SEOUL — For both countries, the rallying cries and military maneuvers mainly seemed designed to build support at home. But they raised fears anew of all-out war on a peninsula that New Mexico’s governor, Bill Richardson, called a tinderbox after returning from a visit to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang this week....
On Wednesday, rifle-toting marines ringed a hillside near the border. Drills continued yesterday, with tanks firing artillery and fighter jets dropping bombs at training grounds in Pocheon, about 20 miles from the North. The boom of cannons echoed throughout the valley, and the hills erupted in smoke during the brief but dramatic exercise.
There was a theatrical quality to the exercises: dozens of schoolchildren in bright yellow jackets were shuttled to the site to watch from bleachers.
South Korean President Lee Myung Bak met with troops at a front-line army base in the east on the type of morale-boosting visit more commonly seen in the North. He vowed to retaliate if attacked again.
I smell a war.
“I had thought that we could safeguard peace if we had patience, but that wasn’t the case,’’ he told the troops, according to his office. Any surprise attack will be met with an “unsparing’’ response, he warned.
So when is the next false-flagging frame attempt?
After days of showing restraint, North Korea condemned the drills as a “grave military provocation.’’ Defense chief Kim Yong Chun said North Korea was prepared to launch a “sacred war’’ and poised to use its nuclear capabilities to defend itself.
In Pyongyang, Kim said the military would deal “more devastating physical blows’’ if North Korean territory is violated. He threatened to “wipe out’’ South Korea and the United States if they start a war, the official Korean Central News Agency said.
North Korea is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least a half-dozen atomic bombs, and it also has revealed a uranium enrichment program that would give it a second way to make nuclear weapons. After negotiating for years with its neighbors and the United States on dismantling its nuclear program in exchange for aid and concessions, Pyongyang walked away from talks in 2009.
And now the U.S. won't talk to them.
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And here I was told they were coming together:
"Amid diplomacy, N. Korea continues to threaten war; Its top diplomat travels to Russia, defends tactics" by Kim Kwang-Tae, Associated Press / December 12, 2010
SEOUL — The flurry of diplomacy comes as South Korea’s president, Lee Myung Bak, expressed optimism during a trip to Malaysia that the reunification of Korea is drawing near.
Now we find out it is THROUGH INVASION and WAR!
“North Korea now remains one of the most belligerent nations in the world,’’ Lee said in an interview published Friday in a Malaysian newspaper.
Yeah, right up there with Israel.
But, he added, it’s a “fact that the two Koreas will have to coexist peacefully and, in the end, realize reunification.’’
In a speech Thursday night, Lee made similar remarks, saying North Koreans have become increasingly aware that the South is better off. He did not elaborate on how their knowledge has expanded, but said it was “an important change that no one can stop.’’
“Reunification is drawing near,’’ Lee said, according to the president’s website.
He also called on China to urge North Korea to embrace the same economic openness that has led millions of Chinese out of poverty — and said that North Korean economic independence was the key to reunification....
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Also see: S. Korea holds drills despite North protest
Diplomats try to ease tensions in Korea
S. Korea set to turn islands near N. Korea into military fortresses
Chinese policy on N. Korea criticized
China sends top envoy to talk with N. Korea’s Kim Jong Il
22 dead as S. Korean fishing boat sinks
N. Korean nuclear sites raise US worry
As threats echo from the North, S. Koreans run civil defense drill
S.Korea to hold artillery exercises on island that was attacked
Richardson begins meetings in N. Korea
S. Korea conducts live-fire drills in defiance of North
N. Korea retreats on threat against South
South Korea set for a final day of military drills
