PRESS RELEASE
Calls in South Korea, U.S., for Preemptive Strike on North
Feb. 12, 2016 (EIRNS)—The chief editorial writer for the Korea Times, Oh Young-jin, posted an editorial Feb. 8 titled: "Would a preemptive strike work on North Korea?" Not only does he promote dropping a "bunker-buster to wipe out the communist leadership hunkered down underground," but references Obama’s Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in his defense. Oh reports that Carter co-authored a book in 1999 with then-Secretary of Defense William Perry, titled Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America. Carter and Perry also published an op-ed in the Washington Post on June 22, 2006, openly calling for a preemptive attack on North Korea, arguing that "intervening before mortal threats to U.S. security can develop is surely a prudent policy." (Perry has recently strongly warned that U.S. policy has brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Ash Carter, on the other hand, is at the center of that drive for a nuclear war on behalf of Obama.)
Oh also notes:
"The new OPLAN 5015, a joint ROK-U.S. war plan, was formulated last year to contain elements of a preemptive strike, an update from the previous OPLAN 5027, reportedly to accommodate the contingency of the North’s use of nuclear weapons. So far, neither South Korea nor the United States has dared make one because of the risk of millions of people being killed in the ensuing full-fledged war."
Demonstrating the closure between Bush and Obama’s insane war policies, G.W. Bush’s brother Jeb, when asked in the Feb. 6 Republican presidential debate if there should be a preemptive strike on North Korea, answered: "If a preemptive strike is necessary to keep us safe, then we should do it."
The Congress approved today a new set of sanctions on North Korea, passing a bill in the House 408-2 which had been passed in the Senate 96-0 earlier in the week. It will now go to Obama to sign. The bill imposes new sanctions on companies and individuals involved in North Korea’s nuclear-weapons program and cyber warfare operations, but also targets third parties—anyone doing business with those entities.
The former head of the Korea Desk at the State Department intelligence unit INR, Dr. John Merrill, gave an interview to the Korean paper Hankyoreh, posted today, calling the South Korean closing of Kaesong Industrial Complex in the North "misguided," saying a permanent closure would be a tragedy, and that the moves might cause more damage to South Korea than to North Korea.
Addressing both Seoul and Washington, Merrill said:
"Pressure tactics just won’t work with North Korea on something that it regards as a core issue related to national survival. There is no chance that Pyongyang will just fold up its program."
It’s important to remember that US economic sanctions prompted the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he added.
"Now is the time for both sides to cool off, calculate the risks posed by current tensions, and look for ways to walk back the crisis."
