U.S. attacks on Korea no joke

In case anyone thought that Washington’s recent moves to modify its policy toward Cuba mean the imperialist monster has suddenly mellowed, the White House, State Department, FBI, CIA and Pentagon have all cleared up that misunderstanding.

To the cheers of the corporate media, from the virulently right-wing Fox News to the liberal-sounding New York Times, they all ganged up to launch more threats against the valiant Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

What is the supposed issue? Another piece of cynical Hollywood trash that claims to be just a “comedy” — about the U.S. assassinating the DPRK’s head of state.

There’s nothing fictional or funny about U.S. assassinations of foreign leaders. It’s been done too often. And this film even got the State Department’s official go-ahead. Now that an anonymous group of hackers called Guardians of Peace has allegedly retaliated by hacking into the website of the Sony Corporation, all branches of the capitalist state are blaming the DPRK and calling for blood.

Hacking is nothing unusual these days. Think Chase Bank, Home Depot, Target. But it is now Washington’s latest excuse for bellicose statements against the DPRK.

Did Obama make his strong statement against Korea partly to appease his far-right opponents, who are fuming about Cuba? Maybe. That’s typical capitalist politics.

But the people of the DPRK take U.S. threats very seriously, and so should we. The U.S. war in Korea killed millions of Koreans, mostly civilians, and some 50,000 U.S. military personnel. What the U.S. has done to Korea is no laughing matter. The Korean people have sacrificed and fought long and hard to defend their national sovereignty. The head of state, Kim Jong Un, is the embodiment and symbol of their national identity.

Sony withdrew the film and was criticized by Obama for doing so, as though this were somehow a surrender of “freedom of speech” and “artistic integrity.” But we haven’t heard a peep from the self-designated defenders of free speech in the U.S. government about the repression in U.S.-occupied south Korea under the National Security Act, which makes it a crime to publish or say anything positive about the DPRK.

The U.S. has never ended its state of war against the DPRK. We must elevate the struggle here to demand that Washington sign a peace treaty and withdraw its troops from south Korea, so the Korean people can determine their own destiny.

The struggle against the imperialist domination of other countries is integral to the struggles at home for good-paying jobs, against racism, sexism and anti-lesbian-gay-bi-trans-queer bigotry, mass incarceration, police murders and the persecution of immigrants.

No justice, no peace, no racist police! No foreign occupations, bring the troops home now!