Washington – A U.S. decision to move a Navy strike group toward the Korean peninsula is a “prudent” reaction to a pattern of provocative behavior from North Korea, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said on Sunday.
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U.S. President Donald Trump will review options to remove the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, McMaster told Fox News Sunday, adding that Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed with Trump last week that the situation is unacceptable.
“It’s prudent to do it, isn’t it?” McMaster said, when asked why the Navy strike group Carl Vinson, whose flagship is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier of that name, will make its way toward the Korean peninsula from Singapore as a show of force.
Reuters was the first to report the deployment on Saturday.
“This is a rogue regime that is now a nuclear-capable regime, and President Xi and President Trump agreed that that is unacceptable, that what must happen is the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” McMaster said.
North Korean officials, including leader Kim Jong Un, have repeatedly indicated an intercontinental ballistic missile test or something similar could be coming, possibly as soon as April 15, the 105th birthday of North Korea’s founding president and celebrated annually as “the Day of the Sun.”
Pyongyang tested a liquid-fueled Scud missile this month.
War should be avoided, if there is another alternative. As General MacArthur once stated “The soldier prays for peace”. However, it should be noted that North Korea is unique, whereby it imprisons and starves hundreds of thousands of its citizens, and keeps thousands (including entire families), in concentration camps. People are worked to death and starved to death, in such facilities. In addition, it is a brutal regime, which should be overthrown. During the 1966-1969 DMZ war (a forgotten war between the US Army and North Korean soldiers), the US lost troops which are never even discussed. In addition, in 1969, the N. Korean Air Force shot down an unarmed reconnaissance U.S. Air Force plane, killing over 100 American airman. It also seized the USS Pueblo in international waters, killing a U.S. sailor, and imprisoning and torturing the crew for nearly a year. It still holds that ship, today. It is not possible to negotiate with them, as the only thing that they respect is force.
There can be no limited war in Korea. Any small airstrike, any provocation might make the PDRK think that we are launching a war for regime change. As soon as one bomb goes off, they will probably let go with everything they got.
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They know they cannot win a war. One bomb will scare them into using their entire arsenal before they lose it. They will not, they cannot, reply in proportion to the force used against them.
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OK, so what happens if the PDRK decides to take everyone down with them? The mass slaughter of tens of thousands in their own prison camps. Several tens of thousands of shells into populated areas of South Korea. Some number of those will be filled with gas. Sleeper cells in China, South Korea, the US and Japan launch some number of very bloody terror attacks. A half dozen very nasty computer attacks are launched.
This is of course the best scenario. In the worst case, nukes will be used killing even more, causing environmental ruin that will never be cleaned up and an EMP that will impoverish millions.
There is no military solution in Korea.