[TigerLikesRooster]

I think he is panicking a bit, after his gaffe of "not escalate the situation," earlier in the day. People in SK interpreted this as a defacto capitulation. He has made gaffes from time to time, getting him into trouble, but not on this scale.

The evolution of his rhetoric in last 4~5 hours has been impressive, to say the least. LOL.

[jhpigott]

I was just going to post this, but I see I’ve been beaten to the punch -

President Lee Myung-bak is quoted as saying “I think enormous retaliation is going to be necessary to make North Korea incapable of provoking us again.”

[link to english.yonhapnews.co.kr]

It does appear that the rhetoric coming out of Lee’s office the past couple hours is getting more, not less bellicose. If he doesn’t watch out, he is going to back himself into a corner.

Obumbum and Hu can pontificate all they want. Escalation in that corner of the world can/will be hard to contain once the ball starts rolling in the wrong direction.

[Pan_Yan]

The big ‘IF’ seems to be, as always, what will China do if South Korea actually retaliates? China is South Korea’s largest trading partner by a huge margin.