North Korea: Red alert, and spurning the South
posted at 1:04 pm on July 19, 2006 by Bryan
Ronery Kim put his army on high alert on July 5:
The alert was issued to North Korean forces on July 5 as the country fired seven missiles into the Sea of Japan, the Yonhap news agency reported citing South Korean government sources in Seoul.
A press report stating that the North Korean leadership in Pyongyang issued a mobilization order could not be confirmed, say a South Korean Reunification Ministry spokesman.
South Korea’s Yoongang Ilbo daily reported that an order placing the North Korean army on a war footing was issued hours before the acceptance Saturday of a resolution of the United Nations Security Council on the missile tests.
Soldiers were called to barracks and civilians were place under travel restrictions, the daily reported citing intelligence source, adding hat the order was not broadcast via official North Korean media.
The last general mobilization by the North came in 1993 during tensions over the North Korean nuclear programme.
Something’s getting lost in translation; NK launched its missile tests on July 5, but the UNSC resolution didn’t come for another fortnight.
While it’s on high alert, the North is also giving the South a cold shoulder:
Reclusive North Korea pulled further into its shell on Wednesday, halting the reunion of families separated by the Korean War and delaying talks on forming a joint Olympic team with the South.
—
North Korea said it decided to halt family reunions after cabinet-level talks between the two ended in acrimony last week.
“Our side is, therefore, of the view that it has become impossible to hold any discussion related to humanitarian issues, to say nothing of arranging any reunion between separated families and relatives between the two sides,” the chairman of North Korea’s Red Cross Committee said.
Meanwhile, Japan sharpens up its sword.
World War III on the way? I’d say IV, but either way, yeah, things look like they’re sliding toward the abyss in Asia.
Blowback
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Did any of them notice a difference?
Mr. Bingley on July 19, 2006 at 1:40 PM
North Korea has massed most of it’s army close to the border and is ready to drop millions of shells on Seoul in an attack.
However, I suspect that any conventional attack NK would launch would very soon petter out due to logistics.
I suspect they would be a tought nut for us to crack should we decide to do a Iraq style invasion like we did in GWI and GWII. (which I don’t think needs to be mentioned doesn’t seem to be anything we are actually contemplating or preparing for) However, if NK were so foolish as to launch an invasion of SK, I think their attack would very soon flounder.
Bottom line, I suspect that they could hunker down in their bunkers and do a lot of damage through artillery strikes. But I think they have no ability to actually invade and conquor the south.
So my gut impression is that any saber rattleing they want to do is just that. An attempt to intimidate without the ability to actually follow through. Similar to a bully.
EFG on July 19, 2006 at 1:52 PM
However, NK getting nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them will change my above analysis. (which is admittedly a simple analysis.)
EFG on July 19, 2006 at 1:54 PM
However, everything I wrote above changes if NK gets nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.
EFG on July 19, 2006 at 2:29 PM
North Korean Travel Restrictions: Citizens are no allowed to walk to the the community latrines until after dark.
Dread Pirate Roberts VI on July 19, 2006 at 3:12 PM
EFG
Or if Nk were to be ruled by an insane meglomaniac who believes the world revolves around him because his name sounds like “Sun”.
NK would have to be a ground war. We can soften it up with air strikes, but eventually we would have to go in. As Vietnam and now the middle East have proven, knowing who the enemy is the hardest part of war. I can see the NK’s pulling the same illeagle combatant crap that the “insurgants” are.
We are to sensitive to wage real war now days. An innocent may be hurt! I think the ancient Romans had it right. Destroy the enemy completely. Kill their family, their freinds. Salt the earth. Leave them in total devastation. Let them know what will happen if they attack Rome or Romes freinds again.
Definatly not PC. Bt a kinder gentler war is not the answer.
Wyrd on July 19, 2006 at 3:29 PM
I lived under this brute’s regime (Ceausescu) for 23 years. It was assumed that he would reign forever. The generals, a few really good ones did him in. Instead of using some blind ammunition (which is common in executions so that soldiers don’t know who the actual executioner is), a myriad of soldiers offered to do the job. I always hold out hope for other dictators to get the same treatment.
Excerpt from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/special_report/1999/09/99/iron_curtain/profiles/profiles.stm
Entelechy on July 19, 2006 at 3:31 PM
Entelechy-wow, I’m so glad you made it through. I didn’t even know about Ceausescu-must not have been part of the publik education official pro-communist syllabus. I seriously wonder how many lawsuits the ACLU won to outlaw firing ranges in our country. I can think of quite a few who would have and should have faced them.
I read somewhere awhile back that NK could blow up a dam or two to ruin SK if they felt like it…and SK was trying to figure out how to fortify their dams to prepare for the possible wall of water. Seems like a possible scenario for the freak in charge in NK, I think. He must be sooo pissed that his fireworks were overshadowed by the mideast bomb-fest.
NTWR on July 19, 2006 at 8:04 PM
Entelechy-I don’t know if you ever saw it, but Saturday Night Live at the time of his death did a great bit-they showed Ceausescu lying in his coffin, with some of the citizens passing by, commenting on what life had been like under his regime. One of them said, “Why, he looks like he’s only alseep!” and all of the citizens pulled out guns and shot into the coffin. I wish Saturday Night Live were still that daring-now it’s as exciting as a Al Gore look a like contest.
Doug on July 19, 2006 at 9:13 PM
NTWR, thank you for your nice note. I had to wait 3 years to leave and to come here legally. Then many more to become citizen (but I worked, studied, was a good green-card holder, never asked the gov’t for a penny, and paid taxes the entire time). I adore this country unapologetically!
Doug, I just checked out your site and I found items in it as ‘witty as you do’ :) Thank you for the SNL tip; it made me laugh tears – I missed it, though I love them when they do political satire.
For anyone interested, at the time (1989) a few former East bloc countries had gone free. My colleagues here were asking “when will the Romanians do their deed?”. I answered, unknowing “…they will and you will be surprised”. When I returned from that Christmas brake, they said “did you have to be so dramatic and uncivilized?”. I answered “…I don’t believe in incivility but in this case it was necessary to have a qick trial and execution in order to save many, many lives”. He had ordered a few people killed just days before his capture, during the unrests in a few cities. Then, during an attempted speech of his the soldiers started shouting at him. He has this absolute look of terror on his face, as he know that it is over.
I have a tape with the Ceausescu capture/trial – he thought his helicopter pilot and a few ‘trusted’ generals were going to take him to an airport, so he could fly to Iraq or Iran, where he had sent lots of gold bars for such an occasion. Instead they brought him to the military trial.
Mrs. Ceausescu, who was an even greater evil than him, at the end of the trial keeps saying to the soldiers “I was like your mother; you can’t kill me” and they shout back “no, you were not, you were cruel”.
While in highschool they made us wait for him and his entourage for 4 hours (of him being late); then his black car drove over a bed of red carnations and he did wave his hand majestically, from inside, not even smiling.
In 1961, during President John Kennedy’s trip to Vienna, he also took the Orient Express to Bucharest. On his way back to Vienna, the train slowed down – my father took us to the next city to see the American President – he waved at us from an open train window, smiling. Imagine such ‘open’ security now. I was too little to compare the two systems then…
Entelechy on July 19, 2006 at 10:13 PM
Wyrd:
No. My first post was written with the above fact about Kim Jong Il and North Korea in mind.
EFG on July 19, 2006 at 11:33 PM
Entelechy – I happened to know a little at the time, only a little but enough to know things were seriously wrong.
Interestingly the Germans made the best Frontline-style documentaries about the situation in 1980′s Romania. And Time magazine of the day covered the situation in one-page articles from time to time, enough to provide major clues.
NTWR – the textbooks I was given in school that covered Romania (early 80′s) were written in the early 70′s and focused more on the “Non-aligned Movement” and external politics of the day than internal living conditions. Because of this our textbook material was seriously deficient, and a lot less critical / topical than it ought to have been IMHO.
RD on July 20, 2006 at 9:52 AM
I remember that commie prick, he got what he deserved. I was in the A.F. and based in England, we watched history unfold on the TV when that gold toilet dictator took one for the team. Also the chi-coms crushed a pro-democracy movement, the Berlin Wall came down (thank you President Reagan) and we had GW1. Then I got stationed in Germany, and watched it live on TV as the soviet union went into the ash heap of history (thank you President Reagan).
Tony737 on July 22, 2006 at 7:51 AM