Take that Kim Jong!

[Leoreth]

If South Korean and US military are actually going into North Korea, that is an act of war. Can you imagine the outrage if North Korean soldiers were known to be infiltrating and spying on South Korea?

Since North Korea has no problem with shelling South Korean islands my sympathy is rather limited.

 

[emzie]

If South Korean and US military are actually going into North Korea, that is an act of war. Can you imagine the outrage if North Korean soldiers were known to be infiltrating and spying on South Korea?

You're joking right? It's happened enough to have its own wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_border_incidents_involving_North_Korea

And that list excludes things that were not along the border, like the famous Blue House Raid where 31 North Korean commandos attempted to assassinate the President of South Korea.

There's also an entire page for North Korean kidnappings of Japanese civilians from Japan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_abductions_of_Japanese_citizens

There's also thousands of kidnapped South Koreans, some of the better documented cases include:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_YS-11

South Korean airliner is hijacked, 4 passengers and 7 crew are never repatriated.

That's unambiguous. Nearly 4,000 South Korean fisherman have also been detained and more than 400 remain in North Korea. This might be slightly ambiguous since the North can argue that the fisherman were in their waters.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Here's more details how GWB and his gang of warmongering idiots literally screwed the pooch and directly caused NK to stop peaceful relations. This directly endangered everybody in the region and even causing NK to develop nukes as a direct result:

Rolling Blunder - How the Bush administration let North Korea get nukes

A few days before Bush took office in January 2001, a half-dozen members of Clinton's national-security team crossed the Potomac River to the Northern Virginia home of Colin Powell. President-elect George W. Bush had named the former general as his secretary of state, a choice widely viewed, and praised, as a signal that the new president would be following a moderate, internationalist foreign policy.

The Clinton team briefed Powell for two hours on the status of the North Korean talks. Halfway into the briefing, Condoleezza Rice, the new national security adviser, who had just flown in from meeting with Bush in Texas, showed up. One participant remembers Powell listening to the briefing with enthusiasm. Rice, however, was clearly skeptical. "The body language was striking," he says. "Powell was leaning forward. Rice was very much leaning backward. Powell thought that what we had been doing formed an interesting basis for progress. He was disabused very quickly."

In early March, barely a month into Bush's term, Kim Dae Jung, South Korea's president, made a state visit to Washington. On the eve of the visit, Powell told reporters that, on Korean policy, Bush would pick up where Clinton had left off. The White House instantly rebuked him; Bush made it clear he would do no such thing. Powell had to eat his words, publicly admitting that he had leaned "too forward in my skis." It was the first of many instances when Powell would find himself out of step with the rest of the Bush team--the lone diplomat in a sea of hardliners.

If Powell was embarrassed by Bush's stance, Kim Dae Jung was humiliated. KDJ, as some Korea-watchers called him, was a new kind of South Korean leader, a democratic activist who had spent years in prison for his political beliefs and had run for president promising a "sunshine policy" of opening up relations with the North. During the Clinton years, South Korea's ruling party had been implacably hostile to North Korea. Efforts to hold serious disarmament talks were obstructed at least as much by Seoul's sabotage as by Pyongyang's maneuverings. Now South Korea had a leader who could be a partner in negotiating strategy--but the United States had a leader who was uninterested in negotiations.

In Bush's view, to negotiate with an evil regime would be to recognize that regime, legitimize it, and--if the negotiations led to a treaty or a trade--prolong it. To Bush, North Korea's dictator was the personification of evil. He told one reporter, on the record, that he "loathed" Kim Jong-il. It was no surprise that Bush would distrust anyone who wanted to accommodate his regime. Bush not only distrusted Kim Dae Jung but viewed him with startling contempt. Charles "Jack" Pritchard, who had been director of the National Security Council's Asia desk under Clinton and was now the State Department's special North Korean envoy under Bush, recalls, "Bush's attitude toward KDJ was, 'Who is this naive, old guy?'" Kim Dae Jung had also committed what Bush regarded as a personal snub. Shortly before his Washington trip, the South Korean president met Russian president Vladimir Putin, and issued a joint statement endorsing the preservation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Everyone knew that Bush placed a high priority on scuttling the ABM Treaty.

So when Kim Dae Jung arrived in Washington, Bush publicly criticized him and his sunshine policy. Bush and his advisers--especially Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld--decided not only to isolate North Korea, in the hopes that its regime would crumble, but also to ignore South Korea, in hopes that its next election would restore a conservative.

Bush was the naïve one, it turned out. Kim Jong-il survived U.S. pressures. And Kim Dae Jung was replaced by Roh Moo Hyun, a populist who ran on a campaign that was not only pro-sunshine but also anti-American. Relations were soured further by Bush's 2002 State of the Union Address, in which he tagged North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as an "axis of evil." A month later, in February, Bush made his first trip to Seoul. James Kelly, his assistant secretary of state for Asian affairs, went in advance to set up the meeting. Pritchard, who accompanied Kelly, recalls, "The conversation in the streets of Seoul was, 'Is there going to be a war? What will these crazy Americans do?' Roh said to us, 'I wake up in a sweat every morning, wondering if Bush has done something unilaterally to affect the [Korean] peninsula."

George Bush literally played warmongering politics with the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the region. They obviously resented it, and many still do.

 

[kochman]

Keep digging your hole... seriously... it's hilarious.

 

[Formaldehyde]

More facts about how many South Koreans actually feel about this instead of sheer speculation:


Link to video.

Let's drive out the Yankees and their puppets, pro-US traitors from this land and this sky, holding high the candlelight of struggle.

Let's bring about earlier a new world of independence and democracy free from foreign forces and dictatorship, a genuine world of the people, reunified and prospering, a new era of independent reunification, peace and prosperity by the concerted efforts of the nation.

 

[kochman]

What the hell is your point?
Obama has continued virtually the exact same policy of Bush with N Korea...
And BC almost went to war with them?

They hated Bush more? Great, join the club!

 

[Formaldehyde]

My "point" is that there are inevitable victims to warmongering and saber-rattling, especially now that those irrational acts have actually caused NK to produce nukes.

South Korea used to be our staunchest ally. Now many of them, especially the younger ones, hate the US government and for good reason. Their own lives have been needlessly jeopardized greatly by the colossal blunders of GWB and his administration.

The relations between NK and SK had improved greatly until he directly ruined it all due to his own arrogance and incompetence and that of his warmongering advisers.

 

[kochman]

Yes, Bush made Kim Jong Il produce nukes!
Keep going!
I'm amazed at how this works...
Kim was just trying to chill out and completely oppress his own people while constantly harassing the South... and you seem to paint him as the victim of that dreaded Bush.

Keep going! I need more laughter in my day.

 

[Bamspeedy]

North Korea was only participating in the Sunshine Policy talks because a South Korean politician was bribing them. The talks stalled and the politician was kicked out of office.....prior to 9/11 and Bush's famous speech.

 

[kochman]

Still Bush's fault.

 

[Formaldehyde]

You're joking right? It's happened enough to have its own wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_border_incidents_involving_North_Korea

I was referring to recent incidents. Apparently, the last time NK troops crossed the border into SK was in the 90s.

Yes, Bush made Kim Jong Il produce nukes!

His blunders, warmongering, and complete lack of diplomatic skills directly caused NK to do so, as the article makes quite clear.

 

[emzie]

I was referring to recent incidents. Apparently, the last time NK troops crossed the border into SK was in the 90s.

If you ignore sailors in submarines, I guess.

 

[MobBoss]

Here's more details how GWB and his gang of warmongering idiots literally screwed the pooch and directly caused NK to stop peaceful relations. This directly endangered everybody in the region and even causing NK to develop nukes as a direct result:

George Bush literally played warmongering politics with the lives of hundreds of millions of people in the region. They obviously resented it, and many still do.

You know, someday you may want to come up with something better than 'everything is GWB's fault'.

 

[Formaldehyde]

If you ignore sailors in submarines, I guess.

That area is highly disputed. Both sides claim it as their own. What was the SK warship even doing there?

You know, someday you may want to come up with something better than 'everything is GWB's fault'.

Someday you might want to come up with some actual facts to show the statements and facts above are incorrect. I certainly don't think everything was GWB's fault as you falsely allege, but I definitely think this one clearly was. And many experts agree with me.

George Bush even made his own Secretary of State look like a fool yet again.

 

[kochman]

I was referring to recent incidents. Apparently, the last time NK troops crossed the border into SK was in the 90s.

His blunders, warmongering, and complete lack of diplomatic skills directly caused NK to do so, as the article makes quite clear.

Oh, sorry, I didn't realize that your Washington Monthly article, which is pure truth (while at the same time, an opinion piece), was involved.
Kim was just trying to be nice, and we forced him to start up a nuke program.

That damn Bush. He certainly didn't have more intelligence than the reporter from Washington Monthly at his disposal.

You really buy into anything that paints Bush as a devil... I mean, get with it. I dislike Bush as much as the next guy, but you are beyond the pale here if you think you are going to convince sane people that King Jong Il was a victim of being bullied about.

Maybe, just maybe, we were bullying him because he was a tyrannical dictator?

I don't know... Let's just ask Obama why he continues to bully N. Korea...

 

[MobBoss]

Now wait a second. You dont hesitate to say the unproven allegation of soldiers crossing the DMZ into North Korea is an act of war, but a North Korean sub torpedoing a South Korean warship and sinking it is somehow justified?

Wow.

And fwiw, i'm sure many experts will disagree with you as well. Your link reads more like fiction than fact anyway, but I guess some are more prone to believe those 'unamed sources' more than others.

 

[Old Hippy]

Old news ... Holywood has already made a second rate sequell to it
behind enermy lines II, axis of evil... its already on DVD

Spoiler :

Link to video.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Now wait a second. You dont hesitate to say the unproven allegation of soldiers crossing the DMZ into North Korea is an act of war, but a North Korean sub torpedoing a South Korean warship and sinking it is somehow justified?

I didn't say it was "somehow justifed" at all. Now did I? I merely asked what it was doing so close to the disputed border. I think it is clear that both sides continue to occasionally incite each other, especially since GWB literally wrecked the sunshine initiative which the democratically elected leader of SK ran on to get elected.

And fwiw, i'm sure many experts will disagree with you as well. Your link reads more like fiction than fact anyway, but I guess some are more prone to believe those 'unamed sources' more than others.

Speaking of which, you still haven't presented even a single fact that shows the statements in the article I posted were false. You just continue to make allegations with no actual proof.

 

[Andvare]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ecial-forces-parachuted-into-North-Korea.html


How was this allowed to be made public?! First question.
Second, what?! How had this not resulted in some news before this?!
Third, is the Telegraph a good source?
Fourth, why is the Telegraph reporting this, and not CNN or the NYTs?

The only news here is that they are actively admitting that they use physical recon, which is, at best, and open secret.

Edit: Oh, and: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-it-parachuted-soldiers-into-North-Korea.html

 

[kochman]

All Hail the most honorable Kim Jong Dynasty for protecting the citizens of N Korea from USA invasion! He acted without fear to get and then sell (to other rogue nations) nuclear technology, lest GW Bush control the world.
All Hail!

And, down with that scoundrel Obama...
Perhaps he just hasn't had time to re-consider the Bush strategy and come up with his own in this case...