I almost get the feeling that some in South Korea WANT a war

[Hugabear]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/12/22/south.korea.drills/index.html?hpt=T2

Not content with the joint US-SK military drills a few weeks ago, or with last week's artillery drill, South Korea is launching yet another massive land-and-sea drill, less than 20 miles from North Korea. That, coupled with recent statements from South Korean leadership vowing "payback" for any future North Korean actions, almost makes me think that there are some who are actually itching for a chance to take on their northern neighbor. Maybe it's a desire to take care of unfinished business, maybe it's simply warmongering machismo, who knows. We seem to have plenty of warmongers over here, I'm sure there are some in South Korea as well.

It just seems to me that it looks like South Korea is doing everything it can to goad North Korea into doing something, something that would justify South Korea taking military action. Why else is there a need to continually hold provocative military drills so close to North Korea? There is plenty of open sea surrounding South Korea, seems like they could easily hold their naval drills elsewhere and not risk retaliatory action from the north.

[budkin]

1. War would not be optimal but somehow, North Korea has to go

[Hugabear]

4. Short of war, how exactly would that happen

People have been saying North Korea is on the verge of collapse for years, yet somehow they seem to keep going. They seem to be getting enough of what they need from China to remain viable. We've already isolated them about as much as possible, seems hard to think of any further sanctions that could be put in place that would have any effect. From I've read, the famine that crippled the country is either over or receding, allowing North Korea to become more self-sufficient. Their military might be ill-equipped and aging, but it's still a very formidable force, and the terrain is very favorable to them.

Short of all-out war, I just don't see North Korea going away anytime soon. A coup would probably be the best option, but Kim Jong Il is also very aware of that, hence the very strict controls and purges.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

16. Chinese patience is apparently wearing thin.

One of the things that came out of the wikileaks cables was that the Chinese are getting fed up with North Korea. That might be cause for hope.

[Better Believe It]

21. But China will not invade Korea. But, the United States will if the Korean war is resumed.

And if the United States goes to war again in Korea who do you think China will back?

China will not sit back and tolerate U.S. troops approaching their border with North Korea.

But some really insane right-wingnuts thinks that the United States should march into North Korea and take it over!

[pitohui]

2. apparently you believe that weakness deters war, some believe otherwise

they could easily hold their naval drills elsewhere? really? by catering to north korea's wishes, they will suddenly get the respect of north korea and there is a SMALLER chance of war? really? what are you smoking?

north korea thinks south korea is capitalist, spoiled, and weak, and that they're afraid of conflict and no. korea can keep pushing, pushing, pushing

catering to a madman's desires will not lead to peace

did we learn nothing from ww2? appeasing mad dogs does not satisfy them, once you give a mad dog the taste of red meat, the mad dog wants more imagine that!

i don't like what's happening in korea either but the south can't just roll over, they have to show some tiny trace of a spine and holding the drills as planned is prob. a good part of that

i just don't get why you're blaming south korea here, it is pretty obv. who is at fault in the conflict in question

[Better Believe It]

25. Isn't that pretty much what George W. Bush said about Iraq just before he invaded ....

when he attacked the anti-war movement?

It sounds so strikingly similiar to the arguments Bush made in defense of the Iraq invasion.

Remember them?

Comparing Sadam to Hitler.

Claiming Sadam was a madman and calling him a mad dog.

Suggesting anti-war activists were "appeasing" enemy terrorists.

Arguing that fighting the three "axis of evil" nations is like fighting the Axis powers in World War II.

The same sort of political propaganda is being used today to sell and justify a possible renewel of the Korean war.

Be careful.

[dembotoz]

3. while it is best to turn the other cheek-sometimes you run out of cheeks

this could be (is) a real mess

[Renew Deal]

5. SK has taken lots of punches and not punched back.

That's what I think it's about.

[stray cat]

6. Since when has North Korea needed goading to do anything?

S. korea has the right to self-government regardless of N Koreas threat to nuke them and their blowing up of their ships

[deaniac21]

7. You pushed away the severe storm

You made us believe, Comrade Kim Jong-il
We cannot live without you
Our country cannot exist without you!

Our future and hope depend on you
People's fate depends on you, Comrade Kim Jong-il!
We cannot live without you
Our country cannot exist without you!

Even if the world changes hundreds of times
People believe in you, Comrade Kim Jong-il
We cannot live without you
Our country cannot exist without you!

Oh... Our Comrade Kim Jong-il
Our country cannot exist without you!

[Ozymanithrax]

8. If you follow the reports, the citizens of South Korea are pissed at their government...

for not doing enough.

It appears that a majority of South Koreans weem to want a war.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

12. Probably not the older ones

be careful what you wish for ...

[Ozymanithrax]

14. Well the young often don't understand what they want might be bad

for them.

Never the less, North Korea has succeeded in angering South Korea to a point where a majority want war or at least for their government to retaliate.

And, the old can be roused to anger almost as easily as the young.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

36. Retaliate? Ok, but the north is CRAAAAAAAAZY!

And Seoul is easily within range of already-established artillery positions in N Korea. The south would probably win, assuming China stays away, but Seoul would sustain some big losses, in buildings, infrastructure, and people.

If S Korea wants to attack the north, that's ok by me, as long as we get our troops out of the middle before it hits the fan. Just what we don't need is a war on top of the two we're stuck in.

:hi:

[Ozymanithrax]

38. South Korea is't going to pussyfoot in fear of pissing off the crazy old man..

to the North. They are not going to attack, but another Northern provication will likely lead to war, and the citizens will support it.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

40. Citizens will support it?

That's what I'm afraid of. South Korea might retaliate, and U.S. citizens will be drawn into it, and gung-ho speeches will cause U.S. citizens to support it. Because once some U.S. military is killed, we cannot avoid getting sucked into it.

I'm sure some elements of our gov't would love another war. Homeland Security, for one. Xe enterprises also.

[Hippo_Tron]

42. I doubt their citizens are going to support a war that could level Seoul

And South Korea's allies as well as China would put significant pressure on them not to invade.

North Korea's leaders aren't stupid and they know that they will lose a war against South Korea which will mean the end of their regime as well as likely death or imprisonment. They also know they can pull this shit to placate domestic audiences because it's far too costly for South Korea to invade them over it. Likewise, South Korea can respond by conducting military exercises close to North Korea's borders and they know North Korea won't invade because it will be the end of their regime.

The result is that we will probably see this back and forth shit for months or maybe even years until Kim Jong Il has successfully transferred power to his son. Once the new leader is confident in his hold on power it will probably go back to business as usual.

[Uncle Joe]

9. I believe the South Koreans are becoming fed up with taking one sided hits from the North.

Thanks for the thread, Hugabear.

[Iggo]

10. Some right here in the good old UsofA, too.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. They're good at blustering with our fleet behind them and our misbegotten commitment to back them.

[DFab420]

26. Do you think making commitments of backing to allies

is misbegotten?

Or that supporting S. Korea over N.Korea is misbegotten..

Just curious

[Better Believe It]

30. Don't know for sure. We haven't read the secret State Department cables yet!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. Yes.

See Vietnam for misbegotten precedent. Add Taiwan for another. Israel for another. See WWI for what happens when "agreements" between nations go amiss.

"In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.

Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests. The nation prompted by ill will and resentment sometimes impels to war the government contrary to the best calculations of policy. The government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject. At other times it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility, instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations has been the victim."

[Javaman]

13. I don't think so at all...

What I think SK is doing is calling NK on their colossal bullshit.

NK loves to act they way they do because SK's actions in the past has always been one of appeasiing or backing down.

Now SK is calling NK out on their bullshit temper tantrums.

And guess what happens? NK backs down.

And now that they have backed down, they effectively become SK's dog.

That is what all this is about.

[Better Believe It]

15. The war hawks keep on poking the North Korean regime with a stick hoping that they'll react.

It's now becoming clear that the South Korean regime will continue its provocative military "exercises" to please its domestic and American right-wing cheerleaders.

The North Korean Stalinist regime was persuaded by Russia and China to not retaliate against last weeks South Korean military action.

We lucked out last time but I'm not so sure that will happen again.

Because North Korea did not retaliate, the South Korean regime will up the ante with the biggest war games since the end of the last Korean war!

Now that's real smart. It something one would have expected from George W. Bush.

I'm not so sure that calmer heads in the north will prevail again. They certainly haven't in the south! North Korea might easily be convinced that inaction will only encourage more adventuristic military provocations by the South Korean government. Patience has its limits.

And war hawks at home from both major parties will support the South Korean regime's military escalation!

They are the same ones that support the occupation of Iraq and war against Afghanistan.

If the right-wing South Korean regime isn't worried about a resumption of a far deadlier Korean War and its likely nuclear escalation they will proceed with their war plans, especially if the Obama administration encourages them to proceed with a game of "nuclear chicken".

President Obama can follow the advice of other world leaders and stop this descent into insanity or he can ignore them at his own peril and the peril of our nation.

Of course, if the North Korean military responds this time to South Korean military operations, that will all but guarantee the resumption of a full scale Korean war.

A resumption of the Korean war would necessitate a massive military mobilization with a resumption of the draft in the United States to fight not only world-wide terrorism but now the "communist menace" from North Korea and perhaps even China!

Being on a "war footing" would pretty much give the U.S. government all the more excuse to crack down on progressive individuals and organizations in the name of "national security" and "defending the Homeland". A new "anti-red" witch-hunt would be unleashed, led by Republicans and "moderate" Democrats. A Korean war would result in patriotic calls for great economic sacrifices by working people and the elderly (higher taxes and the destruction of Social Security, Medicare and most other social programs) in order to finance hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars in new U.S. war funding that would be required.

And we'd see a giant bi-partisan lurch to the right to "defend the homeland" by both major political parties.

The Democrats and President Obama certainly wouldn't want to be pictured by Republicans as being "soft on communist aggression" or "subversives" at home who oppose U.S. military interventions around the world.

So before any progressives get too anxious, excited or even pleased about the prospect of a renewal of the Korean war because they don't like the North Korean dictatorship and for those who seem to get almost giddy with South Korean tweaks of the "great leader" in the north, they need to look at the big picture and what such a war will mean at home .... and for all Koreans and much of the world.

This is serious shit, not a war "game".

And flippant "funny" drive-by remarks detract from a serious discussion of this matter.

Of course, perhaps that's the real intention behind such "funny", nationalistic, militaristic, gung-ho and phony "patriotic" comments.

Distraction, not civil discourse and debate.

[NoPasaran]

29. South Korea doesn't have a "regime"

It has a democratically-elected government.

Too bad individual posts can't be unrecced.

[dionysus]

37. ROFL, esp at your bolded text....

"...cooler heads in north korea..."
:rofl:

[Donald Ian Rankin]

17. To teach NK that shelling doesn't get it what it wants.

I guess - and it's only a guess - that the calculus is that if NK learns that if it drops bombs on the South then it gets what it wants then it is more likely to try it again, and so it's important that it doesn't.

You use the word "provocative" in the OP. If NK can prevent things happening just by labelling them provocative, it will do so.

[apocalypsehow]

18. Perhaps if North Korea ceased shelling South Korean cities & torpedoing their naval vessels,

the South Koreans wouldn't feel it necessary to conduct war exercises.

Every single bit of the "provocation" has come from Pyongyang, not Seoul. Period.

[Better Believe It]

20. Did they do that last week in response to the South Korean shellings? I missed that.

"Every single bit of the "provocation" has come from Pyongyang, not Seoul. Period."

According to who?

Since you seem to be totally unconcerned about the possibility of the Korean war breaking out again, tell me what sacrifices, political and economic, are you willing to make to "win" the next Korean war?

What are you willing to do in demonstration of your loyalty to the government and whatever military policies it decides to conduct in Asia?

I'm listening.

[apocalypsehow]

23. Your question has already been asked & answered: see #18 above.

Discussion concluded.

[Better Believe It]

31. I'm surprised you didn't hear about the South Korean shellings. Would you like some links?

It was a big news story and the fact that North Korea didn't respond to the South Korean shellings.

[CBGLuthier]

19. They want to resolve the issue before the US goes away.

[Better Believe It]

22. Feeling? It's obvious that some in South Korea and the United States want a war in Korea!

The war hawks from both parties are coming out of the closet on this one!

They are almost giddy and falling all over each other in delivering their congrats to the South Korean regime for their escalating military actions!

[WilliamPitt]

24. Harsh truth

The very second the North Korean regime falls, South Korea (and China, Japan, the US, etc) will be forced to deal withy 20 million starving people, whose access to food in the South is blocked by 1 million land mines.

Moral: despite all the bluster, no one over there wants the North Korean regime to fall.

[Better Believe It]

28. Not to speak of the massive civilian and military casualties of Koreans and Americans who are sent

to fight in a new Korean war.

And the tremendous economic costs in both Korea's and here at home.

And those costs would be horrifying.

I'm not so sure the North Korean military is the easy pushover some think .... and would the Stalinist regime use their nuclear and chemical weapons in a desperate attempt to survive and defeat any invasion of the North?

Do we really want to find out?

If the Stalinist regime is as unstable as many think, the answer is probably yes!

And this is not Sadam's greatly weakened military the United States faced during the second invasion of Iraq.

[GSLevel9]

27. I was thinking the same thing about NORTH Korea. nt

[mwooldri]

33. Did the war in Korea actually officially "end" ???

I thought they declared a ceasefire and sort-of agreed to some kind of interim, "demilitarized" border ????

For the Koreans, they're still in a cold war, but it's obviously heating up...

[Iggo]

35. Ceasefire. No Peace Treaty.

[Hippo_Tron]

34. It's called brinksmanship

I guarantee you that the vast majority of people in South Korea don't want a war, which would be devastating to both sides. But they're also not going to sit back and let their territory get shelled and their naval vessels get sunk. The military exercises are to strike a bit of fear into North Korea's leadership and hopefully get them to back down.

[Better Believe It]

39. That's a huge gamble to take by the South Korean regime.

"The military exercises are to strike a bit of fear into North Korea's leadership and hopefully get them to back down."

That's a big and dangerous roll of the dice.

They are not only gambling with Korean lives on both sides of the DMZ, they are gambling with ours.

And if North Korea leaders don't cave in and respond with a military attack on the south, what do you think the South Korean regime will do?

[Hippo_Tron]

41. Why would North Korea get itself into an all out war over a few military exercises?

The only way that makes sense is if you believe the neocons that Kim Jong Il and their military leaders must be "crazy". An all out war means the end of their regime and death or imprisonment for them.

[Better Believe It]

46. Why would South Korea risk such a war?

Looks like both regimes are playing a game of brinkmanship and chicken, with South Korean right-wing militarists all fired up and ready for action!

[KG]

43. the US and SK have alot more to lose than NK is this game of dick waving.

[hayu_lol]

44. Just offhand, the SK people are probably tired of...

a 60/70 year old threat of war with the north. For this entire period, the south has helped(from time to time at least)the north with food and other life-sustaining materials. This money(and goods)comes out of their own pockets. It gets wearisome after a while.

Many would prefer to chance one last confrontation just to get it all over with.

Wintertime now and Korean vets(American)know what winter is like over there. Time for action would be spring.

Can't blame the S Koreans for wanting this seemingly endless conflict to finally end.

[Hippo_Tron]

45. No they don't

Do you think North Korea's leaders really want their regime to end and face certain death or imprisonment? Their position is pretty cozy as it stands. Why would they give that up?

[FedUpWithIt All]

47. It has long been rumored that there are horrific abuses going on in NK.

Massive starvation, detention camps where human experimentation and very severe abuses may be occurring, redirected food and other aid, cannibalism and death camps for orphaned children.

These are people who are not permitted to leave the country under punishment of possible death.

Documentaries have shown very severe malnutrition among the orphaned children, and food aid meant for these kids being sold on the black market.

Link to the documentary North Korea, Children of the Secret State. Warning, it is shockingly painful to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLpjNZA8PFY

I am not sure i would shed tears over an attempt to remove the crazy/dangerous from power. This would be less like the Iraq war and more like stopping Hitler. There is MASSIVE need in NK.