North Korea ready to unleash 'Holy Nuclear War' on South

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North Korea vows ‘severest punishment’ if war games go on as planned

By Agence France-Presse | Sunday, August 15th, 2010

North Korea's military threatened Sunday to launch the "severest punishment" against South Korea for staging massive joint war games with the United States this week.

The North's army and people will "deal a merciless counterblow" to the allies "as it had already resolved and declared at home and abroad", a spokesman for the country's army General Staff said in a statement published by state media.

"The military counteraction of (North Korea) will be the severest punishment no one has ever met in the world," he said.

The warning came a day before US and South Korean troops begin the 10-day computerised war games called "Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG)".

About 30,000 US soldiers will take part in the exercise, a US military spokesman said, adding an unspecified number of American soldiers based in the United States would join in via computer networks.

Some 56,000 South Korean soldiers will be mobilised for the war games, a defence ministry spokesman said.

In a message posted on a US military website, General Walter Sharp, who heads some 28,500 US troops based in the South, described the exercise as "one of the largest joint staff directed theatre exercises in the world."

A separate security drill involving South Korean government officials and soldiers will be held during the period, Yonhap news agency said.

This week's exercise is one of a series planned by the South -- either alone or jointly with the United States -- in the aftermath of the sinking of a South Korean warship in March.

The North has angrily denied responsibility for the sinking, which killed 46 sailors and sharply raised tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Last month South Korea and the United States held a massive joint naval and air drill in the Sea of Japan (East Sea), which were opposed by Beijing.

A week ago South Korea ended its largest-ever anti-submarine drill including live-fire training near the disputed Yellow Sea border.

The war manoeuvres including the UFG exercise "represent the phase of practical actions aimed at a full-dressed military invasion", the North's spokesman said.

"The more recklessly the warmongers persist in the war rackets as a result of wrong policy option, the faster and deeper they will fall into the grave of self-destruction," he said.

China also issued a warning Friday that a US decision to use a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in joint drills with the South constitutes a "fresh provocation" to China and its neighbours.

In a commentary published in the official China Daily, Rear Admiral Yang Yi said Washington would "pay a costly price for its muddled decision" to participate in further drills near Chinese territory over Beijing's objection.

Yang also warned it was "inadvisable" to push a country of 1.3 billion people, noting that there was instead wide scope for US-China naval cooperation should Washington choose the route of caution.

Last week, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said future joint US-South Korea drills would involve the nuclear-powered USS George Washington in the Yellow Sea.

China is North Korea's closest ally and trade partner and Beijing has refused to join in international condemnation of Pyongyang for the sinking of a South Korean warship.

North Korea Threatens 'Physical Response' to US War Games

North Korea has threatened a "physical response" to plans by the United States to hold joint military exercises with South Korea this weekend.
by Malcolm Moore in Shanghai | Friday, July 23, 2010 | The Telegraph/UK

Pyongyang lashed out after Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of State, laid out plans for new sanctions against North Korea to Asian leaders attending a regional security summit in Hanoi.

Mrs Clinton said North Korea had embarked on a "campaign of provocative, dangerous behaviour" and described the rogue state as "isolated and belligerent".

Replying to Mrs Clinton, Ri Tong-il, North Korea's representative at the regional security summit, warned that the US was harking back to the days of "gunboat diplomacy" and said there would be "a physical response to the steps imposed by the United States militarily."

He said the military drills involving South Korea, Japan and the US were "another expression of hostile policy against North Korea". There was no sign of contact between US and North Korean delegates at the summit, which has in the past been a venue for rare talks between the two sides.

China has also opposed the naval drills in the Yellow Sea, worried that the US will take the chance to reconnoitre Chinese submarine routes in the region.

On Wednesday, Mrs Clinton announced that the US would attempt to target the ruling regime in Pyongyang with new sanctions as a punishment for the sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean warship, which was torpedoed in March with the loss of 46 men. North Korea has denied any involvement in the incident. The new sanctions will target counterfeit cigarettes and money-laundering in order to cut off the cash flow of North Korean officials.

Mrs Clinton also urged Asian leaders to put pressure on the military junta in Burma.

"What's happening in Burma is not only dangerous for the people who endure life under the regime, though they are first and foremost on our minds," Mrs Clinton said. There was also a direct link, she said, between open and free societies and political and economic stability.

US Imposes New Sanctions on North Korea

Wednesday, July 21, 2010 by Al Jazeera English

The United States will impose new sanctions on North Korea in a bid to stem its nuclear weapons ambitions, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said.

Clinton said the measures were designed to stamp out illegal money-making ventures used to fund the nuclear program.

"These measures are not directed at the people of North Korea, who have suffered too long due to the misguided priorities of their government,'' Clinton said after talks with defence and military officials in South Korea on Wednesday.

"They are directed at the destabilizing, illicit, and provocative policies pursued by that government,'' she said.

She said the sanctions would be aimed at the sale or procurement of arms and related goods as well as the procurement of luxury items.

The US will freeze assets as well as prevent some businesses and individuals from traveling abroad, and collaborate with banks to stop illegal financial transactions, Clinton said.

'Provocative behavior'

Clinton arrived in Seoul, the South Korean capital, on Wednesday, with tensions between the North and South running high following the recent sinking of a South Korean warship, which left 46 sailors dead.

"From the beginning of the [Barack] Obama administration, we have made clear that there is a path open to the DPRK to achieve the security and international respect it seeks,'' she said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"North Korea can cease its provocative behavior, halt its threats and belligerence towards its neighbors, take irreversible steps to fulfill its denuclearization commitments and comply with international law,'' Clinton said.

Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert based in Seoul, told Al Jazeera that new sanctions were unlikely to have much impact or significance in the North.

"They [the sanctions] were expected, especially when the UN Security Council chose to have a very cautious approach to North Korea and did not introduce new sanctions, it was only logical that America would do something," he said.

"They [the sanctions] don't look impressive - very few countries sell arms to North Korea and those who do are not likely to be influenced by any decision made by the US.

"The idea to freeze assets of North Korea's elite has been tried before. Their lifestyle could become difficult but I do not expect it to change their policies."

Contrasting Koreas

Earlier, during a visit to the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas, Clinton was accompanied by Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, who remarked on the contrast between the prosperous South and the impoverished, communist North.

"In the 20 years since I last climbed that observation tower and looked out across the DMZ, it's stunning how little has changed up there and yet how much South Korea continues to grow and prosper," he said.

"The North, by contrast, stagnates in isolation and deprivation."

Clinton and Gates were visiting South Korea to underscore their support for Seoul following the sinking of the Cheonan in March.

The North has denied it is responsible for the incident and a United Nations Security Council statement condemning the sinking did not name North Korea as the culprit, apparently after Chinese pressure.

US officials have suggested that the apparent torpedo attack on the Cheonan could herald further attacks on the South, but some analysts have said this is unlikely given the situation in the North.

'Severe problems'

Don Kirk, the Koreas correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, told Al Jazeera that the claim that North Korea's behavior may turn even more aggressive is overstated.

"I don't think North Korea is in a position to stage more attacks. The country is facing severe economic problems, and also, China is trying to hold North Korea in check," he said.

"I think that after these military exercises are held, the whole direction will be towards six-party talks on its nuclear program."

The US has sent the 97,000-tonne aircraft carrier USS George Washington to take part in drill set to begin on Sunday in the Sea of Japan.

The exercises will involve about 20 ships and 200 fixed-wing aircraft, according to military officials.

North Korea has denounced the exercises as "very dangerous saber-rattling".

Korea Staredown

Battle Lines Still Drawn
By RON JACOBS

While Washington and Seoul ramp up the rhetoric against the government in Pyongyang following their conclusion that the sinking of a Republic of Korea (South Korea) military ship was an intentional attack by Pyongyang's navy, Beijing is publicly wondering if the ship actually sunk because it hit a US-placed mine in Korean waters. Because of this doubt, China is currently refusing to sign on to any sanctions against the nation of North Korea. While unable to ascertain the actual cause of the ship sinking with the information publicly available, it is difficult for this writer to not draw parallels to the destruction of the USS Maine in 1898. Like the sinking of the Republic of Korea's boat, the circumstances of the Maine sinking were difficult to ascertain. Many historians belove that the explosion that caused the sinking was due to an internal fire on the ship, while the US government and its cohorts in the US media (especially William Randolph Hearst) blamed the sinking on a Spanish mine in the Cuban harbor where the explosion occurred. As any reader of US history knows, it was this sinking that provided the United States with the excuse it needed to chase Spain from the western hemisphere and begin the long march of modern US imperialism.

It is not my intention here to prove what or who is responsible for the sinking of the South Korean warship. However, it is useful if we review the history of the Korean peninsula over the past couple decades to understand how things got to the current situation. Foremost among recent causes leading to the present standoff between Pyongyang and Seoul are the election of George Bush in 2000 in the US and the election of Lee Myung-bak to the presidency of the Republic of Korea in 2007. Both men and the forces they represent are not only ideologically opposed to the regime in Pyongyang, they were and are determined to make that regime and its people suffer until the regime is gone. This is despite their public statements claiming they have no animosity toward the northern Korean people. Their actions speak otherwise. Despite the fact that the two states of the Korean peninsula are still officially at war, serious efforts were made to reconcile during the 1990s. These efforts increased substantially after a series of truce violations almost erupted into conflict in 1993. The southern Korean people elected an administration and legislature genuinely interested in rapprochement with their northern brethren. Despite US efforts to block it, aid flowed into the north and goodwill exchanges became a matter of course. Washington, meanwhile, did send aid for a few years but never did fulfill their end of the agreement made after the near war in 1993.

Then George Bush was elected in 2000. It wasn't more than a year or so that Mr. Bush purposely turned back the clock on Washington's approach to Pyongyang. After naming the Pyongyang regime part of a so-called "axis of evil," the White House began to once again isolate the regime and refused to fulfill the remainder of the aforementioned 1993 accords. Pyongyang saw these moves as belligerent and restarted its nuclear weapons program, eventually producing a few nuclear bombs. The government in Seoul at the time was displeased with Washington's belligerence but was unable to influence the much stronger nation's change in policy. Pyongyang's test of one of those weapons in 2006 heightened tensions in the region and gave room for Lee Myung-bak and other rightwingers in southern Korean politics an opening to take power.

Notoriously corrupt, Lee has managed to keep out of prison and consolidate both economic and political power. The first rightwing South Korean president since the 1980s, his actions include refusing to acknowledge the Kwangju rebellion memorial holiday as president and a series of economic policies that tend to favor the wealthy classes. His foreign policy is more in line with the desires of Washington than his predecessor, whom some Koreans criticized for what they perceived to be Seoul’s handouts to northern Korea without conditions. Lee’s government has restricted freedom of assembly and increased press restrictions as well as championing his Christian religion and putting into place policies that discriminate against Buddhists. His foreign policy is more in line with the desires of Washington than his predecessor, whom some Koreans criticized for what they perceived to be Seoul’s handouts to northern Korea without conditions These accusations logically return the debate back to why there are two Koreas in the first place.

As I wrote in a piece several years ago:

Near the end of the Second World War, right before the U.S. dropped the bomb on Japan, the Soviet Union moved into northern Korea to fight the occupying Japanese troops. Within weeks of Japan's surrender, democratic groups of Korean peasants, merchants, and workers formed local governing organizations and begin to organize a national assembly. The U.S. and U.S.S.R., meanwhile, chose to maintain a "temporary" occupation of the country with the 38th parallel as the dividing line. This occupation was to end after the Koreans established their own government, and Korea was to reunite. However, after the United States realized that the makeup of any Korean-organized government would be anti-colonial, it reneged on its promise.

Within weeks of the election of a popular national assembly, the Soviet Union began to withdraw its forces. The U.S., however, increased its military strength and coordinated security with the remnants of the hated Japanese army. At the same time, Synghman Rhee, an ultra-right Korean politician who was living in America, was flown back to Korea (with the assistance of the US intelligence community). He immediately began to liquidate the popular movement in Southern Korea and, with the complete support of the U.S. military, refused to acknowledge the existence of the newly elected national assembly. In the weeks following his installment as ruler of Southern Korea, over 100,000 Korean citizens were murdered and disappeared. The United States military provided the names of many of the victims.

After realizing that the United States had no plans to withdraw its troops, the Soviet Union put its withdrawal on hold and asked for assistance from the People's Republic of China. In the days and weeks that passed, military units from the south persistently forayed into the northern half of Korea, testing its defenses. Eventually, although the exact details remain unclear, Northern Korean and Chinese troops attacked. On June 25, 1950, the U.S. responded, using the authority of the U.N. Security Council, and the Korean war began. Three years and one month later an armistice was signed between the warring sides. The toll in lives was: 52, 246 US soldiers, an estimated 4 million Koreans on both sides of the parallel (mostly civilians), 1 million Chinese soldiers, and another 4000 soldiers from armies that allied themselves with the United States.

Ever since, the US has refused to sign a peace treaty, even when Seoul wanted them to. The current tension over the sinking of the South Korean ship in March 2010 and the assertion that the North Korean military was responsible has ratcheted that tension to its highest levels since 1993. So far, Seoul has been rational and measured in its response. Pyongyang denies the charges. The world awaits. Pyongyang is not blameless in this situation. It is possible that their navy did sink the South Korean ship. Their actions on the world stage appear to be those of a paranoid nation. Indeed, they are not unlike Israel in that regard.

However, unlike Israel, Pyongyang's greatest enemies are not disenfranchised people living in poverty under occupation. In fact, Pyongyang's enemies include the world's most heavily armed nation and several of its subordinates. Perhaps they have a reason to be paranoid. After all, it's not like they can call on a world power to back them up like Israel can. Indeed, Washington could sign a peace treaty with Pyongyang and make the entire region considerably safer. Yet it has refused to do so for almost sixty years and twelve US administrations.

North Korea warns it will meet war with 'all-out war'

North "will react to confrontation with confrontation," news agency says
By the CNN Wire Staff

-South Korean anti-submarine exercise prompts angry response
-North Korea calls South Korean leaders a "group of traitors"
-Response comes amid high tensions, after Seoul blamed Pyongyang for sinking warship

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea reacted to a South Korean anti-submarine exercise early Thursday by saying it would meet "confrontation with confrontation" and war with "all-out war," according to North Korean state-run media.

"Now that the puppet group challenged the DPRK [North Korea] formally and blatantly, the DPRK will react to confrontation with confrontation, and to a war with an all-out war," according the KCNA news agency.

The news agency referred to South Korean leaders as a "group of traitors" and said they would experience "unheard of disastrous consequences" if they misunderstand North Korea's will.

The response comes amid high tensions on the Korean peninsula, after Seoul blamed Pyongyang for the sinking in March of a South Korean warship. An official South Korean report has accused the communist North of firing a torpedo at the ship, killing 46 sailors.

Explainer: Why are the two Koreas so hostile?

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, visiting Seoul on Wednesday, called the sinking "an unacceptable provocation by North Korea" and said the international community should respond.

Also Thursday, the general staff of North Korea's military -- the Korean People's Army, or KPA -- said it was enacting new measures to deal with any "all-out confrontation."

The steps would "retract all measures for providing military guarantees for the North-South cooperation and exchange, and the promise of a physical strike.

"The KPA will make a prompt physical strike at the intrusion into the extension of the Military Demarcation Line under our side's control in the West Sea of Korea," the army said, according to the KCNA news agency.

Obama to Military: "Prepare for North Korea Aggression"

Another war for the Nobel Peace Prize Winner? Can't we stay out of even one of all the freaking wars that are going on around the world?

~=|0|=~

Obama Tells Military: Prepare for North Korea Aggression
by Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has directed the U.S. military to coordinate with South Korea to "ensure readiness" and deter future aggression from North Korea, the White House said on Monday.

The United States gave strong backing to plans by South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to punish North Korea for sinking one of its naval ships, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.

The White House urged North Korea to apologize and change its behavior, he said.

"We endorse President Lee's demand that North Korea immediately apologize and punish those responsible for the attack, and, most importantly, stop its belligerent and threatening behavior," Gibbs said.

"U.S. support for South Korea's defense is unequivocal, and the president has directed his military commanders to coordinate closely with their Republic of Korea counterparts to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression," he said.

Obama and Lee have agreed to meet at the G20 summit in Canada next month, he said.

Late last week, a team of international investigators accused North Korea of torpedoing the Cheonan corvette in March, killing 46 sailors in one of the deadliest clashes between the two since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Lee said on Monday South Korea would bring the issue before the U.N., whose past sanctions have damaged the already ruined North Korean economy.

The United States still has about 28,000 troops in South Korea to provide military support.

The two Koreas, still technically at war, have more than 1 million troops near their border.

"We will build on an already strong foundation of excellent cooperation between our militaries and explore further enhancements to our joint posture on the Peninsula as part of our ongoing dialogue," Gibbs said.

Gibbs said the United States supported Lee's plans to bring the issue to the United Nations Security Council and would work with allies to "reduce the threat that North Korea poses to regional stability."

Obama had also directed U.S. agencies to evaluate existing policies toward North Korea.

"This review is aimed at ensuring that we have adequate measures in place and to identify areas where adjustments would be appropriate," he said.

S.Korea says North 'will pay price' for ship attack
Published: Monday May 24, 2010

South Korea Monday halted trade with North Korea as part of a package of reprisals for the sinking of one of its warships, drawing strong US support but threats of attack from the communist state.

President Lee Myung-Bak also banned the North's merchant ships from South Korean waters and said Seoul would refer the March 26 attack -- which killed 46 sailors -- to the United Nations Security Council for punishment.

In a nationally televised address, a sombre-looking Lee vowed an immediate military response to any future aggression, saying South Korea had in the past repeatedly tolerated the North's "brutality."

"But now things are different. North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts," he said, demanding an apology for the sinking of the Cheonan, a 1,200-tonne corvette.

US President Barack Obama directed his administration to review North Korea policy and commanded his armed forces to work closely with South Korea "to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression," the White House said.

North Korea reacted angrily to any proposed reprisals, and threatened to open fire at any South Korean loudspeakers broadcasting propaganda across the border if Seoul follows through on its pledge to install them.

"From now on, (South) Korea will not tolerate any provocative act by the North and will maintain the principle of proactive deterrence," Lee said.

"If our territorial waters, airspace or territory are violated, we will immediately exercise our right of self-defence."

Analysts predicted cross-border tensions would remain high for months but said major conflict was unlikely.

A multinational investigation team Thursday reported finding "overwhelming evidence" that a North Korean submarine fired a heavy torpedo which sank the Cheonan near the disputed border.

The United States and numerous other nations have condemned the attack, seen in Seoul as one of the worst provocations since the 1950-53 Korean War. The North's ally China, which wields a Security Council veto, again called on all sides to show restraint.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during her current visit to Beijing, is pressing China to get tough with its wayward ally. She goes on to Seoul Wednesday.

"We are working hard to avoid an escalation," Clinton told reporters during a break from talks, adding she was in "very intensive consultations" in Beijing.

Beijing later confirmed that the Chinese and US delegations had discussed the sinking of the Cheonan.

"China hopes the parties will maintain calmness and restraint and properly deal with relevant issues," foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua news agency after the talks.

In Tokyo, Japan said it supported Seoul's push for Security Council punishment and was also studying more sanctions of its own against Pyongyang.

Seoul's Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young said the US and South Korean navies would soon stage an anti-submarine drill off the west coast and his government would resume the border broadcasts halted six years ago.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters in Washington that the joint anti-submarine and other maritime interdiction exercises would be held in the "near future," without giving further details.

The North says the South has faked evidence of its involvement in the Cheonan's sinking as part of a plot to ignite conflict. It threatens "all-out war" in response to any punitive moves.

A spokesman for North Korea's National Defence Commission, the country's top body and chaired by leader Kim Jong-Il, described Lee as a "traitor" and termed his speech "another clumsy farce" designed to cover up the conspiracy.

The North's military has separately expressed anger at new moves to wage psychological warfare, vowing to open fire at propaganda posters or loudspeakers on the southern side.

In his strongly worded speech, delivered symbolically from Seoul's war memorial, Lee said trade and exchanges would be suspended since any cooperation was "meaningless" under present circumstances.

He exempted the jointly run Kaesong industrial estate just north of the border and humanitarian aid for the North's children.

Israel is Becoming North Korea

Democracy According to Reichman
By GIDEON LEVY

In the end, we will only be left with Prof. Uriel Reichman. After we sent Prof. Noam Chomsky away, and there was no sharp rebuke by Israeli academics (who in their silence support a boycott of Bir Zeit University ), we will be left with a narrow and frightening intellectual world. It will be the kind of intellectual world shaped by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya - an institution of army officers and the rich, headed by its president, Reichman.

A law professor, certainly enlightened in his own eyes, a former candidate to become education minister, Reichman says he doesn't support the human rights group B'Tselem. That's his right, of course; our right is to state that at the head of an important Israeli college stands a man who doesn't understand a thing about democracy.

After all, what does B'Tselem do? It gathers reliable testimonies on the sins of the Israel Defense Forces, very few of which, if any, have been proved wrong. Reichman doesn't support this? In the world according to Reichman, we are left only with statements by the IDF Spokesman's Office. We will believe that no white phosphorus was used in Gaza, that the "neighbor procedure" is something that tenants' committees do, and that if they call a family and give them five minutes to leave before their home is bombed, that's an action by the most ethical army in the world.

Students at the Interdisciplinary Center say they heard their president declare that B'Tselem is "a fifth column" and that it's "shameful" this group received a place at the school's Democracy Day. Reichman denies this, and we respect his word. In any case, the spokeswoman for the college said: "B'Tselem's modus operandi is not acceptable to Reichman." What, then, is acceptable to Reichman? A society without self-criticism. This then, is Israel's intellectual elite; these are our intellectuals - without B'Tselem.

A college president and law professor who preaches changing the electoral system and favors an Israeli constitution - one who doesn't explain to his students the importance of human rights groups - is no more enlightened than the yeshiva heads who don't teach the core subjects. He is even more dangerous.

But the man of intellect from Herzliya did rally against the yeshiva heads. "All the statistics show we're on the brink of a catastrophe and on our way to becoming a third-world country if there's no change in the Haredi community," Reichman said in backing a petition on teaching core subjects. But the heart of the matter must be the lessons of democracy, well before mathematics and English.

And these things, it turns out, they do not teach at Reichman's yeshiva, where even Democracy Day is a day of silencing others. If math is not taught at yeshivas, we will lose little. Without genuine civics lessons at the Interdisciplinary Center, which purports to raise the next generation of our leaders, we will receive a generation ignorant of democracy - in the spirit of Reichman. This is the real catastrophe on our doorstep.

Universities around the world serve as a power source for democracy, and lecturers, not only renowned ones like Chomsky, are often prime examples of liberalism for their students. It's not by chance that at "Reichman's College," as it is called, the voice of political involvement has never been heard. Now it's possible to know why. The school may claim to be interdisciplinary, but one field is missing there. If Reichman takes a look at his history books, he can read about people and movements that fought for human rights. B'Tselem's founders will certainly be on that list. Maybe someday this will also be taught at the Interdisciplinary Center, after Reichman's time.

When Otniel Schneller proposes that an intellectual giant like Chomsky "try one of the tunnels connecting Gaza and Egypt," we can only chuckle. No one expects Schneller to know who or what this is about. But the prime minister, as opposed to Schneller, knows very well who the admired lecturer from MIT is - where he studied. He knows that the crux of Chomsky's criticism is directed at the United States, not Israel.

When the prime minister doesn't immediately apologize and invite Chomsky back to the country, we can be sad. When Israel closes its gates to anyone who doesn't fall in line with our official positions, we are quickly becoming similar to North Korea. When right-wing parties increase their number of anti-democratic bills, and from all sides there are calls to make certain groups illegal, we must worry, of course. But when all this is engulfed in silence, and when even academia is increasingly falling in line with dangerous and dark views like those of Reichman, the situation is apparently far beyond desperate.

N Korea Steps Up Invasion Strategy vs S Korea

North adopts new war invasion strategy
April 27, 2010

The North Korean military has recently altered its wartime contingency plans against South Korea to concentrate on attacking the Seoul metropolitan region, a military source said yesterday. South Korean commanders will meet next month to discuss the change and their response to it.

According to the high-ranking source, the North’s military recently decided to do away with the so-called “Five-to-Seven” plans dating from the 1980s to adopt a new plan in which it would occupy only a part of South Korea and start negotiating a cease-fire.

“We believe the North made the change to better deal with the upgraded weapons systems of the U.S. and South Korean forces,” the source explained.

In the previous plan, the numerals five and seven refer to the number of days North Korea believed it would take to occupy all of South Korea. Under that plan, the North’s frontline mechanized units would bulldoze through the South for about a week before gaining control of the country.

With the new plan, the North would concentrate its early fire on Seoul and neighboring areas, where most of South Korea’s social and economic infrastructure is located.

“North Korea would try to occupy Seoul early,” the source said. “And from there, it could either try to go farther south, or try to negotiate [for a cease-fire] from an advantageous position.”

A military expert who requested anonymity said the North took cues from the Gulf War in 1991 and Iraq War in 2003. Iraqi forces had armored vehicles similar to the North’s, but they were destroyed by the U.S. military’s precision strike weapons. North Korea, in other words, has concluded that if its mechanized units engaged in old-fashioned combat without extra help, they would be no match for the more sophisticated U.S. weapons systems.

As part of the change, North Korea has bolstered its frontline mechanized corps with extra mechanized divisions, the military source said. Also, the frontline corps have each received an extra light infantry division, and light infantry battalions on the front have been expanded to regiments.

The South Korean military also believes the North has bolstered its torpedo and sea mine capabilities against a possible U.S.-South Korea joint rear landing and has traded submarines with Iran for the latest torpedoes.

South Korean military commanders will gather early next month to discuss how to stay prepared for combat amid increasing tension with North Korea. Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said, “Their meeting will serve as an opportunity for us to review problems surrounding the Cheonan sinking, to discuss strengthening combat preparedness on western islands and to tighten discipline for the entire armed forces.”

Human Torpedoes..? Really?

Ummmm...ok...

Human Torpedoes Blamed For Korea Ship Strike
Thursday, April 22 06:22 am

An elite North Korean suicide squad of human torpedoes has been blamed for the sinking of a South Korean ship in mysterious circumstances. Skip related content

Korea's Defence Intelligence Command had alerted the navy weeks ahead of the sinking that North Korean suicide squads were being deployed, according to reports in Seoul.

These "human torpedo" squads were said to involve small submarines.

They are navigated so close to the target that their torpedoes or explosives blow up both target and the attackers.

They can also be timed to explode while the attackers escape from the vessel, the mass-circulation South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported.

The attack by North Korea was in retaliation for an earlier defeat, the report added.

"It is the military intelligence's assessment that the North attacked with a heavy torpedo," a military source was quoted as saying by the news agency Yonhap.

"The military intelligence has made the report to the Blue House - the Presidential residence - and to the Defence Ministry immediately after the sinking of the Cheonan that it is clearly the work of North Korea's military," the source added.

South Korea now plans to raise the front half of the 1,200-tonne Cheonan, which went down near a disputed sea border with North Korea.

It will issue its verdict on the cause of the explosion that sank the warship after that.

The sinking last month claimed the lives of more than 40 South Korean sailors.

If Pyongyang did carry out the attack it would be the deadliest confrontation between the two countries since the Korean War ended in 1953.

The North has denied it had anything to do with the sinking.