Before It’s News – by Alton Parish
North Korea has threatened to nullify the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, according to Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service
The North Korean rhetoric appears to be in response to threatened United Nations sanctions that may be put in place following the Feb. 12 North Korean test of a nuclear weapon, DOD officials said last week.
The Republic of Korea – United States Combined Forces Command exercise Key Resolve began today (March 11) and will end March 21.
More than 3,000 U.S. participants from the Republic of Korea and the United States are taking part in the exercise. About 2,500 of these U.S. participants are coming from the U.S. to include the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) military headquarters in Hawaii. PACOM plans to participate in activities like Key Resolve, naval training exercises around Korea, and demonstrations of extended deterrence to improve the capacity of the U.S. –ROK Alliance to deter aggression and to reinforce the United States’ commitment to the Republic of Korea.
“Exercise Key Resolve is a critical exercise in strengthening the readiness of combined Republic of Korea and U.S. forces,” said Gen. James D. Thurman, Combined Forces Command commander. “This year is particularly important, because it is the first time the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff have planned and executed this combined exercise. In doing so, they are taking great strides to assume wartime operational control of forces in Dec. 2015.”
“Soldiers from B Battery, 1st Battalion, 38th Field Artillery Regiment, 210th Fires Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, conducted a live fire exercise with the M-270A1 multiple launcher rocket system at Rocket Valley, South Korea” on March 7. The United States has about 2,600 troops in South Korea.
Credit: U.S. Army
Exercise Key Resolve is an annual combined and joint command post exercise that is executed under various scenarios with the purpose of honing the skills necessary to defend the Republic of Korea by improving ROK-U.S. combined forces’ operational capabilities, coordinating and executing the deployment of U.S. reinforcements, and maintaining ROK military combat capabilities. The exercise is designed to increase Alliance readiness, protect the region, and maintain stability on the Korean Peninsula.
Swedish and Swiss Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission observers will monitor the exercise to ensure it is in compliance with the Armistice Agreement. Five United Nations Command sending states will participate in the exercise: Australia, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, and the United Kingdom.
The United Nations Command notified the North Korean military Feb. 21 of the exercise dates and that Key Resolve is an annual ROK-U.S. combined exercise that is not related to current events on the Korean Peninsula.
Training exercises like Key Resolve are carried out in the spirit of the 1953 ROK-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty. These exercises highlight the longstanding partnership and enduring friendship between United Nations Command sending state nations, help ensure peace and security on the Peninsula, and reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the region.
The North Korean Central News Agency quoted officials in the North saying the threat is because the United States and South Korea are holding annual military exercises.
North Korea “will achieve nothing by threats or provocations, which will only further isolate North Korea and undermine international efforts to ensure peace and stability in Northeast Asia,” said Army Lt. Col. Cathy Wilkinson, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
She said the two exercises — Key Resolve and Foal Eagle — are annual training exercises designed to increase alliance readiness to defend South Korea, protect the region and maintain stability on the Korean Peninsula.
“These exercises are defensive in nature,” Wilkinson said. “There is nothing provocative, unusual, or threatening about these exercises.”
The North Korean military command said, “When the war exercises turn into their main phase after March 11, the Korean War armistice agreement that has existed in its name only, will come to an end.”
North Korea has also been developing a long-range ICBM. U.S. commanders find the North Korean steps “deeply troubling.”
“We have been involved with the review of our plans and our posture related to North Korea, particularly we’ve been working very hard with Pacific Command and Northern Command regarding our ballistic missile defense posture and our ballistic missile defense approach,” said Air Force Gen. C. Robert Kehler, the commander of U.S. Strategic Command. Kehler testified before the House Armed Services Committee today.
The commander of U.S Pacific Command, Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, also testified before the committee. Locklear said the new North Korean dictator, Kim Jong Un, must realize that carrying on this way will be unsuccessful.
“In the end, this is not in the best interest of the people of North Korea, where the average citizen gets about 800 calories a day,” Locklear said. “They spent more money on the missile launch in one day, and they could have fed their entire nation for … one month.”
Meanwhile, U.S. and South Korean forces are monitoring North Korean activities, officials said.
“Obviously, our defensive forces are postured … in case something really crazy were to happen,” Locklear said. “But in the end, we have to … applaud the efforts of the U.N. Security Council as they continue to put pressure on this regime from all sides
Northern Korean Statement
The U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces’ moves to ignite a war against the DPRK are so foolish an option as repeating the history of their miserable fiasco, says Rodong Sinmun Sunday in a bylined article.
It goes on: Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military drills are their premeditated saber-rattling to ignite the second Korean war by straining the situation on the Korean Peninsula to an extreme phase under the pretext of the DPRK’s exercise of its sovereign right.
The aggressor forces of injustice are fated to meet their destruction. In the 1950s the U.S. imperialists perpetrated a surprise armed invasion against the young DPRK by mobilizing the Syngman Rhee puppet clique and even mercenaries of satellite countries. However, the aggressors suffered a miserable defeat in face of the heroic struggle waged by the army and the people of the DPRK all out in the sacred war of justice.
The U.S. armed spy ship Pueblo incident and large spy plane EC-121 incident which took place against the backdrop of ceaseless military provocations of warmongers in the post-war period ended in the surrender of the U.S.
In the 1990s the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces worked hard to ignite a war against the DPRK while talking about unreasonable “nuclear inspection”. But the enemies were hard hit by the DPRK’s solemn proclamation of a semi-war state and its statement declaring the withdrawal from the NPT.
Much upset by this, the U.S. signed the DPRK-U.S. agreed framework and the U.S. president sent even a message of assurances to the DPRK.
The DPRK has turned into a country manufacturing and launching satellites and a political and military power possessed of nuclear deterrent. It includes a high level of smaller, light and diverse A-bombs.
Oblivious of the historic lesson, the U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces are seeking to ignite a war against the DPRK again. This, however, will lead to a final destruction.
The U.S. is sadly mistaken if it feels easy as it is situated across the ocean. The sacred war for the country’s reunification to be waged by the army and the people of the DPRK will be quite different from the Korean war fought in the 1950s.
The U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces would be well advised to clearly understand that their on-going war maneuvers are as foolish actions as repeating the history of their disgraceful defeat.
Han Kil Su, director of the Information Department of the General Association of Koreans in China, issued a statement titled “Koreans will blow up strongholds of aggressors and bring earlier the sacred cause of national reunification” on March 6.
The statement said: The U.S. imperialists and south Korean puppet forces described the joint military exercises as “annual and defensive ones” but the saber-rattling is typical war maneuvers and military drills for a nuclear war against the DPRK from A to Z. It is reckless war hysteria to mount a preemptive attack on the DPRK and ignite an all-out war against it and a blatant challenge to the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
A spokesman for the Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army in a statement declared the resolute stand that it would counter enemies coming in attack with a dagger with a sword, a rifle with an artillery piece and nukes with precision nuclear strike means of Korean style more powerful than them and thus blow up the strongholds of aggression of the hostile forces.
No force on earth can block the army and people of the DPRK from advancing under the wise leadership of the great brilliant Songun commander.
The association and all Koreans in China will join the people in the homeland in blowing up the strongholds of aggressors and bring earlier the great cause of national reunification if the U.S. imperialists and their followers dare ignite a war of aggression against the DPRK.
I think that what’s most important to remember here is that neither country will benefit from an actual nuclear exchange, but the leaders of both countries will benefit greatly from a new cold war, and the arms race that ensues.
I guess the school kids will have to hide under their desks again for ridiculous “shelter drills” so Lockheed-Martin, and G.E. can rake in the bucks for new nukes.