This is a great interview because it voices the kinds of anxieties many people feel in reaction to the crazy analysis we are being presented with by the mainstream media vis a vis North Korea and the United States, but it brings some common sense to the matter in the form of Senator/Dr Ron Paul. Alex Jones, head of Infowars dot com is an interesting and flamboyant product of US capitalism, religion, and the education system. Loyal to Trump, but spooked, he wants to see something positive in Trump's posturing against North Korea. Senator Ron Paul is an American author, physician, and former politician, with an excellent historic and current grasp on foreign affairs, who finds war a dangerous and stupid creation of the deep state. And he talks from experience. In this interview, Senator Ron Paul points out that Alex has been falling for the neocon propaganda where the US always goes to war to 'defend' nations from 'mad dictators'. Of course the nations finish up almost destroyed by the US, worse off than before, and, you have to wonder why the neocons get away with the same cartoon-like frame up of leaders who have territory that they want. Ron Paul points out Alex Jones dancing to the neocon tune on North Korea, "Alex, you've swallowed the neocon line!" Alex entertains with his typically grotesque, original, and dramatic rhetoric, such as, "Horrible little communist third-generation dictator, fat off the blood of his little skinny citizens." As he interviews Ron Paul, Alex draws a cartoon of plump Kim Jong un approaching Donald Trump with a thought bubble, "Food!" It somehow reminded me of how Trump talked about missiles and chocolate cake in the same mouthful not so long ago regarding another 'mad dictator' (there are so many, apparently).
The following contains excerpts from the interview, which is just under 20 minutes long:
RON PAUL: We've been there way too long and you know this whole idea this stage is set now that you know the Koreans are threatening what we might shoot down an airplane well what if there's now that that stage is said it's progressing because of our involvement somebody's going to use a false flag and somebody's going to shoot down the airplane just so that this war gets started so that's why I believe in non intervention we ought to defend this country but it's time to come home from Korea you've lost too many lives we killed even when we got involved in that war you know with the north and the south we bombed the north to smithereens we killed 30 percent of their population and they had never attacked us we never declared war we went there under UN banner we have an insane foreign policy and unfortunately it really hasn't changed that much with our new president.
Alex: [...] But what happens if China or Russia gets involved Dr Paul?
RON PAUL: Well, they will get involved. [...] When it started way back in the 50s, we thought, well, we'll take care of this and a month after the war broke out. You know, we essentially won the war and then we moved up and [..] said well we'll occupy North Korea. Went up to the border and then the Chinese came in. True they're going to be involved, but I think you just made the case for why we need to be out of there! Because you know the North Korea guy is goofy, but I'll tell you what, he does know what he's doing, because he has to threaten because he believes that if he gives up and capitulates, does exactly what we tell him to do, what will happen [will be]like what happened to Saddam Hussein and what happened to Qaddafi. And you know how we treat Assad in Syria.
We have an empire to defend, we run the world, and it's wrong. It doesn't work. Millions of people have died over this. And it's time we as a people woke up and say we ought to mind our own business. We ought to come home and defend this country. We don't need to be worrying about battleships and bombers and flying back and showing that we have strengths. Their weapons were used in world war II.
And this guy who runs North Korea, he's not going to invade the United States. He's not going to launch a missile. Just remember the whole thing dealing with Iraq about all the danger, great danger.
Deep State propaganda blames other countries to start wars
The propagandist, the deep state, the media, convinced the American people that Saddam Hussein was a danger. They're doing the same thing now with North Korea! And that's why we ought to wise up and just not buy into this and and look at this as a constitutional issue. And not to say, well we need to go to war with this guy. Unfortunately we're marching that way, but we better look at ourselves too and why are we involved in a hundred and twenty different countries with our military personnel and why are we always looking for trouble.
And I would say that it's very very dangerous, but just to say, well it was always Saddam Hussein's fault; it was always Qaddafi's fault; it's always Assad's fault. And then turn around and say, oh yeah, look at Russia look at what they're going to do.
I mean, it is the neocon foreign policy that we have been following. We still follow a neocon foreign policy. I think that's tragic.
Jones: "Horrible little communist third generation dictator, fat off the blood of his little skinny citizens"
ALEX JONES: That said, I agree with you in practice and function, but even people like Joel Skousen that was agreed with you about not having a war you know in the last five or six saying they were frauds, he says when you get down to North Korea now, they do have nuclear weapons, they are being backed by China, they are a real threat, they are firing missiles right over Japan. They can test weapons but but but doing it in this way, threatening preemptively to blow up the US;to say it's inevitable - that's pointing a gun at us and really next-level Bravada! It's incredible chicken! And then you have the Clintons, as you know, transferring the reactors, transferring the missiles in the mid-90s, that you and others criticized when you first got back into Congress. And so there's a lot of blame going around here, and then you just have the horrible little communists third generation dictator, fat off the blood of his little skinny citizens - I agree with you, the poor Koreans, North Korean slaves and their children - I feel sorry for them. I don't want to have to you know nuke the DMZ. But if they do strike us first, I think they may be crazy enough to do it, then it's going to take a major commitment to make sure they can't count on a response. Dr. Paul?
Alex, you're buying into neocon garbage
RON PAUL: I ... You're buying into all the garbage that's passed out there by the deep state and neoconservatives and and the media. My suggestion, very clearly, on what we should do is we should allow the South Koreans to talk to the North Koreans. What's wrong with that? They're the ones that have everything at stake and we don't even allow them to do that. And and yet they were willing to! Just last week, the South Koreans, in an effort to break this conflict, they sent a couple million dollars to North Korea to take care of some of the people, the kids that are suffering from our sanctions. The people suffer. We killed people. We killed almost a million Iraqis with our sanctions before we went to war. And all these sanctions do is just provoke the bitterness! [...] Why do we prohibit the South Koreans from talking to the North Korea?"
ALEX JONES: [...] Sure, sure, I mean it's like Madeline Albright said, 'A half million Iraqi children is a good price to pay with the sanctions.' It's probably way over a million. The Lancet British medical journals it was like 1.3 back in like 2007 going back to 1990 and, understand, Dr. Paul I'm just wargaming both sides of the debate I've not bought in to the garbage that we need to have a war or that sanctions are always the best thing. As you said, Vietnam now loves us hates communist China, becoming a free-market powerhouse. And we should have made a deal with Ho Chi Minh to go in there and be free market to begin with but we double-crossed him tried to overthrow him as you know back in ... so I understand the history of it as you do, as a former Air Force officer.
The only thing I'm getting at here is is that we can certainly recognize communist regimes are also horrible evils. Just because we have neocon problems here, I mean certainly this is a great example of how communism is a horrible nightmare like Venezuela.
Let North & South Korea talk; let Russia and China negotiate; This isn't US territory
RON PAUL: Well I still think that you're seeing them as a much greater threat [than they are] and when I was drafted in 1962 of the Cuban crisis, you know there was a real hot cold war going on at the time. But we had danger then. The Soviets had 30,000 nuclear missiles and weapons, but we didn't provoke or think we had to get rid of them! We actually dealt with them and Kennedy talked to them and got rid of that crisis we had in Cuba. North Korea, they don't have this capability. China is not interested and it's not in their interest to allow this guy to provoke and get into a war with us. That isn't quite accurate to say that they're in cahoots with China, that they have nuclear bombs and and all this sort of thing.
I think that we should allow South Korea to start having negotiations. Let's let China and Russia [...] they should be more involved in this. Let them monitor the standpoint. But why are we, six, seven thousand miles away? Once again we've been involved in a civil war that's been going on endlessly. It's time we stopped it.
Alex: But what about the evil dictators?
ALEX JONES: Let's be clear, I agree with you. I have four children you've got a bunch of children. You've got a bunch of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I'm told now. And I absolutely do not want to have a nuclear war. I do not want this to happen. I understand that what you're saying is historically true. I'm simply pointing out that President Trump has been right on so many other issues and I understand that it looks like there's been an escalation. He believes that the strategic appeasement, the strategic patience, has run out and [...] he's looking for some other way to get North Korea to come to the bargaining table. Hell! Months ago, Rex Tillerson was saying let's have talks, stop this rhetoric, and it only seemed to encourage Kim Jong-un. So I understand you can say we're ganging up on North Korea and the people hurt are the poor folks in it. That's true. I'm not saying you're wrong, but what about the dictators? What about the horrible evil leaders of the nation? What are we supposed to do about them? What do we do?
Alex,that's the neoconservative line again
RON PAUL: Alex you're speaking for the neoconservatives! That's their line of talking why we have to do this. And I'm just arguing it's totally unnecessary. [It] didn't work - you admit it didn't work in Vietnam and we should have done that differently. And we're friends with them. We win more in peace than we do in war. But we've been in Korea! This whole thing is just based on a lot of misconceptions. I think our administration has accepted neocon lies and they're going with it but they're agreeing to trouble because of the diplomacy [JONES talks over Ron Paul]
ALEX JONES: And I agree with you. [...]What is your advice to President Trump? What is your advice to the president?
Advice to President Trump: Get out of interventionism. We're acting like insecure bullies
RON PAUL: Bring the troops home! I would advise him just what my position has been for years. Get out of interventionism! Bring the troops home. Get out of all this. Get out of Syria, out of Iraq, the whole works! Start dismantling our empire. Get all our troops out of Korea and allow people to settle their own disputes. But not to join this neocon effort to continue to run the world and distort the truth, because they love the wars in the Middle East. And now the neocons are behind all this activity, [the're] why we have this great enemy of the North Koreans. I think when we get so upset about that, that we're insecure. We act like a bunch of bullies. We're insecure, we don't know how to react, and say, 'Oh they're coming! They're gonna cut us, then they're gonna bomb us!' Alex, that is not true and the Chinese aren't on that side of that issue at all. They're are holding him back, if nothing else, because they have too much to lose. They don't want any more war in North Korea than we do. So I don't really think it's right to say this guy in North Korea is going to because he's aligned with the Chinese, that they're going to help him provoke a war with the United States.
ALEX JONES: Just to be clear, their main trading partner is the Chinese. I'd love to see the two countries unified in this nightmare and I'm not going with that line I'm looking at both the lines of reasoning here just to play devil's advocate I overall agree with you and hope that's the way this goes but they do say they have hydrogen bombs. It is believed they have them. They're saying they're preemptively using them, so they're putting out horrible rhetoric as well. I get your point that they need to look strong; they saw what happened to Iraq and other countries that didn't have nuclear weapons. They look at you know Iran looks at that so so moving away from that is that we actually agree on that subject and I pray everything turns out alright they've got your article posted on info wars.com promoting that. [...]
Comments
James Sinnamon
Sun, 2017-10-22 02:31
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US threatened by a small country of which they killed one fifth?
However critical we may be of recent actions by Kim Jong Un, compared to what he and the people of the DPRK have had to endure from the Americans and their South Korean puppets since 1945, they are trivial misdemeanours.
The War by the United States against the people of Korea from 1950 until 1953 was one of the major crimes against humanity of the 20th century. The United States Air Force destroyed every building in North Korea higher than one storey. Also, as attested to by Dr Strangelove (aka United States Air Force General Curtis LeMay): "Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population. [1] ... We burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea, too". Another war crime was the bombing of a North Korean dam which caused major flooding and deaths by drowning.
All this happened because the people of the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK - aka North Korea) after 1945 refused to submit to a government in the South which was made up largely of quislings who had previously worked for the Japanese. This government, labeled the "Republic of Korea" (ROK) had been imposed on Koreans in the south by the United States' occupation forces.
The Korean War, which began in June of 1950, was as an extension of the ROK's repression of supporters of the DPRK and their resistance. Had the United States and its allies not massively increased the scale of their military intervention, the DPRK would easily have won that war without any further outside help.
In 1953, the United States refused to sign a peace treaty with the DPRK and every year the DPRK faces the threat that the annual 'military exercises' by the United States and the ROK could easily turn into an outright invasion, especially given the United States' record in Vietnam, Indonesia, the former Yugoslav republics, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, Syria, ...
Ending these provocative military exercises and negotiating a peace treaty with the DPRK could quickly remove any threat posed North Korea's nuclear-armed missiles.
Footnote[s]
1. Another estimate of the death toll in North Korea is 30%. KNOW THE FACTS: North Korea lost close to 30% of its population as a result of US bombings in the 1950 (27/10/2010) | Global Research by Professor michel Chossudovsky.
Nicola Bellomo (not verified)
Sun, 2017-11-19 01:35
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Even the Nazis did not commit such crimes against any one nation
I attempted to post the following comment to Pyongyang’s UN envoy rules out negotiations on nuclear weapons amid S. Korea-US drills (17/11/17) | RT. My apologies, if it repeats some of what was posted by James Sinnamon above. I have made two attempts to post this comment so far and on each occasion, unlike wih an earlier attempt with another story, the comment was deleted!, As RT, with all its shortcomings, is still a vital weapon against the lying global corporate media, I trust that the deletion of my comment was a bug with the administative software, or an honest mistake and not deliberate. I will contact RT about this.
I think the full history of the Korean War and the conflict since than should feature more prominently on RT. The terrible war between 1950 and 1953, in which 25-30% of North Koreans died, has never officially ended, because the United States refused to negotiate a peace treaty.
After the surrender of Japan in September 1945, five months after the death of the President who led America in its war against the Japanese and Nazi Germany - Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) - the United States Army began savagely repressing Koreans who had resisted the Japanese occupiers. They installed an extreme right wing government largely made up of Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese against their fellow Koreans. The Korean resistance fought back. Whilst it is not clear whether the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK aka 'North' Korea) or 'South' Korea launched the first attack in 1950, the outbreak of conventional war, was a continuation of that civil war.
Every year the 'military exercises' which the United States' occupiers conduct with their South Korean puppets, are in fact, rehearsals for their planned future attempt to do what they failed to do in 1953 - conquer North Korea and destroy the DPRK. The commanders of the armed forces of the DPRK can never know if the United States won't fabricate a pretext that would allow then to turn their annual 'military exercises' into an all out invasion.
Albert Camus (not verified)
Sun, 2017-11-19 12:32
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Lionel Nation on not trusting the 'authorities' on North Korea
Lionel Nation did quite a good piece on this in August, still relevant. Basically he is telling people, in his entertaining and occasionally quite rivetting way, not to trust anything they hear from the 'authorities' on Korea. I hope I can embed it here. You will have to authorise full html.
Sheila Newman
Sun, 2017-11-19 12:34
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We have authorised full html, thanks for the post
James Sinnamon
Mon, 2017-11-20 01:59
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Lionel doesn't grasp criminality of threatened war against Korea
Whilst I appreciate some of the information given by Lionel about North Korea and that he truly doesn't want to see war break out, I still find some of this disappoining.
At 4:50 minutes into this video, Lionel claims that the north Koreans "have been girding their loins for war since 1945". Whilst it is true that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) are very well prepared to deal with any threatened aggression by the United States, it is not something they have ever sought. As shown elsewhere in this discussion, the Korean conflict originated in September 1945, when US occupation forces, paradoxically, installed Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese as the government of 'South' Korea, whilst brutally repressing Koreans who had resisted the Japanese. The subsequent war against 'North' Korea in which between 25% and 30% of the population were killed exceeds what even the Nazis inflicted against any one nation.
James Sinnamon
Mon, 2017-11-20 01:05
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Kim Jong-Un's bellicosity in context of US crimes against Korea
I posted this in response to the Iranian PressTV video debate Why did North Korea sentence President Trump to death? (18/11/17) I was still downloading the 400Mb MP4 video file to watch it faster off-line, so I still haven't watched it.
However critically we may judge recent actions by North Korean President Kim Jong-Un, they pale into insignificance in comparison to the vast crimes committed by the United States since September 1945 against all the people of Korea, both in the North and the South.
In a seeming paradox, in September 1945, after the surrender of Japan, the United States military forces, which occupied the south of the country, installed in power a government, largely made up of Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese against their own people, that is, against the Korean resistance who had fought against the same common enemy against which the United States had also fought since 7 December 1941. President Roosevelt (FDR), who had led the US in that war had died in April 1945. His successor, Harry S. Human, was much more a glove puppet of those in the military-industrial complex not sympathetic to the war aims of FDR. So, after the end of the war, US military forces acted to suppress those popular resistance forces who had fought against Japan and Nazi Germany in Korea, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Greece, Italy, France and elsewhere.
The repression in South Korea was particularly savage. The popular resistance to that repression extended into what is referred to as the Korean War which began on 25 June 1950. In that war Koreans faced gound forces from the Uited States, France, the UK, Australia and a number of other allies. The United States' Air Foce (USAF) bombarded North Korea so much that it began to run out of targets to find. As perversely attested to by USAF commander General Curtis Le May (aka Dr. Strangelove) not one building higher than one storey was left standing. 25% or possible eve 30% of North Koreans died in that war.
The US refused to sign a peace treaty with North Korea. Every year, the North Korean military commanders have to take careful precautions should the annual practise invasion (aka 'military execises'), conducted by the South Korean military forces and the US occupation forces, turn into a real attempt by them to achieve what they had previously failed to achieve by 27 July 1953.
admin
Wed, 2017-11-22 13:25
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Comment in support of North Korea deleted from PressTV debate!
Nearly three days ago the above comment was posted in response to the article linked to above, but it has apparently been deleted. I will contact the PressTV editor to see whether or not this apparent censorships was intentional. Given that PressTV is one of the news services which helps demolish the deceit of the corporate mainstream media, and given that so much of PressTV's video content is informative, stimulating and often humorous, it is hard to beleve that they would deliberately attempt to prevent discussion on the web page in which te video of one such debate is embedded.
James Sinnamon
Sat, 2017-12-09 03:19
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Otherwise insightful video omits cause of current Korea conflict
I posted this comment beneath the YouTube video which was embedded below. Those who read this and who have already read previous comments will find that much of what is in this commen has already been posted above.
The talk appears to have omitted the underlying cause of the conflict between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK aka 'North Korea') and the United States.
North Korea was devastated in the war of 1950-1953. US Air Force General Curtis Le May perversely boasted how 25% of the population of North Korea was killed by his B29 bombers and how no building more than one storey high was left standing. The DPRK suffered this bombardment because they refused to surrender to the United States and its local proxies who had been imposed upon the southern half of Korea in 1945.
In 1945, the new US President Harry S. Truman turned on the Soviet Union and many of the United States' other war-time allies including the ELAS partisans in Greece, the communist partisans in Italy, the Viet Minh in Vietnam, the Chinese communists and the DPRK in Korea.
In the southern half of Korea the United States' occupation forces put into power a government largely composed of Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese occupiers. This government was named the "Republic of Korea" (ROK aka 'South Korea'). The US Army and its local ROK puppets savagely repressed supporters of the DPRK in the south and DPRK supporters resisted this repression. This civil war became a conventional war on 25 June 1950. Had the United States and its allies not massively increased the size of their intervention, the army of the DPRK could have easily beaten the army of the hated ROK. The subsequent invasion of the North was stopped, but at a terrible cost to the DPRK and to its Chinese allies. Peace was never signed in 1953. Officially that war continues. The DPRK leaders know that any one of the annual joint military exercises of the US and ROK, which resemble practice invasions of the North, could easily turn into a real invasion should the US be able to manufacture a pretext. Accordngly, the DPRK has repeatedly asked at the United Nations that these exercises cease.
THe DPRK leadres saw that they had no choice but to create weapons which could deter the United States should it ever again attempt to do what it failed to do in 1953.
Kim Jong-Un shamed Trump (Ruslan Ostako)
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