Jack A. Smith: The Dangers of War, What is Behind the US North Korea Conflict?

Whats happening between the US and North Korea, to produce such headlines this week as Korean Tensions Escalate, and North Korea Threatens US? The New York Times reported March 30: This week, North Korea's young leader, Kim Jung un, ordered his underlings to prepare for a missile attack on the United States. He appeared at a command center in front of a wall map, with the bold, unlikely title, Plans to Attack the Mainland US. Earlier in the month, his generals boated of developing a Korean style nuclear warhead, that could be fitted atop a long range missile. The US is well aware North Korea's statements are not backed up by a sufficient military power, to implement its rhetorical threats, but appears to be escalating tensions all the same. What's up? I'll have to go back a bit to explain the situation. Since the end of the Korean War, 60 years ago, the government of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea) has repeatedly put forward virtually the same four proposals to the United States. They are: 1. A peace treaty to end the Korean War. 2. The reunification of Korea, which has been temporarily divided into North and South since 1945. 3. an end to the US occupation of South Korea, and a discontinuation of annual month long US South Korean war games. 4. Bilateral talks between Washington and Pyongyang, to end tensions on the Korean peninsula. The US and its South Korean protectorate, have rejected each proposal over the years. As a consequence, the peninsula has remained extremely unstable since the 1950s. It has now reached the point, where Washington has used this year's war games, which began in early March, as a vehicle for staging a mock attack on North Korea, by flying two nuclear capable B-2 Stealth bombers over the region March 28. Three days later, the White House ordered F-22 Raptor Stealth fighter jets to South Korea, a further escalation of tensions. Here is what is behind the four proposals.1. The US refuses to sign a peace treaty to end the Korean War. It has only agreed to an armistice. An armistice is a temporary cessation of fighting by mutual consent. The armistice signed July 27, 1953, was supposed to transform into a peace treaty, when a final peaceful settlement is achieved. The lack of a treaty means war could resume at any moment. North Korea does not want a war with the US, history's most powerful military state. It wants a peace treaty. 2. Two Korea's exist as the product of an agreement between the USSR, which bordered Korea, and helped to liberate the northern part of the country from Japan in World War II, and the US, which occupied the southern half.