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Some American “experts” say bomb North Korea now. Is that really a sane action?

Big Al
January 10, 2018

After you read this thought provoking piece, please comment and then I will reply via an audio editorial with perhaps guests says Big Al

Bomb North Korea?

The Banality of Evil

Dear Friends of the Ron Paul Institute:

Dr. Paul and I were pretty happy to be able to do a good news story for our Liberty Report on Tuesday. The North and South Koreans met near the DMZ for some 12 hours and agreed on four very important points: First, the North would send a team to South Korea to participate in the Winter Olympics next month. A high-level delegation from the North would accompany the team and the South would allow them to enter even if the individuals were under sanctions. The two Koreas also agreed to follow up with bilateral talks with the aim of relieving military tensions on the Korean peninsula. Third, the two countries agreed to resolve “national problems on our own,” which sounds like a statement addressed to Washington. Finally, they agreed to resume temporary reunions of families separated by war.

Just days before the meeting, US Defense Secretary James Mattis told the press that the North/South discussions would be about participation in the Olympics and nothing else. “This is the sum total of subjects that are going to be discussed,” he said. He spoke with the South Korean defense minister before the North/South meeting and released a read-out of the call stating that the US and South Korea “recognized the dangers of North Korea’s reckless behavior.”

But by all accounts, Mattis got it wrong. South Korea did not limit its discussion with the North to simply Olympic sport nor did South Korea’s post-meeting statement make mention of “reckless behavior” by the North. In fact, the China People’s Daily newspaper announced today that the North Korean Olympic team intends to march into the Olympics together with the South Korean team — a symbolic yet dramatic development that is hard to ignore for those of us who could never have imagined the two Germanys ever reunifying.

As we remarked on our program, it increasingly appears that Washington’s bullying tone and recalcitrant demands that North Korea concede all the cards it holds before being allowed to sit down at the table has rendered the US strangely irrelevant to the whole process. This is similar to US irrelevance in post-ISIS Syria, as years of blockheaded demands that “Assad must go” have eliminated the US from any meaningful role in the political resolution of what remains of the Syrian crisis. Stomping on the ground making demands turns out to be ineffective when facts on the ground cannot be manipulated by sheer will (and arming of jihadist armies to push the point).

Similarly, the US has become much less relevant in the Israel/Palestinian conflict after President Trump’s decision to infuriate the rest of the world and move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

These are all very good things. The more the US becomes irrelevant in conflicts across the globe, the closer we get to a de-facto non-interventionist foreign policy. The State Department can bluster, the President can Tweet insults and demands, the National Security Advisors can threaten to huff and puff and blow their houses down, but the rest of the world is increasingly ignoring these unhelpful threats.

North and South Korea are talking and may soon do more. Syrians have looked to other allies to help fight ISIS and other externally-supported terrorist groups. Though still maintaining illegal bases in Syria, the US is backed into a corner with nothing to add and nowhere to go. The Palestinians and even the Israelis understand that the heavy hand of the US in their dispute looks more like a sign of weakness as the rest of the world just ignores its demands at the UN.

All good news for us — the real patriots — who wish to see the backs of the neocons and those who push anti-American, interventionist foreign policies.

But the neocons are not quite finished yet. That’s where the title of this update comes in.

Writing in Foreign Policy — the flagship publication of the Council on Foreign Relations — just Monday, the warmongering neoconservative Edward Luttwak published an article titled, “It’s Time to Bomb North Korea.”

Because he does not expect that the North/South talks will produce the disarmament of North Korea, he argued in the piece that North Korea must be brought to heel by US bombs. His model for the US attack is Israel’s strike on Iraq in 1981 on Syria in 2007, both of which obliterated nuclear facilities ensuring that only Israel would be a Middle East nuclear weapons power.

One by one the military “expert” Luttwak assures us that such an attack will be a cakewalk. The North Koreans are almost surely bluffing about their capacity to hit the continental United States with a missile, he argues. Besides, he writes, there are probably only about three dozen facilities that would need bombed. “Under no reasonable military plan would destroying those facilities demand thousands of airstrikes,” he assures us.

And the Chinese? Don’t worry about them, writes Luttwak, they’re actually on our side: “Anybody who believes China would act on North Korea’s behalf in the event of an American attack against its nuclear installations has not been paying attention.” (In fact, China explicitly warned Washington that it would back North Korea if the US attacks first).

But what about a post-attack North Korea imploding, with millions of refugees pouring over the borders and untold misery? Not even worth worrying about, Luttwak tells us. Once North Korea has been brought to its knees by US bombs, it can be forcibly reunified with South Korea and the end result won’t be much different than German reunification.

And the millions of South Koreans (and estimated quarter of a million Americans) living in range of North Korea’s formidable retaliatory missile capabilities? Won’t they be decimated in a holocaust not known for decades? No concern to Luttwak. They have it coming. Writes Luttwak:

It’s true that North Korea could retaliate for any attack by using its conventional rocket artillery against the South Korean capital of Seoul and its surroundings, where almost 20 million inhabitants live within 35 miles of the armistice line. U.S. military officers have cited the fear of a “sea of fire” to justify inaction. But this vulnerability should not paralyze U.S. policy for one simple reason: It is very largely self-inflicted.
“Self-inflicted.” The South Koreans have it coming.

Luttwak tells us that many defense experts (including himself) have advised South Korea for years to move its ministries and bureaucrats away from the northern border and to give incentives for the population to do so as well. To no avail. And South Korea has not bothered to invest in Iron Dome anti-missile batteries either.

So they have it coming. Millions will die but it’s just tough luck. “[A]ny damage ultimately done to Seoul cannot be allowed to paralyze the United States in the face of immense danger to its own national interests,” Luttwak says.

And who provides for Luttwak’s comfortable living as he pushes war and misery for others? Washington Beltway think-tankistan of course! Luttwak is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a massive policy center drowning in cash from the military-industrial complex. A glance at their corporate donors tells the tale: Northrup-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Saudi Aramco, General Dynamics, General Electric, Raytheon, Booz Allen Hamilton, etc.

The military-industrial complex makes billions off of pointless wars, they plow millions back into Washington think tanks to purchase “policy papers” and articles such as “It’s Time to Bomb North Korea,” and they get more wars and more billions.

It is evil. It wears a suit and tie. It even goes to church on Sundays. But it robs the future of millions overseas, it robs our future, it robs our children of any hope for security or prosperity as trillions are wasted and enemies multiplied.

Edward Luttwak should be called out for what he is: a monster inciting mass murder. A buttoned-up “intellectual” who sees other people as less human and therefore less deserving of their lives.

Yet there he is, writing in mainstream publications, being treated as an “expert” by the mainstream media. The mainstream-ization of extreme violence by warmongers like Luttwak comes back to us. Violence, mass-shootings, militarized police. It’s all a cancer on our society that leads back to people like Luttwak. People who hide their evil behind the banality of a keyboard.

We are doing our part to fight back against the neocons and we are making progress. We will not allow their lies to go unchallenged. We will not allow their evil to prevail. Please help us amplify our voice with a tax-deductible donation to the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. Let’s work together for a better, neocon-free future.
Thank you very much for your continued support for peace and prosperity.

Sincerely yours,
Daniel McAdams
Executive Director
Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity

Discussion
36 Comments
    Jan 10, 2018 10:18 AM

    Hillary and the rest of the neocons would bomb without hesitation — that should tell you how sane such action would be.

      Jan 10, 2018 10:39 AM

      Good point, Matthew.

        Jan 10, 2018 10:47 AM

        I would add that preemptive strikes go directly against the principles that the U.S. was founded on — the ones that made it better than any other country. Of course I realize that those principles were abandoned, for the most part, a very long time ago.

          Jan 10, 2018 10:04 PM

          I whole heartily agree, Matthew!

    CFS
    Jan 10, 2018 10:23 PM

    Given the available weaponry we have.

    Bombing would be stupid.

    (Besides, did we not recently knock out their last rocket attempt using American beam weapons from an aircraft in proximity.?
    And did not SpaceX just put similar satellite capability up?

    CFS
    Jan 10, 2018 10:31 PM

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-10/china-officials-are-said-to-view-treasuries-as-less-attractive
    (sarcasm on)
    Surprize, surprize! Man, you could not see that coming!
    (Sarcasm off)

      Jan 10, 2018 10:10 PM

      At this moment in time, CFS, I am a bit surprised at The Chinese actions regarding our “paper”.

    CFS
    Jan 10, 2018 10:35 PM

    Ron Paul on Military Industrial Complex:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH8g1dPzmGY

      Jan 10, 2018 10:11 PM

      Thanks CFS, spending as much time as I do chatting with Ron, Glen, and certainly Daniel, I am very aware of how Dr. Paul feels and I am in complete agreement with him.

    Jan 10, 2018 10:36 PM

    edward luttwak !!! Just another jewish warmonger. Who worked for the UK , French , & isrealy millitary….Go to Wikipedia , & learn all about this piece of SCUM.

      Jan 10, 2018 10:11 PM

      Thanks Mr. Irish!

    CFS
    Jan 10, 2018 10:38 PM

    And Ron Paul talking about N.Korea a week ago:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqg8E8vgwLk

      Jan 10, 2018 10:14 PM

      Exactly where this posting came from Professor!

    CFS
    Jan 10, 2018 10:41 PM

    Overview of N. Korea-US situation.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hwdQiJZB1s

    You guys need to keep up!

      Jan 10, 2018 10:21 PM

      Appreciate you constructive criticism, Professor

    Jan 10, 2018 10:44 PM

    The two Koreas speaking to each proves, the South Koreans dont want to die on the alter of the Zionest warmongering BASTARDS to please their MIC masters.

      Jan 10, 2018 10:22 PM

      I don’t believe that it is as simple as “Zionist warmongering as you call it. I think it is just plain an agenda that is completely insane!

        GH
        Jan 10, 2018 10:51 PM

        Maybe, maybe not, Al.

        I’d be interested to hear how you define the insane agenda.

        Two possibilities occur to me:

        1) International Finance wants to assimilate N Korea, one of the few remaining holdouts. This is most definitely a Zionist project, the same one that enslaved the US a century ago.

        2) The MIC needs Korea as a pretext for maintaining an East Asian beach head to project force against China and Russia. Korea itself doesn’t matter much, but global hegemony does. When I look at the crowd pushing US global hegemony, the Neocons have been the protagonists. Neocons = Zionists.

        Zionism isn’t just about a homeland for the Jews. Their supremacist literature is very clear on the fact that they believe they are meant to rule the world. And their behavior, of propagandizing the world and enslaving it financially certainly support that goal.

          Jan 10, 2018 10:12 PM

          Well, I guess but I just think that they are covering their asses. More on that in a future editorial. I promise!

    Jan 10, 2018 10:32 PM

    Another nut-ball! Where do they find these people? From the same school of thought as Cheney, Wolfowitz, Kristol, Perle, Negroponte, Rumsfeld and Kissinger.
    They like to spawn the ideas and then let others do the fighting and dying. True Chicken Hawks. The world would be much better off if someone pre-emptively removed their tongues. I simply can’t grasp what kind of a warped mind can casually write off a few million Koreans or any other race of people as if they’re worth no more consideration than the leaves that blow in our yards during the fall.
    I expect things in Korea to return to the respective stances after the Olympics but if something else more positive transpired, we couldn’t ask or hope for more!

      Jan 10, 2018 10:24 PM

      That, Silverdollar, is a wise and timely comment my friend!

    Jan 10, 2018 10:50 PM

    Why must there always be fighting and killing? Why can’t we have peace in the valley?
    Fortunately my draft lottery number is 283. What’s your number, Al, Doc, Matthew, Excelsior?

      Jan 10, 2018 10:14 PM

      Your number will be picked soon by “The Grim Reaper”. LOL! DT

      Jan 10, 2018 10:25 PM

      As Mr. Tracy astutely points out, my number will soon be picked up by the “Happy Reaper”!

    DC
    Jan 10, 2018 10:06 PM

    There may be hope on the horizon. https://youtu.be/DT4mP1TiH8Q (0:53)
    Clif talks about the N Korea & China issue, along with a number of other findings… like the end of TPTB and its minions.

      Jan 10, 2018 10:15 PM

      I really don’t understand why we just don’t let them go at it, GH!

        GH
        Jan 11, 2018 11:11 AM

        Because the current course of action is too useful, and too profitable, to the usual suspects. The well-being of the people in the countries affected, or of the US, be damned.

        SGH
        Jan 11, 2018 11:22 AM

        I find that all these chronic, festering problems make a lot more sense when one drops the comforting illusion that we live in a system where decency tends to prevail.

        We live in a system run by criminals.

        Or has some hero dethroned the mafia that took control with a coup d’etat in 1963, and I missed it?

    Jan 10, 2018 10:15 PM

    SEE YOU ALL TOMORROW WITH MORE COMMENTARY! TIME FOR A BIT OF GREAT RED WINE!