Posted on 01/20/2010 1:02:28 AM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
South Korea's defense chief called Wednesday for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea if there is a clear indication the country is preparing a nuclear attack.
The comments, made as the two sides held a second day of talks on further developing their joint industrial complex in the North, were likely to draw an angry reaction from Pyongyang, which recently issued its own threat to break off dialogue with Seoul and attack.
South Korea should "immediately launch a strike" on the North if there is a clear intention of a pending nuclear attack, Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said at a seminar in Seoul.
Kim made similar remarks in 2008 when he was chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, prompting North Korea to threaten to destroy the South.
The North, which conducted underground nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, claims its nuclear weapons are not for use against South Korea but are a security guarantee against what it calls U.S. hostility.
Despite the rhetoric, officials held follow-up discussions Wednesday on the industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry. It did not provide further details.
The South Korean delegation was scheduled to return home later Wednesday, Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said. On Tuesday, the two sides met for nearly four hours to assess a joint tour of industrial parks in China and Vietnam undertaken in December.
Kaesong, which combines South Korean capital and technology with cheap North Korean labor, is the most prominent symbol of cooperation between the two countries still technically at war. About 110 South Korean factories employ some 42,000 North Korean workers.
The complex came under a cloud in late 2008, however, when North Korea tightened restrictions on border crossings amid growing tensions between the two countries.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
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This 2 Koreas thing is really ridiculous. You would think the North would eventually get tired of starving.
But tree bark is GOOD for you!
As for a South Korean preemptive strike?
NOW they’re wising up! If it is clear that the North is about to attack, preempting them is the only logical military strategy which is why Israel has used that strategy in the past.
I'm sure the people are, but the ones running the show would be the leadership and the military, which aren't starving...and they love power more than they care for the people.
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“South Korea should “immediately launch a strike” on the North if there is a clear intention of a pending nuclear attack, Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said at a seminar in Seoul.”
Of course they should attack. Saying it out loud might seem provocative to some, but you’ve got to jerk the lunatic in chief back to reality from time to time.
For all the hostility, in fact there is a puzzling confluence of interests between DPRK and SK politicians:
SK looked on with strong interest in the financial aspects of integration of E & W Germany; the cost there was 2 trillion dollars at a time when West Germany’s economy was something like 500% larger than that of SK. In spite of the robust West German economy, that cost was NOT easily shouldered, and there was a clear and lengthy adjustment process.
SK leaders have directed top economists to estimate costs of NK/SK unification:
The costs? FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS...! Neither is there any guarantee that there would not be a remarkable level of violence and killing...
SK people have their own feelings, but the current consensus of top SK leaders is a preference that NK sort of limp along sideways, kind of like a zombie welfare case who gets a check shoved into his hand when he needs a fix and gets a bit violent.
The problem is not that simple, as NK has for some decades chosen to be the world’s biggest weapons proliferator.
Ergo, the total cost of NK zombification are borne by countries that every year face new waves of missiles made by prisoner NK engineers...
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