Posted on 03/25/2003 7:23:42 AM PST by AmericanInTokyo
("Freepranslation") for Free Republic
I find it interesting that some new developments are occuring with respect to NORTH KOREA of which we should take note. These Japanese/Korean news reports are coming in today (25 March 2003) after a relatively quiet and mysterious lull in activities with respect to North Korea for nearly one week now.
I caution that these in-and-of themselves are not particularly serious, but are sensitive, noteworthy and should be followed very, very closely by the United States.
N. KOREA NOW STARTING TO RAMP UP "INVASION" VITRIOL AGAIN--Several web reports I have seen have quoted dispatches from Pyongyang saying the communist North Korean Labor Party newspaper has pointed to the Iraq War as evidence that the US Forces will invade the DPRK next, and that defensive measures should be taken. The North Korean association of residents in Japan has said the mood in Pyongyang is of war footing and vigilence, and that North Korea feels it will be the next victim of the US, so it will move forward with unspecified moves.
USA 'INTERESTS' ARE NOW GOING AHEAD WITH A PLAN TO INFILTRATE NEARLY 20 MILLION SMALL RADIOS TUNED TO USA 'VOICE OF AMERICA' INTO NORTH KOREA FOR CITIZENS--This was Kyodo News news story today carried in the S. Korean "Joongang Ilbo". They will launch from somewhere near the Korean Peninsula, probably from maritime facilities. They will use balloons, etc. to send the small, light, crank-powered radios to North Korea so the people can get outside news, as their isolation continues the regime of Kim Jong il. This will make North Korea EXTREMELY angry, if the report is true. Watch this one closely!
NORTH KOREAN TROOP ACTIVITY (MISSILE RELATED) SPOTTED--Japanese intelligence reports increased activity on the ground with respect to Japan's missile program. They note an increase in activity in early March, all pointing to some kind of North Korean reaction to Japan's anticipated launch of its first espionage satellite this week. It is expected North Korea may then test-launch something, sometime on/around this weekend.
JAPAN TO LAUNCH FIRST ESPIONAGE SATELLITE--Japan is moving forward to a launch, 28 March Japan time, of its first independent spy satellite for surveillance of North Korea. Until now, they have relied solely on US KH11/KH12 or commercial satellites. (The missile activity spotted was based on commercial satellite information). This satellite launch by Japan has highly irritated North Korea and they call it a provocation. That is why Japanese intelligence, using commerical satellites, have detected this increased North Korean movement with respect to their missile launch facilities.
NATIONALIST SHINTARO ISHIHARA MAKING MORE NATIONALIST COMMENTS--Noted anti-communist, pro-Imperial Japan, Japanese author and Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara ("The Japan That Can Say 'No'") has come out strongly for Japanese rearmament to the point of being able to soundly repel North Korea. His comments have angered Pyongyang, but are gaining resonance with the Japanese People.
ASTOUNDING JAPANESE YOMIURI POLL: 76% IN FAVOR OF U.S. IN IRAQ--Over 90% in the poll reflected a fear or concern over North Korea; accordingly, their support is beginning to harden behind their only known defender in Northeast Asia, the United States.
NORTH KOREAN FISHING TRAWLERS IN S. KOREAN WATERS--Occurred yesterday. Fishing boats from North Korea went across the NLL demarcation line into South Korean waters.
Cuba Protests 'Subversive' U.S. Radio Handouts - April 5, 2002
Ummm...and according to the following story, it is not the US-Gov doing this to NK...
SEOUL, South Korea--As the Pentagon studies moving tons of military hardware within striking range of North Korea, some say the weapon most feared by the Stalinist government there may be a disposable radio the size of a cigarette pack.
"Little throwaway radios, you listen, you throw away--the smaller the better, the more disposable, the better," said Pastor Douglas E. Shin, a Korean-American human rights activist who advocates smuggling thousands of tiny radios capable of receiving foreign broadcasts into the North.
The radio smuggling is part of a growing public and private effort, including foreign radio broadcasts, to crack an information monopoly in the North that has helped keep the Kim family in power for nearly 60 years. So tight is the information blackout that defectors report that they believed that their country--one of the world's poorest--was wealthier than South Korea and that the United States donated rice as a form of tribute to the powerful Communist state.
In January, in a bid to emulate the experience of East Europeans in the cold war, Radio Free Asia and Voice of America doubled their hours of Korean-language broadcasting into North Korea. In February, Radio Free Asia joined Voice of America in broadcasting into North Korea on medium wave, a bandwidth accessible with cheap AM radios.
Not enough coffee : )
This is what they call a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Oh; You mean... sort of like Dashole, Kennedy, and Klinton?
As to the balloon thing - that is an old oriental tactic.
Japan sent up small anti-personell and incendiary bombs during WW-II to drift over the US Northwest, and I think that they managed to set a few forest fires up in the Yukon willie-whacks somewhere.
When I was in Korea with the 8th Army in 1968, they would send them up to drift over South Korea, loaded up with propaganda and attached to a slow fuze. When the fuze burned to the rubber, the balloon would *POP* and the leaflets would come wafting down all over the place. It happened pretty routinely, so turnabout, in this case, is fair play.
Of course, much like American DemocRATS, Kim Il Jung expects that things must always and ever run only one way - HIS way.
Once information and awareness of other lifestyle options (to include FREEDOM) starts to permeate Kim's Communist shell, he very well may have some internal "issues" to contend with. Or so we can hope!
Sad to say, it was my impression while stationed in Country that most North Koreans who had a lick of sanity or common sense had been exterminated years ago, along with anyone related to them, and that nearly the entire surviving population up there was stark raving mad, much like their "leadership". Sort of like "UN-Natural selection".
You mean, sort of like this:
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