[JPG]

The absolutely last person that anyone should consult on NK or world affairs is Jimmy Carter. Meanwhile, the NK leadership has a choice... behave or die.

[DanMiller]

This analysis seems to read the tea leaves pretty well. North Korea demands copious aid, including sources of hard currency and food, and respect. Prior to the attack on Yeonpyeong-do, North Korea had demanded those things.

Half the nation's children are malnourished, some starving. North Korea's leaders obviously don't care much about that. But if the people are starving, then the "Great Leader" Kim Jong Il and his mandarins probably don't have everything they want, either.

However, the North was rebuffed. So, like a very spoiled and self destructive brat North Korea threw a tantrum.

What could North Korea do next? No one was showing respect. No one was offering aid. So the military opened fire. After that, the world did suddenly pay attention again, and at first it followed the script. Everyone urged China, North Korea's only ally, to restrain its neighbor. President Obama made his call on Monday [December 6, fourteen days after the attack on Yeonpyenong-do]. China, as usual, refused and instead invited the United States and other nations to Beijing for talks - just what North Korea had wanted.

Around the table, the North Koreans could once again demand bounteous aid in exchange for a promise of no further attacks.

Well, this time was different. The United States, Japan and South Korea refused to attend. By now, they knew the game. When a North Korean official showed up for the talks last Friday, nobody else was there. (emphasis added)

I hope the United States, South Korea and Japan don't cave in. However, I'm not sure right now Hu who is running the U.S. government.

The author of the linked article predicted "a stronger, more deadly attack" to follow that on Yeonpyeong-do. I suspect he is right. I also suspect that if we cave in "just one more" time the process will repeat itself continuously.

[Mark17]

I wonder if we have contingency plans to destroy all the artillery pieces before they can do much damage to the capitol city?

[r9etb]

Think of the precedent such behavior potentially establishes. If we succumb to the North's demands, then what do we do with the Taliban?Iran? Let them attack anything and everyone because we don't "respect" their right to negotiate better deals for their people, then we sheepishly come to the bargaining table? Such logic is rooted in naïve foreign relations.

Mr. Armstrong may not have noticed that we've been succumbing to NK's demands for a long time, or at least let them get away with what would be intolerable elsewhere, and yet it has not set a precedent in other parts of the world.

Any subsequent argument based on "avoiding a precedent" is fatally flawed.

I think pretty much everybody -- including the bad guys -- recognizes that the Korean Peninsula is a special case.

[2nd Bn, 11th Mar]

Obama is voting “present” on NK, just like he did during the Iranian revolt. We’re gonna pay a big price for his gutless presidency, I’m afraid.

[headsonpikes]

The North Korean leadership caste should be crushed like insects.

That done, progress is possible.