BREAKING - S.Korea Exchanges Shots with North at DMZ

[gp]

S.Korea Army Says It Exchanges Shots with North at DMZ
Wed July 16, 2003 08:28 PM ET

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea exchanged machine gun fire with communist North Korea Thursday along the Demilitarised Zone, the divided peninsula's heavily fortified frontier, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

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[nadinbrzezinski]

1. not good

Rummy needs just about ANY excuse

[indictrichardperle]

4. The Junta is desperate as Hell

They have a Water-Gate rapidly unfloding heading into an election year, prepare for a neo-con provacation...........

[Old and In the Way]

6. My thoughts exactly.

Perhaps a committed Republican General or Colonel has prodded his counterparts "to help the US out".

Nothing like a major war in East Asia to take the spotlight off this administration who I think are responsible for capital crimes against this country.

We had best understand and carefully watch what is happening around us now....

[GCP]

2. Damn, I hope that's all that's going to happen

North Korea scares the shit out of me.

[Itascapark]

3. Bloody hell...

.

[JNelson6563]

5. thanks to the Simian's

enrich myself and my buddies plan, we're so over-extended we're screwed if NK wants to mess with us. Screwed.

Julie

[Muddleoftheroad]

7. Not likely

The U.S. will not fight a conventional war against NK. If NK attacks, they will use tactical nukes or worse because, otherwise, the North Korean soldiers will wipe out thousands of American troops.

[karlschneider]

8. If we do, I think it might make the Chinese just a tad unhappy....this is

getting to be a genuine clusterfuck.
:crazy:

[Ediacara]

19. if we use tactical nukes

We're still practically bombing our own troops. I think nukes would not be an immediate response to a troop invasion, unless of course, a massive pullback is ordered, or the US/SK forces are just slaughtered, or both.

[Muddleoftheroad]

31. Front line troops

Near the DMZ have all sorts of terms they call themselves like "speed bumps." Those troops are dead within 24 hours of any combat. If you think that wouldn't result in nukes heading to North Korea or blowing up their armies, then I think you live in a different nation.

[IndianaGreen]

20. North Korea could also use nukes first

if it fears a preemptive strike from the US.

The irony! Kim Jong Il is as insane as Bush, and the two of them are inexorably marching towards a nuclear Armageddon of their own doing.

None of this would be happening under Clinton!

[Muddleoftheroad]

30. I disagree

North Korea is headed down the road to self destruction. There is no guarantee they wouldn't be trying to drag Bill along with them.

[annagull]

9. Anyone know if this has happened before?

I just wonder if maybe this has happened a time or two before and nothing else happened (please God..) :scared:

[indictrichardperle]

10. im just guessing

but i would say there have been many exchanges of small arms fire across the border.

I just fear a neo-con "provacation", they really need something to jack up the fear factor and distract the press.

[Guaranteed]

11. Article says it "happens rarely"....

So, yes...:)

[DoveTurnedHawk]

12. This Used to Be a Routine Occurrence

I do not know if this has been the case recently, though.

DTH

[jarab]

25. How true, DTH

I was fortunate to have been stationed at Chunchon (Camp Page) in 1969-70 - a thirteen month tour - and exchanges were reported often at that time.
...O...

[DagmarK]

13. Well, last summer Tom Friedman went there......

and reported ever so gleefully that the DMZ was nothng more than a tourist spot! A nice little park to visit with the family and the baby in the carriage. And predicted that some day, it will be like a disney land.

That Tom........

He reported this on OPRAH.........

Weeks later......the first stage of the NK crisis began.

What a schlep Tom is.

[ScotTissue]

15. Been there as a tourist

I went to the DMZ as a tourist in 1991. So it is a tourist spot, although prolly an unconventional one. The place is as incredible as it is horrifying. South Korean soldiers stare at NK soldiers. Huge speakers from a Northern Potemkin village shout Communist propaganda. Huge speakers in the South shout "Bullshit!" back. You can walk into North Korea the length of the "Peace Table," which is where the cease fire was signed and where negotiators to this day argue about issues of marginal importance (the size of flags, the placements of seats, the number of pens). It is a nightmare. Tunnels from the North have been discovered, filled with North Korean tanks ready to roll into the South. All the major roads to Seoul are rigged to blow if the North moves.

Confrontations in the DMZ are rare...they have happened. An American soldier was attacked with an axe when he tried to trim the limb of a sight-line obscuring tree a number of decades ago. Gunfire? Not in my memory.

Sounds awful, but I am almost comforted that the first news of a conflict comes with an exchange of gunfire rather than a bomb in Seoul. Having said that, I doubt this is more than a blip. Exchanges of force on the ground are rare between the Koreas--on the sea its a different matter, where the Koreas have been waging a not-so cold conflict forever with dozens of ships sunk in just recent years.

[aquart]

14. They know we're over-extended

And our soldiers are sick of fighting after a few months.

Our weaknesses have been brutally exposed.

If you were a nuke power, when would you choose to strike?

[ScotTissue]

17. "If you were a nuke power, when would you choose to strike?"

"If you were a nuke power, when would you choose to strike?"

Um, when my opponent doesn't have millions of nuclear weapons capable of oblitereating my country over and over and over again? I hope the Kim Jong Il regime is at least this rational.

[imix]

16. Fortunately only a minor scuffle

exchange of small arms fire that doesn't escalate to a nuclear one...I don't think the US would dare to use tactical nukes on a country that can retaliate with similar destructive force...at least I hope not.

[Junkdrawer]

18. The story so far...

N. Korea is literally starving.

In the past, they have used the threat to "go nuclear" to get fuel and food. The NeoCons have decided not to play that game and instead are trying to starve them to the negotiating table in a position of weakness.

Recently, Japan was trying to help turn the screws by shutting down the Pachinko (a mixture of slot machine and pinball) gambling parlors run by N. Koreans (one of N. Korea's last sources of hard cash).

N. Korea has seen the bluff and is raising by stating they are getting ever closer to refining plutonium into a bomb.

And now, N. Korea is starting to instigate small arms exchanges in the DMZ.

They are a cornered, starving people. The last time this game was played, "Reagan defeated the Evil Empire". But, it just so happened that a much more sane man, Gorbachev, was the head of the USSR. This time it's a marginal madman named Kim Jong-il.

How will this poker game turn out? Stay tuned.

[teryang]

28. As a card player Kim Jong Il has been had

N.Korea didn't go nuclear to produce weapons, it needed the energy. When the Americans breached the agreement by failing to deliver the promised light water reactors this year, the crisis escalated. The fuel deliveries from the US were supposed to cover the energy gap before the completion of the light water reactors. Now we aren't makeing those deliveries either. Also we have cut our food aid down to virtally nothing. The country has been plunged into darkness. Without energy it is unable to recover from a series of natural diasters which have plagued its agricultural sector since 1994.

The neocons call this tightening the noose. Native Americans used to call it, "White man speak with forked tongue." Chauvinism and racism play a role in how Americans interpret events over there. The lies and misrepresentations are as great as those in the Iraq episode.

Our policy isn't diplomacy, it is regime change. Neocons think that their deceptive and inhumane policies will force the collapse of the regime.

[Muddleoftheroad]

32. Would that be bad?

North Korea is a thugocracy and keeps thousands and thousands in work camps reminiscent of the old Soviet Union. I'd love to see Kim Jong Il thrown out, I would just like to reasonably avoid a war.

[umcwb]

21. Kick, n/t

[wheresthemind]

22. I think this raises a horriable dilema...

If N. Korea were to attack the US with neuclear weapons what would be a reasonable responce by us? Nuke them to hell? Invade and loose 10000s? Negotiate?

Man, its one tough question. George you better fix things fast!

[Dirty Hippie]

24. Relax. The North Koreans

do not have a missile delivery system that will reach the US. If the have nuclear weapons, they could only reach countries in the immediate region. I tend to doubt they even have nuclear weapons; I think they are desperate and bluffing. The country does not even have electricity in most areas. However I’m no expert.

[teryang]

29. I agree with that assessment

No deliverable nuclear weapons.

[Superfly]

35. No delivery system?

How about this:



Park that baby right in seattle with a small nuke....

[xJlM]

33. I beg to differ, sir

I got an email from Zepp this past winter about a North Korean missile which was found in Alaska. This was of course during the Pretzel-dent's relentless march to war with Iraq, so it didn't appear anywhere in American news. Zepp is usually pretty reliable, though, although even he isn't perfect.

[chenGOD]

36. i'm gonna have to beg to differ with your friend Zepp.

Since any time the North launches a missile it causes a huge outcry in the South (which is where I happen to live). During the winter here, there was no mention of any missile launches either in domestic news or news from Japan (who also tend to get a little hysterical when the North launch a missile).

As to the whole shoot-out at the DMZ, it's not like this is the first time it's ever happened, nor will it be the last. On a small aside, if you ever get the chance to, try watching either of these Korean movies: "JSA" or "Shiri". Both very interesting movies.

The South is continuing to increase investment in the North, which is absolutely the right way to go about things.

[molok555]

23. As I understand it

NOT a cause for panic. I know quite a few former RoK troops (mandatory service) and they say it happens more often than the press says. 'Course there's also the active rumour mill that operates amongst all militarys.

Both Japan and the RoK have sunk numerous NK ships/boats in the last ten years or so, so an incident like this doesn't surprise me.

[ButterflyBlood]

26. I'm not too worried about this

not only is it not that rare, but China is practically NK's source of everything. And while the Chinese government are brutal thugs, they're not insane nutcases like Jong-Il and don't want a nuclear war. They too have been putting pressure on NK, and considering how unstable a country this is, if things get too out of control they'll probabl arrange to take out Jong-Il and replace him with a just as evil, but not quite so nutty puppet.

[Junkdrawer]

27. Kick

:kick:

[David__77]

34. Probably "no big deal."

This happens. There is, after all, still technically a war on. There certainly is no peace treaty. Start worrying if missiles are launched. Naval and small arms exchanges are not uncommon.

If Bush attempts a "pre-emptive strike" at Yongbyon nuclear power plant, then there will be war. We'll see what happens.