North Korea at it again

[dragon]

They just don't learn their threats are meaningless

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea sent a fax to South Korea on Thursday, threatening to "strike mercilessly without notice" after protests against the secretive regime this week in Seoul.

The message warned that North Korea would strike if "the provocation against our highest dignity is to be repeated in the downtown of Seoul."






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World watching North Korea
Earlier this week, on the second anniversary of the death of former North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, conservative protesters rallied in Seoul, burning effigies of the country's leaders as well as its flag. Such protests are common during North Korean festivals and anniversaries.

The South Korea's Ministry of National Defense said it sent a response.

"The reply was sent through wired message and in the fax message, we warned that if North Korea is to carry out provocation, we will firmly retaliate," said Kim Min-seok, the spokesman for South Korea's Ministry of National Defense.

He added that there have been no significant military movements in North Korea.

Pyongyang routinely threatens to retaliate after what it considers "provocations" including protests or balloon launches to the north by South Korean groups.

Relations between the Koreas have seesawed this year, verging on hostile earlier this year amid a nuclear test in February.

This month, the execution of Jang Song Thaek, an advisor and uncle of North Korea's current leader, Kim Jong Un unsettled its neighbors, prompting speculation about instability in the country's leadership.

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[Borgholio]

They...sent a fax? Stop protesting or we attack?

Sounds like that junk I used to get on my fax machine, "Reply immediately or John Ahmed at JFK International Airport will claim your funds..."

[Simon_Jester]

Thing is, that kind of crank call is a hell of a lot less funny when it's made by a nuclear-armed state.

See, this is exactly the same thing I was talking about in the thread we had the last time there was a round of major tensions, eight months ago. Only this time it's even more blatant because North Korea is making death threats to launch a surprise attack when all South Korea did is talk.

Now, granted they do this routinely, so in one sense it's not exactly news. But one would have to be incredibly blind to not see how this threatens the long term peace and stability of the Korean peninsula. And it's a hell of a lot more threatening now that the North Koreans have a definite nuclear arsenal with (presumably) the performance it takes to hit South Korean cities. That makes things even worse than when they just had thousands of cannons pointed straight at Seoul.

Their behavior is so blatantly provocative that on the one hand, the only way to deal with them at all is to be 'too mature' to even respond to these threats except by basically sending a form letter. Yet on the other hand, the absurd and endless threats and general tone of North Korean foreign policy makes it very hard to have any real security.

It is nearly impossible to know for sure that they are NOT planning to launch an attack, although one can get hints of this by monitoring their troop movements.

It is hard to be sure whether their Great Leader is a sane man taking advantage of an insane personality cult, or whether he's enough of a megalomaniac to actually start making irrational decisions.

It is hard to distinguish a North Korean threat made as some kind of inane grandstanding (to whom? Do they even tell their own people when they send such a message?), or whether they actually mean it this time.

It's like having a neighbor who fires guns into the air in the middle of the night and occasionally leaves threatening notes on your door. Sure, he might just be doing it to act tough so his friends won't question his 'street cred,' but seriously, what the fuck, no one should have to live like that or put up with that.

[Iroscato]

They...sent a fax? Stop protesting or we attack?

Sounds like that junk I used to get on my fax machine, "Reply immediately or John Ahmed at JFK International Airport will claim your funds..."

Fax machines used to get spam? I never knew that. Man, I'm young...

Also, I love how they threaten to 'strike without notice'...but were kind enough to tell them about it first. It really would be hilarious if so many people hadn't died beforehand and there were no nukes involved and it wasn't so horribly scary.

[Flagg]

Can we have a moratorium on NK threads unless it's an actual action taken by lil Kim Jr?

[Broomstick]

Does the recent execution of his uncle count as an action or not?

[Flagg]

Does the recent execution of his uncle count as an action or not?

Yeah, I'd say that counts, but making thread after thread every time dumbass Rodman takes a trip or Kim 3.0 rattles sabers is annoying as fuck to me.

[Purple]

Perhaps we simply need to do what some other forums I visit have done and make a DPRK related megathread. You know, a single central thread for all our DPRK related discussion.

[K. A. Pital]

Does the recent execution of his uncle count as an action or not?

Yeah, I'd say that counts, but making thread after thread every time dumbass Rodman takes a trip or Kim 3.0 rattles sabers is annoying as fuck to me.

Agreed. And the uncle thread was actually not so long ago.

[Simon_Jester]

It is interesting to reflect that we do not consider it news when a nuclear-armed state threatens to "strike mercilessly without notice" and see no need to discuss it.

This is a counterintuitive situation, to say the least.

[mr friendly guy]

It is interesting to reflect that we do not consider it news when a nuclear-armed state threatens to "strike mercilessly without notice" and see no need to discuss it.

This is a counterintuitive situation, to say the least.

I think its a combination of Boy crying Wolf. Now NK have done some provocations which were more than just talking, but I think they were sneak attacks without announcements.

[Simon_Jester]

On the other hand, it's an interesting political/geopolitical topic, one I submit is worthy of discussion.

How did we arrive at a situation where it is considered part of the normal order for this country to threaten its neighbor with (implicitly) nuclear attack? Would we tolerate this if another country started doing it? Why or why not?

What if Israel started threatening, say, Iraq this way? Or vice versa?

[Flagg]

On the other hand, it's an interesting political/geopolitical topic, one I submit is worthy of discussion.

How did we arrive at a situation where it is considered part of the normal order for this country to threaten its neighbor with (implicitly) nuclear attack? Would we tolerate this if another country started doing it? Why or why not?

What if Israel started threatening, say, Iraq this way? Or vice versa?

Israel threatens Iran and routinely launches air incursions into Syria. So...

[Scrib]

On the other hand, it's an interesting political/geopolitical topic, one I submit is worthy of discussion.

How did we arrive at a situation where it is considered part of the normal order for this country to threaten its neighbor with (implicitly) nuclear attack? Would we tolerate this if another country started doing it? Why or why not?

What if Israel started threatening, say, Iraq this way? Or vice versa?

I suppose it depends on a pretty standard list:
1-Do they have nukes?
2-How crazy are they,really?
3-How much of a pain in the ass would it be to get rid of them?

You could fold 1 into 3 but fuck it, I like a three point list.

[Simon_Jester]

How did we arrive at a situation where it is considered part of the normal order for this country to threaten its neighbor with (implicitly) nuclear attack? Would we tolerate this if another country started doing it? Why or why not?

What if Israel started threatening, say, Iraq this way? Or vice versa?

Israel threatens Iran and routinely launches air incursions into Syria. So...

Do you think the "surprise attack" the North Koreans are speaking of falls into the same general category as the Israeli proposals to, say, bomb Iranian nuclear reactors? If so, there is a good close analogy.

Now how would we react if Iran, having obtained nuclear weapons, started making the same kind of threats toward Israel? Or, to pick a country that hasn't incurred quite so much disfavor, how about Armenia? What if Brazil started threatening Argentina, or Burma threatening Vietnam in this way?

To use crude terms, how would the world react to this if it came from a "normal" country? Is there a material difference between how we would treat that country and how we treat North Korea? If so, why?

In the last thread, Broomstick argued that we're not taking the North Koreans seriously enough- we just chortle and go "ha ha look at those crazy Norks!" every time they say or do anything. Is this appropriate?

[Ralin]

In the last thread, Broomstick argued that we're not taking the North Koreans seriously enough- we just chortle and go "ha ha look at those crazy Norks!" every time they say or do anything. Is this appropriate?

I don't take most of their threats very seriously, but for diplomatic reasons it's probably best that our leaders pretend to. Pride's a tricky thing, and if someone openly laughs at them they might feel compelled to actually do something.

[Thanas]

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 2&t=160199

Please use the above general NK thread for further discussion. Thread locked. (A merge cannot happen as that would ruin the layout of the new thread.