Posted on 11/26/2010 1:34:41 AM PST by Reaganite Republican
Shrill DPRK propaganda threatens "shower of fire"
The ever-belligerent Norks fired more large guns today in the vicinity of the South Korean island shelled on Tuesday. To most observers it appears that a fading Kim Jong Il is happy to blow up a few Southern fisherman to impress the military with his choice of under-achieving 27-year-old son Kim Jong Un -reportedly not the sharpest knife in the drawer- as his designated successor in the world's only hereditary communist dictatorship.
He's already made the kid a four-star general, and after visiting the artillery site on Monday the younger Kim is rumored to have ordered the attack himself... AP- Fresh artillery shots were heard Friday on the tense South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, three days after it was devastated by a North Korean attack and hours after Pyongyang warned that the peninsula was on the brink of war.
The blasts happened just after the top U.S. commander in South Korea, Gen. Walter Sharp, toured Yeonpyeong Island in a show of solidarity with Seoul and to survey damage from Tuesday's hail of North Korean artillery fire that killed four people.
An official at the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said several new rounds of artillery fire were heard Friday on Yeonpyeong, which is just 7 miles (11 kilometers) south of the North Korean mainland. The military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several distant explosive sounds came from the direction of North Korea. There were no immediate reports of damage.
Seems the Kims are doing their best to frighten their enemies much as a rattlesnake would... and with a comparable moral code- (Yonhap News Service:) Threatening "a shower of dreadful fire," North Korea said Friday it will wipe out its enemies if its sovereignty is violated, warning that the Korean Peninsula is inching to the "brink of war." The warnings by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea and the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) are the latest threats Pyongyang has issued since South Korea and the U.S. agreed to hold joint drills near the communist country in a show of force.
The rhetoric raises already high tension after the communist country exchanged deadly artillery barrages with South Korea on Tuesday, killing two marines and two civilians here in one of the most violent clashes on the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea, officially called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), denies initiating the clash, warning it will mount additional attacks if its territorial waters are violated.
"The army and people of the DPRK are now greatly enraged at the provocation of the puppet group while getting fully ready to give a shower of dreadful fire and blow up the bulwark of the enemies" if they violate the North's sovereignty, the committee said.
In the Korean version of the statement released through the KCNA, the North said it is "ready to annihilate enemies' stronghold," a possible reference to major military bases and civilian facilities in the South.
It also said its forces "precisely targeted and struck" South Korean artillery units on Tuesday in what can seen as an admission of a deliberate attack on the South.
"Gone are the days when verbal warnings are served only," the committee said in the English statement. "The group should not run amuck, clearly understanding the will and mettle of the highly alerted army and people of the DPRK to wipe out the enemies."
If the Chinese are serious about being a world leader, now might be a appropriate time to act like it and control their brats before somebody loses an eye... or worse.
More at Reaganite Republican
Had one of my co-workers ask me this evening if we were going to war over Korea.
I really didn’t know what to tell her.
This is all a show to cement the son’s place in the heirarchy by issuing war orders
The North know they would lose any war, unless the Chinese would come in vs US and SK... I doubt that would ever happen, and they surely wouldn’t pledge such support to the opportunistic and mercurial Kim regime
The North would trash the South, but lose and die... period. I don’t see them pushing it all the way, and the Chinese need to act like the leaders they so desperately aspire to be and DO SOMETHING
Tell her to pray for the best but prepare for the worse.
Obama is going to crap himself if this goes south.
There seems to be a lot of “This will all blow over, just like before, won’t it?” reassuring going on.
Unlike a lot of people, I am not one that subscribes to the idea that the North Koreans are China’s puppets and that they can be controlled with a few jerks on the leash from Beijing.
They are too frigging independent and crazy for that. Furthermore, they know full well that if it all drops in the pot, China stands to lose a lot more than just face. The ROK economy is closely intertwined with the PRC economy, especially for petrochemicals, but for a number of other products as well. These are supplies that fuel China’s export-driven economy and which would not be easily replaced.
Plus, there is the possibility of a central government collapse in North Korea of a general war breaks out at the DMZ — which would mean thousands of refugees flooding across the Yalu, many of which would be deserting soldiers armed to the teeth.
Scary stuff.
Too many Asian nations did not spend enough on their military instead relying on eh U.S. to stand up for them. So their standard of living shot up while we shouldered that burden but now we are no longer in shape financially to be the worlds policeman and they may now realize what a perilous place the world still is with a lessened American presence.
The progressives will be hard pressed to voice support for their DPRK friends. This continues to be really spooky.
I wouldn’t get complacent, they are kind of crazy and paranoid... but for the most part just skilled extortionists
But China could remove the Kims if they chose... they just need to talk to the right people in the military and they’d be gone imho
Well, you could always use the old US standby: Whoever attacks us (or our allies) are really peaceful/rightfully aggrieved/put upon/outraged/victims....
Imam Obama will never attack North Korea. They are supplying important material to Iran and other Obama friends.
Actually, I read South Korea’s military is top notch... really impressive. I don’t think we add that much to the equation but 50K troops, and mostly a strategy role.
Japan too has a lot more ability than most people realize, and could build a nuke in a month if they so decided
Just take a look at what's in the Whitehouse and think again...
Hey... those are epic LOLOL
The threat of internal revolt must be getting really bad in North Korea, now they’ve got to create external threats to refocus the people.
You make a massive assumption that Barack Hussein Obama would "grow a set" and actually take some kind of meaningful action. I just don't see a scenario that would trigger The One actually taking any real leadership role in this.
AS far as China is concerned - we "Hoped" they would do something when the NKs started lighting off those test nukes... and the silence was deafening.
Sure. If they want to nuke Pyongyang, they could do it.
But forget slipping any secret agent type in to “eliminate” the Kims.
One thing people always forget is that there is a huge amount of historical animosity between China and Korea — just as there is with Vietnam and numerous other nations that have been either conquered by or under constant danger of being conquered by China.
One of the things that the North Koreans did best, prior to the end of the Cold War, was play the Russians and the Chinese off against each other. OK, they can’t do that now, but do you think it is any accident that despite their “fraternal socialist ties” there are exactly NO Chinese or Russian bases in the DPRK?
The Russians (Soviets) tried numerous times to get access to a port in North Korea and were rebuffed every time. You would think that the Norkies would LOVE to have a few thousand PRC troops in bases along the DMZ for the same reason the ROK likes having US troops on the other side — as a tripwire deterrent to aggression — yet there are none, and the Chinese DPRK border is guarded. Not like the DMZ, obviously, but still guarded.
Black Prince......he is not.
“Too many Asian nations did not spend enough on their military instead relying on eh U.S. to stand up for them. So their standard of living shot up while we shouldered that burden but now we are no longer in shape financially to be the worlds policeman and they may now realize what a perilous place the world still is with a lessened American presence.”
Excellent observations...not to mention the embarassingly weak “leadership” we currently have.
Seems the Norks’ M.O. is too pull a stunt, then bray about it afterwards. As long as they’re ranting, we probably don’t have to worry about escalation.
South Korea spends 27 Billion a year on it's defense or
2.8% of it's GDP.
For a tiny country they rank 11th in Military Spending in
the entire world (not gdp but overall budget).
In fact they spend TWICE as much as Israel!
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