War on Korean Peninsula: High Tension Prompts Scenarios

Time via Yahoo ^ | 26 May 2010 | Bill Powell

[edpc]

"A symphony of death." That's the chilling phrase that Kurt Campbell, who is now Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the Obama Administration, once used to describe the likely outcome of any military encounter on the Korean peninsula between the U.S., its ally South Korea and their mutual enemy across the 38th parallel in the North. The possibility of war breaking out once again in Korea is so unthinkable that a lot of people in various military establishments - the Pentagon, South Korea's armed forces and China's People's Liberation Army - actually spend a lot of time thinking about it. The truce between North and South has lasted for 57 years, but a peace treaty has never been signed, and now, in the wake of the North's attack on a South Korean naval vessel - and the South's formal accusation that the Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo - tensions are at their highest level since 1994, when North Korea threatened to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire."

[edpc]

To much of the rest of the post–Cold War world, the idea seems slightly farcical: setting up big speakers on the southern side of the demilitarized zone and broadcasting - loudly - news and anti–North Korean propaganda across the border. To some it conjures up images straight out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries").

You have to laugh when an MSM analysis includes Monty Python references. But the author is correct. Things can get out of hand very quickly.

[GeronL]

I bet tensions were high in 1996 when the Nork mini-sub beached itself and 26 Norks tried to kill their way back to the border for 46 days or something like that.

[Williams]

It wouldn’t be a lomg “symphony of death” if we just nuked the bastards if this breaks out and get it over with.

[edpc]

Replace the 1812 Overture cannons with Bikini Atoll test audio.

[joelt]

Kinda like the end of Dr Strangelove?