The U.S. military has moved a Navy ship capable of intercepting missiles to waters off the coast of the Korean Peninsula, as threats from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un escalate and the White House signals it wants to head off any potential conflict by flexing America’s military might.
A U.S. defense official confirmed to Fox News that the Navy had moved the U.S. destroyer to a location near South Korea. The ship, the USS McCain, is equipped with the Aegis defense system and is capable of shooting down missiles. Officials initially misidentified the ship but later clarified the USS McCain had been dispatched.
The defense official said the decision is not part of the ongoing joint military exercise with South Korea but part of the Navy’s general movements. The Navy had the same type of ship in this location as recently as December.
But, the positioning comes after the Pentagon dispatched two F-22 stealth fighter jets to South Korea to join Seoul forces in a training exercise, and after other demonstrations of U.S. capability last week.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Monday that Kim Jong Un’s steadily escalating threats follow a “pattern,” but one that must be taken seriously. He said the U.S. is now taking “prudent” measures to “reassure our allies, demonstrate our resolve to the North and reduce pressure on Seoul to take unilateral action.”
This would include efforts to boost missile defense, last week’s rare flight of B-2 bombers to South Korea and likely the decision Sunday to deploy F-22 Raptors to Osan Air Base in South Korea.
With analysts warning that the biggest threat from North Korea is that it could start a war by going too far and provoking South Korea, Carney suggested the shows of strength are aimed at deterring the North from crossing that line.
“We believe this has reduced the chance of miscalculation and provocation,” Carney said of the B-2 flights and other actions.
Carney, though, said that despite the “harsh rhetoric” out of Pyongyang, the U.S. is not seeing changes to the country’s “military posture,” such as any “large-scale” mobilizations or positioning of forces.
“This pattern of bellicose rhetoric is not new, it is familiar,” Carney said. “We take it very seriously, we take prudent measures in response to it.”
The F-22 flight came after North Korea warned that the Korean Peninsula had entered “a state of war.”
A Pentagon spokesman confirmed to Fox News that the F-22 Raptors were deployed to Osan Air Base in South Korea from Japan on Sunday to support ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills.
“This exercise has been planned for some time and is part of the air component of the Foal Eagle exercise,” spokesman George Little told reporters Monday.
Meanwhile, the North Korean leader gathered legislators Monday for an annual spring parliamentary session that followed a ruling party declaration that nuclear bomb building and a stronger economy were the nation’s top priorities.
The meeting of the Supreme People’s Assembly follows near-daily threats from Pyongyang, including vows of nuclear strikes on South Korea and the U.S.
North Korea said Saturday its armed forces, “will blow up U.S. bases for aggression in its mainland and in the Pacific operational theaters including Hawaii and Guam.”
Kim also threatened to shut down a border factory complex that is the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.
The threats are seen as part of an effort to provoke the new government in Seoul to change its policies toward Pyongyang and to win diplomatic talks with Washington in order to gain more aid.
Fox News’ Justin Fishel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
“have completely taken the wrong meaning out of what I was saying.”
shortages and rationing schemes.
were kept in Iran and paraded before the world media up until President Elect Ronald Reagan sent Iran the message, “Let my people go,” and they were brushed up and sent back immediately.
Islam is self-proclaimed to be “the religion of peace,” and in our uncompromising quest for political correctness we deny ourselves the merest observation that “they” may be different from “us” in any measurable respect. Indeed, as Muslims walk the streets of western countries they do so in relative equality, and to the extent they are polite and attempt to blend with the local populations, they are welcomed as fellow citizens of the world, and extended the hand of brotherhood.
So why is the population of Europe growing so rapidly? Muslim immigration, and Muslim Fertility Rates.
Then, these “peaceful” Islamic adherents tend to become more demanding and violent as their percentage of population grows in these countries, and leaders and agitators begin to demand “religious rights” (extended privileges and Sharia Law) for Muslims, occupying the streets or rioting and burning in protest.
There’s no doubt that Barack Hussein Obama is a populist politician. In many ways he is the every man . . . proving to the masses that indeed, anyone can become the president of the United States of America.
organizer,” which in retrospect appears to have included an armband of some sort and included duties like registering the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders to vote. His politics are those of the ’60s campus radical, as are those of his mentors and appointees. He has exchanged treasury dollars for support and votes in the tradition of his party and as promised, has siphoned trillions of them off to promote his social welfare utopian ideals — most of those dollars ending up in the hands of his cronies. Although this “tax, spend, elect” cycle is short-lived per force, concluding when the treasury is emptied, the tactic often plays well to the electorate, in the short term. That run is about over judging from the 60 percent increase in the national debt in just the first 4 years of Obama’s presidency.
In the 1970s we were told by the media, university professors, Hollywood stars, and NOAA that the earth was slipping into global cooling, the precursor to an imminent ice age. They assured us that it was our own fault – carbon emissions, etc.
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