PSL: Trump threatens, DPRK will not blink

The Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) issued an article in Liberationnews on the justified stance of DPRK against U.S. imperialist threats.

ICP, 10 August 2017

 “A new, nuclear war aimed at annihilating the DPRK, with weapons immensely more powerful than those dropped on Japan, is now being openly promoted by elements of the U.S. ruling establishment” said the article. It referred to the expressions of Sen. Lindsay Graham in an interview, “If there’s going to be a war to stop [Kim Jong Un], it will be over there” and pointed out that  the possible death of thousands of Koreans, Japanese and U.S. troops are ignored by the presidency, “so long as the United States itself is not affected”.

According to the article, after the U.S. refusal of a Russian-proposed amendment stating that the aim of sanctions was not regime change, “Russia bowed to U.S. pressure and voted for the resolution, as did China.” It is known that the Korean War has not officially ended but only suspended by the signing of an armistice in 1953, under the US threat that “if they didn’t sign, the U.S. would destroy all the population centers of the North with nuclear bombs.

The article reminded that the Korean war constituted “the first military defeat for U.S. imperialism, followed 20 years later by its defeat in Vietnam”. It underlined that “North Korea’s militancy and tenacity in its struggle to preserve Korea’s national identity in the face of the U.S. imperialist onslaught remains a characteristic feature of the political and psychological orientation of the DPRK.”

During the annual military maneuvers of the U.S. and South Korean military forces in the region in 2017, the commanding generals “freely spoke of ‘rehearsing’ for invasion of the North and ‘decapitation’ of its leadership.” The article emphasized that the mainstream media in the U.S., both liberal and conservative, acts as as “transmitters of Pentagon propaganda”.

North Korea had put its nuclear weapons program into high gear after in 2002 the then-President George W. Bush labeled North Korea within the “axis of evil” and the next year invaded Iraq and destroyed that country. “The U.S./NATO destruction of Libya after it dismantled its nuclear program reinforced the DPRK leadership’s determination.”

The article underlined that North Korea’s nuclear program is “meant as a deterrent”. It said, “The main factor restraining a U.S. military assault on the DPRK up until now has been the North’s military capacity to hit back at South Korea and Japan if attacked. Both of the latter countries are home to many U.S. bases. In true colonial fashion.

Liberationnews analyzed that this situation causes a debate inside the imperialist ruling class: “One side, represented by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Sen. John McCain, and some leading generals believes that a military attack would be too costly and destabilizing. The other side believes that, as Graham put it, war with North Korea is ‘inevitable, and argues that it should take place sooner rather than later when the DPRK may become militarily stronger’.

While the latter view echoes the arguments for “pre-emptive strikes on the USSR and the People’s Republic of China” during the “Cold War” the U.S. government has “never agreed to a pledge to forego first-strike use of nuclear weapons.” On the other hand, the U.S. presidency has refused the offer of DPRK to suspend its nuclear weapons and long-range missile tests “if the U.S. and South Korea cease their massive military maneuvers, and the United States signs a peace treaty ending the Korean war.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation declared that it rejects “the demonization employed by imperialism against all targeted countries and governments, which is particularly intense towards the people and state of the DPRK.”  The PSL underlined that it stands with the Korean people and also all the people in Asia “who resolutely oppose any new imperialist aggression against the people of North Korea.