Posted on 03/04/2003 11:32:32 AM PST by RCW2001
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA Associated Press Writer
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)--After North Korean fighter jets intercepted a U.S. reconnaissance plane, the communist country said Tuesday the threat of armed confrontation on the Korean Peninsula was growing because of what it called U.S. aggression.
North Korea did not comment on the interception of the plane. Its state-run media instead criticized annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began Tuesday, saying they were preparation for an attack. The exercise, named Foal Eagle, ends April 2.
``This Foal Eagle exercise is escalating the danger of armed clashes on the Korean Peninsula,'' said Minju Joson, a North Korean newspaper.
``If the eagle swoops down on us, a nuclear war will break out and it is clear that the whole Korean nation will not escape nuclear holocaust,'' said the report, which was monitored by South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
North Korea routinely condemns such exercises, but the belligerent rhetoric and the interception of the American plane come amid fears the North could make nuclear bombs within months.
U.S. military officials say the annual maneuver is ``defense-oriented'' and is not related to the nuclear dispute.
Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said four North Korean fighter jets had approached the U.S. plane over the Sea of Japan on Sunday, coming as close as 50 feet. One used its radar to identify the plane as a target, but there was no hostile fire, he said.
Davis said it was the first such incident since 1969, when a North Korean plane shot down a U.S. Navy EC-121 surveillance plane, killing all 31 Americans aboard.
In an interview with 14 U.S. newspapers, President Bush repeated the American stance that the situation can be resolved with diplomacy. According to The Baltimore Sun, Bush said that while the military option has not been taken off the table, it would be a last resort.
Asked how successful diplomatic efforts have been, Bush said: ``It's in process. If they don't work diplomatically, they'll have to work militarily. And military option is our last choice. Options are on the table, but I believe we can deal with this diplomatically. I truly do.''
In a commentary, North Korea's Minju Joson described Bush as ``a political illiterate and a shameless impostor who has dull senses of the times.''
The newspaper also appealed to South Koreans, who host 37,000 U.S. soldiers on their soil, to join North Korea in resisting the United States.
The interception of the U.S. plane appeared to be part of an effort to pressure the United States into negotiations on chief North Korean aims: a nonaggression treaty and economic aid.
``The reckless move is a signal to the United States at a time when Washington pays little attention to North Korea's repeated demand for direct dialogue,'' said Lee Suk-soo, a military studies professor at the National Defense College in Seoul.
North Korea on Tuesday reiterated its demand for a nonaggression pact, saying through Radio Pyongyang that it was ``to remove an unreasonable U.S. threat, not to gain something.'' The radio was monitored by Yonhap.
Washington, which is preparing for a possible war against Iraq, says it will not be blackmailed into concessions and that North Korea's efforts to develop nuclear weapons are a multilateral issue. The U.N. Security Council is expected to debate the matter.
North Korea test-fired a missile into the sea off its east coast on the eve of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's inauguration last week.
On Feb. 20, a North Korean MiG-19 warplane crossed over the South's western sea border, but retreated after South Korean jets flew to the area.
Last week, U.S. officials said North Korea had restarted a nuclear reactor that is at the center of a suspected weapons program. The reactor could yield enough plutonium for an atomic bomb in about a year, experts say.
North Korea, which has warned a U.S. attack on its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon would trigger war, could also decide to reactivate a reprocessing facility near the reactor. Such a move could allow it to make several nuclear bombs within months, according to defense analysts.
The United States believes the North already has one or two nuclear bombs.
North Korean complaints about reconnaissance flights by U.S. planes had grown more frequent before the incident Sunday. On Saturday, the North said a U.S. RC-135 reconnaissance plane intruded into its airspace off the east coast daily for a week.
The current nuclear dispute began in October when U.S. officials said the North acknowledged it had a secret nuclear program in violation of a 1994 agreement.
Washington and its allies suspended oil shipments and North Korea responded by moving to reactivate frozen nuclear facilities and withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
AP-NY-03-04-03 1241EST
All our problems are solved
And all the while complaining loudly how we are not respecting them. Geez, why don't we tell them how much it hurts to be hit in the head, so that they can then offer to stop hitting us - for a price. Instead, we "ignore" them; boy, what nasty people we are!
They can't eat if they're all dead!
The enemy's psywar objective is to FORCE us into a confrontation in the Sea of Japan or on the DMZ, exactly at the time we are engaged with Iraq. These provocations started, a number of weeks ago, with heavy KPA combat equipment brazenly displayed in the Military Demarcation Line area, then with enemy aircraft incursion in the Yellow Sea, then an enemy soldier stepping over the DMZ line, then the enemy MiG intercept. Next (over the next few days and weeks) it may well be the Hainan Island-treament, with them trying to bump our aircraft or locking on radar for longer periods. We can almost ASSUREDLY see this in our newspapers and hear it on our radios over the next few weeks when we wake up daily in the US.
However, our wise Administration and rightly so for the time being, has the #1 Objective to AVOID a confontration and work it diplomatically to isolate Pyongyang. At the same time, we need not take talk of 'military options' off the table, but we don't need to scream it from the rooftops, too, IMHO.
In North Korea's mind, Iraq is merely a dress rehearsal for their own demise, which they project will occur by the turning of leaves next Fall. In their 60 year history, this is their final act of desperation, their death gasp. We must dismiss it as we would only a rude fart and take countermeasures, and do what we can to avoid meeting head-on at this stage.
To accomplish that, we need to be careful and vigilant, allow none of our personnel to fall into enemy hands, have jet fighters escort our Cobra Balls and other elint craft over the Sea of Japan, position our Japanese allies to help us, monitor their northeast coast for missile tests or launches, configure for a Taepodong shootdown if possible, and keep up the diplomatic rope-a-dope on the DPRK.
When we have Iraq secured which would hopefully be two-three months after liberation, we need to then reposition much of our naval and amphibious units (and we are already beefing up our intel and massive bombing capability in Asia) toward the Korean Peninsula. Then, if provocations result, we can respond. We must first initiate an evacuation plan for US personnel in South Korea.
This approach revises, of course, with any agressive refueling and reprocessing, or perhaps a statement that they are nuclear armed, and we have evidence of them starting a production line of such weapons (which would be unacceptable for Northeast Asia).
Be careful.
U.S., at this stage should not allow N. Korea to score a small-scale hit with massive propaganda values, especically the capture of U.S. personnels. That will create real trouble for U.S.
As you said, N. Koreans are fishing hard for such opportunities.
But I am sure you see the propaganda. The North has ratcheted up psychotic vitriol on their domestic TV and radio and Rodong Shinmun and KCNA in the last week or so, more and more stories about 'intruding' RC-135 and other craft. They have created the common mass perception in North Korea that the mean Americans are closing in. Now, they have to follow that theatric expectation up with action. By forcing a USA plane to land (such as getting it into a North Korean airport), or obliterating it, they would have IMMENSE domestic political influence and PR value; they would also have achieved their goal, and assisted Baghdad, by getting all Americans riled up and ready to war on Pyongyang, at a time when our troops are so strongly concentrated elsewhere. It is a game of high school, hot rod 'chicken'.
The final thing to do is get in the enemy's mind. They are irrational. But their aberrant 'logic' (actually, more emotion)is quite real, quite rational for them in their distorted world. In their minds, right now, they are saying to themselves, "why those dirty bastard Yankee imperialist dogs; they violate our Republic's airspace all the time. So now we need proof. So, we will go even if we must into international waters over the Sea of Japan, and retrieve one for OURSELVES and put them on world display and shame! And we will also exact our HEAVY PRICE OF REVENGE for the seizure and humiliation, ON INTERNATIONAL SEAS, off of Yemen, of our people's Sosan-1 merchant craft simply going to deliver the customer's goods."
To the North Koreans, harrassing our guys over the Sea of Japan is fair payback for what we did to them on the seas recently.
In their minds, right now, they are saying to themselves, "why those dirty bastard Yankee imperialist dogs; they violate our Republic's airspace all the time. So now we need proof. So, we will go even if we must into international waters over the Sea of Japan, and retrieve one for OURSELVES and put them on world display and shame! And we will also exact our HEAVY PRICE OF REVENGE for the seizure and humiliation, ON INTERNATIONAL SEAS, off of Yemen, of our people's Sosan-1 merchant craft simply going to deliver the customer's goods."
In their minds, right now, they are saying to themselves, "why those dirty bastard Yankee imperialist dogs; they violate our Republic's airspace all the time. So now we need proof. So, we will go even if we must into international waters over the Sea of Japan, and retrieve one for OURSELVES and put them on world display and shame! And we will also exact our HEAVY PRICE OF REVENGE for the seizure and humiliation, ON INTERNATIONAL SEAS, off of Yemen, of our people's Sosan-1 merchant craft simply going to deliver the customer's goods."
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