The state-run Korean Central News Agency warned on Tuesday that the plan Kim Jong Un is considering to launch missiles near the U.S. territory of Guam will “wring the windpipes of the Yankees." | Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP North Korea's greatest bomb-ast

One thing is clear about the notoriously secretive regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un: His communist propagandists have a way with words (and probably a few thesauruses lying around).

In the latest salvo, the state-run Korean Central News Agency warned on Tuesday that the plan Kim is considering to launch missiles near the U.S. territory of Guam will “wring the windpipes of the Yankees."


Such histrionics are not unique to Pyongyang; Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's "we will bury you" speech in 1956 may have started the modern canon. But the latest heir to the dynasty founded by Kim's grandfather in 1948 has carried on the repressive regime's tradition of using the government-controlled media to make some of the most bombastic, grandiose and even outright goofy threats.

Given North Korea's nuclear and missile ambitions, the broadsides are deadly serious in military and intelligence circles. Still, the carefully crafted missives are also perhaps the best measure of the level of delusion in a cult of personality that exists in an alternate reality from much of the rest of the world — and maybe even a sign of a sense of humor on the part of the government functionaries who come up with them. Where they fall short is in the editing department.

Of course, poking fun at the Korean leader is not without risk. Just ask Sony, which learned that the hard way after a crippling North Korean cyber-attack in 2015 in retaliation for its comedy film The Interview, which took aim at the North Korean leader.

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But here we go anyway, with some of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's recent greatest hits for the 'Yankeee imperialists':

Extra quotes for extra emphasis

"He expressed the conviction that it would make a greater leap forward in this spirit to send a bigger 'gift package' to the Yankees" in retaliation for American military provocation, KCNA said of Kim in May, as reported by Reuters.

Gangsterisms

Gangster analogies are pretty popular.

“The gangster-like US imperialists are making all the more desperate in their moves to ignite a nuclear war despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK,” KCNA said after US B-1 bombers flew over South Korea, as reported by CNN.

"No one in the world welcomes a gangster blackmailing the owner with a dagger,” KCNA said in another commentary in April that was critical of U.S. sanctions against North Korea, according to the Daily Mail.

'Cesspools of evil'

Sometimes a special turn of phrase is needed to describe the American enemy.

North Korea “can tip new-type intercontinental ballistic rockets with more powerful nuclear warheads and keep any cesspool of evils in the Earth, including the U.S. mainland, within our striking range,” KCNA said in April 2016 after it said it successfully tested a rocket engine, the New York Times reported.

The Exclamation

If they really want to make their point they add an exclamation point or two to the statement.

“If the American imperialists provoke us a bit, we will not hesitate to slap them with a preemptive nuclear strike. The United States must choose! It’s up to you whether the nation called the United States exists on this planet or not,” North Korea said in the subtitles of a video that depicted a nuclear attack on the U.S., according to the New York Times.

Super-size it

When a powerful adjective isn't quite enough, super-size it.

“In the case of our super-mighty preemptive strike being launched, it will completely and immediately wipe out not only U.S. imperialists' invasion forces in South Korea and its surrounding areas but the U.S. mainland and reduce them to ashes,” North Korea’s state-run newspaper, The Rodong Sinmun, said in April of this year.

A little alliteration (and a swipe at South Korea) couldn't hurt

"And air pirates of the U.S. imperialists waged a drill for getting familiar with order of joint action when flying over the Korean peninsula with fighters of the puppet air force," as the Daily Mail reported. "Such military provocation of the U.S. imperialists is a dangerous reckless racket for bringing the situation on the Korean peninsula to the brink of a war."

The bad old Yanks

Yankee may be their favorite term for the United States, employed like this from North Korea's foreign minister:

“If the Yankees, who have imposed pain and misfortune upon the Korean people for over half a century through their bloody war of aggression and heinous hostile policy against the DPRK, dares brandish the nuclear stick on this land again despite the DPRK’s repeated warnings, the DPRK will clearly teach them manners with the nuclear strategic force which it had so far shown the U.S. one after another.”

