“RECONSIDERING” OR ADVANCING?
by Sharon Rondeau
(Aug. 12, 2017) — On Saturday, Fox News reported that an “editorial” in a North Korean publication has issued a new threat, claiming that the North Korean military is “on standby to launch” missiles at the U.S. “mainland.”
Tensions between the U.S. and North Korea have escalated over the last week, even as the communist regime has test-fired a number of missiles since early this year.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un is believed to have nuclear capability and on Tuesday threatened to target the U.S. territory of Guam, some 2,100 miles away, with a quadruple missile attack.
The full quote provided by Fox from the North Korean article says that the rogue regime is “on the standby to launch fire into its mainland, waiting for an order of final attack.”
As a communist nation, freedom of speech is nonexistent in North Korea.
A second quote from the article as reported by Yahoo! News describes the U.S. as exhibiting “‘the last-ditch efforts and hysteric fit of those who are in the grip of despair’ over the ‘tragic doom’ of the ‘American empire.'”
If North Korea follows through on its threat directed at Guam, the missiles will pass over Japan, for which that nation has prepared by “deploying its Patriot missile defence system,” according to Yahoo!.
Yahoo! reported that the citizens of Guam have “shrugged off” the North Korean specter by engaging in their customary activities, something its governor has encouraged amid rising concerns. Earlier on Friday, Guam Governor Eddie Calvo spoke on the phone with Trump about North Korea’s rising threats. “We’re with you a thousand percent,” Trump told Calvo. “You’re not going to have a problem.”
On Thursday, Calvo had reacted favorably to Trump’s statement made in a press conference on Wednesday that North Korea would face “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if it attacks U.S. interests or its allies. “As far as I’m concerned, as an American citizen, I want a president that says that if any nation such as North Korea attack Guam, attack Honolulu, attack the West Coast, they will be met with he** and fury,” Calvo told Brian Kilmeade on Thursday’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” Kilmeade was guest-hosting for the vacationing Carlson.
As North Korea has become more belligerent in both its words and actions over the summer, Trump has conferred with both Japanese and Chinese officials, having met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and communist Chinese leader Xi Jinping early in his presidency.
In a telephone call between Trump and Xi on Friday, the latter reportedly urged Trump to reduce the tone of his rhetoric against North Korea, which trades heavily with China.
China has not placed its full diplomatic weight on North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons development. It did, however, vote in favor of increasing economic sanctions in a 15-0 measure at the United Nations Security Council last Saturday.
On Friday morning, Trump tweeted that the U.S. military is prepared to take action against North Korea if given the order.
Diplomatic methods to defuse the crisis are reportedly ongoing. On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, while en route to Guam, that “what we’re hopeful is that this pressure campaign, which the entire world now has joined us in, and with the engagement of China and Russia, two of North Korea’s closest neighbors – that they can begin to persuade the regime that they needed to reconsider the current pathway they’re on and think about engaging in a dialogue about a different future.”