Month: March 2023

Congressman Brad Sherman leads colleagues in re-introducing the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act

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From JNCTV

March 1, 2023. Arya Ansari, (202) 225-5911, (202) 740-0994

Washington, D.C. – Today, Congressman Brad Sherman (CA-32), senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led 19 members of Congress in re-introducing the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act – bipartisan legislation that calls for serious, urgent diplomatic engagement in pursuit of a formal end to the Korean War. Congressman Sherman made the announcement in a press conference on Capitol Hill and was joined by his Congressional colleagues along with members of the Korean American Public Action Committee (KAPAC) and supporters of the Korea Peace movement.

“The continued state of war on the Korean Peninsula does not serve the interests of the United States nor our constituents with relatives in North and South Korea,” said Congressman Brad Sherman. “Serious, urgent diplomatic engagement is needed to achieve peace between North and South Korea. I’m pleased to stand here today, with my colleagues, the Korean American community, and supporters of the Korea peace movement, to reintroduce this crucial bill and continue to help grow the movement for Korea peace.”

In 1953, the parties to the Korean War signed an Armistice Agreement that pledged an end to “all acts of armed force in Korea until a final peaceful settlement is achieved.” Common sense tells us that this conflict ended in July 1953. But in fact, we only signed an armistice. Therefore, we have officially remained in a state of war with North Korea for 70 years. This situation does not serve anyone’s interest.

On April 27, 2018, in Panmunjom, the leaders of South Korea and North Korea declared that “a new era of peace has begun on the Korean peninsula,” and committed “to declare the end of war” on the Korean peninsula 65 years after the signing of the armistice agreement.

The Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act expresses support for the commitments made at Panmunjom and urges the Secretary of State to pursue meaningful diplomatic engagement with North Korea and South Korea in pursuit of a binding peace agreement constituting a formal and final end to the state of war between North Korea, South Korea, and the United States. The bill also requires a report from the Secretary of State that describes a clear roadmap for achieving a permanent peace agreement on the Korean peninsula.

One major consequence of the continuation of the Korean War is that the United States does not have formal relations with North Korea. The current restrictions barring United States nationals from traveling to North Korea have had profound effects on Americans with relatives living in North Korea, who long to see their relatives – in many cases, for one last time.

The Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act requires the Secretary of State to conduct a full review of the restrictions in place conditioning the travel of Americans to North Korea, and to submit a report to Congress detailing that review.

Congressman Sherman is pleased to be joined by his bipartisan colleagues Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Cori Bush, Luis Correa, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Paul Tonko, Chuy Garcia, Andy Biggs, Dina Titus, Rashida Tlaib, Marilyn Strickland, Sara Jacobs, Jan Schakowsky, James McGovern, Lisa Blunt Rochester, Adriano Espaillat, Pramila Jayapal, Judy Chu, and Ilhan Omar in introducing the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act.

https://jnctv.org/2023/03/04/congressman-brad-sherman-leads-colleagues-in-re-introducing-the-peace-on-the-korean-peninsula-act/

US is maintaining tensions with North Korea to draw in allies against China

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The greatest threat to peace and stability in northeast Asia is the U.S. Indo-Pacific military encirclement of China.

By Simone Chun

March 3, 2023
Published in TruthOut

The U.S. military encirclement of China threatens to escalate into an Asia-Pacific war, with the Korean Peninsula at the focal point of this dangerous path. Garrisoned with nearly 30,000 combat-ready U.S. forces manning the astonishing 73 U.S. military bases dotting its tiny landmass, South Korea is the most critical frontline component of U.S. military escalation in northeast Asia.

Three important implications of this grand strategy, which places the Korean Peninsula at the pernicious center of intensified China-U.S. competition, merit attention: 1) the accelerated remilitarization of Japan; 2) the revitalization of extremist hardline North Korea policies in both Washington and Seoul; and 3) the intensification and expansion of belligerent wargames targeted at China and North Korea.

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Washington’s anti-China policy, which binds South Korea to the service of U.S. geopolitical strategic interests and keeps it in a subservient client-patron relationship with the U.S., also has the ancillary effect of empowering extremist far right factions in South Korea. These politicians exploit the North Korean threat as justification for domestic repression under South Korea’s National Security Laws — among the most draconian in the world — empowering them to leverage red-baiting and worse against any critics or perceived threats to their grip on power.

Case in point: South Korea’s far right president, Yoon Suk-yeol, who was elected by a razor-thin margin of 0.7 percent barely eight months ago, is already leaving his mark, having established a “republic of prosecution” that pursues the politics of fear and prosecution domestically on the one hand, and subordinates South Korea’s sovereignty to Washington’s interests on the other. 

The “most disliked leader in the world” garnered a disapproval rating of 70 percent in a recent Morning Consulting survey, and faces massive and sustained public demand for his immediate resignation. It is noteworthy that in spite of Washington’s stated foreign policy goal of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights, the U.S. remains silent on Yoon’s “atavistic reversion” of vitally democratic South Korea into a newly repressive national security state. According to K.J. Noh, “South Korea’s essential role as the closest and largest military force projection platform against China, its role in a ‘JAKUS’ (Japan-South Korea-U.S. military alliance), its cooperation with NATO, its stated plans to join a Quad-plus, and its assumption of a submissive position toward U.S. decoupling and economic enclosure against China make it far too valuable to criticize or undermine regardless of its excesses.”

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First and foremost, in intensifying its offensive against Beijing, Washington has shifted both risk and burden to allies that form its “vanguard against China,” enabling the U.S. to dictate decisions and procure imperial benefits while distributing the costs to vassal states. In order to justify its burgeoning military regional presence and intensified control over South Korea, Japan and Taiwan to bolster its posture against China, the U.S. needs to keep regional tension high. Despite the U.S. position that it is “open to talks” with North Korea, continued sanctions (including those targeting the civilian and medical sector), expansion of the U.S. military presence in the region, intensification of multinational military drills, and continued political rhetoric from Washington ensure that tensions with the north remain elevated. This benefits both Washington and the extremist regime in Seoul, and ensures South Korea’s perpetual relegation to the status of a U.S. neocolonial state.

Hawkish U.S. policies have consistently failed to garner public support in South Korea. According to a series of polls conducted in 2021, 61 percent of South Koreans support relaxing sanctions against the north and 79 percent support peace with Pyongyang, with an additional 71 percent supporting a formal end-of-war declaration between the two Koreas. These sentiments persist even among Yoon supporters, a majority of whom support an inter-Korean peace treaty, breaking with his rhetoric of a tougher stance toward North Korea. The South Korean Democratic and Progressive Parties, as well as major civil and labor organizations, support military deescalation with the North and maintenance of neutrality in the Washington-Beijing competition. Democratic Party Chairman Lee Jae-myung has repeatedly warned against South Korea becoming a “pawn in the plans of other states,” pledging his party to the principles of independence and sovereignty.

A few years from now, after the Biden and Yoon administrations have ended, North Korea will likely not have been denuclearized and South Korea may emerge as the nuclear front line in the U.S. rivalry with China and Russia, setting the stage for the Korean Peninsula to serve as the main battleground in a new Cold War. If Biden has a genuine interest in achieving lasting regional security, he should pursue a broader vision in which nations can coexist. According to the latest poll, a significant majority of Americans support tension-reducing policies with North Korea and China, and 7 in 10 Americans are supportive of a summit between Biden and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Over half of those polled support a full-fledged peace agreement to finally end the 73-year-old Korean War — an unresolved conflict that has left nearly 5 million casualties and forcibly separated 10 million Korean families on either side of the 38th parallel, including more than 100,000 Korean Americans.

Instead of narrowly focusing on the threat of China and exploiting the North Korean threat as a cover for a militaristic and volatile anti-China policy, the Biden administration should recognize that peace in the Korean Peninsula is not only obtainable, but can lay the groundwork for a broader and more stable regional order based on coexistence.

Full article at:

https://truthout.org/articles/us-is-maintaining-tensions-with-north-korea-to-draw-in-allies-against-china/

United States is planning a chemical weapon attack in Ukraine; shipment of warfare agent BZ and toxic chemicals delivered by Kiev forces to Kramatorsk

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From Strategic Stability

Powerpoint presentation

Report # 209. The USA is preparing false flag ‘chemical attacks’ in Ukraine

March 1, 2023

1. The USA has delivered three types of CW agents to Ukraine

On 22 February,2023, an influential U.S. non-governmental organisation held a conference on the events in Ukraine. Within the event, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan made the statement, ‘…Russian troops plan to use chemical weapons in the special military operation area…’.

Due to such false and provocative US statement Russian MoD made by Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the Chief of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Protection Troops of Russian Armed Forces, the following remarks:

Russia regards this information as the intention of the United States itself and its accomplices to carry out a provocation in Ukraine using toxic chemicals. They expect that amid hostilities, the international community will be unable to organise an effective investigation, with the result that the real organisers and executors may escape accountability and the blame is going to be placed on Russia.

Supply of safety equipment for Ukraine

The preparations are in full swing. In early 2023, the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre planned a large shipment of individual protection means to Ukraine. In order to substantiate the situation, ‘…Russian troops have already used phosphorus ammunition and could use the poisonous substances in a foreseeable escalation of the situation…”.

The list of supplied equipment includes more than 55,000 sets of personal protective gear, 55,000 gas masks, 13,000 individual gas casualty first-aid kits. Priority is given to antidotes for organophosphorus agents such as sarin and soman — 600,000 ampoules, anti-seizure medications — 3 mln tablets, detoxification preparations for mustard gas, lewisite and chloroacetophenone inhibitors of hydrocyanic acid — 750,000 vials.

Toxic chemicals delivered to Kramatorsk

In addition, the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation received information that on February, 10, 2023, a rail transport arrived in Ukraine (Kramatorsk) controlled by AFU with a cargo of chemicals in one of its cars, accompanied by a group of foreign nationals. The car was detached and towed to the territory of the Kuybyshev Iron and Steel Works in Kramatorsk, where it was unloaded under the control of the Security Service of Ukraine and the AFU command representatives.

The consignment consisted of 16 sealed metal boxes, eight of which were labelled with a chemical hazard symbol, BZ inscription and marked with two red bands, corresponding to the class of poisonous substances of temporary incapacitation action. Five of the boxes were labelled as ‘C-S-RIOT’ (chlorobenzylidenemalononitrile), three were labelled as ‘C-R-RIOT’ (dibenzoxazepine) with a single red band, which corresponds to substances with an irritant action. The cargo was placed on the U.S.-manufactured armoured vehicles, which moved to the combat line of contact as part of the convoy.

On 19 February, 2023, 11 cars of specially marked shrapnel ammunition have been unloaded in Kramatorsk. The unloading took place at night on a platform in the suburbs, with the car labelled as ‘Building materials’, ‘Cement’. According to the information of the Russian Ministry of Defence, the U.S. Army has previously upgraded its shrapnel rounds to be loaded with ready-to-use, liquid formulated irritant acids.

The facts of the simultaneous delivery of toxic chemicals and protection means indicate an attempted large-scale provocation using the BZ (3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate) psychotropic incapacitating warfare agent during the conflict.

Threats posed by using BZ

Under the international Chemical Weapons Convention, BZ agent is a controlled chemical and its use is prohibited under Article 1 of the CWC.

Chemical warfare is forbidden under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) of 1997, to which the USA, Ukraine and Russia are all signatories.

This chemical causes acute phrenoplegia, disorientation, hallucinations, and memory impairment. BZ agent is a standard war gas for the U.S. Army. It was used extensively during the Vietnam War. The United States and its allies have repeatedly used chemical munitions in the military conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

The U.S. declared a total destruction of stocks of BZ as early as 1990. Fifty tonnes of the substance have been disposed of, but samples were left behind. In addition, the possibility of synthesising BZ precursors from pharmaceutical production facilities in the volume of up to several dozen tonnes per year is now retained.

Examples of U.S. provocative actions

Russia has repeatedly noted that Western leadership regularly make provocative statements about the possibility of Russia using weapons of mass destruction.

However, these projects have been implemented not by Russia, but many times by the USA itself with the aim to achieve political goals.

For example, a vial of ‘washing powder’ in the hands of U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell prompted the invasion of Iraq and the deaths of over half a million Iraqi citizens.In 2017, photos of the White Helmets replicated by news agencies, showing people wearing ordinary gauze bandages taking samples at the site of the alleged use of sarin, led to a U.S. missile strike on Shayrat airbase in Syria. In 2018, staged shootings of allegedly chlorine-poisoned children in Douma (Syrian) caused the destruction of a research centre in Barzah and Jamraya [see PPT slides].

Russian MoD reminded that no one has been held accountable for these crimes so far.

International legal assessment of the use of toxic chemicals during hostilities

U.S. compliance with its obligations under the CWC is distinctly selective. Any restrictions under this treaty that threat to U.S. national interests are ignored with the direct connivance of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

For example, in violation of Article 1 of the Convention and the 1925 Geneva Protocol, the United States Department of Defense has legalised the use of a range of chemicals as weapons of war. Its use is envisaged with a wide range of standard ammunition.

Russian MoD warned warned hat the Russian stationary and mobile CBRN monitoring complexes deployed in the area of the special military operation make it possible to identify chemical threats in a timely manner and to respond to them promptly. It is therefore a mistake for the West to count on successful provocations with toxic chemicals in a warfare environment.

The analytical capabilities of the Russian Ministry of Defence chemical laboratories can reliably determine not only the type of chemicals used, but also the country of their manufacture.

For example, the information presented on the slide about the use of improvised munitions against Russian troops by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is widely known. Investigations proved that it was a thermal ammunition that contained flammable oxidisers and additives, some of which were produced in the Czech Republic.

Russia also warned that in the event of provocation using toxic chemicals, the true culprits will be identified and punished. Russia will continue to work to expose the Western criminal activities in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.