Posted on 02/09/2003 7:49:19 PM PST by AmericanInTokyo
"Freepranslation" (from the original Japanese-language news article) provided by "AmericanInTokyo"
Article Title: "President Bush: "In Addition, Possibility of Military Attack on North Korea" (SponNichi: 2/10/03) ("Bush daitoryo kita chosen kougeki mo")
Came across this interesting Japanese article today (10 Feb) on the "SponNichi" website. This daily paper is known for tabloid articles designed for the Japanese salaryman, but often is correct to a 't', and pulls no punches by relating complex problems in simple terms that the average Japanese readership can understand.
The article was based on comments to SponNichi by the Washington DC journalist staff of Kyodo News Wire, the Japanese version of AP.
In the story, it states that President Bush has outright told sources in D.C. that the US could now move to a pre-emptive status against North Korea.
The tone in D.C. for weeks has been for the US to keep saying strongly that they wish to solve this diplomatically. Some sources in the Pentagon grumbled that with each comment, communist/cult North Korea only increased their rhetoric, outright threats, and provocative moves at the Yongbyon nuke plant they have started up.
The 'last straw', the brief article claims, for Bush personally was the threat mid-week, last-week, where North Korea articulated (to a British BBC reporter) they now reserved the right to take a pre-emptive action upon the United States. [I have linked the SponNichi article here to FR]. It said that the Bush Adminstration began to 'lose face' on this issue because they had initially adopted a rather conciliatory and repetitive diplomatic line (against the wishes of some over at Pentagon which desired the US candidly discuss up front that they could indeed use military power in addition to diplomatics). The common feeling in D.C. has now become 'enough is enough'; Kim Jong il's trademark brinksmanship ("setogiwa gaiko") diplomacy was now entering dangerous terrority with these provocative threats.
The Japanese SponNichi article concludes the prediction that if the North Koreans move ahead with such things as a ICBM missile launch test or further refueling of nuke materials to create proliferating WMD, that the US may have no choice but to take military action; furthermore, increasing US military forces (bombers) in Japan and Korea has been having the effect of moving the chessboard in that direction.
End of Article (Synopsis)
All these Dem/lib scumbags who did not so much as even introduce a brief blurb into the Congressional Record about broken Clinton treaties or concentration camps in North Korea for the last many years, arenow suddenly engaged on how much worse North Korea is than Iraq. Fact is, they will tell Bush not to attack N. K. if push comes to shove.
Their political tactics here make me want to puke, because so few of them can point to a consistent record of opposing North Korea (until just now to checkmate George Bush on a side issue).
At the end of the day, these Democrats could never stand to have television ads in October 2004 showing Liberation Demonstrations not only in Kabul and Baghdad, but in Pyongyang as well, with people crying about their freedom and praising Bush. Nope, that they clearly could not handle. They'll drop their bluff once we get really serious about N.Korea when we move the GBUs closer to little Kim's paradise.
US threatens blockade of North Korea (Feb. 10, 2003 Christian Science Monitor)
By Michael Sheridan
WASHINGTON: The United States will mount a naval blockade of North Korea and impose sanctions if it begins to make nuclear weapons-grade plutonium, says a high-ranking Bush official. The unnamed figure disclosed the plan last week while briefing Yomiuri Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper. North Korea has warned that sanctions would be considered an act of war. The briefing was apparently intended to reassure the Japanese that the United States will take strong action against North Korea over its nuclear programme. North Korea monitors the Japanese media closely. American satellites have spotted activity at the Yongbyon reactor site in North Korea, suggesting that scientists may be moving nuclear fuel rods to a reprocessing facility nearby. The official was quoted as saying that if North Korea started making plutonium, Washington would consider the country to have “crossed the Rubicon” and would impose sanctions and a blockade. Tokyo is about to give its backing to an American military strike on Iraq but has expressed disquiet about a perceived “double standard” towards North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction. Japanese foreign ministry officials fear North Korea may test a nuclear weapon to bring the Americans to the negotiating table. The American official’s briefing said it was “very likely” North Korea would reactivate its reprocessing plant, extract plutonium, resume test-firing of ballistic missiles and declare that it possessed nuclear weapons. Plutonium was at the core of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. North Korea also has a clandestine programme to obtain supplies of uranium-235, the core of the less sophisticated bomb used against Hiroshima. For Japan, the only country ever to be the subject of atomic attacks, the issue is particularly sensitive. Alarm bells about a North Korean nuclear threat first began to ring in Japan after January 20, when William Cohen, a former American defence secretary and moderate Republican, suggested at a meeting in Tokyo that Pyongyang could obtain nuclear weapons. Cohen said Japan would be protected by the proposed American missile defence shield but his remarks led the Japanese government to question the commitment of the US to force North Korea to dispose of its plutonium and shelve its nuclear ambitions. “This is a matter of life and death for Japan,” said Kenzo Yoneda, a senior vice-minister in the cabinet office. Japan’s reaction to any hint of a compromise by the US may have prompted the Pentagon to send reinforcements and extra fighter planes to the Pacific to deter North Korea while the Iraq war is in progress. That decision has outraged Pyongyang, which issued a number of threats last week. A naval blockade would cut off North Korea’s exports of missiles and weapons technology, its only significant source of foreign exchange. That would present a challenge to the survival of the regime. Kim Jong-il, the North Korean dictator, has spent the past few weeks making “inspection visits” to boost morale among the armed forces. However, North Korean diplomats are still sending out signals that they want negotiations. America, for its part, has assured North Korea that it does not intend to attack. This Wednesday the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna will meet to discuss whether to go to the United Nations Security Council over the crisis. North Korea has expelled IAEA inspectors and disabled monitoring equipment. It has formally withdrawn from the nuclear non- proliferation treaty. Japanese politicians will also not be reassured by the discovery that a delegation of North Korean doctors quietly visited Hiroshima in 1994 to study how the Japanese treated victims of radiation sickness and flash burns caused by the atomic blast there. —TST
It sure would send a clear message to the rest of the world: 1) Mess with us, and you pay, 2) We're not restricted to fighting one battle at a time.
We caught his little shipload full of missiles on their way to Yemen, but we can't take the chance that we might miss one with a nuke in it. It takes time to extract plutonium, so it's not like we have to move this week. But the "diplomats" don't have a lot of time to get that reactor shut down. One way or another, that thing has to go. There's a theory that Kim was paid by Saddam Hussein to cause this little distraction, and once it becomes obvious that there won't be any more checks coming from Baghdad, Kim will go back in his box. Let's hope so, because otherwise this is going to be a real mess. If I was the Japanese, I'd take care of this myself. If the operation that takes out the reactor doesn't get Kim, his command-and-control structure, and whatever nukes he has now, and all of it in the first 5 minutes, Japan will be eating the nukes. If any mistakes like that are going to happen, Japan should have the right to make them. It's their skins. |
I generally like tough talk before hostility. It can make a guy like Hussein think twice about using WMDs in his arsenal. When you're talking about the North Koreans, it seems you're addressing a group that is almost symptematic of mass psychosis. Their society is closed. The leadership seems to live in some fantasy world where they don't really understand what will happen if they provoke an attack, and don't seem to care even if they do.
With these idiots it might be best to move assetts into the region on the sly while you talk softly, then strike them so swiftly and massively that they are defanged ASAP.
This seems to be the plan so far.
If ever there were a hot spot where the hot-shots wanted to be, this appears on the brink of being the place. Our troops will need every ounce of surprise they can get.
Heaven help South Korea and Japan during this period. They are going to need our prayers on this one.
Unfortunately, that's what most Americans want to see; the real world is way too frightening. But those people can only stay in denial for so long, and eventually - very soon - hard reality will demand their attention.
Yes, you guessed it. IRAN.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
Was there ever any doubt about this? I mean... come on. There is no way in Hell people can stand by and watch Kim Jong Il run his reactor, extract his plutonium, and build an inventory of nuclear weapons.