REVEALED: PLAN TO CALL N. KOREA'S BLUFF
As regular JYB readers know, I've been saying for a while now that the Bush Administration is going to attempt to provoke a war with N. Korea (with the sincere hope that Kim Jong-il backs down first -- possibly with China's prompting). We clearly need to have a credible threat of force in place to have any chance for peace. Kim is convinced we're too petrified of nukes to do anything about him now. Technically it could be argued that we're the ones that have been threatened into the provocative pre-war posture we're about to take. Think Libya: 1986I've been in favor of using the ultra-aggressive blockade and surveillance of N. Korea as a way to continue to defend America from nuclear terror without interference of the the State Dept, liberal politicians and the worldwide Communist-led protest machine. All plagued our runup to war with Iraq and allowed Saddam to import and train more terrorists, export/hide his WMD, and otherwise construct a plan for his Fedayeen war and our current post-war troubles.
In the case of Korea, any sensible preemptive strike plan will be bitterly opposed by liberals. They will cite nuclear weapons as the reason we must give in to blackmail. That would give Kim additional Saddam-like boldness to ignore us, and the additional time continue nuke development. So the Pentagon is going with an alternate plan.
Now we have the leaking of Operations Plans that back up what I've been theorizing about our designs for Korea.
Elements of the draft, known as Operations Plan 5030, are so aggressive that they could provoke a war, some senior Bush administration officials tell U.S. News.
Adm. Thomas Fargo, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, and senior Pentagon planners are developing the highly classified plan. The administration insiders, who are critical of the plan, say it blurs the line between war and peace. The plan would give commanders in the region authority to conduct maneuvers--before a war has started--to drain North Korea's limited resources, strain its military, and perhaps sow enough confusion that North Korean generals might turn against the country's leader, Kim Jong Il. "Some of the things [Fargo] is being asked to do," says a senior U.S. official, "are, shall we say, provocative."
...One scenario in the draft involves flying RC-135 surveillance flights even closer to North Korean airspace, forcing Pyongyang to scramble aircraft and burn scarce jet fuel. Another option: U.S. commanders might stage a weeks-long surprise military exercise, designed to force North Koreans to head for bunkers and deplete valuable stores of food, water, and other resources. The current draft of 5030 also calls for the Pentagon to pursue a range of tactical operations that are not traditionally included in war plans, such as disrupting financial networks and sowing disinformation.
...But if the Pentagon gives commanders more authority to take aggressive actions in peacetime, as contemplated in Plan 5030, it risks tripping over the president's--and Congress's--authority to commit the nation to war, says a senior official. "Who decides when to go to war?" the official asks. "Good question."
In my view, we let Kim Jong-il decide. If he wants war, he attacks us and we fight a war -- sooner rather than later. He's already threatened us enough, and it's time to press him before he can actually do all he claims he will do. It's time to end the blackmail and shut down the nuclear fuel reprocessing that we just detected.
This warplan leaking by Bush opponents -- most likely in the pro-Kim State Dept this time -- is what stopped us from considering a surprise attack on Baghdad last year using a small (50,000 man) force to decapitate the regime. If I remember right, it was Bush opponents in the Pentagon that leaked our Iraq warplans to the NY Times.
Why Bush and Ashcroft continue to allow internal enemies to harm national security and disrupt pending operations, I'll never know. The stakes are too high.
From a recent high-ranking defector: "Strike N. Korea before it's too late"
The United States is however the only power that can end the Kim Il-Sung dynasty's nuclear blackmail tactics and the enslavement of the North Korean people, Park argued.
"Many North Koreans believe that the United States is their savior and the only nation that can liberate North Korea," he said. The flood of hate-America propaganda from North Korea represents only the relatively small number of people around Kim Jong-Il, he said.
"We cannot expect to bring down the regime of Kim Jong-il by internal means," Park said. "A pre-emptive U.S. strike against selected targets inside North Korea will succeed," he said.
"U.S. strikes against North Korean targets would force Kim Jong-il to seek asylum in China. Kim is a coward. If attacked, he will flee. The North Korean army would not fight after the regime collapsed," he said.
Park heads the National Salvation Front, a group of high-ranking North Korean exiles that includes five former generals of the North Korean army, the former vice minister of home affairs, the former vice minister of culture and the former superintendent of the North Korea Military Academy.
Park warned that North Korea would use its nuclear weapons against Japan, South Korea and even the United States if given the time to develop them.