Officials: US tracking suspicious ship from NKorea

[FourScore]

Source: AP

The U.S. military is tracking a ship from North Korea that may be carrying illicit weapons, the first vessel monitored under tougher new United Nations rules meant to rein in and punish the communist government following a nuclear test, officials said Thursday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he has ordered additional protections for Hawaii just in case North Korea launches a long-range missile over the Pacific Ocean.

The suspect ship could become a test case for interception of the North's ships at sea, something the North has said it would consider an act of war.

Officials said the U.S. is monitoring the voyage of the North Korean-flagged Kang Nam, which left port in North Korea on Wednesday. On Thursday, it was traveling in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of China, two officials said on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence...

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090619/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_us_nkorea

[msongs]

1. uh oh, let's hope that ship stays out of the Gulf of Tonkin! nt

[daleo]

3. It's rumored to be carrying baby incubators. n/t

[DissedByBush]

10. Nudge nudge wink wink? n/t

[daleo]

4. It's rumored to be carrying baby incubators. n/t

[ohio2007]

5. 'Charlie' aint buying what Kim is selling nt

[ohio2007]

2. You can count on the Chinese following up close also

Everybody knows and understands the ground rules

snip

According to media reports, the US destroyer, along with three other US warships, was on an annual joint exercise in the South China Sea with navies from six Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines and Malaysia.

One of the four US ships is the USNS Chung-Hoon, one of the world's most advanced destroyers.

According to the Kuala Lumpur Security Review, the participation of four advanced USNS ships is aimed at familiarizing the US navy with the situation in the South China Sea and shows the possibility of the US Navy's joint combat role with Southeast Asian nations.

Major General Luo Yuan, a senior researcher with the Academy of Military Sciences in Beijing, said though the collision was accidental, the existence of US ships in the South China Sea is cause for potential incidents.

"The best way to avoid such collisions is for the Pentagon to stop its unfriendly moves toward China in this region," he said.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-06/15/content_8282359.htm

[WaveRunner]

6. We should send them a strong worded letter

AGAIN

[MilesColtrane]

7. Plutonium to Yemen?

That'd be the nightmare scenario that would make boarding this ship worth the worst possible North Korean reaction.

This has got to be played smartly though.

We don't want to restart the Korean War if this ship is just carrying small arms.

[Hugabear]

12. Would that be the yellow-cake plutonium variety?

:rofl:

[MilesColtrane]

13. No.

North Korea actually HAS plutonium you see, because it HAS a large nuclear reactor complex.

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/the-risks-of-north-koreas-nuclear-restart

The yellowcake lies were manufactured so the Bush administration would have a pretense to invade Iraq.

There is no reason for the U.S., the International Atomic Energy Agency, or the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to lie about North Korea's plutonium stockpile because no one wants to invade it. (and no country short of China could invade it successfully)

[Hugabear]

14. Actually there are a few chickenhawks here on DU who would love that

n/t

[MilesColtrane]

15. Well, they'll have to love something else because that's not going to happen either.

China would have no reason to invade NK. It can simply cut off economic and food aid if it ever wishes to punish the Koreans.

[ohio2007]

17. supplies of food staples for most of its 23 million people will run out by the end of next month, an

Obama is playing brinksmanship with a leader starving his people "To teach us a lesson". Kim is too paranoid ( or incapacitataed) to exploit the situation by letting in the outside world to record the famished millions who pride themselves on the ability of building a bomb....knowing their hunger and sacrifice pleases Kim.

Welcome to Jonestown

No rush to placate North Korea

snip

According to some analysis from Seoul, supplies of food staples for most of its 23 million people will run out by the end of next month, and for the regime's nomenklatura a month or so later.


This - as much as the other factors and perhaps more so - might account for the escalation of Pyongyang's provocations and threats this year. Its leadership has been caught between regime pride and its people's desperation by a tightening of food aid strings by Washington and Seoul. As usual, the population is sacrificed.

Since a famine in 1995 caused by flooding and the end of Soviet aid, North Korea has met a gap between its food grain requirements and domestic production with aid from the UN's World Food Program and South Korea.

snip


Neither Washington nor Seoul is rushing to placate the North Koreans. "I'm tired of buying the same horse twice," the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, said. Meeting Lee Myong-bak this week, Obama said he would end a "cycle" in which North Korea created nuclear crises to win food, fuel and other concession, before inventing excuses to start again. "This is a pattern they've come to expect," Obama said. "We are going to break that pattern."

Let's see if he can. Linking the humanitarian and nuclear issues would be the toughest policy yet by the Americans and it would probably work only if China, the longstanding supplier of food and fuel on concessionary terms, joined in or at least refrained from stepping up its aid. But Beijing, worried about a flood of starving refugees across its border, is likely to remain reluctant to pressure Pyongyang, as much as it's now showing exasperation with its ally.

A stunted, partly cretinised population may eventually turn out to be the Kim dynasty's main legacy.


http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/no-rush-to-placate-north-korea-20090619-cr4h.html

A lot is going to play out by July 4rth... a threat to launch a missile.....a North Korean ship ship being tracked by the US....and the Chinese tracking both sides carefully.

[Bette Noir]

8. Is it just me, or is the world getting mighty scary this week?

[global1]

9. Could It Be A Decoy By North Korea - Just Testing Whether We'd........

stop or detain - trying to goad us into a conflict? Maybe testing us as to how far we'd go. Just a dare.

[NBachers]

11. Where's Captain Nemo when we need him?

"The seeds of war. They're loading a full cargo of death. And when that ship takes it home the world will die a little more."

[ohio2007]

16. US navy prepares to intercept North Korean ship

US navy prepares to intercept North Korean ship


Tension was growing in the Pacific today as the US navy prepared to intercept a North Korean cargo ship suspected of carrying weapons in defiance of a United Nations ban.

The US navy has been tracking the Kang Nam since its left a North Korean port on Wednesday.

It would be the first ship to be intercepted since the UN last week imposed sanctions on North Korea as punishment for conducting an underground nuclear test last month. The sanctions ban the import and export of nuclear material, missiles and all other weapons other than small arms.

snip

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/19/north-korea-usa-navy-united-nations

I heard on the radio this afternoon the navy feels the ship may have insufficient fuel on board and the navy will wait till the ship clears "big brothers" ( Chinese )territorial waters

[Lagomorph]

18. I wouldn't put it past NK....

...to put a nuke on the ship and send it out for a confrontation.

Excuse me while I tighten down my tinfoil hat.... :tinfoilhat:

[The Croquist]

19. The ship trailing her is the USS McCain

That's the same ship that was involved in the "accident" a few days ago with the Chinese. Her towed sonar array was damaged. Lots of bad things could happen.

1. The captain is in trouble and needs something to salvage his career with. He may also be more then a little nervous. I wouldn't blame him.
2. The sonar is down and the North Koreans just happen to have a submarine nearby. They're not state of the art by any means but it could still spell trouble. *
3. We search her and it turns out it really is carrying baby incubators.
4. We search her and it turns out it really is carrying nuke material.
5. We ask to search her, they refuse and we let her keep going.

I love the idea that she needs to refuel and nobody will let her without searching her first. The problem with that is that somebody may refuel her like Indonesia or Burma (Myanmar).

You can have Obama's job.

* Not to mention the idea that the Chinese were in on it.

[ohio2007]

20. N.Korea accuses Obama of nuclear war plot

North Korea has accused US President Barack Obama of plotting a nuclear war on the communist nation by reaffirming a US assurance of security for South Korea, the North's state media said.
In a first official response to last week's US-South Korean summit, the state-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said in its Saturday edition Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak "are trying to ignite a nuclear war".


snip


http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.33b78ee19629f3815e9f9ef7e17315dc.281&show_article=1




Obama is supposed to talk about this tiesday afternoon in a scheduled press conference.

Somebody should ask him if these quotes are true

:sarcasm: