Vol. 73/No. 32      August 24, 2009

Washington and its imperialist allies justify such acts of piracy in the name of preventing “nuclear proliferation.” With imperial arrogance the U.S. government claims the right to dictate to North Korea, Iran, and other semicolonial nations under what conditions they may have access to even the knowledge needed to enable them to meet their energy needs, which are indispensable to the development of industry and culture.

While the U.S. government postures as the protector of the world against the horror of nuclear war, it along with the governments of the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China—the five permanent members of the UN Security Council—command by far the world’s largest nuclear arsenals. Sixty-four years ago the U.S. imperialists became the first and only ones to use this terrible weapon against hundreds of thousands of civilians in the atomic bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Far from making the world safer, the imperialist-led nuclear nonproliferation programs are thinly veiled cover for Washington’s vigilant campaign of threats against North Korea and others who won’t bow to its dictates. It is the U.S. government that introduced and maintains nuclear weapons in Korea’s region along with thousands of troops on Korean soil, and most recently deployed a modern antiballistic missile network in the Pacific aimed at North Korea.

The workers and farmers of Korea beat back Washington’s brutal 1950-53 assault, known as the Korean War, registering the first military defeat of U.S. imperialism. For decades Washington has sponsored the government in South Korea and maintained the forced partition of the peninsula as a punishment.

Washington maintains its garrison force of 28,000 troops in southern Korea not only against the north but also against the inevitable resistance that will grow among working people in the south of the peninsula. The capitalist rulers in South Korea and their patrons in Washington got a glimpse of that resistance in the months-long plant occupation by workers at the Ssangyong auto factory opposing layoffs.

Working people the world over and all opponents of imperialist war should say no to Washington’s threats against North Korea. All U.S. troops out of Korea now!
 
 
Related articles:
N. Korean ship seized under UN ‘authority’
Korean auto workers end 77-day occupation  
 
 
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