea. In fact, the challenge Washington faces in that vital part of the world are much bigger. The good news is that the Trump Administration does have a narrow window to do something about it—before it's too late.
Now is the time for Washington to end the era of “strategic patience” with another rogue regime, one that is not only aiding North Korea’s military rise but is also on a crash course to dominate the Asia-Pacific.
That country is none other than the People’s Republic of China.
To be fair, the challenge China has posed to U.S. national security always seems to be get placed on the backburner, to be dealt with another day—something both Democrat and Republican administrations are guilty of.
The reasons are obvious. Years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, a great recession like no other, a Syrian civil war that seems never ending, tensions with Russia and now an epic struggle to ensure ISIS is simply no more have all ensured Beijing gets a pass for its actions -- time and time again.
Continue Reading Below
As Washington cast its focus everywhere else, China has decided to shed the notion of a so-called “peaceful rise," and instead pursue a dangerous course of action that is only leading to rising tensions with America, and if successful, will turn Asia into Beijing’s own private sphere of influence.
How China has worked to achieve its goals is clear, and in fact, is very much out in the open.
First, Beijing has done all it can to create an arc of instability, from the East China Sea all the way to the very ends of the South China Sea to advance its agenda. China prods and pushes its claims of “indisputable sovereignty” in all directions along this track, using civilian ships like fishing vessels, a dangerous maritime militia, and coast guard vessels that are many times nothing more than redesigned Chinese naval vessels, to ensure its mastery of the seas around them. Its goal is to turn such vital waterways into extensions of its territory, or what it calls “blue national soil."
Indeed, Beijing’s actions in the hotly disputed South China Sea deserve special attention. The beating heart of Asia’s economic miracle, China has literally drawn borders around this critical part of the global ocean commons. Called the nine-dash-line, China has done what no other nation has dared to do in centuries: place outlandish claims over vast waterways, that if enforced, would destroy the notion that oceans and seas can be claimed by no one. Beijing has even gone so far as to build island military bases out of small rocks and reefs in the area, tipping the strategic balance in its favor.
Next, to ensure the region takes China’s claims seriously, Beijing’s military might has advanced by leaps and bounds. Experts inside the Pentagon have privately told me that they fear America may now lack the ability to protect its interests and allies against China if conflict did break out—unless Washington was willing to accept casualties not seen since the Vietnam War, or worse.
Beijing’s strategy to dominate Washington in a conflict is also quite clear. Knowing that it still can’t match America ship for ship or plane for plane, Beijing has developed countless classes of deadly missiles. In the event of a conflict over Taiwan, the South or East China Seas or in Korea, China would shower U.S. bases, warships or allies with potentially thousands of missiles. And worst of all, thanks to treaty commitments agreed to with the now defunct Soviet Union, Washington is unable to legally build land-based missiles in the ranges needed to respond in kind.
But for Beijing this is simply not enough. China has even decided that it must begin to match America in as many possible areas of traditional military might as possible. Through cyber espionage, it has stolen classified data involving some of America’s most advanced military platforms. Such theft has included data on the F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters, the THAAD missile defense system and many others. Take a look at China’s latest stealth fighter, the J-20. See a resemblance to America’s stealth weapons? The reason is obvious.
For Washington and its allies, the accumulation of Chinese economic, military and diplomatic muscle means the international community can no longer ignore this threat.
Considering all of this, now is the time for America to push back against Chinese acts of aggression—and not through failed foreign policy slogans like a “pivot” or “rebalance”—but through actual deeds.
The Trump administration must develop a comprehensive strategy to ensure that Beijing does not dominate the Asia-Pacific, bully our allies or partners in region, or is able to defeat Washington in a military conflict.
Let there be no doubt, the growing threat of a nuclear North Korea compounded with the rise of China and its aggressive acts to ensure it dominates Asia are the two biggest foreign policy challenge America faces today. There can be only one response: when it comes to Trump’s foreign policy strategy, “America First” must mean Asia is the top priority above all else.
It's well past time that Washington make ‘Asia First’ a slogan it will put steal behind. There simply is no other choice.
Due to Occupy Protesters & other Organizations rallying against Global Leaders attending the 2012 G8 Summit, the Meeting was moved to Camp David for Pres. Obama's Safety.
The Middle Class & Poor are Fighting Back against the G8 because the Global Financial System Is FOREVER Rigged To ONLY PROTECT The Rich & Very Rich!
At the Annual G8 Summit Meetings Our Global Leaders come together to Gamble Away more of Our Freedom on Risky Financial Plans & Ideas with the use of Taxpayers' MONEY!
In other words it does NOT matter what the People Want or Need, Global Leaders are going to FORCE their Bitter Pill Financial Decisions down our throats anyway.
Even in America its all about PROTECTING THE RICH, But Make the Poor Suffer, while continuing to PROTECT THE RICH!
Now Please Don't Get It Twisted!
I have absolutely NOTHING at all against people who are Financially Successful.
Every Human Being on Planet Earth Should Have Equal Opportunities To Achieve Some Level Of Financial Success As Mark Zuckerberg Did!
If NOT Billionaires, Then Millionaires Or Just Extremely Comfortable.
In fact I Admire & Applaud ALL People who became Financially Successful via Innovation & Hard Work.
Please Understand that I am NOT one of those American Citizens who Opposes Wealth because I am NOT one of those Individuals.
I LIKE MONEY OK!
I'm just saying that our World's Financial System, including the United States, is Currently NOT Set up to allow Middle Class & Low Income People to Achieve the Same Level of Upward Mobility & Success as that of Most Wealthy People.
Thus the Annual G8 Summit Meeting is NOT about Global Economics, Human Rights, Voting Rights, JOBS, REAL Financial Reform, REAL Systemic Reform or PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
Its actually just more of the SAME Status Quo Stuff.
CONTINUING TO PROTECT THE RICH WHILE MAKING THE POOR PAY MORE!
Let’s be REAL for just a moment shall we?
The Global Financial System Is FOREVER Rigged To ONLY Protect The Rich & Very Rich!
More than likely that's the way it will ALWAYS be until Jesus returns!
So much for the Good of Common, Everyday People.
So Why VOTE?
Why do we even continue to VOTE if what WE Need is Never Considered in Local & Global Political Decisions which Affect us?
My VOTE may NOT make a significant mathematical difference in the outcome of an Election or Primary but I will continue to VOTE anyway.
And…..
Parents must instill in their Youth the Importance Of Expressing Our Individual Voices Via The Democratic Process Of VOTING.
i.e., THE DEMOCRACY PROJECT!
Isn't that why the Process of Political Democracy was established?
Why VOTE?
Because as an African-American citizen living in America, I recognize the Blood & Sacrifice My Ancestors & BLACK Leaders of yesterday made so that I could walk into a 21st Century Exit Poll Booth and LEGALLY Cast my Ballot to Elect Politicians. Even Politicians who LIE to ME!
Nevertheless We Must Continue To VOTE & Elect Leaders, even if only for Symbolic Reasons.
Because Voting is the ONLY Way Our Voices will be Heard right?
Wait a minute!
Were any of YOU who Voted in the 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 Elections & Primaries Invited to Attend the 2012 G8 Summit World Meeting?
Three anti-NATO protesters charged with terrorism conspiracy planned to attack four Chicago police stations, the local campaign headquarters for President Barack Obama and the home of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, prosecutors alleged in court documents Saturday.
While friends of the three men insisted they were just operating a home brewery, prosecutors stated that police found a gun that fires mortar rounds, swords, a hunting bow, ninja-like throwing stars and knives with brass knuckle handles. The beer operation, prosecutors added, was used to fill bottles with gasoline that would later be thrown as Molotov cocktails.
The three were being held on charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism, possession of an explosive or incendiary device and providing material support. The men were identified as 20-year-old Brian Church, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; 24-year-old Jared Chase, of Keene, N.H.; and 24-year-old Brent Vincent Betterly, of Oakland Park, Mass.
Defense attorneys told a judge on Saturday that undercover police were the ones who brought the Molotov cocktails, and that their clients were entrapped, the Associated Press reported.
Bond of $1.5 million was set for each defendant.
Michael Deutsch, one of their attorneys, later told reporters outside the courtroom that it was all a setup. Two informants "ingratiated themselves" with the three men and "this was all their idea," he insisted.
But Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy told reporters "the evidence speaks for itself" about what he called an "imminent threat."
"They were making the bombs ... (and had) directions on how to implement this," added Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.
Sarah Gelsomino, another attorney for the men, earlier said they were "absolutely in shock and have no idea where these charges are coming from."
"The National Lawyers Guild deplores the charges against Occupy activists in the strongest degree," Gelsomino said in a statement decrying the charges.
Six others initially arrested have been released. They were all detained in a raid Wednesday on a home in Bridgeport on Chicago's South Side, NBCChicago.com reported. Beer or bombs?
But the group of protesters said what police thought was suspicious was actually a home beer-brewing operation.
“We were handcuffed to a bench and our legs were shackled together. We were not told what was happening,” one of those detained but later released, Darrin Ammussek, told NBCChicago.com.
“I believe very strongly in non-violence, and if I had seen anything that even resembled any plans or anything like that, we wouldn’t have been there," he added.
He claimed that during 18 hours in custody, police never told him why he was arrested, read him his rights or allowed him to make a phone call, The Associated Press reported. He said he remained handcuffed to a bench, even after asking to use a restroom.
"There were guards walking by making statements into the door along the lines of 'hippie,' 'communist," 'pinko,'" a tired-looking Ammussek told reporters just after his release.
NBCChicago.com said the National Lawyers Guild had threatened legal action if the detained protesters were not released or charged by Friday night.
“They came in with guns drawn and broke into a unit that was not housing protesters in order to get into another unit in the building that was housing protesters,” said the guild's Kris Hermes.
Security has been high throughout the city in preparation for the summit, where delegations from about 60 countries, including 50 heads of state, will discuss the war in Afghanistan and European missile defense.
Among the pre-NATO protests planned for Saturday was a march on the home of Mayor Emanuel. The big show will be on Sunday, the start of the two-day NATO summit, when thousands of protesters are expected to march 2½ miles from a band shell on Lake Michigan to the McCormick Place convention center, where delegates will be meeting.
On Friday, Chicago police on bicycles and foot tailed activists through the streets of the city, but ignored taunts and went out of their way to make as few arrests as possible. Protesters made a lot of noise and tried to evade police, but otherwise were relatively uneventful.
In all, police said there was a single arrest on a charge of aggravated battery of a police officer. Another man was briefly taken into custody, but he was released a short time later after being questioned by police, a department spokesman said.
Also, officers were seen trying to arrest a man who scaled a bridge tower and pulled down part of a NATO banner. Earlier, police handcuffed a man at the end of a noisy but largely peaceful rally organized by the nation's largest nurses union.
From the police side of the protest line, it went largely how Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy envisioned it earlier this month when he said, "We're not going to lock somebody up for dropping a banana peel."
Michael Olstewski, 22, a recent music school graduate who came to Chicago from Atlanta, one of hundreds of protesters who took to the streets on Friday for a spontaneous march, said protesters may be waiting to make a big statement.
He said he didn't do anything to get arrested Friday, "but later in the week ... If I feel it's strategic and a powerful statement" he would provoke police into arresting him.
Israel will not be invited to NATO’s May 20-21 summit in Chicago, the alliance’s top official said Friday. But he denied that alliance member Turkey had blocked Israel’s participation.
Instead, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the reason is because Israel does not participate in NATO’s main military missions.
News reports have claimed that Turkey blocked Israel’s participation because of the raid in 2010 by Israeli troops on ships heading to Gaza in which eight Turks and a Turkish-American died.
NATO has a system of partnerships with dozens of nations across the globe such as the Mediterranean Dialogue, a NATO outreach program with seven friendly nations, including Israel.
In the past, partner nations did not usually attend the alliance’s summits. But Fogh Rasmussen said 13 would do so this time.
“At the Lisbon summit (in 2010), we made clear that we would enhance dialogue and cooperation with partner nations ... because in today’s world security challenges know no borders, and no country or alliance can deal with most of them on their own,” he told journalists.
Two other members of the Mediterranean group, Jordan and Morocco, are among them. But Fogh Rasmussen said Israel is not because it does not participate in missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo.
“Israel has not been invited to attend the summit because Israel is neither a participant in ISAF nor in KFOR ... no one has blocked an invitation because it’s not been an issue,” Fogh Rasmussen said. ISAF and KFOR are acronyms for coalition forces in Afghanistan and Kosovo.
Earlier this year, Turkey scuttled a plan to include an Israeli warship in a NATO-run flotilla patrolling the Mediterranean.
In the past, Israeli warships and air force jets have joined in some NATO exercises, but Israel’s participation in the naval operation would the first time its armed forces have taken part in one of the alliance’s military operations.
Representatives of about 60 nations and international organizations will attend the Chicago conference. Partner nations include include Sweden, Switzerland, Qatar, Georgia, Australia and New Zealand.
Representatives of Russia and several Central Asian states also have been invited to discuss the war in Afghanistan — the summit’s main focus — “because they provide important transit arrangements to the benefit of our operation,” Fogh Rasmussen said.
The alliance has repeatedly said it is prepared to enhance practical cooperation with all partner nations in the region, including Israel. But some members have opposed past attempts to forge closer cooperation with the Jewish state, saying that could hurt the alliance’s relations with other Muslim countries, including Afghanistan, which remains NATO’s top operational priority.
The Romney campaign suggested Friday that President Obama should release notes and transcripts from his meetings with world leaders to prove that he is not promising world leaders to change his position after November, in a statement to National Journal. Democrats responded that this request betray's Romney's foreign policy "naiveté."
The statement, from Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul, came in response to a call from the Obama campaign that Romney release 30 years worth of tax returns. Team Obama claims that a policy that allowed Bain Capital employees to invest retirement money in companies bought by Bain through a special share class, raises "questions about Romney's manipulation of the tax laws." Saul's response brought the subject back to Obama with a reference to his "hot mic" incident with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev:
“The Obama campaign is playing politics, just as he’s doing in his conduct of foreign policy," Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul wrote. "Obama should release the notes and transcripts of all his meetings with world leaders so the American people can be satisfied that he’s not promising to sell out the country’s interests after the election is over.”
The DNC responded with a statement from Dr. Colin Kahl, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, stressing the problems with releasing sensitive information from these meetings:
Having been in many sensitive meetings with our allies around the world, the Romney campaign's comment shows a remarkable naiveté about foreign policy.
For example, does Governor Romney think we should release all the notes and transcripts of the President's conversations with our allies, such as the Israelis and Europeans, tipping our hand to Tehran about every last element of our strategy to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon?
Our friends around the world need to trust that they can speak with the President of the United States in confidence, and that these conversations will not be politicized during an election.
Such a dramatic and unprecedented step would undermine the ability of the United States to successfully conduct foreign policy at a time when our nation faces numerous challenges abroad, and suggesting it is just a reckless attempt to score cheap political points. It is yet another indication that Mitt Romney is not ready to be Commander-in-Chief.
President Obama’s re-election campaign is calling on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns dating back to the 1980s, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Following a front-page Wall Street Journal article Thursday reporting that employees at Bain Capital, Romney’s former private-equity firm, were allowed to invest their retirement money in companies the firm acquired through a special share class, the Obama camp is seeking Romney’s old tax returns to see if they contain information about the investment arrangement.
Reports indicate that the deal could have increased the value of certain investments, which may have helped swell Romney’s retirement account. The candidate’s IRA was valued at between $20.7 million and $101.6 million as of August, according to his financial disclosures.
“Today’s report raises additional questions about Gov. Romney’s manipulation of the tax laws,” Ben LaBolt, an Obama spokesman, told The Journal, adding that Romney “may have engaged in questionable maneuvers to drive up the value of his IRA.” Romney released his 2010 and preliminary 2011 tax returns earlier this year.
The Romney campaign pushed back Friday with their own request in an e-mail to National Journal: that Obama release the transcripts of all his meetings with world leaders.
“The Obama campaign is playing politics, just as he’s doing in his conduct of foreign policy," Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul wrote. "Obama should release the notes and transcripts of all his meetings with world leaders so the American people can be satisfied that he’s not promising to sell out the country’s interests after the election is over.”
Sources: CNN, National Journal, TPM, Wall Street Journal, Youtube
A classified war simulation held this month to assess the American military’s capabilities to respond to an Israeli attack on Iran forecast that the strike would lead to a wider regional war, which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead, according to American officials.
The officials said the so-called war game was not designed as a rehearsal for American military action — and they emphasized that the exercise’s results were not the only possible outcome of a real-world conflict.
But the game has raised fears among top American planners that it may be impossible to preclude American involvement in any escalating confrontation with Iran, the officials said. In the debate among policy makers over the consequences of any possible Israeli attack, that reaction may give stronger voice to those within the White House, Pentagon and intelligence community who have warned that a strike could prove perilous for the United States.
The results of the war game were particularly troubling to Gen. James N. Mattis, who commands all American forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, according to officials who either participated in the Central Command exercise or who were briefed on the results and spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature. When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the officials, General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first strike would be likely to have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there.
The two-week war game, called Internal Look, played out a narrative in which the United States found it was pulled into the conflict after Iranian missiles struck a Navy warship in the Persian Gulf, killing about 200 Americans, according to officials with knowledge of the exercise. The United States then retaliated by carrying out its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The initial Israeli attack was assessed to have set back the Iranian nuclear program by roughly a year, and the subsequent American strikes did not slow the Iranian nuclear program by more than an additional two years. However, other Pentagon planners have said that America’s arsenal of long-range bombers, refueling aircraft and precision missiles could do far more damage to the Iranian nuclear program — if President Obama were to decide on a full-scale retaliation.
The exercise was designed specifically to test internal military communications and coordination among battle staffs in the Pentagon, Tampa, where the headquarters of the Central Command is located, and in the Persian Gulf in the aftermath of an Israeli strike. But the exercise was written to assess a pressing, potential, real-world situation.
In the end, the war game reinforced to military officials the unpredictable and uncontrollable nature of a strike by Israel, and a counterstrike by Iran, the officials said.
American and Israeli intelligence services broadly agree on the progress Iran has made to enrich uranium. But they disagree on how much time there would be to prevent Iran from building a weapon if leaders in Tehran decided to go ahead with one.
With the Israelis saying publicly that the window to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb is closing, American officials see an Israeli attack on Iran within the next year as a possibility. They have said privately that they believe that Israel would probably give the United States little or no warning should Israeli officials make the decision to strike Iranian nuclear sites.
Officials said that, under the chain of events in the war game, Iran believed that Israel and the United States were partners in any strike against Iranian nuclear sites and therefore considered American military forces in the Persian Gulf as complicit in the attack. Iranian jets chased Israeli warplanes after the attack, and Iranians launched missiles at an American warship in the Persian Gulf, viewed as an act of war that allowed an American retaliation.
Internal Look has long been one of Central Command’s most significant planning exercises, and is carried out about twice a year to assess how the headquarters, its staff and command posts in the region would respond to various real-world situations.
Over the years, it has been used to prepare for various wars in the Middle East. According to the defense Web site GlobalSecurity.org, military planners during the cold war used Internal Look to prepare for a move by the Soviet Union to seize Iranian oil fields. The American war plan at the time called for the Pentagon to march nearly six Army divisions north from the Persian Gulf to the Zagros Mountains of Iran to blunt a Soviet attack.
In December 2002, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, who was the top officer at Central Command, used Internal Look to test the readiness of his units for the coming invasion of Iraq.
Many experts have predicted that Iran would try to carefully manage the escalation after an Israeli first strike in order to avoid giving the United States a rationale for attacking with its far superior forces.
Thus, it might use proxies to set off car bombs in world capitals or funnel high explosives to insurgents in Afghanistan to attack American and NATO troops. While using surrogates might, in the end, not be enough to hide Iran’s instigation of these attacks, the government in Tehran could at least publicly deny all responsibility.
Some military specialists in the United States and in Israel who have assessed the potential ramifications of an Israeli attack believe that the last thing Iran would want is a full-scale war on its territory. Thus, they argue that Iran would not directly strike American military targets, whether warships in the Persian Gulf or bases in the region.
Their analysis, however, also includes the broad caveat that it is impossible to know the internal thinking of the senior Iranian leadership, and is informed by the awareness that even the most detailed war games cannot predict how nations and their leaders will react in the heat of conflict.
Yet these specialists continue their work, saying that any insight on how the Iranians will react to an attack will help determine whether the Israelis carry out a strike — and what the American position will be if they do.
Israeli intelligence estimates, backed by academic studies, have cast doubt on the widespread assumption that a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would set off a catastrophic set of events like a regional conflagration, widespread acts of terrorism and sky-high oil prices.
“A war is no picnic,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Israel Radio in November. But if Israel feels itself forced into action, the retaliation would be bearable, he said. “There will not be 100,000 dead or 10,000 dead or 1,000 dead. The state of Israel will not be destroyed.”
Just As Former Al-Qaeda Leader Osama Bin Laden Was Planning To Disrupt The United States' 2012 General Elections By Plotting To Kill Pres. Obama, Now Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Appears To Be Encouraging Muslim Extremists Across The Globe To Carry Out The Slain Al-Qaeda Leader's Dark Wishes Via A Mass Jihad.
Apparently Ahmadinejad Wants Muslim Extremists To Help Collapse The United States' Political System & Diminish Our Nation's Foreign Relations Bargaining Power.
If This Isn't A Clear Warning The U.S. & U.N. Needs To Begin Taking Actions To Stop Iran's Ability To Use Nuclear Weapons, I Don't Know How Much More Proof Is Needed.
Iran Has Proven Itself Time & Time Again To Be A Rogue, Rebellious Nation Unwilling To Work Peaceably With Any Other Nation.
I Believe Both U.S. & U.N. Leaders Should STOP Playing With Ahmadinejad By Giving Him Slaps On The Wrist (Useless Sanctions) And Come Together With A Viable Solution That Will Not Only Protect Israel But The United States.
If Not Than God Help America Come 2012!
ALERT:
This Blog Post Was NOT Published To Attack Or Encourage Discrimination Against Muslims In Any Way. Instead It Was Published To Warn America Of Possible Terrorist Plots With Iran's Involvement.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the current political system of the United States will collapse soon.
“Freedom-seekers will rule this country (the U.S.) soon,” Ahmadinejad said during an address on the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of the first phase of a gasoline production unit in Abadan, Khuzestan Province on Tuesday.
He added, “Those who speak of freedom (in the U.S.) themselves say which group has freedom (in their country) and can rule the country. What person seeking freedom has been able to win an election so far in this country, which calls itself the cradle of freedom?”
Only one group, either Democratic or Republican, can attain political power in the U.S., and the others are not allowed to express their ideas, he stated.
“(Barack) Obama is a neophyte and views nations from an imperialistic point of view, and he, through playing with words, speaks as if he is different than his predecessors, while their policy is the same and has not changed,” he stated.
“This is all a puppet show, and Obama is nothing but a puppet, since those who have a role (in defining) the major policies of the U.S. are behind the scenes, but we know them and show the nations who they are,” he added.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Ahmadinejad expressed hope that a new Middle East would emerge without the presence of the occupiers, including the Zionist regime.
The hegemonic powers are bullying regional nations, including North African countries, but this will end soon, he predicted.
The major powers offer regional counties loans and then ask them to act in line with their policies in order to maintain their dominance in the region, he said.
Ahmadinejad called this a new form of innovative hegemony.
“I tell all Muslim nations not to give in to this pressure and that Iran is ready to share all its scientific, industrial, and agricultural achievements with them in order to help them flourish,” he stated.
And Iran is not seeking to serve its political interests through this offer, he added.
All nations should know the United States is not a reliable friend of any country, and Iran knows Washington’s tricks and how it uses other countries to achieve its objectives, the president noted.
Regional nations should maintain close relations with each other and remain vigilant in order to foil the U.S. plots, which have been devised to create divisions between them through, for example, causing conflicts between Sunnis and Shias.
Bin Laden called on followers to kill President in run up to 2012 election
Longed for another 9/11 to replicate mass attacks of the past
Orders to not only target New York, but smaller U.S. cities such as Los Angeles
Desperately wanted to 'sow political dissent' in Washington, DC
Urged followers to strike on anniversary of 9/11 and Fourth of July
But arrogant leader became 'lazy and complacent' about own security
Kill as many Americans as possible in a single attack
Only death toll in thousands would shift U.S. policy in Middle East
Target trains as well as planes
Spread out the targets in the U.S.
Osama Bin Laden wanted to assassinate President Obama as in the run up to the 2012 presidential elections, the terror leader's journal seized by U.S. forces reveals.
The mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks wanted to kill the President in a follow up mission, 10 years after the devastating 2001 attack.
U.S. intelligence officials are currently analysing over one million pages of data taken from the terror leader's compound, including his handwritten journal.
The documents reveal that the Al Qaeda leader was still plotting attacks against the U.S. and wanted to find a way to kill Obama.
Bin Laden's own writings indicate that he had urged followers to assassinate Obama as a way of disrupting the 2012 presidential election.
Former intelligence officials said that Bin Laden was focussed on killing the President.
'I would say this is probably very personal on Bin Laden's part, to kill [Obama] that he believes has violated the Muslim faith,' Brad Garrett, a former FBI profiler, told ABC News.
'He is incensed, inflamed, obsessed about killing the President.'
Video footage of Bin Laden watching TV in his hideout showed that whenever Obama came on the screen, the terror leader would quickly try to change the channel.
The seized documents could be the most valuable find of all - a written record that takes readers inside the mind of America's greatest enemy.
Osama Bin Laden's handwritten journal was found at the Pakistan compound where the terror chief was killed in a dramatic U.S. raid more than a week ago.
In it, he directed Al Qaeda operatives to not only focus on New York City, but spread their operations to target smaller cities such as Los Angeles.
The discovery shatters previously held beliefs that Bin Laden was a 'has been' - acting simply as Al Qaeda's spiritual leader rather than its operational chief.
The journal, as well as hundreds of computer 'pen' drives also containing directives, will only add to the heightened threat level across the U.S.
Among the edicts, one particularly macabre note reveals a mathematical calculation of how many people Al Qaeda would have to kill to finally force the U.S. out of the Middle East - concluding it would take another 9/11 at least.
U.S. officials said the Al Qaeda leader's diary is filled with planning ideas and details of operations.
Among them were the notes for the potential plots against the U.S. rail system which prompted an advisory from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security last week.
In the journals he tells his disciples that only a body count of thousands, something on the scale of the September 11 attacks in 2001, would shift U.S. policy.
He also schemed about ways to sow political dissent in Washington and play political figures against one another, officials said.
They give a clear indication that Bin laden was communicating with other extremists.
'There are strong indications there is back and forth with other terrorists,' an official said.
The handwritten journal included significant dates bin Laden noted as preferred for attacking American targets, including the Fourth of July and the 10th anniversary of 9/11, a U.S. official said.
No imminent plots have been discovered in the journal, which officials have been pouring over since the raid, officials said.
The journal was part of a huge cache of intelligence that included about 100 flash drives and five computers taken by a U.S. Navy SEALs assault team after they swept through the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
And rather than reducing his role, Bin Laden had worked frantically to direct Al Qaeda operations from his secret hideout.
One official said Bin Laden had worked like a 'crime boss'.
But the 51-year-old killer had become so arrogant that he believed he was virtually untouchable - plotting destruction by day and bedding down with his wife at night.
'Bin Laden got lazy and complacent,' a source told the Washington Post.
'I don’t think he thought he would meet his maker in that house. And he certainly didn’t make any preparations.'
Another raised the possibility that he may not have been restricted to his compound.
'There are strong indications there is back and forth with other terrorists,' the official said.
Questions were raised about why Bin Laden did not attempt to escape the building during the raid or hide in a secret compartment, but it now appears that he never feared he would be caught there.
Bin Laden has long been known to record his thoughts, but the discovery of his journal is a real coup for American intelligence chiefs.
His son, in a memoir, has described his father as recording his thoughts and plans, spending hours speaking into a Dictaphone.
The diary may also reveal more about the psyche of the man - his secret fears and terrors.
The treasure trove of intelligence recovered from the 'safe' house is producing a new lead every hour, it has emerged.
Intelligence officials told CBS News that Bin Laden had actually been killed 'relatively early' in the 40-minute operation inside the house.
At least half the time was then spent scooping up every single document, laptop, hard drive and CD that the hit team could find.
In the aftermath of the raid, the CIA has been analysing the information - which comes in at 2.7 terrabytes of data or 220 million pages of text - round the clock.
'Home videos' of Bin Laden recovered from the compound which show the terror chief watching Barack Obama on the news and fluffing his lines in a recorded message, have already been released.
The terror journal shows Bin Laden was communicating from his walled compound in Pakistan with al-Qaeda's offshoots - including the Yemen branch that has emerged as the leading threat to the United States.
Though there is no evidence yet that he was directly behind the attempted Christmas Day 2009 bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner or the nearly successful attack on cargo planes heading for Chicago and Philadelphia, it's now clear that they bear some of bin Laden's hallmarks.
Officials have not yet seen any indication that bin Laden had the ability to coordinate timing of attacks across the various al-Qaeda affiliates in Pakistan, Yemen, Algeria, Iraq and Somalia, and it is also unclear from bin Laden's documents how much the affiliate groups relied on his guidance.
The Yemen group, for instance, has embraced the smaller-scale attacks that bin Laden's writings indicate he regarded as unsuccessful.
However, the real value of the intelligence is likely to come from leads to other members of Al Qaeda and an insight into the terror network, including how Bin Laden communicated with his subordinates.
The diary could play a key role in that.
Speaking in a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday, President Obama described the information as a treasure trove that 'could serve us well in the weeks and months to come'.
'We've got a chance to, I think, really deliver a fatal blow to this organisation if we follow through aggressively in the months to come,' he said.
In a chilling statement posted on Islamic extremist sites last night, Al Qaeda warned the U.S. that it had made a 'big mistake' and a 'serious sin' in killing Bin Laden.
The terror group's media arm, al-Fajr, said the American people 'will pay the price' for the May 2 raid.
It acknowledges that Barack Obama 'is protected by armies', but asks Americans: 'Who will protect you from our assault?'
It also urges Muslims to use Bin Laden's death as motivation to carry out attacks, according to a transcript provided yesterday by the SITE Intel group, which monitors militant messages.
Tensions are still running high in Pakistan where politicians hijacked a parliamentary session in Islamabad to pray for the dead Bin Laden.
The group, including former minister Atta-ur-Rehman, claimed it was their duty as Muslims to carry out the action.
Maulvi Asmatullah, who led the prayers, said: 'Bin Laden was an international figure and above all a Muslim.
'I took it as my religious duty to offer prayers for him.'
The killing of Bin Laden has given Obama's approval rating a huge bounce to the highest point in two years.
It now stands at 60 per cent with more than half of Americans saying he deserves to be re-elected, according to The Associated Press-GfK poll.
Al-Qaeda has not named bin Laden's successor, but all indications point to his Number two, Ayman al-Zawahri.
The question is whether al-Zawahri, or anyone, has the ability to keep so many disparate groups under the al-Qaida banner. The groups in Somalia and Algeria, for instance, have very different goals focused on local grievances. Without bin Laden to serve as their shepherd, it's possible al-Qaida will further fragment.
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