US using N Korea issue as pretext for THAAD deployment: Analyst

Russian President Vladimir Putin says the US is triggering a new arms race by its placements of missile systems in South Korea and other parts of the world. He says Moscow has no choice but to respond by strengthening its own defenses. To discuss the issues, Press TV has interviewed Jim W. Dean, managing editor and columnist at the Veterans Today from Atlanta, and Fredrick Peterson, a congressional defense policy advisor from New York.

Dean says Russia and China are both aware of the threats the North Korean weapons program could pose to peace, but the United States has “pushed the envelope” in this issue.

The analyst highlights the timing of Pyongyang’s latest missile tests, saying those launches coincided with the joint military drills between the US and South Korea.

He said Pyongyang’s missile tests were a response to those military drills, which it views as a “gun pointed at North Korea.”

Dean further touched on Washington’s military buildup in different parts of the world, including near the Russian border. The US, he said, has used the North Korean issue as a pretext to boost its military presence in South Korea, where it has already stationed troops.

The Americans, he added, have taken advantage of the tensions over the North Korean missile and nuclear activities to get the THAAD missile system in the South.

“The Russians and the Chinese realized that the US took advantage of the situation and moved the THAADs in there and they [the systems] have one basic overriding goal and that is to put the US in a position to do a preemptive strike if it does choose” to do so.

The commentator further rejected the claim that the deployment is a reaction to the North Korean threat, saying that “it is a joke” because Pyongyang is so far away from being able to threaten the US by its nuclear weapons.

The analyst argued that the United States is trying to justify its military budget by introducing North Korea as an important threat.

“The defense industrial complex loves to get the advertisement that the tax-payers’ money is being well spent,” he said, adding, “The amount of money that is involved in these long-range missile programs, the testing, by the way, this missile defense shield is pretty much a joke.”

Another panelist, Fredrick Peterson, rejected Putin’s idea that there is a new arms race at a global level.

He says the situation in North Korea should provide an opportunity for Russia, China and the US to cooperate and help defuse tensions on the restive peninsula.

He also describes the leader of North Korea as “a very unstable man at the helm over there who holds nuclear weapons and threatens not only South Korea and its neighbors within the region but the world with a nuclear conflagration.”

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk