Hegseth is not wrong about his overall point in regards to North Korea developing nuclear weapons. What he is wrong about is why no prior president struck the Kim regime to stop their nuclear program. It was not because of ballistic missiles, it was because of the country’s massive artillery capacity located along the DMZ that effectively held the millions of people who live in the Seoul area hostage. No U.S. President was willing to strike the Kim regime’s nuclear program and put that many lives at risk from retaliation:
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday described North Korea’s menacing nuclear program as “the lesson” to learn, as he defended the U.S. military operation against Iran, which a Pentagon official said has cost an estimated $25 billion.
Hegseth made the remarks during a House Armed Services Committee hearing, stressing that Iran’s strategy to build nuclear weapons mirrors that of North Korea, as he pointed out that like Pyongyang, Tehran had been building a “conventional shield” of missiles to double down on its nuclear program.
“North Korea is the lesson. Everybody thought North Korea shouldn’t have a weapon,” he said.
“Under the Clinton administration, they gathered so many ballistic missiles that their ballistic missile shield allowed them to blackmail the region and the world (and) to say, ‘We’re going to get a nuke and you can’t do anything about it,'” he said.
You can read more at the link.
This is an example of why I believe the only way Yoon will ever get out of prison is if a conservative President takes power again to pardon him. The Korean left is just going to keep finding ways to bury him with prison sentences to where he will likely never get out. For whatever reason it seems like they hate him more than former President Park Geun-hye:
An appeals court on Wednesday increased the sentence for former President Yoon Suk Yeol from five years to seven years in prison on obstruction of justice and other charges stemming from his failed martial law bid.
The Seoul High Court handed down the heavier punishment in a live-televised ruling, finding the ousted former president guilty of obstructing investigators from detaining him last year over his short-lived imposition of martial law in late 2024.
Special counsel Cho Eun-suk’s team had sought a 10-year prison term for Yoon.
You can read more at the link.
I always caveat information like this coming from activist groups because it is so hard to know with certainty what is going on in North Korea:
Executions rose sharply in North Korea for offenses including watching South Korean cultural content during the COVID-19 pandemic, a report showed Tuesday.
The report, released by the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), a Seoul-based NGO, examines executions and death sentences over the 13 years of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s rule from 2011 to 2024.
Of the 144 confirmed executions during the period, 65 occurred after the North closed its borders at the start of the pandemic. The findings are based on testimonies from 265 North Korean defectors and reporting from five media organizations covering North Korea through in-country contacts. SEOUL, April 28 (Yonhap) — Executions rose sharply in North Korea for offenses including watching South Korean cultural content during the COVID-19 pandemic, a report showed Tuesday.
The report, released by the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), a Seoul-based NGO, examines executions and death sentences over the 13 years of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s rule from 2011 to 2024.
Of the 144 confirmed executions during the period, 65 occurred after the North closed its borders at the start of the pandemic. The findings are based on testimonies from 265 North Korean defectors and reporting from five media organizations covering North Korea through in-country contacts.
Executions had declined from 2015 to 2019 amid heightened international scrutiny following the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on human rights in North Korea, according to the report.
But they surged again after the COVID-19 border closure in 2020. Over the five years that followed, executions and death sentences rose by 116.7 percent and the number of individuals affected also rose by 247.7 percent. Notably, executions linked to South Korean cultural content, including K-dramas, films and K-pop, as well as religious practices, surged by 250 percent after the border closure, the report said.
You can read more at the link.
This is a pretty cool training exercise, but you would think the Canadians would have been able to send more than just 44 Soldiers for this training:
Army troops of South Korea and Canada launched joint high-tech military drills in South Korea for the first time earlier this week, officials said Friday, as part of efforts to bolster bilateral military ties between the two nations.
The 11-day exercise, which runs through April 30, is under way at the Korea Combat Training Center (KCTC), a facility employing advanced technologies for realistic ground drills, in the mountainous county of Inje, some 125 kilometers northeast of Seoul, according to Army officials.
A group of 44 soldiers from the Canadian Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, an Army regiment that served in the 1950-53 Korean War, has been deployed to train alongside South Korean troops from the 7th Infantry Division.
The joint training comes as the Canadian troops visited South Korea to commemorate the 75th anniversary of a key battle that took place in the northern county of Gapyeong in April 1951 at the height of the three-year war.
You can read more at the link, but I also recommend reading my prior posting about Canadian troops that fought in the Battle of Kapyong:
The Unification Minister really stepped in it, but he will likely face no consequences since he is a committed leftist. You can say many things about the Korean left, but one thing they do well is stick together so I doubt anything will happen to Chung Dong-young for the leak. This is likely why USFK is taking this action since the Korean government is taking no action to address this issue:
The United States has restricted South Korea’s access to intelligence related to North Korea’s nuclear facilities in protest over the unification minister’s disclosure of the country’s uranium enrichment facility in Kusong, sources said Monday.
The South Korean military has claimed its readiness posture remains unhindered by Washington’s decision, but concerns remain over a potential vacuum in Seoul’s surveillance capabilities against the North.
The U.S. has restricted information sharing with Seoul on the North’s nuclear facilities collected via satellites, including on a facility located in the western city of Kusong.
You can read more at the link.
Kim Keon-hee is going to be in jail for far longer than she served as First Lady. Was pursuing politics with her husband worth this?:
An appeals court on Tuesday increased the sentence for former first lady Kim Keon Hee from 20 months to four years in prison on corruption charges.
The Seoul High Court handed down the sentence during a hearing that was televised live, after finding her partially guilty of involvement in a stock price manipulation scheme and guilty of accepting luxury gifts from the Unification Church.
It acquitted her, however, of receiving free opinion poll results from a self-proclaimed power broker, upholding the lower court’s ruling.
You can read more at the link.
