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US Starts Another Round Of War Games In Korean Peninsula

August 27, 2024 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. , , , ,
The US and South Korea began yet another military drill in the Korean Peninsula this week, further heightening the possibility of nuclear confrontation and threatening peace and stability in the region. The Ulchi Freedom Shield, as the exercise is called, allegedly aims to strengthen both countries’ joint “defense capabilities” against nuclear power North Korea, as stated by the spokespersons of both nations earlier this month.

Nodutdol Launches US Out Of Korea Campaign

July 29, 2024 Fight Back! News. , , ,
New York, NY – Several hundred people gathered in midtown Manhattan at The People’s Forum to launch Nodutdol’s U.S. Out of Korea campaign. Hundreds more gathered at events in Oakland and Los Angeles for similar launch events. The event began with Nodutdol organizers presenting the background of the organization. Nodutdol (노듯돌, meaning stepping-stone) has roots in the 1990s when members of the Korean movement would travel to Korea to learn from the people in the South and North of the peninsula about their organizing against U.S. domination. They became fully established in 1999 in Queens, New York and in the early 2000s pivoted their focus to anti-war efforts in the Middle East. They continued their delegation trips to Korea and deepened their anti-imperialist resolve.

The South Korean ‘Spy’ Affair

July 27, 2024 John Kiriakou, Consortium News. , , , , ,
The major media outlets earlier this month ran breathless headlines about a former C.I.A. officer “caught spying for South Korea.” The BBC, for example, wrote “Ex-CIA Analyst Charged with Spying for South Korea.” The Los Angeles Times wrote, “Sloppy Spycraft? Indictment of a Former CIA Analyst Embarrasses South Korea.” Even the venerable Time Magazine disingenuously wrote, “Former CIA Office Charged with Being Secret Agent.” The problem is that literally none of those headlines were true. Sue Mi Terry, a former Korea analyst for the C.I.A., a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Koreas, and a former national security council director for Korean Affairs, was most certainly not charged with spying for South Korea.

New Military Alliances Forming In The Pacific

July 22, 2024 Alice Slater, Popular Resistance. , , ,
On the heels of a new alliance announced this summer by Russia and North Korea for a pact pledging mutual defense, with the support of China, it is now shockingly being suggested in South Korea that it review its security policy with the US and end its reliance on the US guarantee, to employ on South Koreas’ behalf, US nuclear weapons as part of its “nuclear umbrella”. The “umbrella” is offered to all NATO states as well as the Pacific states of Japan, Australia, and South Korea. Such questioning is evidence of the growing havoc faced in the world by the failure of the United States to make good on its legal obligation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for good faith efforts for nuclear disarmament.

Thousands Of Samsung Workers Go On Indefinite Strike

July 11, 2024 Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch. , , , , ,
Thousands of workers in South Korea at Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest memory chipmaker, declared an “indefinite strike” against the company’s refusal to dialogue and listen to their demands on the last day of their three-day strike on Wednesday, July 10. In a statement, published on the website of the National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU) which is spearheading the strike, the union told its members “don’t get tired” and continue the strike until further instructions are given. The NSEU has around 30,000 members and represents 24% of all workers with Samsung Electronics. According to NSEU, over 6,540 workers have been participating in the different strike actions.

Threat Of War Looms Over NATO Summit In Washington

July 7, 2024 Friends of Socialist China. , , , , , , , , ,
On June 30, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) blasted the joint military exercises conducted by the U.S., Japan, and South Korea in the region, labeling them as “reckless and provocative.” The DPRK pointed out that the military “war games” disrupt peace on the Korean peninsula and the broader region. The hostile military drills expose the formation of an “Asian version of NATO” led by the U.S., declared a statement by the DPRK’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on June 30. The three-day military operation known as “Freedom Edge” took place from June 26 to 29, involving South Korea, Japan, and the U.S.

US Veterans Denounce Prolonged Militarization, Ongoing War In Korea

June 24, 2024 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. , , , ,
Two members of Veterans for Peace participated in a recent delegation to South Korea to mark the anniversary of two young girls who were killed by a US tank during a military exercise. Clearing the FOG speaks with Ellen Barfield, a long time activist who was on delegation and who was serving in South Korea in 1980 when the massacre of students and leftists occurred in Gwangju, about the trip and the ongoing war in Korea. Barfield also discusses the RIMPAC military exercises that begin this week in the Pacific and the veteran-led Peace Walk that is headed to Washington, DC for the anti-NATO activities starting the weekend of July 6 and 7.

Korean Girls Killed By US Troops: The Price Of Military Tensions

June 17, 2024 Lee Jun-hee, Hankyoreh. , , , ,
As military tensions continue to rise on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea recently marked the 22nd anniversary of the deaths of Shin Hyo-sun and Shim Mi-seon, two middle school girls who were killed in 2002 when a US Forces Korea convoy driving an armored vehicle struck and crushed them. On Thursday, 23 activist groups, including the Hyo-sun Mi-seon Peace Peace Park Project Committee, gathered at the park named after two girls in Yangju, Gyeonggi Province, to hold a candlelight memorial vigil. Over 150 people, representing groups ranging from religious communities to youth groups, attended the memorial to pay their respects.

A South Korean Village’s Fight Against The US Military

March 12, 2024 Son So-Hee and Min, The Real News Network. , , ,
Soseong-ri, South Korea, was a sleepy farming village before the arrival of the US military’s Terminal High Altitude Aerial Defense (THAAD) missile system. While the South Korean government and the US military claim that THAAD will protect South Korea from North Korean attacks, activists and experts have long countered that THAAD is incapable of blocking the kinds of short-range missiles North Korea would use against South Korean targets in a hypothetical war. Instead, they charge THAAD’s real purpose is to protect US military assets in nearby Okinawa and Guam.

Touring South Korea To Support Opposition To US Space Warfare Plans

February 19, 2024 Bruce K. Gagnon, Space For Peace. , , , ,
The US has pushed the right-wing Seoul government to massively expand their spending on military space tech. With the current US national debt now at $35 trillion, Washington can't afford to pay for its expensive and ambitious plans to 'control and dominate' space. Thus the #1 job of the Pentagon and State Department is to get the allies to help pay for the space warfare infrastructure. Currently the ROK government is building space R & D centers, satellite production facilities, new airfields likely to test hypersonic missiles and expanding 'missile defense' deployment sites. One key goal the US has is to use ROK satellite production and launch facilities to hoist mini-satellites into Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) to help fill up the already crowded orbits before China and Russia can get there.

Asian NATO Under A New Guise

February 8, 2024 Tim Beal, Friends of Socialist China. , , , , , ,
Over the past couple of years there has been a flurry of activity linking NATO, and some of its constituent countries with the states of American East Asia, principally Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has been a frequent visitor, and in December 2023, the US embassy in Seoul arranged for senior representatives from eight NATO countries to visit South Korea to “engage in discussions on the security situation in the Indo-Pacific region and other pertinent issues”. Meanwhile back in Washington Representative Mike Lawler has introduced a bill in Congress aimed at “establishing [a] task force for NATO-like Indo-Pacific Alliance”.

Korean Movements Demand: South Korea, Stop Arming Israel!

January 26, 2024 Greg Chung, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , ,
On January 19, 150 people protested in front of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) office in the city of Daejeon, demanding the South Korean government stop arming Israel. While Palestine may seem like a distant conflict to South Koreans, the South Korean military-industrial complex is a key pillar in the Israeli war machine. According to Peace Momo, Hanwha, South Korea’s leading defense company, signed a major technology cooperation and export deal with Israeli weapons company, Elbit Systems, at the Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition (ADEX) in 2021.

Activists Detail Frontline Struggles Against US Militarism In Asia

December 14, 2023 Alice Kim, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , ,
With the US President Joe Biden waging an all-out economic war against China and aggressively pursuing new forms of collective security alliances to reinforce the military encirclement of China, the Asia-Pacific region has once again become a hotspot in Washington’s new Cold War. From the expansion of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (US, Japan, India, and Australia) to include South Korea, New Zealand, and Vietnam in 2021, the launch of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework in May 2022, the participation of Asian heads of state in NATO meetings in 2022 and 2023, and the cementing of the Japan-Korea-US trilateral alliance at Camp David this August, Biden’s Indo-Pacific Strategy has been dead set on forging a new anti-China Cold War bloc across the region.

Trilateral Missile Defense System A Step Towards Asian NATO

November 30, 2023 Jeffrey Wagner and Dae-Han Song, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , , ,
The United States, Japan, and South Korea will fully operationalize a missile warning system “by the end of December.” While justified as a means to counter North Korea’s missile launches, more worrisome, it escalates tensions in the region with China through the “NATOification” of all three countries, agreed upon in the “Spirit of Camp David” agreement. The agreement was hailed as a “new era of trilateral partnership” during the August 18 press conference following a meeting between the heads of state of all three countries. Western media echoed the sentiment, calling it “historic” and “unprecedented.” China, listed in the agreement as a regional concern, accused the United States of creating a “mini NATO in Asia.”

War Looks Just As War Looks: Dismal And Ugly

November 3, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , , , , ,
It is impossible to look away from what the Israeli government is doing to Palestinians not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank. Waves of Israeli aircraft pummel Gaza, destroying communications networks and thereby preventing families from reaching each other, journalists from reporting on the destruction, and Palestinian authorities and United Nations agencies from providing humanitarian assistance. This violence has spurred on protests across the world, with the planet’s billions outraged by the asymmetrical destruction of the Palestinian people. If the Israeli government claims that it is conducting a form of ‘politicide’ – excising organised Palestinian forces from Gaza – the world sees Israeli aircrafts and tanks as conducting nothing but a genocide, displacing and massacring Palestine refugees in Gaza, 81% of whose residents were expelled from, or are the descendants of those who were expelled from, what was declared Israel in 1948.
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