Playing Nuclear Games in Korea

Western media is quick to label the DPRK (North Korea) as acting badly. Why would pesky Pyongyang cause trouble now?

Partly it's provoked by war games now being staged around & very near their nation. For about seven weeks, the USA, ROK (South Korea), Japan, and assorted minor allies are now holding huge military exercises around North Korea.

South Korea's Yonhap News Agency explains (link) this is the largest ever such peacetime military maneuver, going under the "exercise" names Key Resolve (키 리졸브),  OPLAN 5015 and Foal Eagle (독수리 연습). Over a quarter million Allied troops are mobilizing for these "games"...

South Korea's main military website is spooky - defensive or offensive? - with what first seems an ominous countdown clock...
http://www.jcs.mil.kr/mbshome/mbs/jcs2/

Many criticize OPLAN 5015, our plan to Keep America in Korea:
OPLAN 5015 (Start World War III?)

(some OPLAN 5015 background here - link)

If America's enemies were gathering in Chesapeake Bay, or within a hundred miles of our nation's capital, we'd certainly be upset.

Why trigger war?  Who benefits?
Arms merchants & failed politicos rejoice. 
But common folk are killed, poisoned & maimed.

Take yo' Yankee Ass Elsewhere

US Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions III, attacked Hawai'i (audio mp3 link) for participating in American government: "I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the President of the United States ..."

Native Hawaiians did not invite Yankee occupation.

It's Simple Jeff: "Let My People Go!"

Aggression & violence in Hawai'i -- then very far from America's borders

Bicycle Day .. 19th April

Enjoy 19 April "Bicycle Day" but be sure to take care. Those out-of-practice can easily injure themselves or lose their way... Learning Simple Dismounts can hurt. Offroad walks are safer - explore wisely.

Rhetoric and Nuclear Devastation

The United States boycotted last month's United Nations conference to ban nuclear weapons. They urged their allies to keep away, and some 40 nations failed to participate.

But 132 nations & 220 civil society organizations met and discussed and debated. They'll reconvene 15 June to 7 July 2017, and hopefully will agree a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination. 

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) already requires the signatory states to "undertake effective measures in the direction of nuclear disarmament" -- the USA signed the NPT in 1968, yet the nuclear states have failed to fulfill their obligations. Most recently, the governments of Barack Obama & Donald Trump have ignored the nuclear weapons pullback & shutdown obligation (the disarmament promise keeps non-nuclear states pledged to stay that way). 

The nations boycotting the March 2017 UN Conference violate the NPT Article VI: "Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control."

Bullshit aside, what did the USA & other nuclear nations and their puppet governments truly achieve by refusing to talk & participate?

Nuked Japanese citizens speak against nuclear weapons.
But Japan's "pragmatic" government refuses to ruffle allies.

Korea & Japan are most exposed, yet don't speak up. 

But pity all people of the world... 

Watch nuclear test explosion 'Turk' 
-- frightful 43 kt blast, Nevada 1955 by US Govt.


Links:
 
Nikki Haley yaps outside, as facts discussed inside

“Treaties often change the behavior of non-party States"

Japan abstains from negotiations

Both South & North Korea skip nuclear weapon ban talks

Canada fails to join historic talks at the United Nations

Opportunity Korea?

Korea is now a convenient target. 

Even South Korea's domestic media is alarmed (link), though accustomed to living in the shadow of North Korean uncertainty. Japan, mocked in the past as consistently willing to fight to the last Korean, in fact is always terribly concerned about refugee troubles & fallout if warfare were to erupt on the Korean peninsula. There's further worries of Japan as a target -- (as Korea's rival) otherwise gaining advantages from mutual North & South Korean destruction. Japan's Foreign Ministry issued a safety notice (11 April) warning "pay attention to the situation on the Korean Peninsula"　(link, in Japanese) -- the wording's vague, but watch for families of officials being evacuated, and you flee likewise ... [Update: (14 April) 600,000 people have been ordered immediately evacuated from North Korea's capital]

Three weaknesses make conditions remarkably unstable now:

1) The impeachment & arrest of President Park Geun-hye has left a leadership vacuum. I've no insider knowledge, but many of the accused's crimes should have been known to U.S. intelligence, considering the closeness of the partnership. North Korea considers South Korea a puppet state of the USA, and reasonably question why Park & her government were sacrificed (yet Park's 'teflon aide' Woo Byung-woo has thus far eluded arrest). Neighbor Japan's leadership weakness is PM Abe's desperation to have the world forget his family involvement with ultra-rightwing Moritomo Gakuen's proposed Shinzō Abe Elementary School (安倍晋三記念小学校). Leadership deficit in the USA stems from the inexperience of the Trump regime. Could nuclear war truly be triggered to erase perceived shortcomings of manliness? China's leadership seems the most reliable, and their BBC headline today is "China fears North Korea-US conflict 'at any moment'"

2) Former President Park's government agreed to American requests to deploy the US Army's THAAD missile system in the center of South Korea (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-ballistic missile system, in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang Province). Highly alarmed by what they see as an arms escalation, China instituted very-costly commercial boycotts of South Korea. THAAD could easily further trigger regional chaos, but there's also still a few weeks before it goes live & operational (reportedly June 2017). Does that create a dangerous window?

3) US President Trump is discovering overseas military action diverts American attention from domestic corruption, official incompetence, and other internal weaknesses. But Syrian intervention is unsustainable, as Americans resist investing more in the morass of the Middle East. North Korea (DPRK) is a convenient enemy. The seemingly achievable goal of regime change may entail substantial regional costs, but perhaps Trump & Co. will take the risk.

Hint: Recent news that Steve Bannon is no longer a regular member of the National Security Council ... better positions the White House Chief Strategist away from nuclear blowback & fallout.

Very Sorry Asian friends:  Prepare for the worst !

Who'll profit from Korean instability?

Shame of Japan

There's no question ultra-right wing Moritomo Gakuen received special favors and valuable land almost free with help from the Japanese Finance Ministry & Osaka Prefectural Government.

A land plot sized 9492 m2 in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture was sold by the central government to Toyonaka Municipality in 2010 for ¥1423 million.

Moritomo wanted the adjacent 8770 m2 valued at ¥956 million.
And it was offered to them for just ¥134 million.

And further, "the government separately paid more than ¥131.76 million to Moritomo Gakuen to help decontaminate the land before it was sold." (link)

So in June 2016, Moritomo was allowed to get ¥956 million land for ¥2.24 million.
>> In other words, they paid $21,840. for land worth US$9,320,840.
The ultranationalists paid less than 1/400th, very far below 1% 

Then Japanese Finance Ministry officials kept the sale details secret (link), and destroyed records.

Japan's Prime Minister Abe & his family were involved.

SHAME

Buying Justice

Lawyer & Judge Neil Gorsuch, nominated to the US Supreme Court
  [Update - now confirmed, sworn, and in office. God Help Us.]

photo: Reuters