False Alarm of “Missile Threat Inbound” on Hawai`i—and the Very Real Danger of a Criminal U.S. War in Korea

Updated January 15, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On Saturday early morning, people across Hawai`i got an alarming message on their phones from the Hawai`i Emergency Management Agency, saying: “BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAI`I. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.” Especially at a time when the Trump/Pence regime has been dialing up war threats against North Korea and Democrats and the mainstream media have been joining in the scare-mongering about the “threat” to the U.S. from North Korean missiles, the emergency alert set off widespread panic. It was 38 minutes later that government officials said this was a “false alarm.”

Whatever the actual origin of the “false alarm” in Hawai`i, the authorities will attempt to reassure people that “this is being looked into.” But there is more. It is highly likely that the dominant fascist sections of the ruling class—with the Trump/Pence regime at the core—will use this as a way to get people to imagine themselves in the middle of a situation like that. This will go along with promoting the thinking that if people want to avoid that, they are going to have to go along with the regime’s threats of what would be a “pre-emptive” war against North Korea. And judging from past practice and current silence, the leading forces of the Democratic Party would at most offer tepid amendments.

These monsters in the White House (and the capitalist-imperialist ruling class as a whole) don’t care one bit about the people. They are more than willing to let people die—or, in this case, to “have the experience” of what it would feel like to stare death in the face for over half an hour—in order to herd them into their plans to maintain and advance the absolutely unjust interests of empire. They are in fact plotting and planning ways to destroy North Korea (see, for instance, the recent piece in Atlantic magazine about Trump’s national security advisor H.R. McMaster and his thinking on war on North Korea) as part of their overall contention for empire. Such a war could easily mean the mass murder of millions of children, women and men in that country and many millions more in the region and beyond—and could easily spiral into a war involving different countries.

Not only must we, the people in the U.S., REFUSE to allow ourselves to be enlisted into what would be a truly monumental crime… but we must actually actively resist this, breaking the silence that has been way too deep.

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