North Korea has the right to self-defense!

 The following is a statement issued by the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

The North Korean people have endured Washington’s aggression for decades—but they are ready to fight back.

“It is the view of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the necessary air, naval, and ground operations, including the extensive strategic and tactical use of atomic bombs, be undertaken, so as to obtain maximum surprise and maximum impact on the enemy, both militarily and psychologically.” The chilling decision, as communicated in the above words by Gen. Omar Bradley, was made on May 19, 1953.

It was only North Korea’s signing of the truce in July of that year that averted the nuclear destruction of the country by the Pentagon.

All people in North Korea know the history of U.S. nuclear threats, massive carpet bombing, invasion and massacres against their country.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1967, more than 5 million Korean people died during the war between June 25, 1950, and the conclusion of military hostilities in July 1953.

Today, Korea is threatened with a new war and the government of North Korea is preparing for military conflict.

An official communiqué of the government of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or North Korea, explained that “The DPRK will deal a decisive and merciless retaliatory blow, no matter from which place, at any attempt to stop, check and inspect its vessels, regarding it as a violation of its inviolable sovereignty and territory and a grave provocation to it.”

On May 27, the North Korean government nullified the 1953 truce between Korea and the United States that ended open military hostilities.

This is a highly significant decision and an indication that the Korean Peninsula has become hypertense with the prospect of a new, major war. For years, North Korea has called for a replacement of the truce with a peace treaty that would allow for normalization of its relations with the United States. Washington has refused to sign such a peace treaty, and thus remains technically at war with North Korea, as it has now for the past 59 years.

What triggered the new conflict?

The rapidly escalating march toward a new war is the result of the new economic sanctions and political demonization of North Korea by the U.S. government. When North Korea launched a communications satellite in April, the United States and Japan scrambled land, air and sea power, and rallied for sanctions even harsher than those already in place.

The hysteria directed against North Korea reached a frenzied crescendo when the Korean government announced on May 25 that it had successfully carried out an underground nuclear test. The United States and its allies in the Security Council in the United Nations passed a harsh resolution condemning North Korea.

The Pentagon maintains 9,962 nuclear warheads and performs an unknown number of test launches with the most advanced military weaponry in the world. But these are not mere tests. With this military might, the United States has launched war of aggression after war of aggression, illegal covert action after illegal covert action. Yet somehow, hypocritically, Washington retains the title of the “responsible” military power while North Korea is portrayed as an aggressor nation for taking such threats seriously—for having dared to even test their comparatively small arsenal.

Washington’s aggression has given North Korea a simple choice: Arm yourselves, or be annihilated. That was the lesson of the Iraq war. By means of genocidal sanctions, Washington pushed Baghdad to disarm. While presented by U.S. officials as a condition to end the sanctions, the disarmament only paved the way for the 2003 invasion. The goal is the same in North Korea as it was in Iraq: regime change.

U.S. and South Korean ships have threatened to seize and search any North Korean vessel under the pretext that they may be transporting weapons of mass destruction or related technology. A North Korean military spokesperson responded: “Any hostile act against our peaceful vessels, including search and seizure, will be considered an unpardonable infringement on our sovereignty.” The North Korean government will rightly consider it an act of war.

The North Korean government has adopted a military strategy of deterrence with the goal of maintaining its independence and sovereignty. Its standing military and arsenal serve to protect its right to self-determination, to defend the gains of its socialist revolution, and to hold off the capitalist plunder that would follow its overthrow by Washington. Having defended its country from a near-genocidal assault between 1950 and 1953, the North Korean government has made it clear to all that, while it seeks peace and the normalization of relations with the United States, it has readied all weapons in its arsenal to defend itself against its nuclear-armed foe.

Hands off North Korea!