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US says N.Korea torpedoed S.Korean Navy Ship

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Several days ago South Korea claimed that its naval ship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo. North Korea replied that it was a lie and it would attack South Korea if there were any sanctions or advances against North Korea.

Now today, the United States is claiming not only did North Korea destroy the South Korean ship, but also that Kim Jong Il, the nutty North Korean leader, must have known about, or perhaps authorized, the attack.

U.S. Implicates North Korean Leader in Attack
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world/asia/23korea.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON — A new American intelligence analysis of a deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean warship concludes that Kim Jong-il, the ailing leader of North Korea, must have authorized the torpedo assault, according to senior American officials who cautioned that the assessment was based on their sense of the political dynamics there rather than hard evidence.

The officials said they were increasingly convinced that Mr. Kim ordered the sinking of the ship, the Cheonan, to help secure the succession of his youngest son.

“We can’t say it is established fact,” said one senior American official who was involved in the highly classified assessment, based on information collected by many of the country’s 16 intelligence agencies. “But there is very little doubt, based on what we know about the current state of the North Korean leadership and the military.”

Nonetheless, both the conclusion and the timing of the assessment could be useful to the United States as it seeks to rally support against North Korea.

On Monday, South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, who has moved cautiously since the assault, is expected to call for the United Nations Security Council to condemn the attack and is likely to terminate the few remaining trade ties between North and South that provide the North with hard currency.

But those steps have little chance of proving meaningful unless China, which hosted Mr. Kim two weeks ago, agrees to join the condemnation and refuses to make up whatever revenue North Korea loses from any trade embargoes. China, North Korea’s last true ally, has traditionally been reluctant to pressure the North too much, even when the North Koreans conducted nuclear tests, for fear of toppling the government and sending a flood of refugees across its border.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will be in Beijing when the South Korean action is announced, leading a delegation of 200 American officials, including roughly half of the Obama administration’s cabinet, in an annual “strategic dialogue” with Chinese leaders on a variety of economic and political issues.

So far, at least in public, both American and South Korean leaders have been careful never to link Mr. Kim to the sinking of the Cheonan in March, which killed 46 sailors. Officials said that was in part because of the absence of hard evidence — difficult to come by in the rigidly controlled North — but also largely because both countries were trying to avoid playing into Mr. Kim’s hands by casting one of the worst attacks since the 1953 armistice as another piece of lore about the Kim family taking on South Korea and the West.

The North’s state propaganda surrounding that imagery has been used by the Kim family to sustain two generations of leaders since the end of World War II. Under the leading theory of the American intelligence agencies, Mr. Kim ordered the attack to re-establish both his control and his credentials after a debilitating stroke two years ago, and by extension reinforcing his right to name his son Kim Jong-un as his successor.

North Korea has denied any involvement in the attack, despite the presentation of forensic evidence on Thursday — including parts of the torpedo found in the wreckage — that experts from three countries said established that the torpedo was launched from a North Korean submarine.

Although the American officials who spoke about the intelligence assessment would not reveal much about what led them to conclude that Mr. Kim was directly involved, one factor appeared to be intelligence that he appeared on April 25, the anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, with a military unit that intelligence agencies believe to have been responsible for the attack.

Mr. Kim used the event to praise the group, Unit 586, the officials said, and around that time a fourth star appears to have been given to Gen. Kim Myong-guk, who officials believe may have played a crucial role in executing the attack. General Kim is believed to have been demoted to a three-star general last year, perhaps in response to the humiliation that took place after a North Korean ship ventured into South Korean waters. The North Korean ship was all but destroyed, and some analysts believe the attack on the Cheonan, which was in South Korean waters, was planned as retribution.

“Nobody is going to take overt credit for the sinking,” said Jonathan Pollack, a professor at the Naval War College and an expert on North Korea’s military. “But Kim’s visit to this unit has all the hallmarks of congratulating them for a job well done.”

The senior American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the intelligence assessment is classified, said they ruled out the idea that General Kim or another military officer decided on his own to attack, but they did not explain how they reached that conclusion.

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former official in the National Security Council during President George W. Bush’s second term in office, noted that when Mr. Kim was on the rise three decades ago, “there were similar incidents designed to build his credibility” as a leader.

The Cheonan episode has posed some difficult choices for the Obama administration at a time when its national security team is preoccupied with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

In an intense series of back-channel discussions with Mr. Lee, senior administration officials, including President Obama, have praised South Korea for its calm response. Like the South Koreans, American officials fear that any military retaliation against the North could quickly escalate, leading to rocket attacks on Seoul, major casualties and a panic among investors in South Korea. At the same time, they worry that if North Korea gets through the episode without paying a price — one that American officials decline to define — it could embolden the North Korean military.

The North Korean defense commission, which rarely issues public statements, turned out a fiery-sounding warning last week, saying it would respond to any military retaliation with “all-out war.”​
 

nixon

Boned
GOLD Site Supporter
Several days ago South Korea claimed that its naval ship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo. North Korea replied that it was a lie and it would attack South Korea if there were any sanctions or advances against North Korea.

Now today, the United States is claiming not only did North Korea destroy the South Korean ship, but also that Kim Jong Il, the nutty North Korean leader, must have known about, or perhaps authorized, the attack.

U.S. Implicates North Korean Leader in Attack
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world/asia/23korea.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON — A new American intelligence analysis of a deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean warship concludes that Kim Jong-il, the ailing leader of North Korea, must have authorized the torpedo assault, according to senior American officials who cautioned that the assessment was based on their sense of the political dynamics there rather than hard evidence.

The officials said they were increasingly convinced that Mr. Kim ordered the sinking of the ship, the Cheonan, to help secure the succession of his youngest son.

“We can’t say it is established fact,” said one senior American official who was involved in the highly classified assessment, based on information collected by many of the country’s 16 intelligence agencies. “But there is very little doubt, based on what we know about the current state of the North Korean leadership and the military.”

Nonetheless, both the conclusion and the timing of the assessment could be useful to the United States as it seeks to rally support against North Korea.

On Monday, South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, who has moved cautiously since the assault, is expected to call for the United Nations Security Council to condemn the attack and is likely to terminate the few remaining trade ties between North and South that provide the North with hard currency.

But those steps have little chance of proving meaningful unless China, which hosted Mr. Kim two weeks ago, agrees to join the condemnation and refuses to make up whatever revenue North Korea loses from any trade embargoes. China, North Korea’s last true ally, has traditionally been reluctant to pressure the North too much, even when the North Koreans conducted nuclear tests, for fear of toppling the government and sending a flood of refugees across its border.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will be in Beijing when the South Korean action is announced, leading a delegation of 200 American officials, including roughly half of the Obama administration’s cabinet, in an annual “strategic dialogue” with Chinese leaders on a variety of economic and political issues.

So far, at least in public, both American and South Korean leaders have been careful never to link Mr. Kim to the sinking of the Cheonan in March, which killed 46 sailors. Officials said that was in part because of the absence of hard evidence — difficult to come by in the rigidly controlled North — but also largely because both countries were trying to avoid playing into Mr. Kim’s hands by casting one of the worst attacks since the 1953 armistice as another piece of lore about the Kim family taking on South Korea and the West.

The North’s state propaganda surrounding that imagery has been used by the Kim family to sustain two generations of leaders since the end of World War II. Under the leading theory of the American intelligence agencies, Mr. Kim ordered the attack to re-establish both his control and his credentials after a debilitating stroke two years ago, and by extension reinforcing his right to name his son Kim Jong-un as his successor.

North Korea has denied any involvement in the attack, despite the presentation of forensic evidence on Thursday — including parts of the torpedo found in the wreckage — that experts from three countries said established that the torpedo was launched from a North Korean submarine.

Although the American officials who spoke about the intelligence assessment would not reveal much about what led them to conclude that Mr. Kim was directly involved, one factor appeared to be intelligence that he appeared on April 25, the anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, with a military unit that intelligence agencies believe to have been responsible for the attack.

Mr. Kim used the event to praise the group, Unit 586, the officials said, and around that time a fourth star appears to have been given to Gen. Kim Myong-guk, who officials believe may have played a crucial role in executing the attack. General Kim is believed to have been demoted to a three-star general last year, perhaps in response to the humiliation that took place after a North Korean ship ventured into South Korean waters. The North Korean ship was all but destroyed, and some analysts believe the attack on the Cheonan, which was in South Korean waters, was planned as retribution.

“Nobody is going to take overt credit for the sinking,” said Jonathan Pollack, a professor at the Naval War College and an expert on North Korea’s military. “But Kim’s visit to this unit has all the hallmarks of congratulating them for a job well done.”

The senior American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the intelligence assessment is classified, said they ruled out the idea that General Kim or another military officer decided on his own to attack, but they did not explain how they reached that conclusion.

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former official in the National Security Council during President George W. Bush’s second term in office, noted that when Mr. Kim was on the rise three decades ago, “there were similar incidents designed to build his credibility” as a leader.

The Cheonan episode has posed some difficult choices for the Obama administration at a time when its national security team is preoccupied with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

In an intense series of back-channel discussions with Mr. Lee, senior administration officials, including President Obama, have praised South Korea for its calm response. Like the South Koreans, American officials fear that any military retaliation against the North could quickly escalate, leading to rocket attacks on Seoul, major casualties and a panic among investors in South Korea. At the same time, they worry that if North Korea gets through the episode without paying a price — one that American officials decline to define — it could embolden the North Korean military.

The North Korean defense commission, which rarely issues public statements, turned out a fiery-sounding warning last week, saying it would respond to any military retaliation with “all-out war.”​

It seems like NK is in a constant state of "pissed Off " . they always make bellicose threats , yet never have the balls to carry through with them . It's time to quit pandering to this paper tiger .
 

Big Dog

Large Member
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Yeah, so what ............ Obama ain't gonna do anything OR follow through with any threat he throws to NK. Iran is a prime example!
 

mak2

Active member
that is how NK negotiates. Has since the Conflict. Obama is not the only one without follow thru. Wiki incidents over the DMZ in Korea. Lots of them over the years. Interestingly, I found anyway is all the wildlife that lives in the area since there is no regular travel over the last 50 years.

Nothing is done about NK cause there is on real money in it for anyone.
 

loboloco

Well-known member
By JEAN H. LEE, Associated Press Writer Jean H. Lee, Associated Press Writer – 21 mins ago
SEOUL, [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]South [COLOR=#366388 ! important]Korea[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] – South Korea's president slashed trade to impoverished North Korea and pledged to haul Pyongyang before the U.N. Security Council, vowing Monday to make Pyongyang "pay a price" for a torpedo attack that killed 46 sailors.

President Barack Obama offered his full support for South Korea's moves, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton conferred with China — a veto-wielding permanent seat holder on the Security Council — on the next step in what she called a "highly precarious" security situation.

The March 26 sinking of the [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]Cheonan[/COLOR][/COLOR] in the Yellow Sea off the west coast was one of South Korea's worst military disaster since the 1950-53 Korean War. A torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine tore the ship in two, an [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]international [COLOR=#366388 ! important]team [/COLOR][COLOR=#366388 ! important]of [/COLOR][COLOR=#366388 ! important]investigators[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] concluded last week.

President Lee Myung-bak called the attack the latest in a series of provocations from the North, and aimed to strike Pyongyang financially by cutting trade with the country in desperate need for hard currency. South Korea has been North Korea's No. 2 trading partner, behind China, and the measure will cost Pyongyang about $200 million a year, said Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea's Kyungnam University.

The move deals a direct and painful blow to the cash-hungry North, the state-run Korea Development Institute said. "We have always tolerated North Korea's brutality, time and again. We did so because we have always had a genuine longing for peace on the Korean peninsula," he said in a solemn speech to the nation from the halls of the country's War Memorial.

"But now things are different. North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts," he said, calling it a "critical turning point" on the tense Korean peninsula, still technically in a state of war because the fighting ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

Clinton said North Korea's neighbors — including Pyongyang ally China, which has refrained from criticizing its neighbor — understand the seriousness of the matter. She would not say whether such action would include new international sanctions against the North.

"We are working hard to avoid an escalation of belligerence and provocation," Clinton said.​

The U.N. secretary-general called the evidence "overwhelming and deeply troubling" that North Korea was responsible for a torpedo attack that killed 46 South Korean sailors. Ban Ki-moon told a news conference Monday that he fully shared the widespread condemnation of the attack after hearing the evidence laid out by South Korea's international team of investigators. Ban said he expects "measures appropriate to the gravity of the situation" will be taken by the U.N. Security Council once South Korea brings the matter to the 15-nation council's attention.

Pyongyang disputes the [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]maritime [COLOR=#366388 ! important]border[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] unilaterally drawn by U.N. forces at the close of the war, and the Koreas have fought three bloody skirmishes there, most recently in November. The Cheonan went down not far from the Koreas' sea border.

Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said the U.S. and South Korea would hold anti-submarine military exercises in the waters. The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea, a major sore point for the North.

In Washington, an Obama administration official said military commanders were coordinating closely with South Korea on how the U.S. can help if North Korea continues its threatening behavior. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions are continuing, said that would likely include U.S. assistance with military training exercises.

South Korea's military will also resume blaring anti-North Korean propaganda back over the border — a sensitive practice suspended in 2004 amid warming ties, officials said.​

Lee called the sinking of the Cheonan yet another example of "incessant" provocation by communist North Korea, accused in a 1983 attack on a presidential delegation that killed 21 people and the bombing of an airliner in 1987 that claimed 115 lives.

North Korea routinely denies involvement in the attacks, and has steadfastly denied responsibility for the Cheonan sinking. [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]Naval [COLOR=#366388 ! important]spokesman[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] Col. Pak In Ho warned last week in comments to broadcaster APTN that any move to retaliate or punish Pyongyang would draw "all-out war."
Pyongyang regularly issues belligerent warnings of war if provoked by the South or the U.S.

On Monday, the [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]powerful [COLOR=#366388 ! important]National [/COLOR][COLOR=#366388 ! important]Defense [/COLOR][COLOR=#366388 ! important]Commission[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR] criticized Lee's speech as a "clumsy farce," according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

"This is an open breach of the inter-Korean military agreement, a grave military provocation and a serious incident driving the inter-Korean relations to the worst phase," a news anchor said on North Korean state TV.

One 23-year-old university student in Seoul said she feared war. "I'm genuinely scared that this will escalate into a full-on war," Do Yoon-hee said as she watched a replay of the president's address on her cell phone. "I don't feel that these countermeasures keep us safer." Businessman Park Joo-shin, however, doubted fighting would break out again on the Korean peninsula. "An all-out war would be suicidal for Pyongyang," he said.

The truce prohibits South Korea from waging a unilateral military attack, so Seoul sought Friday to strike at Pyongyang's faltering economy.

Seoul carried out $1.68 billion in trade with North Korea in 2009, about 33 percent of Pyongyang's total trade, according to the [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]Korea [COLOR=#366388 ! important]Trade-Investment [/COLOR][COLOR=#366388 ! important]Promotion [/COLOR][COLOR=#366388 ! important]Agency[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR]. China is North Korea's biggest trading partner, with commerce totaling $2.68 billion last year — about 53 percent of the North's total, KOTRA said.

Imports of sand and other goods will be halted, and North Korean cargo ships will be denied permission to pass through [COLOR=#366388 ! important][COLOR=#366388 ! important]South [COLOR=#366388 ! important]Korean [/COLOR][COLOR=#366388 ! important]waters[/COLOR][/COLOR][/COLOR], Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said.

The biggest source of trade — a joint factory park in the North Korean border town of Kaesong where some 110 South Korean firms employ about 42,000 North Koreans — will remain open, Hyun said.

The suspension of imports will deal a "direct blow" to North Korea, the state-run Korea Development Institute said.
Lim predicted, however, that the North would make up the loss by finding Chinese partners.
___
 
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RobsanX

Gods gift to common sense
SUPER Site Supporter
Kim is almost dead. I'm afraid he's going to try to go out with a bang...
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Well it may be possible that NOTHING will be done. If this headline from Bloomberg News is correct then China appears to be siding with North Korea and that pretty much means that the United Nations and the United States are impotent, so impotent that even a double dose of Viagra is not going to help resolve this situation.

China May Shield North Korea as Lee, U.S. Seek Action on Ship
Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A
By Bloomberg News
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=awElM7vM4Vq4&pid=20601087

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is likely to resist pressure to acknowledge that North Korea torpedoed a South Korean warship when he flies to Seoul tomorrow to meet South Korean President Lee Myung Bak and Japan’s Yukio Hatoyama.

China hasn’t followed South Korea, Japan and the U.S. in blaming North Korea for the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors. Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun yesterday repeated a call for “restraint” by both sides and said China had no “firsthand information” on the sinking.

China wants to avoid a conflict on the Korean peninsula, and is concerned that taking South Korea’s side may provoke North Korea into further escalations and even lead to war, said Shen Dingli, vice dean of the Institute of International Affairs at Shanghai’s Fudan University.

“North Korea is dying, and we can make things worse,” Shen said. “We have assumed North Korea is not a rational actor.”

China has a big stake in stability in Northeast Asia. Japan and South Korea are China’s third- and fourth-biggest trading partners after the European Union and the U.S., with combined two-way trade reaching $485.1 billion in 2009, Chinese customs figures show.

China’s two-way trade with North Korea, at $2.7 billion last year, is less than 1 percent of that total, even though the two countries share a 1,415-kilometer (880-mile) border and an alliance going back to China’s 1950 entry into the Korean War.

“If our region falls into chaos it will undermine the interests of all parties concerned,” Zhang said yesterday.

Responsibility

South Korea, Japan and the U.S. want the North to acknowledge its responsibility for the incident. An international panel on May 20 that included experts from the U.S., Australia, the U.K. and Sweden concluded that North Korea was behind the attack. South Korea wants China to also acknowledge the panel’s findings.

“They won’t be able to ignore the truth,” South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan said yesterday at a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Seoul. President Lee said on May 24 that “no responsible country in the international community will be able to deny the fact that the Cheonan was sunk by North Korea.”

Clinton is also working to bring China in to forge a unified response.

“We expect to be working together with China in responding to North Korea’s provocative action and promoting stability in the region,” Clinton said May 25 in Beijing at the conclusion of two days of talks.

Cycle of Escalation

China’s government may conclude that taking South Korea’s side will only stoke a cycle of escalation, Shen said. Wen is scheduled to have talks with Lee and meet with both Lee and Hatoyama at a three-nation summit on South Korea’s Jeju Island. He met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il earlier this month in Beijing.

China may be willing to condemn the sinking of the Cheonan in a United Nations Security Council resolution provided that North Korea is not singled out for blame, Shen said. Such an outcome may end the cycle of escalation, he said.

Kim’s regime, which has been relying on handouts since the mid-1990s, is suffering from worsening shortages of goods after its botched currency revaluation late last year. Academics including Rudiger Frank, professor of East Asian Economy and Society at the University of Vienna, said that was aimed at rolling back an experiment with free markets that had loosened the state’s control over jobs, food and patronage.

The UN World Food Program said this month its food aid to North Korea will run out by the end of next month.

UN sanctions imposed on North Korea after its second nuclear test in May 2009 caused international commerce to shrink 9.7 percent last year, according to Seoul-based trade agency, Kotra. The North doesn’t release its own trade figures.

Cutting Ties

North Korea this week said it will cut all ties to the South in response to the findings of the panel. Kim ordered his military to be combat-ready, a Seoul-based dissident group said, sending the Korean won down 3 percent against the dollar on May 25, the biggest one-day drop since March 30, 2009. The South responded by resuming radio broadcasts into North Korea that it called the “voice of freedom.” The won was little changed yesterday at 1,252.28.

South Korea’s broadcasting of propaganda into North Korea was “a deliberate and premeditated provocation” aimed at pushing the peninsula “to the brink of war,” North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said yesterday.

In response to the sinking, the U.S. military is preparing exercises with South Korea in anti-submarine maneuvers and interdicting vessels. The U.S. has about 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of its Korean War involvement in the 1950s.

“China is doing the thing that best suits China’s interests and everyone’s interest,” Shen said. “China is not pushing the envelope either on the North Korean side to be aggressive or on the South Korean to punish North Korea with warfare.”​

And apparently Mrs Clinton is impotent too:
Clinton offers China proof of ship attack
By Christian Oliver in Seoul
Published: May 26 2010 06:43 | Last updated: May 26 2010 09:30
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1c0d9e4c-6884-11df-96f1-00144feab49a.html

Hillary Clinton, US secretary of state, on Wednesday said the US would offer additional briefings and information to China to convince it that North Korea torpedoed a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors in March.

Beijing’s response to the sinking has been guarded and this makes it less likely South Korea will be able to marshal support for tougher sanctions at the United Nations Security Council.

Mrs Clinton said a 400-page technical report on the sinking by an international team, including experts from the US, led to the “inescapable” conclusion North Korea was to blame and that action had to be taken. Should the Chinese need more information, she said the US would offer it.

“We hope China will take us up on our offer,” she told reporters in Seoul, where she was on a one-day visit. “I believe that the Chinese understand the seriousness of this issue and are willing to listen to the concerns expressed by both South Korea and the United States.”

She also said the US could take additional measures against Pyongyang but she did not specify what they might be.

China had not reacted to Mrs Clinton’s comment but earlier in the day, the foreign ministry in Beijing repeated its call for calm and restraint from both sides on the Korean peninsula. It also said China had no first-hand information on the sinking of the South Korean ship, according to Reuters.
 

joec

New member
GOLD Site Supporter
Nothing will happen as has in the past. It comes down to do we want to go to war with China when it comes to North Korea. Until NK becomes a problem for China we are at a stalemate on NK. It doesn't matter either which party is in office either.
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Joe, I'd generally agree with you that under most administrations the US would not do anything. However I don't think that this situation would have even occurred under the Reagan administration, and if it had I do think he would have leveled North Korea and China would have been impotent to stop him.
 

mak2

Active member
Maybe China is right. NK is dying. Someone should be thinking about what is next. Why escalate, let NK die on its own.
 

joec

New member
GOLD Site Supporter
Joe, I'd generally agree with you that under most administrations the US would not do anything. However I don't think that this situation would have even occurred under the Reagan administration, and if it had I do think he would have leveled North Korea and China would have been impotent to stop him.

I seriously doubt it, or it would of happened in January 1968 under Johnson when they grabbed the USS Pueblo who had even less fear of communist China. Johnson was a lot of things, afraid of communist he sure wasn't. As for Reagan no comment as I don't want to offend you. I worked for his administration or do you forget.

Mak2 I absolutely agree the NK or a dieing nation let them go.
 
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