Category: Asia

The WannaCry Cyberattack: What the Evidence Says and Why the Trump Administration Blames North Korea

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Jan3

By Gregory Elich

On December 19, in a Wall Street Journal editorial that drew much attention, Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert asserted that North Korea was “directly responsible” for the WannaCry cyberattack that struck more than 300,000 computers worldwide. The virus encrypted files on infected computers and demanded payment in return for supposedly providing a decryption key to allow users to regain access to locked files. Bossert charged that North Korea was “using cyberattacks to fund its reckless behavior and cause disruption across the world.” [1]

At a press conference on the same day, Bossert announced that the attribution was made “with evidence,” and that WannaCry “was directed by the government of North Korea,” and carried out by “actors on their behalf, intermediaries.” [2] The evidence that led the U.S. to that conclusion? Bossert was not saying, perhaps recalling the ridicule that greeted the FBI and Department of Homeland Security’s misbegotten report on the hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

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Rising U.S.-North Korea Tensions

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Nov30Korea

An interview with Gregory Elich by RT Deutsch

Q: President Donald Trump put North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation that allows the United States to impose more sanctions and risks inflaming tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile programs. How could Trump‘s policy affect China‘s and Russia‘s ties to Pyongyang? What effect will this have on North Korea?

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Punishing a Nation: How the Trump administration is waging a merciless economic war on North Korea

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By Gregory Elich

Diplomacy never had a chance. It was not long after President Trump took office that he signed a directive establishing a North Korea policy based on overtly hostile measures. The Treasury Department was told to implement a series of sanctions against North Korea and those who traded with it. U.S. diplomats were instructed to exhort foreign officials in nearly every meeting to break off contacts with North Korea. [1] That program has been accelerating in recent weeks, with far reaching consequences. [2]

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Addicted to Chaos – The War on the North Korean People

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Gregory Elich interviewed by Brad Friedman on the BradCast program

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Trump’s War on the North Korean People

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By Gregory Elich

Amid renewed talk by the Trump administration of a military option against North Korea, one salient fact goes unnoticed. The United States is already at war with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – the formal name for North Korea). It is doing so through non-military means, with the aim of inducing economic collapse. In a sense, the policy is a continuation of the Obama administration’s ‘strategic patience’ on steroids, in that it couples a refusal to engage in diplomacy with the piling on of sanctions that constitute collective punishment of the entire North Korean population.

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Trump Threatens ‘Fire and Fury’ Against North Korea

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download

Interview with Gregory Elich

Donald Trump is promising “fire and fury” in response to reports that North Korea has developed the ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead so that it can be placed on a missile. North Korea is vowing to stay the course and fiercely defend its sovereignty.

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Behind the Headlines on U.S.-North Korea Relations

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Voices with Vision

Gregory Elich interviewed by Netfa Freeman, on the Voices with Vision Program

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North Korea’s Fast Track Missile Development: How Far it’s Come and Why it Has the U.S. on Edge

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Hwasong-12a

By Gregory Elich

Since Donald Trump became president, North Korea has conducted a flurry of missile tests, triggering a wave of condemnation by U.S. media and political figures. The reaction contains more than an element of fear-mongering, and it is sometimes implied that armed with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), North Korea is liable to launch an unprovoked attack on the U.S. mainland.

What tends to be lacking in such reports is any sense of sober reflection, and much confusion is sown concerning the actual state of North Korea’s program. This article takes a closer look at North Korea’s recent missile launches and argues that they pose a threat–not to the safety of the U.S. population, as the corporate media claim, but to the United States’ strategic calculus in the region.

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