[ex-Texan]

The North Koreans will stumble and bumble their way into a lot of trouble pretty soon.

[OK]

Speaking of ships, the USS Pueblo is still sitting at a dock in North Korea. It remains a commissioned US Navy ship to this day.

[alloysteel]

Raising the ship and identifying it would certainly clear up the question of whether it was used to help Osama bin Laden in his attempt to get to the Phillipines....

[hsszionist]

Japanese war trophies are hard to come by.

[Tennessee_Bob]

The North Koreans have been very very quiet about this whole thing, which makes me lean towards it being a North Korean spy ship. Typically, their news website is railing against the Japanese for any and everything...but not a word about this situation. I think the NK's are staying real quiet in the hopes that it just disappears.

[Donald Stone]

Pure speculation on my part, but if the Japanese do raise that vessel, I would be interested to know (if it was a spy ship)if any of the spy technology used may have come from our surveillance plane that was rammed by the Chinese fighter and forced to land on Chinese soil.

I'll bet raising that ship is going to be a high priority not only for Japan, but the U.S.

[Ronin]

The news stories I read this morning have offered the opinion that the ship was probably being used by North Korea to deliver drugs to the Yakuza.

North Korea used to get a LOT of money from expatriate donations by ethnic Korean pachinko parlor owners and businessmen, but that has dried up on them in recent years.

In fact, one of the largest (if not largest) pro-Pongyang credit unions in Japan has failed after what Japanese police refer to as systematic looting by management.

I, myself, am just a little amazed that the Japanese Coast Guard had the balls to shoot back after the ship tried fired a number of RPG-7s at them.

Tenacity and fighting spirit are not exactly hallmarks of today's Japanese self defense forces.

[maestro]

Only 2 weeks at sea and the 'Rising-Sun Flag' navy sinks a ship!
Very interesting. :-(