US, S. Korean National Security Councils Meeting Separately and Urgently Today (Breaking): N.KOREA

Yomiuri News (in Japanese) ^ | 28 December 2002 | Reporter K. Shirokawa (in Seoul); CNN

[AmericanInTokyo]

Special meeting of the United States National Security Council, called by C. Rice, in order to discuss rapidly escalating North Korean situation (reported by CNN recently and carried by Japanese Yomiuri news, in Japanese).

Followed (or preceded) shortly by extraordinary emergency session of South Korean National Security Council in Seoul to discuss, and coordinate on the same topic, North Korea expelling UN monitors and inserting additional spent plutonium fuel rods at North Korean nuke plant.

Breaking.

[AmericanInTokyo]

South Korean president-elect Roh Mu Hyon also issued a public statement tonight directed to Pyongyang. Essentially a cease and desist or face bad consequences (meaning a slowdown or halt to normalization talks). Further, the ROK government statement was pretty tough. Said, "halt actions at once."

[Dog Gone]

I would have been shocked if such meetings were not being called. This is pretty much similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[Dog]

Ping!

[Sabertooth]

[AmericanInTokyo]

This has to be the most weird image of the day today (27 Dec)....From KBS TV in S. Korea, pacifist president-elect Roh Mu Hyon racing to an ROK military unit, donning military uniform, and posing to send a message to North Korea. They are ramping up the words and images in S. Korea. I also believe the anti-US demonstrations have been receding (with just the most radical students or North Korean plants remaining).....

[AmericanInTokyo]

Better than any collection of words could ever say.

The photo montauge of our own Chamberlains should be sent far and war, especially if we order a blockade or send the aircraft carrier to the Sea of Japan we had been publically threatening to do.

[Southack]

"I would have been shocked if such meetings were not being called. This is pretty much similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis."

Right, except that North Korea doesn't have the backing that Cuba had, and the U.S. is in a much better position strategicly today than back then.

The surprise is that North Korea hasn't figured out yet that GWB isn't bluffing. They are about to have their eyes opened in the most unpleasant of ways.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Outgoing president Kim Dae Jung on the phone strategizing with George Bush (who was in Camp David) on how to handle Kim Jong il's provocative actions.

[Dog Gone]

It's good to see South Korea adopting a more realistic assessment of the situation. Without their active involvement and opposition, our hands are significantly tied.

[OXENinFLA]

This is becoming one Hell of a long row of Dominos.

I just wonder what the first one to fall will be.

[End Times Sentinel]

I also believe the anti-US demonstrations have been receding (with just the most radical students or North Korean plants remaining).....

This is good news, however, it's going to take some PRO-U.S. demonstations for me to scale back my stance that we remove all 37k U.S. troops from the DMZ.  There's no reason that we should protect an industrialized nation perfectly capable of defending itself.  Further, if we get any push back from Pyongyang we may need to take out that reactor and I don't want any additional U.S. citizens in harms way.

Hope you're not currently in the area, my friend!

Owl_Eagle

" WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
DIVERSITY IS STRENGTH"

[unojook]

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, in this case words cannot explain how bad we have been screwed by the former administration........

[Tai_Chung]

Is it time to put the MX-missile in South Korea?

[hchutch]

Methinks the pacifist ROK president just got mugged by reality.

[Dog]

We have no choice now but to play out this game of chicken....we can not show weakness to Kim the nitwit.

Lord help us.....this could become a very wild ride...

[Dog Gone]

In some ways it's worse than the Cuban Missile Crisis, although your points are all true.

For one thing, we believe that at least one nuke already exists. How it is deployed, if it is, isn't known to us.

A massive army sits only 40 miles from Seoul. Armies weren't even an issue in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This isn't happening on our front porch. It's in China's and Japan's. Although that makes it less imminently dangerous to us, it also complicates things.

In the Cuban Missile Crisis, the issues were fairly simple. The stakes couldn't have been higher, because we came fairly close to getting nuked by the Soviets. But here we have 37,000 troops who would definitely take heavy casualties in the event of war with North Korea.

Dealing with this problem is going to require more skill and diplomacy than was required with Cuban situation about 40 years ago.

[AmericanInTokyo]

Saw a S. Korean website in Korean just today with( a photo of) a bunch of S. Korean fisherman angry as hell with North Korea. Had signs out and everything. Small group demonstrating. Mostly old farts in their 60s it looked like.

Well, its a start.

The appeasers are still at it, trying to 'defuse' this thing (just as Carter/Clinton/Albright 'defused' it, all right). Now the apple they are dangling tonight, per Korean language news, was a possible trip by Kim Jong il to Seoul in the Spring! (ha!)

[Billy_bob_bob]

I'm not buying it. This whole "crisis" sounds phoney to me. North Korea has a tradition of using the "crazy uncle in the attic" strategy to get what they want, and this whole mess is just another chapter in the continuing soap opera.

The North Koreans know that Bush wants a war in Iraq, and he wants it really bad. So, what a great opportunity for the crazy old uncle to start acting up. He knows that dad could come upstairs and kick his heiny Texas style, but he ain't gonna do it because he's getting his whipping belt all shined up for an application to little Saddam's behind. So dad will do what dad has always done before, he'll toss a couple of bottle of cheap hooch up into the attic and tell uncle crazy to STFU before he comes and gives him a whuppin.

So, crazy uncle gets a couple of bottle of hooch, and he's happy. Dad gets to tan Saddam's hide and he's happy. No word on Saddam's opinion yet.

[Grampa Dave]

You are right on target with comment of yours: Methinks the pacifist ROK president just got mugged by reality.

I have the feeling that our ambassador had a closed door meeting with this pacifist/socialists and showed him data how his country could just disappear of become the slave state of the NK's sometime next year.

Then our ambassador said the choice was his. He could chose life or death. That SK would either be with us or not present sometime in 2003!

So like Tony Blair, he saw the light and is coming over to the right side!