Carrier Drills off the Coast of Korea… Monday, Jul 26 2010 

Korea heating up a tad. Kind of normal though. Whenever the US and South Korea do any combined forces drill, NorKo has a fit and declares that they will retaliate with the full might of the North Korean people, yada, yada.

US shows its power to NKorea with carrier drills
By ERIC TALMADGE

ABOARD THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON – If you want to let someone know you’re thinking about them, send a massive aircraft carrier.

The East Sea off the coast of the Korean peninsula roiled with U.S. and South Korean ships, submarines, fighter jets and helicopters Monday in a set of high-profile military maneuvers intended to show North Korea that it is being watched.

Military officials said that despite threats of retaliation, North Korea was staying clear. Most of the firepower for the four-day exercises — which North Korea condemns — has been flying off the decks of the USS George Washington, a U.S. supercarrier that can carry up to 70 aircraft and more than 5,000 sailors and aviators.

Washington and Seoul are hoping the drills — and the deployment of the most potent symbol of American military reach in the U.S. Navy — will send a powerful message to North Korea in the wake of the March sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors. An international investigation determined the ship was sunk by torpedo, likely in a sneak attack by a North Korean submarine.

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The Forgotten War… Saturday, Jun 26 2010 

60 years later.

I read the book Battle for Korea: The Associated Press History of the Korean Conflict not that long ago. If you are interested, it is an easy read with a lot of AP photos from the war. I recommend it.

The men and women that fought in that war suffered greatly at the hands of the North Koreans, Chinese and the weather. They endured what most people couldn’t even begin to imagine.

I spent three winters in Korea. I know exactly how cold it gets and have a frame of reference when I read their stories of the bitter cold that sweeps across Korea out of Siberia. I don’t complain about the heat anymore.

Here’s a few posts around the web related to this.

God Bless these men and women. They deserve far greater respect and admiration than they’ve gotten.

60th anniversary of the Korean War

June 25, 1950. [Updated]


Korea Heating Up… Tuesday, May 25 2010 

More on Korea…

SKorea resumes psychological warfare with NKorea
By HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – South Korea blared propaganda broadcasts into North Korea on Tuesday after a six-year halt and Pyongyang said its troops were bracing for war as tensions spiked on the divided peninsula over the sinking of a warship.

One Seoul-based monitoring agency reported that North Korea’s leader ordered its 1.2 million-member military to get ready for combat after South Korea blamed the North for a March 26 torpedo strike that sank the warship Cheonan and killed 46 sailors. South Korean officials could not immediately confirm the report.

The South’s restarting of psychological warfare operations – including radio broadcasts into the North and placing loudspeakers at the border to blast out propaganda – were among measures the government announced Monday to punish Pyongyang. The South is also slashing trade and denying permission to North Korean cargo ships to pass through South Korean waters.

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Korea Monday, May 24 2010 

I’ve been a little remiss in posting. I am doing an audit, two last week and continuing one this week, so I was a bit busy.

I’ve decided to revisit the issue with Korea. It is a rather volatile one, and may turn into a hot war again fairly quick.

Remember, the two Korea’s are still at war with each other. There has never been a peace treaty signed between them, or us, for that matter. The U.S. is also technically still at war with North Korea.

We have 28,000 troops still stationed in Korea, which is merely a token of our commitment to South Korea. If NorKo decides to attack the South, we’re in it knee deep.

I pray that nothing of the sort happens, but NorKo will be made to answer for sinking the South Korean Corvette.

Let’s look at past and present events.

NKorea warns of war if punished for ship sinking
By JEAN H. LEE and HYUNG-JIN KIM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – Tensions deepened Thursday on the Korean peninsula as South Korea accused North Korea of firing a torpedo that sank a naval warship, killing 46 sailors in the country’s worst military disaster since the Korean War.

President Lee Myung-bak vowed “stern action” for the provocation following the release of long-awaited results from a multinational investigation into the March 26 sinking near the Koreas’ tense maritime border. North Korea, reacting swiftly, called the results a fabrication, and warned that any retaliation would trigger war. It continued to deny involvement in the sinking of the warship Cheonan.

“If the (South Korean) enemies try to deal any retaliation or punishment, or if they try sanctions or a strike on us …. we will answer to this with all-out war,” Col. Pak In Ho of North Korea’s navy told broadcaster APTN in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang.

An international civilian-military investigation team said evidence overwhelmingly proves a North Korean submarine fired a homing torpedo that caused a massive underwater blast that tore the Cheonan apart. Fifty-eight sailors were rescued from the frigid Yellow Sea waters, but 46 perished.

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Now look at this:

Obama to military commanders: Get ready in case North Korea makes a move
Allahpundit

Nothing’s happened yet but something big could happen soon, so let’s get a post up to make sure we’re all on the same page. Remember in March when that South Korean ship exploded, killing 46 sailors on board? It was no mystery who did it, but not until this past week did U.S. intelligence conclude that the orders to sink it came straight from the top.

The officials said they were increasingly convinced that Mr. Kim ordered the sinking of the ship, the Cheonan, to help secure the succession of his youngest son.

“We can’t say it is established fact,” said one senior American official who was involved in the highly classified assessment, based on information collected by many of the country’s 16 intelligence agencies. “But there is very little doubt, based on what we know about the current state of the North Korean leadership and the military.”…

Under the leading theory of the American intelligence agencies, Mr. Kim ordered the attack to re-establish both his control and his credentials after a debilitating stroke two years ago, and by extension reinforcing his right to name his son Kim Jong-un as his successor…

Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former official in the National Security Council during President George W. Bush’s second term in office, noted that when Mr. Kim was on the rise three decades ago, “there were similar incidents designed to build his credibility” as a leader.

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