North Korea fires back after Trump’s ridicule
Falsified video, images show attacks on U.S. military
Tension between the United States and North Korea remained high Sunday as Pyongyang released propaganda videos showing U.S. planes and an aircraft carrier under attack.
The videos came after President Donald Trump derided North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, calling him “little rocketman” and vowing to “totally destroy” North Korea.
U.S. officials were more restrained Sunday. Treasury Secretary Seth Mnuchin repeated the insistence that all options, including military force, remain on the table. He also discussed his greater authority to punish countries, companies and individuals who trade with North Korea under an executive order Trump signed last week.
Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who has pushed stronger sanctions against North Korea and those who trade with it, said there is still room for diplomacy and tougher sanctions that aim to bring North Korea to the negotiating table.
In Pyongyang, however, the rhetoric and the images evoked the possibility of war on the horizon.
Photoshopped pictures from a stateowned propaganda website purported to show a North Korean missile making a direct hit on B-1B Lancer bombers and an F-35 fighter jet. In the doctored shots, the planes were engulfed in flames.
Another falsified video on the website showed a missile launched from a North Korean submarine strike the USS Carl Vinson, a nuclear-powered supercarrier. Like the planes, the ship explodes in a firestorm.
The fake news targets were apparently chosen because B-1B bombers escorted by Air Force fighter jets flew in international airspace off the coast of North Korea on Saturday in a clear demonstration of force. And the Carl Vinson led one of two carrier strike groups that conducted joint exercises with South Korea and Japan earlier this year.
On TV, Kim said he was considering ordering the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”