“Kim Jong Il Message: War is Coming to US Soil “

This is the heading of an article published in today’s edition of the Asia Times by Kim Myong Chol (“Unofficial” spokesman of Kim Jong-il and North Korea, Kim is the author of a number of books and papers in Korean, Japanese and English on North Korea. He is executive director of the Center for Korean-American Peace.)

Here are the excerpts from the article:
“The Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)announced on October 3 that the DPRK planned to conduct a nuclear test. The Foreign Ministry stated that the planned nuclear test was in response to the grave situation created by the US, where ‘the supreme national security interests of the DPRK are at stake with the Korean nation standing at the crossroads of life and death’.

“Kim Jong-il is the greatest of the peerless national heroes Korea has ever produced. Kim is unique in that he is the first to equip Korea with sufficient military capability to take the war all the way to the continental US. Under his leadership the DPRK has become a nuclear-weapons state with intercontinental means of delivery. Kim is certainly in the process of achieving the long-elusive goal of neutralizing the American intervention in Korean affairs and bringing together North and South Korea under the umbrella of a confederated state.

“Unlike all the previous wars Korea fought, a next war will be better called the American War or the DPRK-US War because the main theater will be the continental US, with major cities transformed into towering infernos. The DPRK is now the fourth-most powerful nuclear weapons state just after the US, Russia, and China.

“The DPRK has all types of nuclear bombs and warheads, atomic, hydrogen and neutron, and the means of delivery, short-range, medium-range and long-range, putting the whole of the continental US within effective range. The Korean People’s Army also is capable of knocking hostile satellites out of action.

“The title “the greatest iron-willed, brilliant commander” is reserved for Kim Jong-il, who has led tiny North Korea to acquire the most coveted membership of the elite nuclear club, braving all the nuclear war threats, sanctions and isolation efforts on the part of the US. It is little short of a miracle that the leader has outmaneuvered and outpowered the Bush administration against heavy odds.

“Revealing are headlines of New York Times articles. One op-ed on February 9, 2005, by Nicholas Kristof is headlined ‘Bush Bites His Tongue’. The article says: ‘There are two words the Bush administration doesn’t want you to think about: North Korea. That’s because the most dangerous failure of US policy these days is in North Korea. President Bush has been startlingly passive as North Korea has begun churning out nuclear weapons like hot cakes.’

“The sole reason for the development of nuclear weapons is more than 50 years of direct exposure to naked nuclear threats and sanctions from the US. The Kim administration seeks to commit nuclear weapons to actual use against the US in case of war, never to use them as a tool of negotiations. It is sheer illusion to think that sanctions and isolation will stop North Korea from the planned nuclear test. US hostility, threats and sanctions are the very engines that have propelled the development of nuclear weapons.

“The US, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, India, Pakistan and Israel conducted numerous nuclear detonation experiments in legitimate exercise of their sovereignty. There is no international convention or treaty that prohibits North Korea from conducting underground nuclear tests.

“The nuclear-armed North Korea will be a major boon to China and Russia. Nuclear-armed, the two countries are friendless in case of war with the US. The US has nuclear-armed allies, such as the UK and France. The People’s Republic of China has every reason to welcome a nuclear-armed North Korea, whatever it may say in public. The nuclear deterrence of North Korea is a major factor in reducing US military pressure on China on the question of the independence of Taiwan.

“The last point is a long, overdue farewell to the nuclear non-proliferation regime, with the Bush administration standing in the dock as prime defendant accused of sabotaging nuclear non-proliferation. Had the Americans been steadfast in upholding the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty by reducing their nuclear weapons and respecting the sovereignty and independence of the non-nuclear states, North Korea would not have felt any need to defend itself with nuclear weapons.”

This is what The Economist has to say: “It is unclear whether North Korea under its dictator, Kim Jong Il, really intends to conduct a nuclear test soon, but satellite monitoring suggests that preparations have been underway for months. Mr Kim craves international attention and may be banging his drum now for various reasons.

“He wants to put pressure on a United States government preoccupied by mid-term elections at home, distracted by violence in Iraq and struggling to deter Iran from building its own nuclear weapons. (Mr Kim may also possibly disapprove of the likely selection of South Korea’s foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, as the UN’s new secretary-general.)

“Making trouble when America is distracted and widely stretched may be Mr Kim’s way to extract concessions from the superpower.

“What will happen next is unclear. Americans and others will be pleased that Mr Kim is feeling that heat as North Korea’s counterfeiting activities are stopped. China and South Korea offer some limited leverage on Mr Kim’s regime.

“China is suggesting that a return to stalled talks that include America, Japan, North and South Korea, may be the only way to negotiate a resolution.”