War of Words: The shocking name North Korea called Obama in wake of cyber attack

The North Korean media angrily leveled a personal insult against President Obama after the internet in that country went down several times over the past week. North Korea is blaming the U.S. for its internet outages which took the entire country offline for several hours at a time in the past week.

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LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Referring to President Obama as a "monkey" North Korean state media blasted Obama and the United States in the wake of a mass internet outage which knocked the entire country offline for hours last week. Intermittent outages have continued since then.

The insult, which referred to Obama as a monkey, was penned by someone in the National Defense Commission, which is North Korea's ruling body, led by Kim Jong Un. The remarks were faithfully reported on national media.

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Neither Obama, nor the White House acknowledged the insult or offered any comment.

Tensions between the U.S. and North Korea escalated two weeks ago when Sony reported it had been attacked by hackers intent on stopping the release of the film, "The Interview" which depicts the assassination of Kim Jong Un by American reporters.

After hacking Sony's systems, the hackers began releasing embarrassing emails and other information from Sony. The attack was quickly blamed on North Korea, although private speculation remains that it was rogue hackers, and not North Korea, to blame. The administration has officially accused North Korea.

In a possible attempt to stop the release of "The Interview" the hackers threatened terrorist attacks against movie theaters that showed the film. This threat caused Sony to cancel premiers and showings of the movie. The movie has since been released on a limited basis.

Last week, North Korea was entirely knocked off the internet with all four of its internet "superhighways," its only internet connection to the outside world, shut down.

Rumors of a cyber war between the U.S. and North Korea exploded across the internet, but officials remained mum. American officials denied any knowledge or involvement, while North Korea blamed the U.S.

Both North Korea and the U.S. appear to have robust cyber warfare capabilities and it is likely both nations had both means and motive to carry out the attacks. Obama himself pledged to strike back at North Korea after the Sony hack.

The truth of the attacks may not be known for some time, it can only be hoped that the conflict does not escalate into something worse with the potential to harm innocent people.

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