"the United States and South Korea.... started their annual drills.... military drills.... a rehearsal for invasion"
Also see: Complicating the Korean Peace
Yeah, no reason they should worry or anything.
"Kissinger stable after hospitalization
SEOUL — Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state, was in stable condition yesterday in a South Korean hospital after being admitted with abdominal pains yesterday morning. Kissinger, 86, had a “stomach illness’’ and was treated for dehydration, Steven Pearson of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars said in an interview in Hong Kong (Bloomberg News)."
What, you get a little too much to eat, Hank?
Just die, you war-criminal s*** bag.
Yeah, look what he brought with him:
"Couple arrested after baby dies
SEOUL - A South Korean couple addicted to an Internet game about raising a virtual child were arrested last week for neglecting their real 3-month-old daughter and letting her starve to death, news reports said. The couple spent between four and six hours every day at Internet cafes in Suwon, a city just south of Seoul, and bottle-fed their baby only once a day, the Yonhap news agency and other South Korean media reported, citing police.
Yeah, but we should legalize gambling because it brings jobs.
The couple found their baby dead on Sept. 24 when they returned home after playing online games at a nearby Internet cafe all night, Yonhap reported (AP)."
And that is just the South.
Look what the North gets:
"N. Korea creates weapons division; New missiles reportedly can reach US forces" by Hyung-Jin Kim, Associated Press | March 10, 2010
SEOUL - North Korea has recently created an army division in charge of newly developed intermediate-range missiles capable of striking US forces in Japan and Guam, a South Korean news agency said yesterday.
Sigh. I'm sick of the booga-booga when everyone knows we would flatten the planet if anyone ever did anything (which is why they won't, cui bono).
At least they don't have a whole government predicated on it, right?
The report was made as North Korea stepped up its war rhetoric against the United States and South Korea after the allies started their annual drills aimed at improving their defense capabilities.
Well, you could look at it that way -- or a completely different way if you are a poor little nation who has been subjected to threats and sabotage for 50+ years.
The North’s People’s Army recently launched a division supervising operational deployment of missiles with a range of more than 1,860 miles that it had developed in recent years, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unidentified South Korean government source.
Yeah, pass me that salt shaker. Going to need a grain or two.
The missiles could pose a threat to US forces in Japan, Guam, and other Pacific areas where they would be redeployed in time of emergency on the Korean peninsula, Yonhap said.
And those war games going on outside the door?
The report, however, did not provide further details such as how many missiles the new division possesses and where they are positioned.
I'm starting to smell a stink of propaganda, you?
South Korea’s Defense Ministry said yesterday that it could not confirm the Yonhap report.
Yeah, someone dropped a pile in their MSM shorts. I can smell it.
A ministry document published last year, however, showed that the North deployed a new type of medium-range missile believed to be the same as the one it displayed during a military parade in 2007.
A Potemkin missile?
If confirmed, the division’s launch could suggest that the North has succeeded in developing more medium-range missiles since 2007 and it needed a bigger unit to manage them, said Ohm Tae-am of the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.
The division’s creation would also mean the North has a unit whose primary role is to prevent the United States from redeploying its troops in the Pacific to the Korean peninsula in the event of a conflict, said Baek Seung-joo of the same institute.
What, something on the drawing board, is it?
North Korea’s missile program and nuclear weapons development program are major regional security concerns.
For who?
See: Slow Saturday Special: China Keeps the Peace in Korea
Thus the complaints with China remain prominent.
The North conducted a long-range rocket test in April in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that prohibits the country from engaging in any ballistic missile-related activities. A defiant Pyongyang subsequently quit nuclear disarmament talks and performed a second nuclear test.
Picking up the code words?
The United Nations responded in July by imposing new sanctions that toughened an arms embargo on the country and authorized ship searches on the high seas.
Otherwise known as an ACT of WAR!!
Yesterday, the North continued its salvo against the United States and South Korea over their military drills, which the regime has long slammed as a rehearsal for invasion.
Yeah, it's not like we have invaded or occupied anybody in the last ten yea.... never mind.
“This cannot be interpreted otherwise than a grave provocation,’’ the North’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. It said the North will continue to bolster its nuclear capability as long as the US military threats persist.
Oh, yeah, and GET THIS:
The ministry, however, said the North is ready for both dialogue and war, a position that contrasts from a military statement Sunday that the North would break off dialogue with the United States in response to the drills.
Oh, they WANT to TALK if we won't waste fuel and warm up the planet with wasteful war games, 'eh?
Naw, can't have that!
About 18,000 American soldiers and an undisclosed number of South Korean troops are taking part in 11 days of drills that began Monday across South Korea.
Well, I'm on six and counting and this is the only reference I have seen in my Boston Glob.
The United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has said the drills are purely defensive.
Well, yeah, they could be used offensively, but you know, trust us.
It's not like we invade people every few.... oh, right, yeah, ummm, never mind.
--more--"
Let's see, what other offers can the MSM make to show us how terrible the Korean is?
SEOUL - A North Korean firing squad publicly executed a factory worker for sneaking news out of the reclusive communist country via his illicit mobile phone, Seoul-based radio said yesterday.
The armaments factory worker was accused of divulging the price of rice and other information on living conditions to a friend who defected to South Korea years ago, Open Radio for North Korea reported on its website.
Hey, their economy is just like yours, AmeriKa! All military!
The man, surnamed Chong, made calls to the defector using an illegal Chinese mobile phone, the broadcaster said, citing a North Korean security agency official it did not identify. The report did not say when the phone calls were made.
The execution took place by firing squad in late January in the eastern coastal city of Hamhung, according to Open Radio for North Korea. The station broadcasts into North Korea, which tightly controls news.
I'm tired of the Zionist Pot Press hollering Kettle, aren't you?
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles relations with North Korea, and the National Intelligence Service, Seoul’s main spy agency, said they could not confirm the report.
Mobile phone use in authoritarian North Korea is tightly restricted, though the country introduced an advanced network in partnership with Orascom Telecom, based in Cairo, in 2008. North Koreans who manage to make illegal international mobile phone calls mostly use networks in neighboring China.
So word does get out despite the image of a sealed-up society promoted by my war press, huh?
--more--"
So what is the SOLUTION, dear readers?
I was as shocked to see it as you:
Yeah, you will ALWAYS WIN a HEART and MIND OVER with a MEAL more than a MISSILE!
Unbounded North Korean arming would shake the pillars of future security in Northeast Asia. Those pillars are US cooperation with China and US alliances with Japan and South Korea. Continued North Korean arming will sow further doubts in Japan and South Korea about relying on the United States for their security.
Thus the war propaganda about the missiles.
It will generate partisan pressures for China to do more to bring Pyongyang to its knees, which Beijing does not judge to be in its interest. Confronting China over North Korea would jeopardize Sino-American cooperation.
Can't we ever just do anything to be a good country and not grinding some geopolitical and strategic ax?
Yet the conventional wisdom in Washington is that....
That's why I cut it.
Never mind that virtually no one knows whether this presupposition is true.
Hint: It's not.
But so long as almost every political adviser in Washington believes it, why dare to put it to the test by entering talks with North Korea....
Lock step like on Israel, 'eh?
If that fails, hope that China will play fixer.
Well, yeah, I am.
Communist China has to save us from ourselves, pffffft!
Never mind that China has refused to put real pressure on North Korea.
U.S says never mind a lot.
Far from it, Beijing has consistently pursued a policy of economic engagement in the belief that is the only way to bring about change in its neighbor’s behavior.
Yeah, we use the same logic for trading with China and others when there is you-know what at $take, reader$.
Never mind that China has consistently recognized that North Korea wants to improve relations with the United States, giving us leverage for denuclearization.
Yeah, how can we monkey-wrench that, huh?
If China won’t act, then hope the problem will go away.
Never works, but worth a try over war.
Have faith that the North Korean regime will somehow soon collapse.
While the people suffer miserably and starve?
I'd rather not have that on the country's conscience, thanks.
Some Clinton administration officials even told others not to worry: North Korea would fall apart before the United States would ever have to supply the reactors it promised.....
So we really were never intending to keep our word or side of the deal, 'eh?
But everyone else is an asshole, AmeriKa?
The Obama administration’s version of magical thinking is to adopt the pose of “strategic patience.’’
I can live with that.
They are in no hurry to start talks, officials claim, because the pressure of sanctions and air and naval inspections is working and will force North Korea back to the negotiating table. As if pressure has ever worked with Pyongyang. As if North Korea seeks talks out of desperation, not because it wants foreign investment to grow its economy and increase its exports without having to depend on China....
Washington ignores the real world at its peril.
That's why everything is blowing up in ou faces, America!
Our leaders believe their own lies.
A change in that mindset is long overdue.
I could NOT AGREE MORE!!!!
--more--"
Also see: The Boston Globe's Stupid Ideas: Nuclear Disarmament
I would be a little worried and glad I had a quiver of nukes if I was a North Korean, no?
They don't invade people who have them.
