MILITARY/NORTH KOREA: “North Korea threatened to turn the U.S. into ‘huge heaps of ashes’ and warned that military exercises involving American and South Korean forces this week had worsened the standoff, which could only be resolved by ‘absolute force.’
In a strongly worded commentary issued through its state media on Tuesday [8-22-17], Pyongyang attacked President Donald Trump, branding his approach to the crisis on the Korean Peninsula ‘unimaginably reckless.’
The remarks came a day after the U.S. and South Korean militaries began annual drills, which the allies say are aimed at defending South Korea in the event of conflict but which Pyongyang says are rehearsals for an invasion.
North Korea is upset in particular about what it calls drills aimed at decapitating the leadership in Pyongyang—a direct attempt to kill dictator Kim Jong Un. It also says the drills can be quickly repurposed into an invasion of the North.
‘No one can vouch that these huge forces concentrated in South Korea will not go over to an actual war action now that the military tensions have reached an extreme pitch,’ North Korea said in a separate statement Tuesday attributed to its military forces stationed on the inter-Korean demilitarized zone.
The comments followed a week in which tensions between Washington and Pyongyang appeared to ease somewhat, after North Korea backed away from an immediate threat to fire missiles toward Guam, a U.S. Pacific territory.”
-Jonathan Cheng, “North Korea Threatens ‘Absolute Force’ as U.S., South Hold Military Drills,” The Wall Street Journal online, Aug. 22, 2017 05:44am