[egoldhyip]

Along with the China plan for economic retaliation I understand that factories over there are going to make a killing off of BB's idea:

[loginereQQ]

So Ninja, lofter1, & eddhead, if we can't use the nukes to destroy our enemies, why has the US spent $Billions building & maintaining an arsenal of nuclear weapons? What's the point?

[vforvandetta]

Duck Soup.

[YmolafBp]

The point is that they scare the sh!t out of the other side.

Mutually Assured Destruction

[12ZHeWZa]

Things are heating up ...

South Korea Begins Large-Scale Military Exercises

THE HUFFINGTON POST
By KELLY OLSEN
May 27, 2010 - 4:04 PM

SEOUL, South Korea — Military tension on the Korean peninsula rose Thursday after North Korea threatened to attack any South Korean ships entering its waters and Seoul held anti-submarine drills in response to the March sinking of a navy vessel blamed on Pyongyang.

Separately, the chief U.S. military commander in South Korea criticized the North over the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan in which 46 sailors died, telling the communist country to stop its aggressive actions.

North Korean reaction was swift. The military declared it would scrap accords with the South designed to prevent armed clashes at their maritime border, including the cutting of a military hot line, and warned of "prompt physical strikes" if any South Korean ships enter what the North says are its waters in a disputed area off the west coast of the peninsula.

A multinational team of investigators said May 20 that a North Korean torpedo sank the 1,200-ton ship. Seoul announced punitive measures, including slashing trade and resuming anti-Pyongyang propaganda over radio and loudspeakers aimed at the North. North Korea has denied attacking the ship, which sank near disputed western waters where the Koreas have fought three bloody sea battles since 1999.

"The facts and evidence laid out by the joint international investigation team are very compelling. That is why I have asked the Security Council to fulfill their responsibility to keep peace and stability ... to take the necessary measures, keeping in mind the gravity of this situation," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said as he opened a conference in Brazil meant to help find solutions to global conflicts.

Inter-Korean political and economic ties have been steadily deteriorating since the February 2008 inauguration of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who vowed a tougher line on the North and its nuclear program. The sinking of the Cheonan has returned military tensions – and the prospect of armed conflict – to the forefront.

Off the west coast, 10 South Korean warships, including a 3,500-ton destroyer, fired artillery and other guns and dropped anti-submarine bombs during a one-day exercise to boost readiness, the navy said.

South Korea also is planning two major military drills with the U.S. by July in a display of force intended to deter aggression by North Korea, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Gen. Walter Sharp, chief of the 28,500 U.S. troops in South Korea, said the United States, South Korea and other members of the U.N. Command "call on North Korea to cease all acts of provocation and to live up with the terms of past agreements, including the armistice agreement."

The U.S. fought on the South Korean side during the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. North Korea has long demanded a permanent peace agreement.

The prospect of another eruption of serious fighting has been constant on the Korean peninsula since the war ended. But it had been largely out of focus in the past decade as North and South Korea took steps to end enmity and distrust, such as launching joint economic projects and holding two summits.

The sinking of the warship, however, clearly caught South Korea – which has a far more modern and advanced military than its impoverished rival – off guard.

"I think one of the big conclusions that we can draw from this is that, in fact, military readiness in the West Sea had become very lax," said Carl Baker, an expert on Korean military relations at the Pacific Forum CSIS think tank in Honolulu, calling it nothing short of an "indictment" of Seoul's preparedness.

South Korean and U.S. militaries are taking pains to warn the North that such an embarrassment will not happen again.

South Korean media reported Thursday that the U.S.-South Korean combined forces command led by Sharp raised its surveillance level, called Watch Condition, by a step from level 3 to level 2. Level 1 is the highest.

The increased alert level means U.S. spy satellites and U-2 spy planes will intensify their reconnaissance of North Korea, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said, citing an unidentified South Korean official.

The South Korean and U.S. militaries would not confirm any changes to the alert level. It would be the first change since North Korea carried out a nuclear test in May 2009, a South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official said Seoul will "resolutely" deal with the North's measures announced Thursday, but did not elaborate. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department policy. South Korea's military said there were no signs of unusual activity by North Korean troops.

Despite the tensions, most analysts feel the prospect of war remains remote because North Korea knows what's at stake.

"I don't think they're really interested in going to war," said Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank. "Because if it's all-out war, then I'm convinced it would mean the absolute destruction" of North Korea. "And their country would cease to exist."

Thousands of South Korean veterans of the Korean and Vietnam wars rallied Thursday in Seoul, beating a life-sized rubber likeness of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il with wooden sticks and stabbing it with knives. "Dialogue won't work with these North Korean devils," said Mo Hyo-sang, an 81-year-old Korean War veteran.

In Moscow, the Kremlin said President Dmitry Medvedev sent a group of experts to Seoul to study the findings of the investigation into the ship disaster.

"Medvedev considers it a matter of principle to establish the reason for the sinking of the ship," it said.

___

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim and Sangwon Yoon in Seoul, David Nowak in Moscow and Marco Sibaja in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2010 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

[soryalomop]

The point is that they scare the sh!t out of the other side.

They don't appear to worry Kim Jong-il.

[Breeriacoirl]

In spite of all the fools and idiots that occupy government positions throughout the world, it's comforting that some of us don't have any say in the release of nuclear weapons.

[dodsCooggipsedebt]

Nuclear weapons should never be used. Even in the event that a rogue nation hits one of us with a nuke it is still not justified to retaliate with one. In this case however I do believe that military action should be taken against N. Korea to completely incapacitate them. This is not a little thing that can be diplomatically brushed under the rug. If a US ship was sunk do you think there would be any diplomacy? No.

[sztc38tg]

Maybe, maybe not.

[uaodnabnjz]

The fact that China is finally behaving ambivalently toward the DPRK has to be a good sign. No one (except maybe Binky :-)) wants a war with North Korea, but that is not really the problem here: the regime has been teetering near collapse since the mid-90s and, in its desperation to keep rising discontent among its populace in check, it has taken to increasingly dangerous and aggressive military policies and tactics. First the nukes, then the withdrawl from the armistice in May, 2009, and most recently in the sinking of the South Korean ship.

Seems bizarre, but Chinese diplomacy probably offers the best chance for a peaceful resolution.

China faces pressure to act over North Korea at summit

[Stengapsept]

World Cup 2010 - North Korean flops shamed in public

Eurosport - Thu, 29 Jul 13:41:00 2010


North Korea's football squad have been subjected to a public humiliation in the wake of their World Cup failure.

The team lost all three games in South Africa, where they were making their first World Cup finals appearance since 1966.
They took the stage at the People's Palace of Culture in the capital Pyongyang while 400 students subjected them to a six-hour reprimand.

Reports claim coach Kim Jong-Hun was made to work on a building site and expelled from the Workers' Party of Korea.
He was blamed for "betraying the trust of Kim Jong-Un", one of dictator Kim Jong-Il's sons, after the country went into the tournament with high hopes of qualifying from the so-called 'Group of Death'.

The criticism was led by Ri Dong-Kyu, a commentator for state TV, which made the 7-0 drubbing at the hands of Portugal its first ever live sports broadcast.
The decision to show the game live came in the wake of an encouraging 2-1 defeat to Brazil. North Korea lost their final game 3-0 to Ivory Coast.

Radio Free Asia claimed the dressing-down took place on July 2, but news only leaked out of the famously secretive country this week.

Japanese-born pair Jong Tae-Se and An Yong-Hak escaped censure, flying straight to Japan from South Korea.
A source from South Korea’s intelligence community told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper: "In the past, North Korean athletes and coaches who performed badly were sent to prison camps.

“Considering the high hopes North Koreans had for the World Cup, the regime could have done worse things to the team than just reprimand them for their ideological shortcomings."

Eurosport

[annouhMus]

Could be true. Could be total BS. We'll never know. I'm just not so sure how reliable a radio station funded by the US is about the situation in the DPRK.

I heard from someone in the country during the first match they celebrated it like it was a victory (and yes, they did get to see the Brazilian goals, not just their own). But unfortunately he returned to Beijing just before the second match, so I don't know how the response to the other games was.

[toksenveste]

I know what you mean about the US-funded source for this report. Unfortunately, however, the DPRK so a fine job of generating credible and outrageous news, so I find this one quite believable. But you're right -- we'll probably know for sure.

[Freeptube]

Which better? Overall include tank, guns, planes, discipline, important foods etc.

Which better? Who wins?

Much big fight started - all over CNN NOW! WATCH!

South much ready for big fight too! Look!~

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/as...ex.html?hpt=T1

Early Warning system through media

Look!

http://articles.cnn.com/2010-05-27/w...na?_s=PM:WORLD

[ZZtop]

no point to my response anymore, someone killed the original thread

[Qxkmsxsx]

Analysis: For North Korea, Timing Is Everything

by Bradley K. Martin

November 23, 2010

There is never anything random about North Korean provocations.

In recent days, North Korea fired shells at a South Korea island near the countries' disputed maritime border and revealed its long-hinted-at uranium-based nuclear technology.

Why now?

A large part of the answer has to be that the regime sees an urgent need to build a foundation of putative achievements for "Comrade Youth Captain" Kim Jong Un — recently promoted to full general — to justify plans for the youngster to succeed his ailing father, Kim Jong Il, as supreme leader.

Kim Jong Un is way too young and inexperienced to have chalked up earth-shaking achievements, whether as statesman or as general. His official age is listed as 28, though evidence suggests he could younger, only 26 or 27.

Despite his youth, the regime has been building a personality cult in which he appears as a great man whose sweeping futuristic vision is transforming the country's production processes with "CNC" — computer numerical control.

That sets him up to take credit for what Western visitors to the Yongbyon nuclear site the other day found to be a surprisingly advanced facility for producing nuclear energy with thousands of computer-controlled centrifuges, using uranium-enrichment technology.

North Korea's nuclear program certainly began years before the younger Kim came of age. But the regime clearly hopes its subjects won't do the math. The succession process is troubled, and the boy general badly needs something that will help him earn the respect of the military, whose interests are given official priority behind only those of the leader himself.

The Seoul-based, defector-staffed news organization Daily NK last week quoted recent orders that reportedly came straight from Kim Jong Il and direct that "People's Army soldiers must become a military of steel of which the whole world is scared." In the process, military trainers must teach soldiers to "devote our youth according to the high will of the Comrade Youth Captain."

Daily NK quoted its unnamed North Korean source for this information as saying that "in each meeting there was a lecture about how 'Comrade Youth Captain watches us always.'" Soldiers, however, "just complain," the source said. They "worry about how they will spend the winter, what they will eat." North Korea is expecting a shortfall of 500,000 tons of food in the coming 12 months, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program jointly reported last week.

Assuming North Korea is playing its cards as usual, unveiling the uranium-enrichment program was intended to set up a win-win situation for the younger Kim in the context of the six-party talks in which the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia have negotiated with North Korea on and (currently) off for a reversal of its nuclear program.

If there is no renewal of those talks followed by concessions big enough for Kim Jong Un to boast of, the country's propaganda apparatus can still argue that under his leadership North Korea has achieved an additional deterrent against attack by the United States and South Korea.

To intensify pressure for concessions and at the same time highlight its deterrence advances, North Korea may well escalate its recent string of provocations, which also included torpedoing and sinking a South Korea warship on March 26. An international investigative panel said North Korea was responsible, which Pyongyang has denied.

The Japanese newspaper Sankei last week predicted a third North Korean nuclear test, citing satellite photos that it said showed tunneling in the area where the 2006 and 2009 tests were held.

Martin wrote this analysis from Bangkok, Thailand. He is the author of "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty."



This picture taken Tuesday by a South Korean tourist shows huge plumes of smoke rising from Yeonpyeong island in the disputed waters of the Yellow Sea after an exchange of fire between North and South Korea.

Copyright 2010 NPR

[Nothatspecial]

Um... What happened to the other thread's replies?

[asSexate]

Posts #34 and #35 were the other thread. They were merged into this thread.

[maxfieldj1]

North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire Tuesday after the North shelled an island near their disputed sea border, killing at least two South Korean marines, setting dozens of buildings ablaze and sending civilians fleeing for shelter.
The clash, which put South Korea's military on high alert, was one of the rivals' most dramatic confrontations since the Korean War ended, and one of the few to put civilians at risk, cheap dreamweaver though no nonmilitary deaths were immediately reported. Fifteen South Korean soldiers and three civilians were injured and the extent of casualties on the northern side was unknown.
The skirmish began when Pyongyang warned the South to halt military drills in the area, according to South Korean officials. When Seoul refused and began firing artillery into disputed waters, albeit away from the North Korean shore, the North retaliated by bombarding the small island of Yeonpyeong, which houses South Korean military installations and a small civilian population.
"I thought I would die," said Lee Chun-ok, 54, an islander who said she was watching TV in her home when the shelling began. Suddenly, a wall and door collapsed.
"I was really, really terrified," she told The Associated Press after being evacuated to the port city of Incheon, west of Seoul, "and I'm still terrified."
South Korea responded by firing K-9 155mm self-propelled howitzers and dispatching fighter jets. Officials in Seoul said there could be considerable North Korean casualties. The entire skirmish lasted about an hour.
Each side has threatened the other against another attack.
The escalating tensions focused global attention on the tiny island and sent stock prices down sharply worldwide. The dollar, U.S. Treasury prices and gold all rose as investors sought safe places to park money. Hong Kong's main stock index sank 2.7 percent, while European and U.S. stock indexes fell between 1 and 2 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 165 points in afternoon trading, or 1.5 percent.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who convened an emergency security meeting shortly after the initial bombardment, said that an "indiscriminate attack on civilians can never be tolerated."
"Enormous retaliation should be made to the extent that (North Korea) cannot make provocations again," he said.
The United States, which has more than 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea, condemned the attack. In Washington, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called on North Korea to "halt its belligerent action," and said the U.S. is committed to South Korea's defense.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned North Korea's artillery attack, calling it "one of the gravest incidents since the end of the Korean War," his spokesman Martin Nesirky said. Ban called for "immediate restraint" and insisted "any differences should be resolved by peaceful means and dialogue," the spokesman said.
The supreme military command in Pyongyang threatened more strikes if the South crossed their maritime border by "even 0.001 millimeter," according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
South Korea holds military exercises like Tuesday's off the west coast about every three months.
A statement from the North said it was merely "reacting to the military provocation of the puppet group with a prompt powerful physical strike," and accused Seoul of starting the skirmish with its "reckless military provocation as firing dozens of shells inside the territorial waters of the" North.
Government officials in Seoul called North Korea's bombardments "inhumane atrocities" that violated the 1953 armistice halting the Korean War. The two sides technically remain at war because a peace treaty was never signed, and nearly 2 million troops — including tens of thousands from the U.S. — are positioned on both sides of the world's most heavily militarized border.
The exchange represents a sharp escalation of the skirmishes that flare up along the disputed border from time to time. It also comes amid high tensions over the North's apparent progress in its quest for nuclear weapons — Pyongyang claims it has a new uranium enrichment facility — and six weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il anointed his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, as the heir apparent.
"It brings us one step closer to the brink of war," said Peter Beck, a research fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, "because I don't think the North would seek war by intention, but war by accident, something spiraling out of control has always been my fear."
Columns of thick black smoke rose from homes on the island, video from YTN cable TV showed. Screams and shouts filled the air as shells rained down on the island just south of the disputed sea border.
Yeonpyeong lies a mere seven miles (11 kilometers) from — and within sight of — the North Korean mainland.
China, the North's economic and political benefactor, which also maintains close commercial ties to the South, appealed to both sides to remain calm and "to do more to contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
Stephen Bosworth, the Obama administration's special envoy to North Korea, said he discussed the clash with the Chinese foreign minister and that they agreed both sides should show restraint. He reiterated that the U.S. stands firmly with its ally, South Korea.
Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea and the U.S.-led U.N. Command, said in a Facebook posting that the U.S. military is "closely monitoring the situation and exchanging information with our (South Korean) allies as we always do."
Yeonpyeong, famous for its crabbing industry and home to about 1,700 civilians as well as South Korean military installations. There are about 30 other small islands nearby.
North Korea fired dozens of rounds of artillery in three separate barrages that began in midafternoon, while South Korea returned fire with about 80 rounds, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Naval operations had been reinforced in the area, the JCS said early Wednesday, declining to elaborate.
Two South Korean marines were killed and 15 injured, it said. Island residents fled to some 20 shelters on the island and sporadic shelling ended after about an hour, according to the military.
The Koreas' 1950s war ended in a truce, but North Korea does not recognize the western maritime border drawn unilaterally by the United Nations at the close of the conflict, and the Koreas have fought three bloody skirmishes there in recent years.
South Korea holds military exercises like Tuesday's off the west coast about every three months.
In March, a South Korean warship went down in the waters while on a routine patrolling mission. Forty-six sailors were killed in what South Korea calls the worst military attack on the country since the war.
Seoul blamed a North Korean torpedo, but Pyongyang denied responsibility.

[Kiliunjubl]

Thanks to all those who have contributed to this thread. Let's just hope that history lets it fade away....