North Korea: What to do?

Anyway, I'm thinking the next significant attack, if it comes, will be just the excuse the South and US need to open up their can o' whoop-ass.

Clinton says North Korean attack on ship will not go 'unanswered'

...

In a blunt statement after meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, Clinton said the United States "strongly condemns" the North Korean attack and that both countries would seek an international response.

"Let me be clear," Clinton said in her first public comments since South Korea released a report on Thursday formally blaming the North for the torpedo strike. "This will not be and cannot be business as usual."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052101077.html

The Korea story has disappeared from the U.S. media.

The Wikileaks thing is now center stage.

I doubt that.

And little Artie has already forgotten his principled stand against aggression.

Just for Artie: an attack on another country's ships and the deaths of 46 Korean sailors needs to be addressed but really, folks, let's do get some perspective here.

Yeah, that was from May. What international response happened? None. Obviously it was not actually high on the priority totem for US to address. Your selective argument falls on its ass. The attack on the Cheonan did not lead to either the US or SK attacking NK.

JTT has inquired as to your nationality while he seems to have declined to reveal his own.

Quote:

Anyway, I'm thinking the next significant attack, if it comes, will be just the excuse the South and US need to open up their can o' whoop-ass.

Might you be an American, FBM?

S.Korea to Stage Fresh Firing Drill on Yeonpyeong Island

The military will stage a fire drill on Yeonpyeong Island amid continued North Korean threats against South Korea since an artillery attack on the island last week.

The military is determined to pulverize North Korean artillery positions if they fire shells again. On Monday it deployed six U.S.-made Multiple Launch Rocket Systems for the first time on the island, as well as six more K-9 self-propelled howitzers. Each MLRS shell is capable of destroying an area the size of one to three soccer fields.

A government source on Monday said, "There has been strong criticism that we responded too passively to the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, so we decided to stage the same kind of fire drill as the one we carried out on the island on Nov. 23 to display our determination.” He added the timing of the drill will not be announced in advance.

The military will fire in a southwesterly direction, using K-9 self-propelled howitzers. The Joint Chiefs of Staff considered staging the drill on Tuesday but delayed it at the request of the U.S. military.

Early last week, the North shelled the island, claiming that the South had fired shells at its territorial waters, and has since continued to threaten a "physical retaliatory counterattack" if South Korean military exercises continue.

Each MLRS carries 12 rocket shells with a diameter of 227 mm. Each shell is filled with about 500 cluster munitions, each of which has the detonating power of a single hand grenade. They are more powerful than the North Korean MLRS.

With a range of 32 to 45km, the South's MLRS can hit inland areas in the North as well as MLRS deployed on the western coast. They were first used during the Gulf War in 1991.

Military authorities are determined to launch surgical strikes by mobilizing fighter planes depending on the magnitude of future North Korean provocations.
[email protected] / Nov. 30, 2010 09:19 KST

70% Support Military Action Against N.Korea

Nearly 70 percent of the South Koreans support limited military actions in response to North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last Tuesday. This contrasts starkly with the mood in April, after North Korea sank the Navy corvette Cheonan, when less than 30 percent said they support military action.

Although in April roughly equal numbers thought the government reaction to the Cheonan sinking was appropriate or inappropriate, now those who say the government's response to the Yeonpyeong attack was inadequate outnumber those who think it was enough three times. The swing seems to indicate disillusionment with the government's response to a series of military provocations by the North.

In a nationwide poll by Hankook Research for the East Asia Institute of 800 adults on Saturday, only 24.7 percent said the government is responding adequately to the attack, while 72 percent disagreed. Public opinion has chilled toward the government since April, when in a similar EAI survey about the Cheonan sinking, 41.2 percent approved of the government's response and 47.5 percent did not.

The top government mistakes respondents ticked were lack of a risk management system and the lukewarm nature of the reaction with 36.5 and 23.8 percent. Some 68.6 percent said limited military action against North Korea is desirable.

The general sense of security was the lowest since the inauguration of the Lee Myung-bak administration, with 81.5 percent saying they feel insecure, up from 66.8 percent in April.

Meanwhile, a Research & Research poll for the Asan Institute for Policy Studies on Saturday also asked 1,000 adults nationwide what they thought of the government response. Some 65.7 percent viewed it negatively and just 25.9 percent positively. Asked who is to be held responsible for the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, 87.3 percent said North Korea and 12.7 percent the South Korean government. A whopping 80.3 percent agreed that the military should have responded more strongly.
[email protected] / Nov. 29, 2010 12:53 KST

Are people there not really worried about the fact that Seoul could be in big trouble if there is military action?

Cycloptichorn

Background on NK aggression: http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2929021

The true responsibility for international terrorism
Fifty years of US terrorism against Cuba
by Salim Lamrani

The case of Cuba has an exceptional and unique character in the history of international terrorism. Since 1959 to this day, Cuba has been a victim of an intense terrorism campaign that has included sabotage, armed invasions, the threat of nuclear war, extremely severe economic sanctions and implacable diplomatic, political and media aggression. [1].

International Terrorism and Economic Sabotage

US official documents that have been recently been declassified show that, between October 1960 and April 1961, the CIA smuggled in 75 tons of explosives into Cuba during 30 clandestine air operations, and infiltrated 45 tons of weapons and explosives during 31 sea incursions. Also during that short seven-month time span, the CIA carried out 110 attacks with dynamite, planted 200 bombs, derailed six trains and burned 150 factories and 800 plantations.

Between 1959 and 1997, the United States carried out 5,780 terrorist actions against Cuba – 804 of them considered as terrorist attacks of significant magnitude, including 78 bombings against the civil population that caused thousands of victims.

Terrorist attacks against Cuba have cost 3,478 lives and have left 2,099 people permanently disabled. Between 1959 and 2003, there were 61 hijackings of planes or boats. Between 1961 and 1996, there were 58 attacks from the sea against 67 economic targets and the population.

The CIA has directed and supported over 4,000 individuals in 299 paramilitary groups. They are responsible for 549 murders and thousands of people wounded.

In 1971, after a biological attack, half a million pigs had to be killed to prevent the spreading of swine fever. In 1981, the introduction of dengue fever caused 344,203 victims killing 158 of whom 101 were children. On July 6th, 1982, 11,400 cases were registered in one day alone.

Most of these aggressions were prepared in Florida by the CIA-trained and financed extreme right wing of Cuban origin.


http://www.voltairenet.org/article132624.html