Why North Korea is Still Very Much a Threat to the US

With more immediate threats like ISIS on our radar, the insanity of North Korea doesn’t get the media attention it deserves.

Some Americans may have even gone as far as writing off North Korea because the country continues to deliver ineffectual threats to various countries in the world.

But let’s face it the relationship between North Korea and the US has always been hostile and the recklessness of the country shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Like Iran, North Korea has recently been doing ballistic missile “tests.” Just last week, the country fired a ballistic missile from a submarine into the sea as a message to South Korea following the beginning of the annual South Korean- U.S. military drills.

The missile launched from the eastern coastal town of Sinpo and travelled about 310 miles, making it the longest flight of a North Korean missile launched from a submarine.  

This isn’t the first time this year that the country has been experimenting with missiles either. Two others were fired, but were reported to have exploded in midair after flying about 18 miles.

The fact that North Korea is firing nuclear warheads is distressing enough, but being launched from submarines is a new alarming development since it is harder to detect them in advance.

In a U.S. Strategic Command statement, the US military said that the launch did not pose a threat to the US and that the military “remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations.” 

However, nuclear experts say that the country has yet to develop a reliable long-range nuclear missile equipped to reach the US, emphasis on the yet.

Besides testing nukes, this week it has been reported that children from the ages 7 to 13 in the North Korean mandatory youth league are being urged to become “five million nuclear bombs” to protect dictator Kim Jong Un.  

“Please be ‘five million nuclear bombs’ to protect our dear respected leader with your life as the men safeguarding the center of the party, based on a strong belief and will,” according to a statement from the Korean Children’s Union following a Saturday speech by the dictator.

This is the latest propaganda to encourage the idolization of Kim Jong Un.

That’s just the tip of the ice berg in terms of what we Americans would consider insanity, but is just the North Korean way of life.

Some other insane facts about the country:

• Opium is legal, but meth is strictly prohibited and if a citizen is caught with this drug they will likely face a firing squad.
• Speaking of unusually cruel punishments, the country has a “three generations of punishment” sentence, whereas the person sentenced has to go to camp with their entire family and the next two generations are born and forced to live their entire lives in a prison labor camp.
• The official records of Kim Jong II are presented as facts in the North Korea, but are likely (more like definitely) myths: including walking at the age of three weeks, talking at eight weeks, writing 1,500 books while attending university for three years, and shooting a 38-under par round with 11 hole-in-ones on North Korea’s only golf course the first and last time ever playing golf.
• Amnesty International reported that the country has crowded concentration camps.
• Kim Jong II’s father built a fake town. “A fake city in North Korea where the lights go on and off inside tower blocks that have no glass in their windows. There are no residents and no visitors are allowed. But the lights are on timers and the roads are periodically swept. Kijong-dong, which is also called “Peace Village,” was built in the 1950s to lure potential defectors from South Korea and as a display of the communist state’s progress and modernity. The official North Korean position is that Kijong-dong is a thriving community; that it contains a large collective farm (run by two hundred families) and many social services, such as schools and a hospital. Yet Kijong-dong is so close to the border that, with the aid of binoculars, people can see it is empty,” writes the Huffington Post.
• The Constitution of North Korea states: “citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech, the press, assembly, demonstration and association.”
• Only one candidate appears on the ballot in elections.

Editor’s note: We wrote this article to underscore the alien nature of this country. Don’t make the mistake of thinking North Korea is a rational actor in terms of our understanding. They have nuclear weapons and can do devestating damage with almost any meaningless (to us) provocation.

Update: Korean newspapers have just announced that Kim Jung Un has executed two high officials with an anti-aircraft gun. Would anything in your experience have led you to expect this kind of behaviour? Me neither.