Trump Again Calls North Korea a Nuclear Threat
by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)
Trump’s views depend on what day he’s expressing them - saying one thing, then another, reversing himself time and again - proving nothing his says is credible, a leader never to be trusted, especially on vital issues.
In mid-June, he declared North Korea “no longer a nuclear threat” after summit talks with Kim Jong-un.
After returning to Washington, he tweeted: “Just landed - a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office.”
“There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong-un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!”
He suspended military exercises with South Korea - a hollow gesture, a decision to be reversed any time for any reason. War games are more about saber-rattling with China in mind than the DPRK, neither country threatening any others.
The threat of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula eased for the moment but didn’t end. Summit talks in Singapore didn’t end 70 years of militant US hostility toward Pyongyang, merely cooled them temporarily.
Denuclearizing the peninsula won’t happen as long as iron-clad US guarantees for DPRK security remain unattainable.
Trump’s pledge otherwise isn’t worth the paper it’s written on, betrayal sure to come, similar to reneging on the JCPOA, an international agreement, unanimously approved by the Security Council, making it binding international law.
It didn’t matter. Trump pulled out anyway based on fabricated reasons, wanting to please Israel, and longstanding US plans for regime change in Iran.
Washington is hostile to all sovereign independent states, North Korea no exception - a nation the Truman regime raped and destroyed, falsely blaming the DPRK for his high crime of naked aggression against a sovereign state threatening no one.
Deplorable US policy under 13 US administrations kept Pyongyang marginalized and isolated throughout its entire history. It was included in Bush/Cheney’s deplorable “axis of evil,” threatened with destruction by Trump earlier.
It’s just a matter of time before US hostility toward Pyongyang rears its ugly head again.
Did it already begin? Days after summit talks with Kim, Trump’s rhetoric switched from rocket man to high praise for North Korea’s leader.
On Friday, he reverted to longstanding hostility, saying the DPRK still poses an “extraordinary threat” to America - a bald-faced lie. More on this below.
The reverse has been true throughout North Korean history, why it sought nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles - because of genuinely feared US aggression.
The lesson of Truman’s war remains embedded in the national consciousness forever. Preemptive US aggression remains an ominous possibility - solely because of DPRK sovereign independence, not for any threat it imposes.
Kim, his father and grandfather never attacked another country. North Korea wants peace and stability on the peninsula, its sovereignty respected, unacceptable sanctions lifted, a formal end to the 1950s war, and iron-clad security guarantees.
Chances of Washington obliging are virtually nil. Enemies are needed to justify its unjustifiable militarism, its empire of bases, countless trillions of dollars spent waging endless wars against invented adversaries.
Peace and stability defeat its agenda. Permanent wars and chaos serve it.
On Friday, Trump extended a decade-long executive order, declaring a “national emergency” over a nonexistent DPRK nuclear threat.
It reauthorized hostile US policies against the country, notably leaving harsh sanctions in place, stating “the existence and risk of proliferation of weapons-usable fissile material,” along with North Korean policies and actions constitutes “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States” - a bald-faced lie.
Yet it proves US hostility toward the country remains unchanged, a virtually certain insurmountable obstacle to overcome, the DPRK remaining in Washington’s crosshairs for an indefinite time to come.
The notion of Washington turning a page in relations with North Korea, or any other sovereign independent country not subservient to its interests, is equating fantasy with reality.
It never happened before in the post-WW II era. It won’t happen now with North Korea, nor with other countries on Washington’s target list for regime change.
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