Alert: North Korea fires test missile

[cstaylor]

Report: North Korea Launches Missile

North Korea launched a missile that crashed into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan on Monday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said Tuesday.

[Big Booger]

Lamers,
Still trying to get attention...
BB

[GuyJean]

Report: North Korea Launches Missile

North Korea launched a missile that crashed into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan on Monday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said Tuesday.

WTF!? 200,000 troops in the Middle East hunting for 'possible' WMDs, while Fat Bastard's firing missiles towards Japan. Isn't Japan AS important to the US as Israel?

Bush is like horse with blinders.. Make that a jackass with blinders.

It's strange; as soon as I heard Powell was coming, I became more fearful of what Lil' Kim was gonna pull.

GJ

[cstaylor]

What would you have the United States do? South Korea's leadership will not support military action. Perhaps it would be best to just sign a cease-fire, remove the troops from South Korea, and then work with the Japanese on a nuclear deterrant to the soon-to-be-united, nuclear-armed Korean peninsula.

[GuyJean]

What would you have the United States do?

Actually, ignoring them seems to be the best policy I can think of.. But some Patriot missiles would make me feel better.. Then the radiation can explode in the air and rain down on.... Um, let me think about that one.

Well, Japan is STILL funding some of the NK 'projects', so I guess I would urge Japan to stop it.. As for the US? I'd actually like to see the troops removed from SK.. Then watch the Koreans shit their pants.

I don't know.. Let me think of a stategy.

GJ

[GuyJean]

WTF!? 200,000 troops in the Middle East hunting for 'possible' WMDs, while Fat Bastard's firing missiles towards Japan.

I guess my knee-jerk reaction wasn't so much a plea for action against NK, but a question of why the 'game is over' concerning Iraq when there ARE inspections in the process, and NK, on the other hand, has PROVEN to have WMD and there are NO inspectors there. Why patience in one case and no patience in another? My conclusions thus far; Oil and to protect Isreal.

(brainstormin')

GJ

[cstaylor]

...and a missing Security Council resolution.

These committee things take time.

[GuyJean]

These committee things take time.

I know.. We live in Japan, remember.

GJ

[Taro Toporific]

Lamers,
Still trying to get attention...

Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah! Ya missed us!

UPDATE: N. Korea launches missile
Posted 2/24/2003 7:57 PM
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) &#8212]fired an anti-ship missile [/u]that landed in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan on Monday, a South Korean Defense Ministry official said.

The Seoul government was investigating whether Monday's launch was a test of a new missile or whether it was the firing of an old missile as part of the North Korean military's ongoing winter training, said the official, who asked to be identified only as Maj. Chun.

[Big Booger]

Amazing how they always miss....
BB

[Taro Toporific]

Amazing how they always miss....

Those fun lovin' Koreans a gonna make this "a periodic event"!

Reuters AlertNet - 11:33am JST
The US State Department confirmed on Monday that North
Korea fired an anti-ship cruise missile into the Sea of Japan in what was ... A State Department official described it as a "a periodic event" and said it appeared to be part of North Korean winter training exercises.

[Jack]

The thing is that Japan is not Israel. If you are not a Jew you don't count as far as the Americans are concerned. The Jewish lobby in the US is only preoccupied with the protection of Israel at any cost.

[Jack]

It's not oil. It's not like the US will steal Iraqi oil for free. If oil is what the US wants they can buy all they want from Iraq today. War not required for that.

The real issue is that there are no jews in North Korea and Israel is too far from North Korea. The North Korean crisis only affects South Korea and Japan where there are no jews, so they don't count.

[cstaylor]

?

I'd say the U.S. is taking it slow on North Korea for the sake of South Korea and Japan. By not entering into one-on-one negotiations with North Korea, the U.S. is standing by its allies.

What would you have them do? Sign over South Korea as part of a peace agreement?

Look at the problems that the United States and Britain are having in the U.N. about Saddam Hussein (some of the posters on this board are of this sham peace camp)... do you think China (who shares a border with North Korea on the Yalu river) won't veto anything that comes out of there?

You know that having nuclear weapons is not illegal by international law... but nuclear proliferation is illegal for those countries that are members of hte non-proliferation treaty.

[Taro Toporific]

These committee things take time.

I know.. We live in Japan, remember.

The LA Times had a great piece on this (reg. required)...

Laxity About Korean Missile Upsets Japanese
News that defense agencies failed to warn premier or Cabinet of Pyongyang's planned test points to weakness in government system.
LA Times / February 26, 2003

...Experts say the issue speaks to a broader problem endemic to many Japanese organizations, in which fuzzy lines of responsibility, territoriality and a lack of urgency serve to undermine once-vaunted Japanese management systems.

In recent years, Japan has been hit by scandals involving everything from tainted milk and beef to spilled radioactive material and cover-ups in various industries, including its auto sector. The scandals have undermined people's pride in Japanese quality and organizations.

...Part of the problem, said analysts, is that Japan has no clearly defined North Korea policy. Although recent concern about Japanese abducted by North Korea has hardened popular opinion, the government remains hesitant about acting in any way that might provoke the North, these analysts said.

There's also a cultural tendency in Japan to downplay the unpleasant, added Katagata, which undermines the nation's ability to face and prepare for real danger.

"We have a proverb: 'You forget the hotness once it passes your throat,' " he said.

[Taro Toporific]

These committee things take time.

I know.. We live in Japan, remember.

The LA Times had a great piece on this (reg. required)...

Laxity About Korean Missile Upsets Japanese

Also check out The Straits Times piece...

Watch the Japan factor

...nations south of the Korea-Japan high-tension line are right to be concerned about what impact persistent North Korean missile shots can have on martial thinking among Japan's nationalist elite. Military expenditure of about US$40 billion (S$69 billion) a year already places Japan fourth in the world in defence spending, according to one estimate. So much for the Article 9 constitutional restraint on maintaining a fighting capability.

Two weeks ago, Japanese Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba warned that his country would use force 'as a self-defence measure' if it had evidence North Korea would attack with ballistic missiles. While jingoistic public figures, such as Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, are one with the wartime generation in arguing for an assertive defence posture...

Liberal Party leader Ichiro Ozawa, ordinarily level-headed, has said Japan could counter any China threat by producing 'three to four thousand nuclear warheads' from its many commercial reactors' plutonium waste. Even Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda is on record as saying the Constitution did not prevent Japan from acquiring nuclear weapons. In this darkening atmosphere, Japan's ongoing normalisation process with North Korea, which received a boost when Mr Koizumi visited Pyongyang last September, is all but frozen again after a dozen years of fitful attempts. Unless the slide is arrested, and quickly, the deepening distrust between the two countries would be a nagging worry to most other Asian nations.

[Taro Toporific]

Report: North Korea Launches Missile

UPDATE:

N.Korea Tested Booster for Taepodong Missile-Report
Thu February 27, 2003 07:39 PM ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea tested a rocket booster for a Taepodong ballistic missile at a launch site on the country's east coast in January, a major Japanese newspaper reported on Friday, quoting Japanese and U.S. government sources.

The mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun daily quoted Japanese government sources as saying that Pyongyang had not yet started to assemble the engine and main body for the missile.

The paper said U.S. satellite photos and other intelligence reports indicated that North Korea had built a roof over the launch pad in an apparent attempt to prevent surveillance.

[Taro Toporific]

Report: North Korea Launches Missile

Here's a stranger NK story . . .

Korea jets tried to kidnap spyplane crew, says America
March 10, 2003 / World News / The Times, UK
PENTAGON officials believe that North Korean fighter pilots were trying to capture the crew of an American spyplane that they intercepted last weekend.
Rather than the interception being a chance encounter in international airspace, US military officials now think that the jets had been sent on a well-planned mission to force the surveillance aircraft to land in North Korea, where its crew would have been seized....