U.S. Preparations to Conquer Soon Donbass, N. Korea, & Syria
world news compiled by Eric Zuesse
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Fearing peace, the U.S. humiliates South Korea, threatens North Korea. Japanese and U.S. historical aggression against Korea.
This article was first published by The Greanville Post, revised January 17, 2018.
By David William Pear, January 19, 2018
Fearing that peace might break out with the two Koreas talking to each other, Washington instructed South Korean President Moon Jae-in to keep the message about anything but peace. It is not just Trump. A former top official for the Obama administration warned Moon that South Korea was not going to get anywhere with the North Koreans unless they have the “US behind them”. Humiliating, that is like saying that Moon’s “button” is not as big as Kim’s. The metaphor is exactly how the Washington elite see South Korea: as Washington’s obedient proxy state. The official went on to say,
“If South Koreans are viewed as running off the leash, it will exacerbate tension within the alliance”.
Running off the leash! Now more humiliation, is South Korea a US poodle? Instead President Moon Jae-in is showing that he has teeth, and that South Koreans want their country back from US humiliating domination.
During the talks it was agreed for North Korea to participate in the Winter Olympics in February. The two countries will even march together under a common flag, and future talks between the two are planned to reduce tension. Trump continues to bluster, while the two Koreas have “engaged in the most substantive direct talks in years”. Neocons such as John Bolton are outraged that North Korea has proven once again that it is willing to come to the negotiation table. Bolton says it is a dirty trick and that North Korea is “taking advantage of a weak South Korean government”, adding more insulting humiliation. To Washington, South Korea talking peace is weak, running off the leash and going it alone without its US master. The North using the peace option is seen as a provocation and propaganda that Washington will not tolerate.
In retaliation the US sent more nukes to Guam, and put the state of Hawaii on a full alert that a “ballistic missile was inbound“. The nukes outbound to Guam are real; the ones inbound to Hawaii were fake, just like the ability of the billion dollar THAADS to shoot them down. Too conveniently the Hawaii false alarm comes just as the US and its vassals are readying for what the US plots to be a show of solidarity and unity on killer sanctions against North Korea. The US wants its chorus to perform the tragedy of telling North Korea to obey or watch 500,000 of their children die. As Madeleine Albrightsaid about Iraq’s 500,000 dead children from US sanctions, “the price is worth it“. The US does not think the price of diplomacy is worth it though.
The US continues to block efforts at diplomacy, and express its contempt for South Korea’s elected President Moon Jae-in. He was elected on a peace platform by the South Korean people. Moon’s predecessor Park Geun-hye sang from the US hymnbook until she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. In 2017 the South Korean people went to the street and demanded the granddaughter of former dictator Park Chung Hee be impeached, and now she is in prison. Peace is not anything that Washington’s plutocrats want to hear, although the South Korean people like the sound of it, and elected Moon their president by a wide margin. The self-interests in Washington preferred the corrupt warmonger Park. She carried the US’s tune with perfect pitch, even (allegedly) conspired to assassinate the North’s Kim Jong-Un. The message of the humiliation from US apparatchiks is that if Moon does not change his tune the US will try to undermine South Korea’s democracy with a regime change project might be in his future. The US habitually meddles in other’s elections, and wants to keep tensions high on the Korean peninsula, keep the South Koreans in line, make North Korea a boogeyman, frighten the American people, station 30,000 US troops in South Korea with wartime operational control, buy more multi-billion dollar THAADS from Lockheed Martin, and divide the Korean people. Even at the risks of a nuclear war, which the US proposes making easier.
The establishment nearly went to war with North Korea in 1994 until Bill Clinton negotiated peace. The neocons in Washington and the mainstream media keep saying that North Korea refused to come to the negotiating table. Clinton’s decision to use diplomacy instead of threats proved the warmongers wrong again. It was the US all along that refused to talk, preferring belligerence and threats just as it does now. Once Clinton showed a willingness to bargain, then a nuclear deal was struck. The deal was called the Agreed Framework. What North Korea wanted then for it to suspend its nuclear program was for the US to halt the massive military exercises on North Korea’s border, a non-aggression guarantee, compensation for abandoning its needed electric producing nuclear reactors, and relations with the US. Now the situation with North Korea is back to where it was in 1994. George W. Bush reversed the path of peace when he came into the White House. In 2001 he tore up the Agreed Framework, put North Korea on the Axis of Evil list in 2002, invaded Iraq in 2003, and hanged Saddam Hussein in 2006. Very predictably North Korea resumed its nuclear program for self-defense against a paranoid and unpredictable USA that sees enemies to attack under every bed.
Bush scrapped the Agreed Framework, and told then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung that future talks with North Korea were dead. Kim Dae-jung had come to visit Bush shortly after winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his Sunshine Policies of peace with North Korea. Instead of welcoming President Kim and his peace efforts, Bush humiliated him by shockingly calling North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-il a dwarf. North Korea predictably withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and resumed work on its nuclear program. A month later Bush called out North Korea to pay particular attention to Libya as an example of how a country is welcomed into the international community when it unilaterally gives up its nuclear defense program. North Korea paid attention and it was listening when Muammar Gaddafi said in a 2008 speech that “one of these days America may hang us like they did Saddam “. In 2011 Gaddafi met a brutal death at the hands of US proxies; he was anally raped with a bayonet and left to rot on public display in a meat locker. Before Gaddafi’s corpse was even cold a hysterically glowing Hillary Clinton cackled “we came, we saw, he died”, hahaha“. Now fast forward to 2018 and the US is threatening war against North Korea again.
The US has been abusing Korea since 1871 when it first invaded it with an expeditionary force of Marines to forcibly open trade. Korea just wanted to be left alone, but the US forced Korea to sign an exclusive trade treaty in 1882 at the point of a gun. In exchange for that unequal trade agreement the US promised Korea protection. In 1910 the US proved that its promise was worthless. Instead of protection, President Theodore Roosevelt stabbed Korea in the back by conspiring with Japan. Roosevelt had enthusiastically supported Japan in the Russo-Japanese War. Japan pre-emptively attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in a sneak attack. Teddy congratulated Japan for their brilliance…in 1941 his nephew Franklin would call a Japanese sneak attack “a day of infamy”. After Japan and Russia ground down to a bloody stalemate, Japan secretly appealed to Teddy to open negotiations. Roosevelt acted as a (dis)honest broker in negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Japan won the spoils of the war. Roosevelt had a secret deal that Japan could have Korea and the US would take the Philippines. In 1945 the US deceived Korea again. Instead of liberating Korea from the Japanese occupation, the US occupied Korea for 3 more years until 1948 and then blocked its independence. The US was largely responsible for the division of Korea and backing dictatorships in South Korea until 1993. Americans do not know the US treachery, but Koreans do. Why would they trust the USA now?
In order to understand North Korea, one must start with the “anticolonial and anti-imperial state growing out of a half-century of Japanese colonial rule and a half-century of continuous confrontation with a hegemonic United States”, as Bruce Cumings writes in his book North Korea: Another Country. In order to understand South Korea one should take a similar approach. The Japanese colonization of Korea in 1910 was greeted with cheers from the USA. Teddy Roosevelt encouraged Japan to have its own Japanese Monroe Doctrine for Northeast Asia. The Japanese were harsh rulers, and Koreans remember colonial times as a national humiliation. Under the Japanese the Korean economy grew rapidly, but Koreans will rightly argue that little of it helped the average Korean. Like the Korean “comfort women” sex slaves during World War Two, Koreans were forced to obey their Japanese masters. Some Koreans complied reluctantly, some willingly and some enthusiastically. Many, but not all of the enthusiastic collaborators came from the landed aristocratic class of Koreans known as the yangban. Other collaborators were traitors that saw advancing their economic and social status by collaborating. After the division of Korea in 1945 many of the yangban class and collaborators fled to the South where they felt safe with the US occupation army, and for good reasons. The North was redistributing the yangban’s vast landholdings. Many of the yangban and collaborators were safer in the US occupied south. Some went on to achieve leadership in business and government in South Korea. For instance, the future South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee (from 1963 until his assassination in 1979) had collaborated with the Japanese as a lieutenant in the Japanese army in Manchuria fighting against the Korean resistance fighters.
Korea has a long history of thousands of years. It united as one people in the 7th century and remained so until after World War Two. The US had started planning for the occupation of Korea six months after Pearl Harbor, according to Bruce Cumings. The day after Japan surrendered a future Secretary of State Dean Rusk drew a line at the 38th Parallel where the US proposed that Korea be divided, and the Russian allies agreed. Thousands of Koreans protested in the streets. They were told that a trusteeship was temporary until elections. Instead the US feared that the people would elect a communist government, and so they rigged a fraudulent election for a separate government in the South. The United Nations rubber stamped it. As in the South, the North then held separate electionsfor the Supreme People’s Assembly which then elected Kim Il Sung, a famous anti-Japanese guerrilla resistance leader since 1932. The US and South Korean propaganda portray that North Korea was a puppet and satellite project of the Soviet Union. This is probably the US projecting its own imperial intentions. Cummings says that no evidence exists that the Soviets had any long-term designs on Korea. They withdrew all of their military from North Korea in 1948.
General Douglas MacArthur, UN Command CiC (seated), observes the naval shelling of Incheon from USS Mount McKinley, 15 September 1950 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
North Korea has experience with US brutality. During the Korean War the US bombed Korea for 3 years, wiped out 20% of its population and destroyed every city, village and vital structure. President Truman threatened to bomb them with the atomic bomb, and General Douglas MacArthur planned to use 30 nuclear bombs which were shipped to a US base in Okinawa. Truman fired MacArthur not because MacArthur wanted to use nukes, but because Truman wanted someone more loyal he could trust with them. Truman pre-authorized MacArthur’s replacement General Matthew Ridgeway to use the nuclear bombs at his discretion. The US public is oblivious to US recklessness with nuclear bombs and is passive about what is done in their name. The Korean War (1950 to 1953) is called the Forgotten War because the US public has amnesia. Whatever propaganda they do remember is a flawed version of history put out by the US government. Oblivious, passive and amnesia are why all US wars of aggression are quickly forgotten as the US moves on to the next one.
After the US military occupation of South Korea from 1945 to 1948, South Korea was ruled by US backed repressive dictators until the first democratic election in 1993. The first despot that the US installed was Syngman Rhee in 1948. Rhee was a practically unknown in Korea because he had lived in the USA from 1912 until 1945, when he was flown back to Korea by the US military. The US pumped billions of dollars into South Korea to make it a showplace of US-style capitalism during the Cold War, but South Korea did not develop under either democracy or a free market, according to Ha-Joon Chang, the author of Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism.
For many decades North Korea outpaced South Korea in economic development and in their standard of living until the 1970’s. With the 1991 demise of its most important trading partner the Soviet Union, North Korea fell on very hard economic times. Then it suffered two floods and a drought in the 1990’s that resulted in famines. On top of that the US has imposed killer economic sanctions. So now US propaganda constantly reinforces the belief that North Korea is an economic failure that cannot even feed its own people. While the US touts that South Korea is an economic miracle of democracy, capitalism and free markets. Little is ever mentioned about the economic collapse of South Korea in 1997, which the US had to rescue with a financial bailout package that reached $90 Billion. The package included IMF loans that came with humiliating conditionalities of austerity. The minister of finance Lim Chang Yuel went on TV, humiliated and begging for the South Korean people’s forgiveness.
Despite all the propaganda otherwise, North Korea is not only willing to sit down at the table with the US, but it has long been proposing negotiations to a deaf USA ear. What North Korea says it wants today are the same things that were negotiated with Clinton in the Agreed Framework: security, compensation, and economic relations with the US. There is nothing unreasonable that North Korea is asking for, and that is probably why the US refuses to negotiate. It does not want peace for its own insane naked imperialism reasons. Instead the US wants continued hostilities; otherwise if it wanted peace it would welcome diplomacy.
It is the US that is unpredictable. One day Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says that the US is willing to hold unconditional talks with North Korea. Then he says the US won’t. Trump says that he will destroy North Korea with fire and fury, and then he says he would “absolutely talk to North Korea’s Kim on the phone”. It is the US that is paranoid and finding enemies everywhere: Cuba, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, and Russia to name just a few. The US enemies list has nothing to do with democracy, freedom and human rights. If it did the US would not be friends, allies, and benefactors to brutal kingdoms, monarchies, dictators, fascists and human rights abusers such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Honduras, Haiti, and Ukraine, for example. US foreign policy is based on hegemony, empire, power, corporate interests, corruption and self-interests of the high and mighty, not democracy and human rights.
Who is paranoid? Compare how much of a threat the US is compared to North Korea. Since World War Two North Korea has not invaded anybody. The Korean War (1950 to 1953) was a civil war and authoritative historians such as I. F. Stone, Bruce Cumings, and David Halberstam agree that the South was responsible for instigating it too. Korea itself has not invaded anybody since the 16th century.
The US has attacked at least 32 countries just since WW2. North Korea has a defense budget of only $7.5 billion, compared to the US $1 Trillion. North Korea has developed nuclear weapons because the US has been threatening it with nuclear destruction since 1950, introduced nuclear weapons into South Korea in 1957 in violation of the armistice agreement and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The US keeps practicing regime change decapitation invasions and nuclear attacks against North Korea. North Korea has an estimated arsenal of 20 nuke bombs that are not a threat to the US’s 15,000 nuclear arsenal. Instead the US is an asymmetrical and existential threat to North Korea and every other non-compliant small country. North Korea has nuclear weapons because it does not want to humiliate itself by being a US poodle. When are the American people going to wise up to the US propaganda and false cries that the evil wolf is at the door again?
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https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/02/whats-brewing-british-american-canadian.html
What’s brewing? British, American, Canadian advisers arrive in Donbass
February 4 , 2018 – FRN –
RT Russian – translated by Inessa Sinchougova
Citing intelligence sources, the representative of Donetsk, Eduard Basurin, has stated that British instructors have arrived in the Donbass, at the locations of the Ukrainian Forces.
“In the area of 93rd separate mechanized brigade in the vicinity of the city of Volnovaha, a group of foreign instructors has arrived – led by a representative of the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, for the purpose of training of Ukrainian servicemen on how to carry out sabotage and subversive activities,” said Basurin.
“In addition to the British, from February 5th to the 9th, a delegation of the US military will join the Brits. They will assess the expenditure of funds that Washington has allocated to the army.”
The DPR stressed that rotation of the Ukrainian military has been completed in the Mariupol district. The marines which came to replace the infantry brigade have participated in the NATO exercises in Georgia in September 2017.
“It is possible that the commander of the 36th Marine Brigade will give an order in the near future to carry out provocative actions and practice the skills gained” said Basurin.
Experts admit that the arrival of foreign instructors directly to the region may indicate possible plans for the escalation of the situation. The director of the Center for Strategic Studies, Ivan Konovalov stated that “the essence of what is happening is that the training of servicemen of the Armed Forces and soldiers of the National Guard was so far, carried out in zones away from the so-called ATO. And now they decided to change the format and conduct training in conditions that are close to combat. We can assume that they will conduct local combat operations of a sabotage character, to check the preparedness of their men. ” said Konovalov.
The same opinion is held by the vice-president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Vladimir Anokhin, who believes that Kiev is planning a major offensive operation in the region.
“There are a number of factors that can be used to judge that Ukraine is preparing for large-scale hostilities – possibly late February or early March. This may well be related to the elections in Russia, ” the expert said.
Note that the UK launched a training program for the Ukrainian military under the name “Orbital” in February 2015. Then it sent 75 military doctors to the country, who provide medical help on the ground. In July 2017 Orbital was extended until 2018. During this time, about 6 thousand Ukrainian soldiers were trained in its framework.
In addition to Britain, Canadian specialists who come to the country within the framework of NATO’s Unifer mission are also training Ukrainian soldiers. In March last year it was reported that 200 instructors had arrived from Canada. The US has recently spent $ 22 million to equip a military training center near Lviv, to accommodate the new training programme.
Overall, there are currently an estimated 900 foreign instructors and foreign mercenaries in the Ukraine.
“We know of about 129 instructors from the United States, Canada, Turkey, Algeria, Lithuania, Latvia, Britain, who coordinate the actions of the Ukrainian units,” said Basurin.
In addition to the above, about 500 people are part of the Georgian National Legion and the Hungarian Battalion Magyar. He also noted that there are about 200 people belonging to international private military companies.
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https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/02/kiev-preparing-blitzkrieg-for-capture.html
Kiev preparing a “blitzkrieg” for the capture of DPR and LPR
February 5 , 2018 – FRN –
DPR – translated by Inessa Sinchougova
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are preparing a ‘blitzkrieg’ to seize the territories of the Donbass between March and June – as announced today by the operational command of DPR, Eduard Basurin, referring to intelligence data.
“The plan provides for military units with the support of artillery to overcome the security zone and break through the first defensive line within DPR and LPR, to take control of advantageous positions.” – he noted.
Kiev will inflict the main damage to the north and south of Donetsk.
“Strikes will be coordinated in the direction of Verkhnetortsekoye, Ilovaysk and towards Maximov, Starobeshevo, Ilovaysk. They will try to overcome the line of combat and break through the first defensive position. Then, having increased their power with the introduction of reserves, they will attempt to cut into Donetsk divisions, to encircle and seize Donetsk.” – said Basurin.
The ultimate goal is to reach Novoazovsk and seize the coast of the Azov Sea.
The invasion of the LPR is planned from the direction of Lutugino. According to Basurin, the data from aerial reconnaissance, equipment at the front line, as well as the active replenishment of fuel and ammunition supplies also testifies to Kiev’s plans.
“I note that the blitzkrieg will not bring the expected result to the Ukrainian side, and in case of armed aggression against the People’s Republics, the enemy will be irreversibly subdued.” – Busurin summed it up.
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https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/02/ukrainian-politician-says-hes-ready-to.html
Ukrainian politician says he’s ready to take on Donbass
February 13, 2018 – FRN –
DPR News – by Inessa Sinchougova
The authorities of Ukraine can regain control over the Crimea only by force. This was stated on air of the Ukrainian television channel “112” by the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada, Yuri Bereza.
The Ukrainian parliamentarian assured that the Ukrainian Army has become “one of the strongest armies in Europe” and now its potential is sufficient for an offensive on Crimea.
“Only the Ukrainian soldier, the Ukrainian army is able to regain sovereignty in the Donbass and Crimea. There are no other options” – said Bereza.
He also added that the Minsk agreements were useful for Ukraine only because they allowed for the necessary military construction to take place and for the reoganisation of the armed forces.
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https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/02/urgent-us-delivers-thousands-of-night.html
Urgent: US delivers thousands of night vision googles for the APU
February 14, 2018 – FRN –
Vesti – by Inessa Sinchougova
The United States has delivered a large batch of night vision devices to Ukraine – two and a half thousand devices to be precise, worth almost $ 6 million. These are enough for arming 10 battalions of Ukrainian army (APU), said the US Ambassador in Kiev Marie Yovanovitch.
As the chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Viktor Muzhenko, said 90% of the help to Kiev is provided by Washington. The US sends “defensive” weapons, as well as military advisers and instructors.
Ukraine is also awaiting a party of American anti-tank missile systems “Javelin”. The APU expects to receive 35 of these and 210 missiles for them, to the amount of 47 million dollars. The bill is paid by the United States.
The Pentagon has also allowed for $250 million dollars to go to arming the Ukraine, as part of its 2019 defense budget.
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https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/02/encircling-us-intends-to-deploy-37-more.html
Encircling: US intends to deploy 37 more missile defense systems around Russia
February 12, 2018 – FRN –
Rusvesna – translated by Inessa Sinchougova
The US administration has asked to allocate funds for the construction of 37 Aegis missile defense systems in Romania and Poland, the operations director of the Missile Defense Agency, Gary Pannett, said on Monday.
“Within the framework of the draft budget for the 2019 financial year, we have requested 1.8 billion dollars for the systems. The missile defense agency will provide 37 Aegis SM-3 systems to facilities in Romania and Poland, as well as on ships along the respective coasts,” Pennett said at a special briefing in the Pentagon.
On Monday, the US administration submitted the draft budget for the 2019 financial year, which begins October 1, 2018, for consideration by Congress.
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https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/02/ukraine-is-dotting-russian-border-with.html
The Ukrainian army is mining the territories at the border with the Russian Federation. This was stated on Tuesday at a briefing by the official representative of Lugansk, Andrei Marochko, referring to intelligence data.
On February 11, the body of a Ukrainian soldier was brought to a morgue of the hospital in Severodonetsk, controlled by Kiev.
“It is known that the serviceman died as a result of an explosion by an unidentified explosive device in the vicinity of Kamyshnoye settlement. As it turned out, this site is where a group of Ukrainian soldiers, which included the deceased, was engaged in the mining of territories near the state border with the Russian Federation.”
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https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/02/syrian-official-highlights.html
Syrian official highlights uncomfortable truths at the UN, points out US assistance and support for ISIS
February 15, 2018 – Fort Russ News – Paul Antonopoulos
NEW YORK CITY – Syrian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Bashar Jaafari voiced severe criticism of the US and its coalition partners, addressing the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York City on Wednesday.
“The attack on 8th of February in northern-eastern Deir Ezzor, that the alliance illegally undertook against the Syrian national forces that were standing against ISIS terrorists, I emphasize this, the region where the Syrian national forces attacked ISIS was under the US protection, north-east of Deir Elzor. It’s a strip with 30 km in width and 65 km in length. IS, which we fought and destroyed, left this Deir Ez-Zor and Abu Kamal, with the US protection and positioned itself at Iraq-Syrian borders. When IS [ISIS] was attacked by Syrian popular forces, the Syrian forces were attacked by the American Air Force, which proves again and without doubt, the real mission of this coalition and the role that Washington plays in supporting ISIS,” Jaafari said.
“Like it did earlier by targeting Syrian national forces in air force attacks at northern Jabal Al-tharda near Deir Elzor, on the 17/09/2016, allowing IS to occupy these regions. Not to mention the deliberate destruction of 90 percent of the city of Raqqa. This coalition has not felt to uphold its commitment to neutralize tens of thousands of mines left behind by Daesh [ISIS] after they left the region to continue their terroristic services under two banners: American in east of Euphrates and Turkish in northern Afrin,” he explained.
“These [coalition] countries have abused the principles of the [UN] charter and they have defied its rules when they assisted terrorist groups and facilitated their acquiring of poisonous chemical weapons, to be used against innocent civilians, after which, manipulating the places and dates of the incidents, and setting up false and misleading testimonies to an investigative mechanism whose integrity and objectivity are a subject of doubt, with the aim of framing the Syrian government. Here, this is a large collection, Mr. President, containing 136 messages that had been sent by the Syrian government to you. 136 messages with very important information about the importing and use of chemical weapons by the terrorists, from outside of Syria into Syria. And they [chemical weapons] were used. 136 messages addressing nothing but the chemical [weapons] issue were distributed as official documents. And they are all in your procession. But no one cares,” he stressed.
“I was very sad to hear the statement by the Special Envoy, which I have listened to carefully, has not remotely touched upon the fact that there exists a US occupation in parts of my country, or the fact that there is a Turkish occupation in parts of my country. The Special Envoy said that there is a cross-border conflict in Afrin, not an unlawful Turkish occupation in my country, and the attack on a Syrian city called Afrin,” he concluded.
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I have earlier provided background on the conflict in the formerly united Ukraine, and in the still united Syria.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.