N. Korea fires on S. Korea - It was a clear provocation!!

[Trajan]

george....whats your point in all this?

 

[JakeStarkey]

I have a problematic answer: we will never know because the Koreans were the pawns of the Communist east and the Capitalist west. I do know by the time I got there, both North and South hated Japan still (still do today), and the North and the South were in a military standoff.

On a side note. The ROKS were superior soldiers: in shape, disciplined, scared only of their NCOs and officers. They were OK on the offensive, tigers on the defense, and without leadership still did not seemed inclined to be surrender monkeys. I attended the ROK American Ranger school in the mountains above Ouijan-bu. Judas Priest, that was tough training! Their cadre beat their recruits, made us Americans push up so much we looked like minature Popeyes. What a hoot! To top it off we got to slide down a metal chain off a cliff 250 feet high hanging on to a D bar with no safety straps and land in a small marina. I saw one Korean kid hit the water and skip like a thrown stone right into a retaining wall. Blood was everywhere! It was one of the best three weeks of my life.

Back on track: naw, the Japanese were never ot going to surrender to the captive populations they had oppressed.

 

[georgephillip]

george....whats your point in all this?

It's the same point Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell made far better than I ever will in 1955:

"The choice facing the world is 'stark and dreadful and inescapable: shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?'"

With the exception of civil war in Israel, I believe Korea poses the greatest threat for ending the human race through war.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Perhaps, but I do not think either Russia or China will support NK nukes going off. The air forces of five nations will pulverize NK into the ground. If nuclear, South Korea and perhaps Japan get hit. Terrible to think of.

 

[georgephillip]

I have a problematic answer: we will never know because the Koreans were the pawns of the Communist east and the Capitalist west. I do know by the time I got there, both North and South hated Japan still (still do today), and the North and the South were in a military standoff.

On a side note. The ROKS were superior soldiers: in shape, disciplined, scared only of their NCOs and officers. They were OK on the offensive, tigers on the defense, and without leadership still did not seemed inclined to be surrender monkeys. I attended the ROK American Ranger school in the mountains above Ouijan-bu. Judas Priest, that was tough training! Their cadre beat their recruits, made us Americans push up so much we looked like minature Popeyes. What a hoot! To top it off we got to slide down a metal chain off a cliff 250 feet high hanging on to a D bar with no safety straps and land in a small marina. I saw one Korean kid hit the water and skip like a thrown stone right into a retaining wall. Blood was everywhere! It was one of the best three weeks of my life.

Back on track: naw, the Japanese were never ot going to surrender to the captive populations they had oppressed.

Jake:

My "experience" with ROKS comes second-hand from a Tae Kwon Do instructor (Larry) who received his first black belt when he was stationed in Korea during the Vietnam War.

Larry was an all-State wrestling champion in high school whose Korean teacher was the #1 ranked fighter among 300 ROK Tigers also stationed on the base. Larry's ordeal sounds very similar to what you went through, i.e., Pak (Larry's teacher) cracked three of Larry's ribs on a Friday, then showed up the following Monday and made Larry go through a light workout.

Larry was the only Westerner ever to get a black belt from Pak, and I suspect it kept him out of prison or an early grave.

Back on track...I never meant to imply the Japanese would have surrendered to Koreans, only that Japan did not want to lose the war and allow their empire to fall into western hands. That was why they tried to hand authority to Lyuh Woon-hyung in September 1945.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Thanks for the correction, and your guy, Larry, sounds a lot tougher than me. The Tiger and White Divisions were superior outfits and Mr. Charles and his pals were terrified of them. I don't think the 'peoples party' there (do I have that right?) could have protected the Japanese even if he promised to do so. Yes, significant portions of the Japanese military right up to the second atomic bomb and a day or two thereafter were in denial, believing that somehow the roof was not going to fall in. Then the Emperor (the major war criminal who survived unharmed) went on the radio, and the role of the samurai ended in Japan. Forever? Only time and history will tell.

 

[georgephillip]

Perhaps, but I do not think either Russia or China will support NK nukes going off. The air forces of five nations will pulverize NK into the ground. If nuclear, South Korea and perhaps Japan get hit. Terrible to think of.

Does NK have a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead that can reach Japan? (Guam?)

 

[JW Frogen]

The US and South Korea attempted concessions all through the 90s with food and oil aid and the Sunshine Policy, they did not work.

The killer cult of the Kims (the dead father is still President of North Korea rendering this paranoid state a necrocracy) only sees concession as weakness and motive to ask for more concessions.

The key is China, this regime only survives with the support and complicity of China, we must make it in China's self interest to pressure this regime, make the cost to China greater than her current policy of maintaining the retched Hermit Kingdom.

How, the US should send more naval force directly off the coast, overwhelming naval force, which would have China protesting and concerned but which China could do nothing about. Then tell them if you reign in North Korea that force leaves.

If this does not work, threaten to arm Japan to the teeth, which China would rightly fear for historical reasons.

The key is China, and China only ever acts in her self interest. We have to make the Chinese policy of maintaining North Korea not in her self interest.

But make no mistake, appeasing this horrid tryanny is the road to perdition.

 

[GHook93]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CipXIx34jTI&feature=player_embedded[/ame]

george....whats your point in all this?

It's the same point Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell made far better than I ever will in 1955:

"The choice facing the world is 'stark and dreadful and inescapable: shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?'"

With the exception of civil war in Israel, I believe Korea poses the greatest threat for ending the human race through war.

 

[Trajan]

george....whats your point in all this?

It's the same point Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell made far better than I ever will in 1955:

"The choice facing the world is 'stark and dreadful and inescapable: shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?'"

With the exception of civil war in Israel, I believe Korea poses the greatest threat for ending the human race through war.

well, don't hold your breath. Nor. korea is relativity isolated geographically, china its only land neighbor and so ko to the south, no navy etc....now, take Iran, when they have a nuke, there is all sorts of shit they can get into as they sit like a spider in the web...but I digress.

George even if no kor lobbed a nuke, that would not unleash anything that would spill past the region, I believe it would be isolated to the peninsula just for the reasons I mentioned...

Old Bertrand sent JFK a note at the height of the Cuban crisis...he asked Kennedy to stop this madness...you know what Kennedy said?

 

[georgephillip]

The US and South Korea attempted concessions all through the 90s with food and oil aid and the Sunshine Policy, they did not work.

The killer cult of the Kims (the dead father is still President of North Korea rendering this paranoid state a necrocracy) only sees concession as weakness and motive to ask for more concessions.

The key is China, this regime only survives with the support and complicity of China, we must make it in China's self interest to pressure this regime, make the cost to China greater than her current policy of maintaining the retched Hermit Kingdom.

How, the US should send more naval force directly off the coast, overwhelming naval force, which would have China protesting and concerned but which China could do nothing about. Then tell them if you reign in North Korea that force leaves.

If this does not work, threaten to arm Japan to the teeth, which China would rightly fear for historical reasons.

The key is China, and China only ever acts in her self interest. We have to make the Chinese policy of maintaining North Korea not in her self interest.

But make no mistake, appeasing this horrid tryanny is the road to perdition.

While I'm not disputing any of your points, I would like to point out there are certainly details we don't get from consuming "headlines in a vacuum:"

"While North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is a madman, and while North Korea was the first to kill anyone in today's skirmish, it was actually the South Koreans who fired first.

"As AP notes:

"The skirmish began when Pyongyang [i.e. North Korea] warned the South to halt military drills in the area, according to South Korean officials. When Seoul [i.e. South Korea] refused and began firing artillery into disputed waters, albeit away from the North Korean shore, the North retaliated by bombarding the small island of Yeonpyeong, which houses South Korean military installations....

"And see this.

"In addition, the two South Koreans killed were marines, not civilians, stationed in a military town.

"Obviously, firing artillery into the water and actually killing people are very different, and I am in no way defending North Korea or its crazy leader.

"I am simply trying to point out that the headlines can't be taken in a vacuum.

Skirmish between...

 

[Trajan]

Perhaps, but I do not think either Russia or China will support NK nukes going off. The air forces of five nations will pulverize NK into the ground. If nuclear, South Korea and perhaps Japan get hit. Terrible to think of.

Does NK have a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead that can reach Japan? (Guam?)

yes they have on that can reach japan. Guam? no, not yet.

 

[georgephillip]

george....whats your point in all this?

It's the same point Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell made far better than I ever will in 1955:

"The choice facing the world is 'stark and dreadful and inescapable: shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?'"

With the exception of civil war in Israel, I believe Korea poses the greatest threat for ending the human race through war.

well, don't hold your breath. Nor. korea is relativity isolated geographically, china its only land neighbor and so ko to the south, no navy etc....now, take Iran, when they have a nuke, there is all sorts of shit they can get into as they sit like a spider in the web...but I digress.

George even if no kor lobbed a nuke, that would not unleash anything that would spill past the region, I believe it would be isolated to the peninsula just for the reasons I mentioned...

Old Bertrand sent JFK a note at the height of the Cuban crisis...he asked Kennedy to stop this madness...you know what Kennedy said?

Firstly, what was Kennedy's reply?

Secondly, could NK lob a nuke at Japan or Guam?

I'm relatively sure that nine times out of ten an incident like this one will blow over within a few days; however, sooner or later an incident like this one will simply BLOW mushroom clouds over a few days.

 

[JBeukema]

SK is now admitting they fired the first shots

North Korea has blamed its southern neighbours for initiating the exchange of fire.

"Despite our repeated warnings, South Korea fired dozens of shells from 1pm ... and we've taken strong military action immediately," the North's official KCNA news agency said in a brief statement. It did not elaborate whether North Korea had suffered any damage from the exchange of fire.
North Korea's supreme command later vowed "merciless military attacks with no hesitation if the South Korean enemy dares to invade our sea territory by 0.001 mm".

South Korea said it was conducting military drills off the west coast, but that its firing exercises were not aimed towards the North

South Korea president warns North - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English

 

[JBeukema]

Perhaps, but I do not think either Russia or China will support NK nukes going off. The air forces of five nations will pulverize NK into the ground. If nuclear, South Korea and perhaps Japan get hit. Terrible to think of.

Does NK have a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead that can reach Japan? (Guam?)

yes they have on that can reach japan. Guam? no, not yet.

That we know of


we didn't know they had a new refinery until they decided to tell us

 

[Trajan]

While I'm not disputing any of your points, I would like to point out there are certainly details we don't get from consuming "headlines in a vacuum:"

"While North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is a madman, and while North Korea was the first to kill anyone in today's skirmish, it was actually the South Koreans who fired first.

speaking of vacuums? are you in an intellectual vacuum George? Your allusion is preposterous,. firing into the sea followed up by strikes into a populated area?

"
"And see this.

"In addition, the two South Koreans killed were marines, not civilians, stationed in a military town.

I am really stretching to understand why this is germane?

"Obviously, firing artillery into the water and actually killing people are very different, and I am in no way defending North Korea or its crazy leader.

"I am simply trying to point out that the headlines can't be taken in a vacuum.

Skirmish between...

yet that appears to be exactly what you are doing.why eve mention it? unless....?

and jfk told dear old Bertrand he best take issue with the burglar not the policeman. paraphrased but very close and in the spirit.

 

[JBeukema]

While I'm not disputing any of your points, I would like to point out there are certainly details we don't get from consuming "headlines in a vacuum:"

"While North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is a madman, and while North Korea was the first to kill anyone in today's skirmish, it was actually the South Koreans who fired first.

speaking of vacuums? are you in an intellectual vacuum George? Your allusion is preposterous,. firing into the sea followed up by strikes into a populated area?

Firing towards a hostile nation is not likely to get a good response. One has to wonder what SK was thinking.

 

[Trajan]

they were doing what they have done many times in many drills. its harmless.

 

[Cain]

I cannot believe North Korea attacked South Korea. I mean, I understand their very aggressive, but...I don't know, seems like no one likes them. I have read a few books on Post-Korean War politics, and the books really emphasized how Japan really despises North Korea. I have also heard China won't stick with them through anything, so I mean. Japan/South Korea + Everyone else, which I believe the US would be part of, vs North Korea. I am sure they could inflict a heavy loss, but their demise seems assured, whether militarily or economically.

 

[Flopper]

President Obama and South Korea expressed outrage at the surprise North Korean attack on an island as experts warned Tuesday that the incident could escalate into a major conflict if the North does not stand down.

Surprise North Korean attack on South sparks outrage - USATODAY.com

Just more saber rattling or is this the beginning of something much bigger?