THE hysterical propaganda that North Korea is run by a young madman, who is about to press a button to attack the US mainland and its allies and destroy the planet, can only be believed by the simple-minded, as can Cameron’s plea that Britain has to have the Trident nuclear system to stop North Korea attacking it.
North Korea was established in 1949 after it was liberated from Japanese imperialism by communist forces supported by the Soviet Union.
The south of the country was occupied by the US army who placed Syngman Rhee in power as President and then led the suppression of a left-wing military and civilian uprising against US imperialism and its puppets.
The Yosu-Sunch On Rebellion began when members of a South Korean military regiment refused to suppress a communist rebellion and were joined by thousands of workers.
The revolt was put down by US and South Korean government forces with much brutality.
In June 25, 1950, the Korean war began when North Korean forces entered the south, took the capital Seoul and almost drove the US forces into the sea.
UN international forces were then sent to Korea and a US landing behind North Korean lines at Incheon undermined the north Korean lightning advance, and their forces were driven north to near the Yalu River border with China.
The US commander, MacArthur, planned to cross the Yalu into China and even considered the use of nuclear weapons to do this, to overthrow the communist government which had just been established, and to restore the Kuomintang to power.
Chinese troops crossed the Yalu on October 19, 1950, and US and UN forces were driven back in the direction from which they had come. An armistice was declared at Panmunjon in 1953 and a state of war has existed between the north and south since.
North Korea has survived and developed to the point where it can produce nuclear weapons, a huge gain for its people, meaning that it cannot just be destroyed at the whim of the US-UK, without consideration of the consequences.
US forces have been stationed in the south ever since, armed with nuclear weaponry and conducting provocative military manoeuvres.
After the onslaught on Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya and now Syria, the North Korean leadership have every reason to think that they will be next, and therefore they had better show the world that they will be a tough nut to crack.
That North Korea has been able to develop nuclear technology is an amazing achievement.
North Korea has every right to have nuclear weapons and every means of defence necessary to keep the imperialist powers at bay.
The facts are that the US is the only power that has used nuclear bombs – against Japan in 1945 – while the UK has conducted nine live Hydrogen bomb tests in Malden Island and Christmas Island in the Pacific, in which their own solders and sailors were harmed as part of the experiment.
Meanwhile, the deepening crisis of word capitalism is driving the imperialist powers, with the US and the UK at their head, to new wars to redivide the planet and enslave the people that have emancipated themselves through the use of revolutionary means.
Until these imperialist regimes are overthrown by workers revolutions, and capitalism has been put an end to, the Chinese and the North Korean people have the right and the duty to hang on to their weaponry and to continue to develop it, to make sure that they do not go the way of Iraq, Libya and now Syria.
The only road to worldwide nuclear disarmament is the road to the victory of the world socialist revolution.
