US President Donald Trump’s renewed threat to "totally destroy North Korea" during comments before the UN General Assembly in New York this week only bolsters Pyongyang’s internal propaganda that the US wants to kill North Koreans – and thus the contention that the nation must build a powerful nuclear arsenal to thwart a pending US strike.
Propaganda videos and posters from North Korea depict the US as its mortal enemy. According to the Korea Central News Agency, a communications arm of Kim Jong-un’s government, the US “will meet horrible nuclear strike and miserable and final ruin” if America engages in an act of war against North Korea.
KCNA’s Wednesday commentary continues, “the US cooking up another ‘sanctions resolution’ at the United Nations Security Council as part of its unprecedented military threat and sanctions and blockade to stifle the DPRK,” or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Pyongyang’s preferred nomenclature.
Trump’s own jabs picked up again Sunday:
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 17, 2017
"The US describes the DPRK’s nuclear deterrence for self-defense as the ‘biggest threat to peace’ but it is no more than a shameful logic," the KCNA statement says, adding that Kim and his military are "not afraid of any sanctions, pressure or war."
Pyongyang’s "news releases are invariably propaganda," researcher Andrew Scobel wrote, adding that "bluster, threat and hyperbole are staples of North Korean documents and pronouncements.”
“Bluster, threat and hyperbole” also seem to be the order of the day when it comes to exchanges between the US leader and the country it has never technically come to peace with.
