Yet More Nonsense from ND:tBF
Looks like Jim Jong-Un, AKA ND:tBF here at TAH, doesn’t think he’s getting enough attention from the world’s adults. He’s throwing another temper tantrum.
Specifically, North Korea is making fresh noises about “ending the cease-fire” between the Koreas. They’re apparently pissed that the UN has imposed new sanctions as the result of their latest nuclear test. And the US and South Korea refused to cancel a scheduled exercise, too. Waaaaa!
Seriously: North Korean threats along these lines are nothing new – nor are infiltrations, overseas terrorist attacks, attacks at sea, or DMZ shooting incidents. Frankly, it’s pretty much a part of “Norks being Norks”. So while there might be a few incidents and things might get tense for a while, I really don’t think he’s serious about starting a new Korean War.
Still, this latest string of belligerent statements warrants keeping close watch on North Korea. ND:tBF is still quite young – and quite naive. He also grew up insulated from North Korean reality as a member of the inner-circle elite. So he may not exactly have a firm grip on the reality of the situation he’s in, or the ramifications of attempting to carry out these threats. Hopefully cooler heads in the North Korean leadership do and will clue him in pronto.
I’m guessing they will. Because I’m also guessing most of the North Korean leadership does not have a death wish.
Category: Foreign Policy, Military issues
The news this morning was that NK has formally canceled the truce and cut the emergency phone line between North K and South Korea, in concert with the commencement of military exercises between SK and the US.
Is Li’l Kim going to start shooting?
Did the sequester cause this?
Grrrrr….I’m not anonymous.
He banged some pots and pans together immediately before the UN sanctions were to be voted on. Surprisingly (to me, anyway), the sanctions passed the lily-livered and jelly spined UN. Puffy pants is now grumpy and needs to do something to be taken a tad more seriously. I’m guessing that we toss him a bone and that the joint training exercise be cut short.
@4 — WHAT!! Retreat in the face of a temper tantrum?
Never!!!!
What amazes me is that the Chinese voted in favor of the tougher sanctions on Friday.
Looks like they really are getting tired of Lil Kim’s (so stealing that) shit.
0bama will send the nut a sternly worded letter.
I see quite a few posts about how a lot of people are really worried about another conflict with these savages. I myself am not that worried about it. This is not the 1950’s and even China is fed up with them. The technology we have today compared to anything they have or are being supplied is like comparing a bow and arrow to a super carrier filled with death ray lasers. Any conflict would be over in a few days as long as we didn’t worry about collateral damage. We didn’t in ww2. Their children are taught in kindergarten to hate Americans and grilled daily to do so. So do I worry about collateral damage there…….i think not. They would nuke us is a heartbeat given the chance. Where we go wrong is by letting them sabre rattle over and over again like a school yard bully without slapping them now and then.
I’ll stop making snarky remarks for just one brief moment in time, to say this:
We know (basically) that we have enough weapons to obliterate the Norks if we want to. So does China. China does not want any more Nork refugees; they have enough already and have been turning them back at the border for years.
Lil Kim is (to me) nothing more than a schoolyard-2nd grade bully, the kind that would pull other kids off the big rock in the schoolyard at recess and climb up there and kick anyone who tried to take him down. His daddy made constant threats and strutted around like pipsqueak banty rooster on a regular basis. (Don’t know about Grandpa Glorious Leader.) But like daddy, like kid, right? Maybe that’s what Dear Leader Kim Shortstuff told Sonny Boy on his death bed: make a lot of noise, shoot off some stuff, they’ll send you stuff.
I don’t know if this kid is just pulling a “Dear Leader” stunt on his own, or if, as has been suggested, he is under the thumb of the Nork military, nor do I care. His threats are coming faster and in shorter sequences than Short Daddy’s threats of annihilation.
BUT — the North formally cancelled the 1953 truce this morning and cut the phone line to the South, just as the joint exercises were beginning, so from my spot in the viewing stands, I think he is actually up to something.
Therefore, we should not be surprised if the Norks decide to launch missiles at the JtEx groups, and Nork soldiers start shooting in the DMZ. We should be prepared for that.
And act accordingly.
I will return to snarky stuff shortly.
Here’s the latest news on it:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/11/world/asia/north-korea-armistice/index.html?imw=Y
His granddad was similarly wiling to stir up trouble, Ex-PH2. Kim Il-Sung didn’t only start the Korean war after playing China and the USSR against one another (and lying to both). Look up the Panmunjom Ax Murders and/or “Second Korean War” some time.
One key question in my mind, is the kid actually in charge or have the Generals staged a very quiet soft coup?
Yes, but Hondo, I was six years old. I was only interested in making spice cake from my mother’s BH&G cookbook (recipe is still there) and reading books.
@13 – Someone on the news recently suggested (don’t remember who said it, sorry) that the Kid is under control of the Generals.
His ‘wife’ disappeared for several months last year, and reappeared only a short while ago. Then this snorting and pawing the ground began right after that. I’m speculating, but the connection isn’t all that loose. As Hondo pointed out, it’s family history.
I’m looking at this through the lens of population pressure. He has way too many starving people and no one is sending food, the easiest way for him to “solve” the problem would be to reduce the population. Through in the fact that the world sees the US as broke and POTUS as weak, it all adds up to a recipe for war on in the Korea’s.
As for China? What better way to mess with us than to let the sanctions go through, causing more pressure on the midget kingdom and forcing a war. China wins as it causes us to be stretched even thinner, and spend more money that we just don’t have.
Gonna be a fun spring….
China is importing oil from Iran in trucks that follow part of what used to be the Old Silk Road, a very ancient trade route. They cut off oil to North Korea in 2006 to put pressure on Kim Jong-Il over the missile and nuke tests.
China says it will not abandon North Korea:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/world/asia/china-says-it-will-not-abandon-north-korea.html?pagewanted=all
The Chinese government has a great incentive to keep a damper on the Norks. The Chinese people in general have too much money of their own now for their government to control them. So China’s agreeing with the US on this most recent dustup has more to do with economics than anything else. War is an expensive business.
Interesting (but longish) article about a NK invasion here:
http://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/mind-the-gap-between-rhetoric-and-reality/
Memo from troop carrier driver to General: We are out of gas. Truck will not run.
Memo from General to troop carrier driver: Put some more gas in it.
Memo from troop carrier driver to General: There isn’t any more gas.
Memo from General to troop carrier driver: Get out and push.
Memo from Lil Kim to General: How’s it going?
Memo from General to Lil Kim: Just fine, oh, Glorious One. Just fine.
All the attention is being paid to us being able to protect ourselves from a ballistic missile. As I have pointed out, before; who says they are going to use a ballistic missile as a delivery system?
For an interesting look at day to day life in North Korea check out a flickr user named Moravius, he seems to be a western diplomat in Pyongyang. The Norks are generally all bluster and no action, but I too am starting to agree that Lil Kim isn’t the one really in charge,and that those who are might not be so rational as Lil Kim or his old man was.
OT–How would you get a nuke from Pyongyang onto a container ship to Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle, etc?
It’d take DHS about 10 seconds to figure out where it came from, and keeping in mind the number of ships that go straight from North Korea to the US is, uh, ZERO, would YOU want to be the country that put that shit on your container ship headed for the US?
Sparky – Why would you need a container ship? You only need something the size of a fishing trawler.
Weren’t the Norks parking fishing trawlers off the left coast in the 1980s?
I will not give them any ideas, just in case Lil Kim is watching us, but the method is worthy of a Bourne spy chase. Or Bond. James Bond.
@21. Nope but NK and Iran do lots of trading. How hard would it be to put it on a ship to Iran, and let some crazies bring it over from on of them goat herding countries?