Mushroom clouds over North Korea?

Mushroom clouds over North Korea?

By

LeRoy Goldman

Columnist

BlueRidgeNow.com

September 17, 2017

North Korea has been known as the “Hermit Kingdom” since the 17th century. But under the rule of Kim Jong-un since 2011, and his father and grandfather before him, North Korea’s isolation, brutality and quest for weapons of mass destruction have come to dominate its existence.

North Korea has the world’s fourth-largest army. Much of its military might is located just north of the 38th parallel and within 35 miles of Seoul, where there are about 150,000 Americans, including about 25,000 American troops.

The North Korean military arsenal massed near Seoul is protected by a vast labyrinth of underground caves and bunkers that house artillery and rocket launchers. It also houses immense quantities of chemical weapons such as nerve gas. An assault by North Korea against the South would be devastating.

North Korea is the most repressive nation in the world. Freedom is forbidden. Kim’s regime makes extensive use of political prison camps.

North Korea derives several billion dollars of hard currency annually from abroad to fund its development of nuclear weapons and ICBMs by exporting hundreds of thousands of its citizens as slave laborers to dozens of countries around the world. Additional hard currency to fuel the regime’s aggressive nuclear and long-range ballistic missile program comes from illicit arms sales to nations such as Syria and terrorist groups such as Hezbollah.

And now, after years of failure by the U.S. to prevent North Korea from having the ability to threaten the American homeland with nuclear missiles, Kim has ballistic missiles that can reach us, has almost certainly detonated a hydrogen bomb, and will soon be on the verge of arming his ICBMs with hydrogen warheads.

When one listens to American military and diplomatic experts opine on North Korea, their refrain frequently suggests the U.S. has few, if any, good options to prevent Kim from acquiring nuclear first-strike technology. In code, many of them are saying, therefore, that we should do nothing. James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, recently told CNN, “I don’t think a denuclearized North Korea is in the cards.” That’s music to Kim’s ears.

A logic that suggests we can’t prevent an adversary from acquiring nuclear capability that threatens us, and that we can’t take action once such an adversary has that capability, is perverted and dangerous.

A careful analysis of this nation’s prosecution of war, since the Korean War in 1950, leaves way too much to be desired. Our intelligence community missed totally the entry of nearly 300,000 Chinese troops in the Korean War. Many regard that as the most colossal intelligence blunder in this nation’s history.

In Vietnam, what our experts believed was Soviet and Chinese communist expansion was in fact a civil war that, even with more than a half-million troops, we lost.

In Afghanistan, we are now in the 17th year of attempting to do what Alexander the Great, the British Empire and the Soviet Union failed to do. Like them, we will fail.

In Iraq, we thumped our chests at the outset of war by proclaiming “shock and awe” and left years later with a failed nation ripe for international terrorists.

So let’s give these experts in the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom and academia their due, a grain of salt.

There are two paths forward. There is no doubt that China can oust Kim. It could do so in many different ways. For example, turning off the flow of oil from China to Pyongyang would be checkmate for Kim.

President Donald Trump should send Jon Huntsman, former ambassador to China, to Beijing. He speaks Mandarin, and the Chinese leadership knows and respects him.

Huntsman’s message to them should be unmistakably clear: Kim and his regime must be replaced immediately or it will be annihilated by the U.S. If Huntsman can convince Beijing that its choices are either unpalatable or horrific, they may see the light.

If China rebuffs the offer, this nation should employ sufficient military might, including the use of nuclear weapons, to do what Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said is possible: the “total annihilation” of North Korea.

Such an assault cannot simply be restricted to Kim’s nuclear facilities. Doing only that assures a devastating counter response against South Korea by Kim. No, the assault must necessarily destroy the entirety of Kim’s regime and his ability to make war.

The U.S. waited to respond until after Pearl Harbor and after 9/11. Waiting until after Chicago and Los Angeles amounts to criminal negligence.

The eradication of Kim would have additional beneficial consequences. It would change totally the working assumptions in places such as Teheran, Damascus, Raqqa, Kabul, Islamabad, Beijing and Moscow. How nice is that?

Times-News columnist LeRoy Goldman is a Flat Rock resident. Reach him at:

EmailMe