"Seoul's policy won't make me look good"
Posted on 12/30/2010 8:07:19 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Seoul's New N.Korea Policy 'Worries Washington'
President Lee Myung-bak's shift to a tougher North Korea policy "has prompted modest but growing concern" in the U.S. administration, "where officials worry that an overly aggressive South Korea could become a liability in its own right," the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Although many officials in the U.S. government defended South Korea's recent plan to carry out artillery drills in the West Sea, the paper said growing concerns in the U.S. government were reflected by U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman James Cartwright, who warned the drills could set off a "chain reaction."
"During Lee's 2007 presidential campaign, only 3 percent of South Korean voters viewed the North as a primary concern. Most were worried about the economy, and Lee, a former Seoul mayor and Hyundai Construction chief executive, styled himself as a CEO-type leader -- a pragmatist with a conservative business sense," the paper said.
But it pointed out that security has now become the most important issue that Lee has to deal with. "The latest provocations from North Korea and the resulting rightward swing in South Korean public opinion have transformed" Lee's strategy, it said. "The old method: Act with caution. The new method: Get tough."
P!
Washington leaned on Lee.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/12/30/2010123001108.html
Gov't Send Mixed Messages About N.Korea Policy
The government seems to be sending out mixed messages regarding a perceived shift in its North Korea policy from engagement to preparations for reunification by hinting at the resumption of six-party talks.
President Lee Myung-bak in a policy meeting on Wednesday said the government should help people understand that "reunification is not far off and has many positive aspects for them."
In a briefing to the president, the Unification Ministry set three policy goals for 2011 -- persuading the North to change, seeking "proper" inter-Korean relations, and preparing for reunification.
"To help the North seek desirable change, we need to find a new approach to targeting the North Korea people," a ministry spokesman said. "We should lay firm foundations for the peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula in the long term."
The expression "preparations for reunification" has long been interpreted by both Koreas as meaning absorption of one Korea by the other.
But apparently mindful of the risk of escalating tensions with that choice of words, the ministry also talked about "opening doors for dialogue" and added, "We are not seeking reunification by absorption."
But the Foreign Ministry announced a plan to work for the resumption of inter-Korean talks. It said it will "seek resumption of the six-party talks" on the North's nuclear program, stressing cooperation among five participating countries other than the North, while naming "building an international consensus about peaceful reunification" as one of its policy goals for next year as well.
Lee also said, "The North's nuclear program must be dismantled through the six-party talks. Seoul should play a major role in helping the North dismantle its nuclear program through inter-Korean dialogue."
Yet when he met Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo after the North's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last month, Lee said, "This is not the time to discuss resumption of the six-party talks."
Presidential spokeswomen Kim Hee-jung claimed there was "no change in our basic position" that the North must demonstrate it is really willing to dismantle its nuclear program before the talks resume.
What kind of allies are we?
The kind that should have left in 1976 like Jimmy said he would.
SK has the 5th largest stadning army in the world, a modern air force and so on. Why are we still spending our dough> At least Japan picks up all base costs and foots 1/2 the tab for the rest.
Oh yeah... 10s of millions of half-starved zombies wearing "I Adore Kim Jong-(fill in the blank)" buttons migrating southward across the DMZ, swelling the population of Seoul by at least double.
Germany's reunification will seem like a quiet, polite family gathering compared to the chaos that will follow the fall of the DPRK regime.
When we have a democrat as CinC we are NOT allies. The sooner the world figures that out the better but most of them have a death wish.
An “overly aggressive SK policy?” What the heck is SK supposed to do when NK sinks one of their ships and shells an SK island. Are they supposed to keep putting up with this crap? I was in Viet Nam with some SK soldiers and NK will definitely be in deep doo doo if they attack SK. The ROK soldiers ain’t someone you want to mess with, just ask the VC.
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I wonder what those half-starved people think,when they see
the fat-boy king?
Surely, the will NOT be headed north.
The barricades and machine guns that meet them at the border will be a deterrent.
If the DPRK regime falls, I doubt the troops on the DMZ would fire away at unarmed civilians coming south looking for food. And, I'd bet they'll already have the order to dismantle the barricades in preparation for their arrival.
They won't care.. just like when they saw pics of his fat grandpa.
A war now would reveal him to be the same incompetent, Islamic, Jew-hating, self-loathing Communist pussy as Jimmy Dhimmi Carter.
Also, America is still strong enough that popular sentiment would FORCE him to fight, even if he is fighting to lose: but our strength means the war would ensure Palin's election, and she would take the gloves off: ("both foreign and domestic").
Cheers!
I meant if they went NORTH—to China. China wants to part of the zombies.
Got it. Thanks.
We’re an ally that really doesn’t want to fight a third major war while the first two are still ongoing...
...not to mention one that can no longer afford to do so.
They won’t have to, the landmines in the DMZ will take them out en masse.
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