North Korea’s New Video Is Only Its Latest Propaganda About Attacking the U.S.

Update: The video’s been pulled off YouTube, but looks to be available still here.

A video released over the weekend through “one of North Korea’s official propaganda websites,” says the Atlantic Wire, portrays a sleeping Korean man dreaming about, essentially, the destruction of America. Roughly half way through, the video shows a burning U.S. city, draped in an American flag. According to the Atlantic, the text overlaying the disturbing visual reads “Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing … It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze.”

The video comes on the tail of the successful launch of a satellite into orbit by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea back in December. That rocket launch is featured prominently in the above video.

“The video ends,” says Australia’s News Limited, “with the young man concluding that his dream will “surely come true”.”

But this odd video is just the latest in a long run of anti-US North Korean propaganda, much of which invokes the visual rhetoric of the bomb.

According to Business Insider the text reads: “When provoking a war of aggression, we will hit back, beginning with the U.S.”

Much of the propaganda attempts to frame the country’s rocket development as a unifying force, one combating the “American imperialists.” Similar themes are evoked in the new video.

The rocket text reads “defend to the death with single-minded unity.” While the text says, “American imperialists, see the national power of Korea!”

Not all North Korean propaganda is so militaristic, however.

But a lot of it is.

America’s propaganda hasn’t been filled with flowers and roses, either. Here’s a 1944 work put out by the U.S. Army in advance of the eventual bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, for instance:

More from Smithsonian.com:

North Korea Made Its First Video Game: Pyongyang Racer
Faces From Afar: A Frightening and Fascinating Journey Through North Korea

Colin Schultz | | READ MORE

Colin Schultz is a freelance science writer and editor based in Toronto, Canada. He blogs for Smart News and contributes to the American Geophysical Union. He has a B.Sc. in physical science and philosophy, and a M.A. in journalism.