North Korean Game of Chicken

North Korea is just daring Obama to shoot it down. It puts the squeeze on Obama, because if he shoots it down, North Korea might retaliate and attack the South Korean or U.S. Military. If Obama doesn't shoot it down, Obama continues to appear weak and will have been humiliated on the world stage.

I believe North Korea will fire another ICBM and I believe Obama won't do anything about it. And, Obama will continue to be unfit to be Commander in Chief.
Rees

'NK Preparing for Long-Range Missile Test'
from The Korea Times
May 30, 2009

North Korea appears to be preparing for a long-range missile test, defying the U.N. Security Council whose members are negotiating a resolution to punish it for its recent nuclear test, Yonhap News Agency reported Saturday, quoting an informed intelligence source.

The source, asking not to be identified, said an object that appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was recently spotted on a cargo train at an artillery research center near Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

"We believe that the object is certainly an ICBM," said the official, adding that its size is somewhat similar to the one the North fired into the Pacific on April 5.

North Korea is believed to have started moving the object to a missile launch pad in Musudan-ri on the country's east coast, according to the official.

"The missile may be a modified version of a Taepodong-2 missile, which can travel over 4,000 km," the official said. A Taepodong-2 missile is theoretically capable of reaching the western U.S.
"It usually takes about two months to set up a launch pad, but the process could be done in as little as two weeks, which means the North could launch a long-range missile as early as mid-June," the source said.

The developments of what appears to be preparations for a missile launch follow Monday's nuclear test, which drew the international community's condemnation against North Korea. The test came less than two months after it fired a rocket that the U.S. and its allies say was a disguised form of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The remarks came shortly after a South Korean defense source in Singapore said some activities were spotted at a North Korean munitions factory used to build long-range missiles.

Some watchers speculate that North Korea may launch a missile at a time close to a summit set for June 16 between South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama.

"There is a possibility that North Korea may push the 'fire' button right before or after the South Korea-U.S. summit," said a key diplomatic official at the presidential office, requesting to be unnamed.
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DWB Unloads on Obama - as only he can...

from Drinking With Bob

Obama has a case of foreign policy whiplash

Administration: Now North Korea is a threat again

May 30, 2009
from Hot Air.com
by Ed Morrissey

Sometimes, we need a scorecard to keep up with the Obama administration’s positions on foreign policy and national security. The latest case of whiplash comes from the ping-pong position shifts on North Korea. When Pyongyang tested a long-range missile in April, Barack Obama called the DPRK a “regional threat” to security. Last weekend, he upgraded North Korea to a threat to global peace. Wednesday, though, Obama’s national security adviser James Jones dismissed Kim Jong-Il almost entirely, claiming that he poses no imminent threat to the US.

Today, Defense Secretary William Robert Gates goes back to Square One (via Flopping Aces):

The United States will not accept North Korea as a nuclear-armed state, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday at an international conference.…

His comments came amid growing concern across the globe over North Korea’s latest nuclear test and test-firings of short-range missiles.

On Friday, two Defense Department officials said the latest U.S. satellite imagery has spotted “vehicle activity” at a North Korean ballistic missile facility.

“North Korea’s nuclear program and actions constitute a threat to regional peace and security. We unequivocally reaffirm our commitment to the defense of our allies in the region,” Gates said in Singapore.

Gates sounded a lot less concerned on Thursday:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, en route to an annual security summit in Singapore Friday, signaled as much, saying North Korea’s actions so far do not warrant sending more US troops to the region.

“I don’t think that anybody in the [Obama] administration thinks there is a crisis,” Mr. Gates told reporters aboard his military jet early Friday morning, still Thursday night in Washington.

Anyone playing Pyongyang Bingo should note that the Obama administration has covered almost all of the positions on the card.
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We are on the brink of a ‘man-caused disaster.’

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Teleprompter
from The National Review
by Mark Steyn
May 30, 2009

What does a nuclear madman have to do to get America’s attention? On Memorial Day, the North Koreans detonated “an underground atomic device many times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki,” as my old colleagues at the Irish Times put it. You’d think that’d rate something higher than “World News In Brief,” see foot of page 37. But instead Washington was consumed by the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, who apparently has a “compelling personal story.”

Doesn’t Kim Jong Il have a compelling personal story? Like Sonia, he grew up in a poor neighborhood (North Korea), yet he’s managed to become a nuclear power, shattering the glass ceiling to take his seat at the old nuclear boys’ club. Isn’t that an inspiring narrative? Once upon a time you had to be a great power, one of the Big Five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, to sit at the nuclear table: America, Britain, France, Russia, China, the old sons of power and privilege. But now the mentally unstable scion of an impoverished no-account backwater with a GDP lower than that of Zimbabwe has joined their ranks: Celebrate diversity!

Evidently, some compelling personal stories are more compelling than others. In the Washington Post, Stephen Stromberg argued that Kim’s decision to drop the Big One on a three-day weekend was evidence of his appalling news judgment. Other blasé observers shrug that it’s now an American holiday tradition. It began when Pyongyang staged the first of its holiday provocations on Fourth of July 2006, and, amidst all the other fireworks displays, America barely noticed. No doubt there’ll be another Hiroshima on Labor Day or Thanksgiving. Geez, doesn’t the hick in the presidential palace get it? There’s no point launching nukes when everyone’s barbecuing chicken or watching football.

Well, you never know: Maybe we’re the ones being parochial. If you’re American, it’s natural to assume that the North Korean problem is about North Korea, just like the Iraq War is about Iraq. But they’re not. If you’re starving to death in Pyongyang, North Korea is about North Korea. For everyone else, North Korea and Iraq, and Afghanistan and Iran, are about America: American will, American purpose, American credibility. The rest of the world doesn’t observe Memorial Day. But it understands the crude symbolism of a rogue nuclear test staged on the day to honor American war dead and greeted with only half-hearted pro forma diplomatese from Washington. Pyongyang’s actions were “a matter of . . . ” Drumroll, please! “ . . . grave concern,” declared the president. Furthermore, if North Korea carries on like this, it will — wait for it — “not find international acceptance.” As the comedian Andy Borowitz put it, “President Obama said that the United States was prepared to respond to the threat with ‘the strongest possible adjectives . . . ’ Later in the day, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the North Korean nuclear test ‘supercilious and jejune.’ ”

The president’s general line on the geopolitical big picture is: I don’t need this in my life right now. He’s a domestic transformationalist, working overtime — via the banks, the automobile industry, health care, etc. — to advance statism’s death grip on American dynamism. His principal interest in the rest of the world is that he doesn’t want anyone nuking America before he’s finished turning it into a socialist basket-case. This isn’t simply a matter of priorities. A United States government currently borrowing 50 cents for every dollar it spends cannot afford its global role, and thus the Obama cuts to missile defense and other programs have a kind of logic: You can’t be Scandinavia writ large with a U.S.-sized military.

Out there in the chancelleries and presidential palaces, they’re beginning to get the message. The regime in Pyongyang is not merely trying to “provoke” America but demonstrating to potential clients that you can do so with impunity. A black-market economy reliant on exports of heroin, sex slaves, and knock-off Viagra is attempting to supersize its business model and turn itself into a nuclear Wal-Mart. Among the distinguished guests present for North Korea’s October 2006 test were representatives of the Iranian government. President Bush was much mocked for yoking the two nations together in his now all but forgotten “axis of evil” speech, but the Swiss newspaper Neue Zuercher Zeitung reported a few weeks ago that the North Korean–built (and Israeli-bombed) plutonium production facility in Syria was paid for by Tehran. How many other Iranian clients are getting nuclear subsidies? It would be interesting to learn who was on the observation deck for the Memorial Day Hiroshima reenactment, but North Korea is one of the most closed societies on the face of the earth, certainly when compared with the more closely scrutinized corners of the Middle East. In other words, it’s the perfect partner for any state that wants to pursue certain projects under the Western radar screen.

It is remarkable in just five years how the world has adjusted to the inevitability of a nuclear North Korea and a nuclear Iran. Nudge it on another half-decade: Whose nuclear ambitions will be unstoppable by 2015? Syria’s? Sudan’s? Selected fiefdoms in Somalia?

Barack Obama came to power pledging to talk to America’s enemies anywhere anytime. Alas for America’s speak-softly-and-carry-a-big-teleprompter diplomacy, there are no takers for his photo-ops. In the ever more pitiful straw-clutching of the State Department, America is said to be banking on a post-Kim era. He’s apparently had a bad stroke, and might be dead within a decade or three. So what? It’s a safe bet that whoever emerges from a power struggle between the family, the party, and the military is committed to nuclearization as the principal rationale of the state. Likewise in Iran’s imminent election, both “extremists” and “moderates” are pro-nuke. You want an Iranian moderate? Here’s Hashemi Rafsanjani, the moderate guy who lost to that crazy Ahmadinejad last time round: He called Israel “the most hideous occurrence in history” which the Muslim world “will vomit out from its midst” with “a single atomic bomb.” Nuking the Zionist Entity is as bipartisan as motherhood and apple pie.

More to the point, the feeble bleatings from the State Department that there may be internal change down the road emphasize the central feature of the present scene: the absence of meaningful American power. While America laughed at North Korea, Iran used it as a stalking horse, a useful guide as to the parameters of belligerence and quiescence a nuclearizing rogue state could operate within. In what Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post calls “the post-American world,” other nations will follow that model. We are building a world in which the wealthiest nations on the planet, from Norway to New Zealand, are all but defenseless, while bankrupt dysfunctional squats go nuclear. Even with inevitable and generous submissions to nuclear blackmail, how long do you think that arrangement will last? In the formulation of Janet Napolitano, we are on the brink of “man-caused disaster.”

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. © 2009 Mark Steyn
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Defense Sec. Gates changes tune from no crisis to...

I guess the latest missile launch finally got Gates's attention. The entire Obama Administration was in a mode of just dismissing everything North Korea was doing and saying. The nuclear bomb test - no big deal. Missile launches - no big deal. This is not a crisis. Kim Jong Il has said and done this before. No need to worry.

Then, another missiles launch. Gates goes Hmmn. Maybe, North Korea is actually trying to provoke something. YA THINK!!!

What a bunch of morons in the White House. They are going to have egg all over their face when there is a skirmish between North Korea and either the South Korean or U.S. Military. When it happens, Obama, Clinton and Gates will all look like naive fools.

And one more thing. Gates dropped the "helpful, open hand and unclenched fist" words. They all seem to be the favorite terminology the Obama Administration uses when making foreign policy statements. I wonder how many focus groups were required to come up with those terms? Did thye bother to include any North Koreans or Iranians in the focus groups so they would know if the words would have any effect? Hillary said is was "unhelpful" when North Korea launched their "satellite" about a month ago. Yeah, Hillary, keep on using that strong language to send a message to them.

They sound soft and squishy to me. Maybe they have a whole different meaning to our enemies.
Rees

from The Wall Street Journal
By PETER SPIEGEL
MAY 30, 2009

U.S. to Warn North Korea Against Nuclear Activity

Defense Secretary's Tough Talk, Following Another Missile Test, Signals Washington May Be Rethinking Pyongyang Policy

SINGAPORE -- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates issued North Korea the sternest warning from Washington since Monday's test of a nuclear weapon, saying the U.S. "will not stand idly by" as Pyongyang develops nuclear and missile technologies that could threaten America and its allies in the region.

The warning came in a Saturday-morning address Mr. Gates delivered to an annual gathering of Asian defense officials here.

"President Obama has offered an open hand to tyrannies that unclench their fists; he is hopeful, but he is not naïve," Mr. Gates said. "North Korea's latest reply to our overtures isn't exactly something we would characterize as helpful or constructive."

Mr. Gates also said that the export of nuclear material by North Korea to other states or terrorist groups would be considered a "grave threat" to the U.S. and that Washington would hold Pyongyang "fully accountable" for the consequences if such technologies fell into the wrong hands.

Mr. Gates's tough language comes as tensions continue to escalate on the Korean peninsula, with Pyongyang testing its sixth short-range missile since the nuclear test on Friday, just hours after U.S. and South Korean troops based in the south raised their alert level to the highest point in two years.

The defense secretary's remarks were also the latest sign the Obama administration may be reconsidering its policy of reaching out to Pyongyang for a negotiated settlement to its nuclear program.

President Barack Obama campaigned last year on a commitment to re-engage with regimes the Bush administration had considered pariahs. But asked earlier in the week whether the U.S. is considering abandoning the so-called six-party talks -- the primary vehicle for negotiations over the North Korean weapons program, through multilateral talks hosted by China -- a senior administration official said the White House was focusing on sanctions at the U.N. and would decide on the future of its negotiations with North Korea down the road.

Mr. Gates didn't specify in his address what actions the U.S. was considering to end Pyongyang's weapons program or what Washington would do if North Korea was found to be proliferating its nuclear technology.

In a briefing with reporters traveling with him to Singapore, Mr. Gates said the Pentagon hadn't changed any of its contingency planning for the region and had no intention of taking military action against North Korea, "unless they do something that requires it." He also said the administration remains committed to working with allies to develop an effective counterproliferation regime.

U.S. military officials have emphasized that despite heavy commitments of ground forces to Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. would still be able to quickly use naval and air forces against any North Korean threat, if needed. Gen. George W. Casey, the chief of staff of the U.S. Army, said earlier this week it would take three months for the Army to be fully prepared for a conventional war with North Korea.

U.S. defense officials have said they have seen no unusual military moves by North Korea and have no plans to reinforce U.S. troops in South Korea, which now number about 28,000. But language from the Obama administration has become increasingly tough in recent days amid growing unease among American and allied governments over North Korea's motivations.

In an effort to calm anxious democracies in the region, Mr. Gates in his address reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to defend allies against North Korean aggression and said the Obama administration "would not accept" North Korea as a nuclear-weapons state.

"We will not sit idly by as North Korea builds the capability to wreak destruction on any target in Asia, or on us," he said.

The administration is attempting to walk a fine line between rallying the international community to punish North Korea even as neighboring countries, particularly China and South Korea, have raised concerns about a potential collapse of the North Korean regime.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is believed by U.S. officials to be in the midst of planning for his succession following an apparent stroke last year, which has led experts to believe the Pyongyang government is increasingly weak and using international brinksmanship to shore up its domestic support.

Write to Peter Spiegel at peter.spiegel@wsj.com
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It’s Time to Take North Korea Out - An interesting analogy

from North Star Writer Group
Gregory D. Lee
May 29, 2009

North Korea’s Memorial Day detonation of another nuclear bomb, coupled with the launch of five missiles in two days that are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, needs to be immediately addressed unilaterally by the United States. Relying on the United Nations is a waste of valuable time and energy.

Kim Jong Il has proven himself as a stealth, provocative and cunning leader of his country. In two days he has shown the world that he now possesses a nuclear weapon that is more powerful than the near-dud he exploded in October 2006. Someone there has read the assembly instructions provided by Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan, and although not perfect, the weapon he possesses is at least equal to the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan during World War II – a frightening proposition when the bomb’s owner is a certified nut.

Or is he?

So far, Kim Jong Il is running circles around the United States and the U.N., both of which are standing still wringing their hands. President Obama says that this latest test is a “grave concern.” That’s the understatement of the century! Who wouldn’t be “gravely” concerned that a crazy dictator possesses powerful nuclear bombs and the missiles capable of launching them onto U.S. soil? I don’t think Iran is too concerned because it will soon buy the same weapons system to launch toward U.S. interests from the opposite side of the globe. All this is happening right before our eyes as the U.N. postures and calls for “strong measures.” Will somebody please define for me what the U.N. means by “strong measures?” All the previous “strong measures” that the U.N. levied on North Korea only enhanced its ability to develop Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. Now North Korea is at the verge of arming the ICBMs with nuclear warheads, and the U.S. and the U.N. have done little to prevent it.

This is like Uncle Sam standing on a deserted roadway while an SUV rapidly comes his way. Uncle Sam raises one hand signaling the driver of the SUV to stop and while his other hand holds a bull horn, he declares, “Stop! Or I will punish you with economic sanctions if you get any closer.” The driver of the SUV, Kim Jong Il, ignores the veiled threat, and stomps the gas pedal even harder. As the SUV speeds ever closer, Uncle Sam is getting concerned and cries out, “If you don’t stop now, I’m really going to be mad this time, and my friends at the U.N. will double the economic sanctions against you.” Undaunted, Kim Jong Il barrels down ever closer toward hapless Uncle Sam while displaying a satanic smile that suggests, “I’m going to run you over, you S.O.B., and I don’t give a damn about your stupid sanctions!”

Within a few seconds, Kim Jong Il mows over a shocked Uncle Sam, who has a frozen look of disbelief on his face. As the SUV comes to a halt, Kim Jong Il ponders, “Why didn’t Uncle Sam just get out of the way? All he had to do was move to the right and I would not have been able to hit him.” Then it dawns on Kim Jong Il. Uncle Sam didn’t get out of the way because he still believed diplomacy would save him. Kim Jong Il puts the vehicle in park and walks up to Uncle Sam’s flattened body, basking in his glorious victory over the West. He sees that Uncle Sam had a short barrel Remington 870 12-gauge pump shotgun under his coat and an S&W .357 caliber revolver in his waistband. Intrigued, Kim Jong Il asks himself, “Why didn’t Uncle Sam just shoot me to prevent getting run over?” It quickly comes to him, provoking another smile. “He was a weakling whose threats were meaningless. He didn’t have the courage to pull the trigger.” Kim Il Jong then climbs back into his SUV, makes a speedy U-turn and squeals his tires toward South Korea before his final destination – Japan.

How long will Uncle Sam stand in the roadway while a crazy person driving a speeding SUV comes toward him? The time has come for the U.S. to pull the trigger and take out Kim Jong Il before it’s too late.

Gregory D. Lee is a nationally syndicated columnist for North Star Writers Group. You can reach him at info@gregorydlee.com.
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National Review Pleads To Obama: Reverse Course On Gutting Missile Defense

from Closing Velocity
May 29, 2009

A good read on North Korea's nuclear test and how it should prompt an immediate course reversal by President Obama:

In the short term, the U.S. should do three things. First, reaffirm the strength of its alliances with Japan, South Korea, and other regional democracies. Second, work with these allies to squeeze North Korea’s finances through new sanctions and targeted asset freezes. (Locking down North Korean accounts at Banco Delta in late 2005 had a real impact on Pyongyang.) Third, boost funding for missile-defense programs and expand missile-defense collaboration in East Asia.

The Obama administration already is reassuring our allies and surely will pursue a fresh batch of sanctions. But it has sought to slash funding for the Missile Defense Agency and to scale back missile-defense implementation overseas. As former Clinton administration defense secretary William Cohen, hardly a right-winger or a fierce partisan, wrote yesterday in the Washington Times, “Cutting missile-defense funding at this critical juncture sends the wrong signal to both our adversaries and our allies. It would embolden North Korea, Iran, and other rogue states to pursue nissiles of increasing range. It would also confuse our allies and undermine their trust in America’s security guarantees.”

This administration already has learned to reverse itself when national security requires it. Changing course on missile defense is necessary, and it is urgent.

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Hey Obama: No crisis? N.Korea launches another missile - 6th this week!

from Yahoo News
By Eric Talmadge And Anne Gearan
Associated Press Writers

US officials: North Korea may launch new missiles

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea on Friday vowed to retaliate if punitive U.N. sanctions are imposed for its latest nuclear test, and U.S. officials said there are new signs Pyongyang may be planning more long-range missile launches.

With tensions rising, the communist nation punctuated its barrage of rhetoric with yet another short-range missile launch — the sixth this week.

Perhaps more significantly, officials in Washington said there are indications of increased activity at a site used to fire long-range missiles.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because methods of gathering information about North Korea are sensitive. The officials also said an initial U.S. air sampling from near the underground test site was inconclusive.

Officials said the initial analysis doesn't prove the North successfully completed an atomic reaction. At least one more test is coming.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said the latest test launch was a surface-to-air missile designed to defend against aircraft or other missile attacks. It said the missile was believed to be a modified version of the Russian SA-5.

The nuclear test and flurry of missile launches, coupled with the rhetoric from Pyongyang that it won't honor a 1953 truce ending the fighting in the Korean War, have raised tensions in the region and heightened concerns that the North may provoke a skirmish along the border or off its western coast — the site of deadly clashes in 1999 and 2002.

North Korea remained strident.

"There is a limit to our patience," its Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried on the official Korean Central News Agency. "The nuclear test conducted in our nation this time is the Earth's 2,054th nuclear test. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have conducted 99.99 percent of the total nuclear tests."

North Korea said it conducted the test in self-defense. It has asserted the United States is planning a pre-emptive strike to oust the regime of leader Kim Jong Il and warned it would not accept sanctions or other punitive measures being discussed by the Security Council.

"If the U.N. Security Council makes a further provocation, it will be inevitable for us to take further self-defense measures," the Foreign Ministry said. It reiterated that it no longer sees the truce as valid, but it has made that claim several times in the past.

The draft of a U.N. resolution being negotiated in response to the North's second nuclear test calls on all countries to immediately enforce sanctions imposed after the North's first test in 2006.

They include a partial arms embargo, a ban on luxury goods, and ship searches for illegal weapons or material. The sanctions have been sporadically implemented, with many of the 192 U.N. member states ignoring them.

The partial draft, obtained Friday by The Associated Press after it first appeared on the Inner City Press Web site, would have the council condemn the North's May 25 nuclear test "in the strongest terms ... in flagrant violation and disregard" of the 2006 resolution.

North and South Korea technically remain at war because they signed a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. North Korea disputes the U.N.-drawn maritime border off their west coast and has positioned artillery guns along the west coast on its side of the border, Yonhap said.

From the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, about a dozen Chinese ships could be seen pulling out of a North Korean port and heading elsewhere, possibly to avoid any skirmishes.

Yonhap reported that more than 280 Chinese fishing vessels were in the area earlier this week, but the number is now about 140. It was not clear if the Chinese vessels, in the area for the crabbing season, were told by the North to leave or if they did so on their own.

South Korean and U.S. troops facing North Korea raised their surveillance Thursday to its highest level since 2006, when the North first tested a nuclear device.

A squadron of F-22 stealth fighters — the most advanced in the U.S. Air Force — were due to arrive Saturday on the southern Japan island of Okinawa, and Friday's missile launch may have been the North's attempt to show it has the means to shoot them down, or at least make any incursion into its airspace risky.

Its other launches this week were of land-to-sea missiles, a warning that it can strike warships that come too close.

The United States has repeatedly denied any intention to attack North Korea.

In Washington, the Army's top officer, Gen. George Casey, expressed confidence that the U.S. could fight a conventional war against North Korea if necessary, despite continuing conflicts elsewhere.

Gates, en route to Singapore for regional defense talks, tried to lower the heat.

"I don't think that anybody in the (Obama) administration thinks there is a crisis," Gates told reporters aboard his military jet.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called for "harsh" sanctions against North Korea.

They "respond only to a unified demonstration of strength," he said.

Talmadge reported from Seoul, National Security Writer Gearan reported from Washington; Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang in Seoul, Lara Jakes aboard a U.S. military jet and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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N.Korea threatens that If the UNSC acts, they will also take action

According to Obama and Gates, there is no crisis and no need to worry. Well, that all sounds great until North Korea fires on the South Korean or U.S. Military. Then will they believe there is a crisis? They obviously believe they are dealing with a rational person and a rational North Korean military, neither of which is the case.
Rees

As tensions rise, Chinese fishing boats leave Korean waters
By Siyoung Lee
The Associated Press
May 29, 2009

YEONPYEONG, South Korea - North Korea warned Friday it would take "self-defence" action if provoked by the United Nations Security Council, which is considering tough sanctions on the communist regime for conducting a nuclear test.

Tensions surrounding North Korea rose further as Chinese fishing boats pulled away from its coast, possibly to avoid skirmishes between the Koreas. But U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the situation is not a crisis and no additional U.S. troops will be sent to the region.

"If the UN Security Council makes a further provocation, it will be inevitable for us to take further self-defenCe measures," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The North has been strident since its test - which it has also called a self-defensive measure. It did not specify what further action it was considering in response to UN resolutions, nor what it would consider a provocation.

Fears have increased of military skirmishes, particularly in disputed waters off the western coast, after North Korea conducted the nuclear test on Monday and then renounced the truce keeping peace between the Koreas since 1953.

The waters were the site of two deadly clashes in 1999 and 2002

From Yeonpyeong, the South Korean island closest to the North, about a dozen Chinese ships could be seen pulling out of port in the North and heading elsewhere. South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that more than 280 Chinese vessels were fishing in the area earlier this week, but the number has dropped to about 140.

It was not clear if the Chinese vessels, in the area for the crabbing season, were told by the North to leave or if they were leaving on their own for fear of clashes at sea.

"For now, it seems quiet," said local construction worker Lee Hae-un, 43. "But if North Korea provokes us with military power, I think our government should actively and firmly counteract it."

South Korean and U.S. troops facing North Korea raised their surveillance on Thursday to its highest level since 2006, when North Korea tested its first nuclear device. About 28,000 American troops are stationed across the South.

North Korea, whose 1.2-million strong military is one of the world's largest, says it is merely preparing to defend itself against what it says are plans by the United States to launch a pre-emptive strike to overthrow its communist government.

The United States has repeatedly denied any intention to attack North Korea.

In Washington, the Army's top officer, Gen. George Casey, expressed confidence that the U.S. could fight a conventional war against North Korea if necessary, despite continuing conflicts elsewhere.

But Gates, en route to Singapore for regional defense talks, tried to lower the temperature.

"I don't think that anybody in the (Obama) administration thinks there is a crisis," Gates said aboard his military jet early Friday morning.

Meanwhile, talks at the United Nations Security Council over possible sanctions for the nuclear test were moving forward slowly.

Russia's UN ambassador said Thursday there was wide agreement among key world powers on what a new U.N. resolution should include, but said putting the elements together will take time because the issues are "complicated."

A list of proposals was sent Wednesday to the five permanent veto-wielding council members - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - and the two countries most closely affected by the nuclear test, Japan and South Korea.

Diplomats said a draft of the proposed resolution is not expected to be circulated until next week.

The two Koreas technically remain at war because they signed a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. North Korea disputes the U.N.-drawn maritime border off their west coast and has positioned artillery guns along the west coast on its side of the border, Yonhap said.

Traffic at the border between the Koreas appeared to be normal. Yonhap said more than 340 South Korean workers crossed to a joint industrial complex in the North.

The two Koreas are also maintaining a communication line to exchange information on commercial vessels passing through each other's waters, Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said.

Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang in Seoul, Anne Gearan in Washington, Lara Jakes aboard a U.S. military jet and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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SKorea & U.S. Troops on high alert amid NKorea threats

from Yahoo News
By Hyung-jin Kim
Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korean and U.S. troops facing North Korea boosted their alert level Thursday to the highest category since 2006, after the communist regime threatened military strikes on allied troops in escalating tensions over its nuclear test.

North Korea threatened Wednesday to attack any U.S. and South Korean ships that try to intercept its vessels and renounced a 1953 truce halting the Korean War fighting, raising the prospect of a naval clash off the Korean peninsula's west coast.

The North was responding to Seoul's decision to join a U.S.-led anti-proliferation program aimed at stopping and inspecting ships suspected of transporting banned weapons, including nuclear technology. South Korea announced it was joining after the North's underground test blast of a nuclear bomb.

On Thursday, the South Korea-U.S. combined forces command increased the surveillance to level 2 from the present level 3, Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said. He said that was the highest level since 2006, when the North conducted its first-ever nuclear test.

The U.S. has 28,500 troops in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea.

Won said the bolstered level means more aviation surveillance assets, intelligence analysts and other intelligence-collecting measures would be deployed to watch North Korea. He refused to disclose further details.

The North has long warned it would consider the South's participation in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative as a declaration of war against North Korea.

The North would "deal a decisive and merciless retaliatory blow" to anyone trying to inspect its vessels, according to a North Korean military statement, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday.

Pyongyang lashed out at both the U.S. and South Korea, calling Seoul's move to join the Proliferation Security Initiative tantamount to a declaration of war and a violation of the truce keeping the peace between the two Koreas.

"Full participation in the PSI by a side on the Korean Peninsula where the state of military confrontation is growing acute and there is constant danger of military conflict itself means igniting a war," North Korea's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried on state media.

North Korea's army said it would be "illogical" to honor the 1953 armistice between the two Koreas, given the violations by the U.S. and South Korea, and said it could no longer promise the safety of U.S. and South Korean warships and civilian vessels in the waters near the maritime border.

At the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs played down North Korea's angry rhetoric, saying the threats will only add to its isolation.

He said North Korea has threatened to end the armistice many times in the past but the peace has held.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said it voiced "serious concern" about the nuclear test to the North Korean ambassador and urged Pyongyang to respect the U.N. resolutions and return to the disarmament talks.

The truce signed in 1953 and subsequent military agreements call for both sides to refrain from warfare, but don't cover waters off the west coast. North Korea has used the maritime border dispute to provoke two deadly naval skirmishes — in 1999 and 2002.

North Korea now is believed to have enough plutonium for at least a half-dozen weapons, but experts say it still has not mastered the miniaturization technology required to mount a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile.

After firing a long-range missile on July 4, 2006, and carrying out its first nuclear test three months later, North Korea agreed in February 2007 to start disabling Yongbyon in exchange for 1 million tons of fuel oil and other concessions. Disablement began in November 2007.

The process halted last summer in a dispute with Washington over verifying past atomic activities, and Pyongyang said last month it was quitting the talks altogether.

Associated Press writers Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, and Foster Klug, Pamela Hess in Washington and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
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Defeating a Hitler with nukes: Nothing else matters

from American Thinker
May 27, 2009
By James Lewis

May 25, 2009: Kim Jong-Il explodes his first full-sized nuclear bomb . This day shall live in infamy.

North Korea helped build a secret nuclear power plant in Syria, which was destroyed by the Israeli Air Force in 2007 while the CIA was still asleep. North Korea sells nuclear and missile technology to Iran and Pakistan. Kim can easily sell his nuclear Bomb in the Middle East; today his bomb also threatens Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China.

Like it or not, we are being dragged into the Second Age of Nuclear Terror.

Nothing else matters now.

Forget Obama's grabbing the banks and the car companies. Forget his eleven trillion dollars of new debt for the next generation. Forget his egomania. Eight years after the jihad assault of 9/11, 2001, on New York City and Washington, D.C., we are back to national life or death. Americans were suckered into believing that the world was suddenly a safe place, and elected a grossly unqualified Chicago pol to lead the nation, because he looked good on TV. That is a mistake we may come to bitterly regret.

Four days ago, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, told the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

"I'm one who believes that Iran getting a nuclear weapon is calamitous for the region and for the world ... neighbors ... (who) feel exposed, deficient (will) then develop or buy the capability themselves ... (it) is absolutely disastrous."

Obama is the worst person to have in the White House at this time. At least John McCain, for all his faults, understands that this is an extremely dangerous world. So do Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. But we have no hint whatsoever that Barack Hussein Obama is intellectually or morally equipped to cope with the nuclear proliferation we are seeing today. Just the opposite. We are seeing the most foolish, ignorant, and self-obsessed administration since Jimmy Carter.

All of Obama's foreign policy advisers believe in cringing to tyrants. They think we just haven't been nice enough to malignant regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang. That isn't even for grown-ups; it should have been left behind long ago in summer camp. But Bill Clinton's SecState Madeleine Albright was photographed toasting Kim Jong Il, the pudgy tyrant of North Korea, who starved a million of his own people to death to divert resources to a gigantic army and nuclear program. For his part, Obama has already bowed down abjectly, in public, to the medieval King of Saudi Arabia. The symbolism is unmistakable.

Those two iconic photos capture the Left's understanding of international danger. Nobody who is so completely ignorant can ever be charged with protecting our national welfare. But here they are again.

Kim's Hiroshima-type Bomb is big enough to wipe out Tokyo, and in a few years, San Francisco. For decades the West has begged and pleaded with Kim, bribing him with vast gifts of oil and food. Kim always suckered the West and just kept starving his own people for better nukes and missiles. Today, he's got his Bomb and the means to deliver it to Japan, South Korea, and China.

Iran is next.

This is the Second Age of Nuclear Terror. The first one started when Stalin used stolen secrets from the Manhattan Project to build a Soviet Bomb. Even Stalin's closest associates were terrified that he would start a suicidal nuclear war. According to one history Lavrenty Beria and Nikita Khruschev assassinated Stalin to stop that from happening.

After Stalin's death the Soviet Union and the West were able to establish a balance of terror. Both sides thought the other was rational, and no rational actor would ever use nuclear weapons.
Today's Second Age of Nuclear Terror is different, because Kim and Ahmadinejad don't act like rational leaders. Ahmadinejad is a Twelver, a fanatical member of an Armageddon cult that believes the Twelfth Imam will return to earth after the destruction of the enemies of Islam -- which means everybody on earth who isn't one of them. That's why the Arabs next door are running scared of A'jad's nukes and missiles. They are Muslims, but the wrong kind, according to Ayatollah Khomeini, who founded the modern mullah state in Tehran.

Khomeini tried to overthrow the Saudi regime by stirring riots during the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Today the Iranians are still stirring up Shiite Muslims in the oil provinces of Saudi Arabia. They control a "Shiite Crescent" from Iran to Syria and Lebanon and Gaza. Everywhere they go they preach jihad and martyrdom. Their target is Israel, yes, but also Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and especially the secular. According to Islamists atheists are much worse than Jews and Christians: Off with your heads, infidel swine!

So an ego-tripping rookie from Chicago is now supposed to protect us from mortal danger. Good luck to all of us.

There are only two rational strategies for sane nations in the Second Age of Nuclear Terror. Obama has spoken out against both of them.

The first is preemptive strikes. If somebody is pointing a gun at you, threatening to kill you, you have to kill him first. George W. Bush made it work with Saddam Hussein. For his great wisdom and courage George W. Bush was hysterically abused for eight solid years by the Democrats and their saboteur brigade in the media. In 1981 Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin also acted preemptively by destroying Saddam Hussein's Osirak nuclear power plant.

Those two preemptive military actions helped to postpone the Second Age of Nuclear Terror that Kim's nuclear bomb has just ushered in. They kept us safe for more than two decades.

SecDef Robert Gates has pretty much ruled out preemption: The Iraq War was too costly, he believes.

What else can we do? The second rational strategy is anti-missile defense.

But the SecDef just announced 1.4 billion dollars in cutbacks to our missile defense program. Thanks to very active development culminating in the Bush Administration, the United States now has the makings of an effective defense against nuclear-armed missiles. That was never possible before. The First Age of Nuclear Terror had no defenses. That's why it was terrifying. But we are well within reach of an effective defense.

Every other sane nation in the world is trying to rush anti-missile defenses, including the Russians, the Chinese, the Japanese, South Korea, Israel, and all the Arab nations. If we cut back they will just go into high gear and do it without us. Nobody is going to wait for Obama to change his mind, least of all Japan, the Arabs, India, and Israel. Their homes and children are on the line, just as much as ours.

A US retreat on missile defense would be clinically insane. Not only has North Korea exploded a nuclear bomb, it also helped Syria to build a nuclear plant on the Euphrates River that the Israeli Air Force knocked in 2007. Iran's Armageddon regime is closely allied with North Korea, and with Pakistan's nuclear proliferation network headed by AQ Khan -- who was educated as a nuclear engineer in the West. There are thousands more like him around the world.

In his last days in the Führer's bunker, Hitler still had control over the world's most advanced weapons of 1945, including V3 missiles, jet planes, poison gas bombs, and incipient nukes. At the end, Hitler was staging his own Götterdammerung, the Twilight of the Gods, and it suited his sense of drama to commit suicide with a bullet in the back of his brain. For a man as revenge-driven as Hitler, dying in nuclear bomb explosion along with his enemies would have been preferable.

Japan's Emperor worship cult might well have done the same if the nuclear bomb had been invented just a few years before it was. We lucked out -- again.

So we have the recent historical example of two deadly enemies who likely would have risked their own survival at the end of World War Two in order to destroy the United States and the West.

What makes us think that today's fanatics are not different? How often does Ahmadinejad have to threaten genocide for us to take it seriously? How many Sudanese Africans have to be killed by their jihad regime for us to take that seriously? How many North Koreans have to be starved to death by their own government for us to see?

Most people live in denial of clear and present dangers. We know this administration is full of such people. Obama's Chicago gang just told Israel not to defend itself. But the Israelis are a lot more morally serious about such things. It is simply not imaginable that they will allow the mad mullahs to have their own Armageddon weapon.

When Israel strikes out against its genocidal enemy the Obama gang may try to punish them. But Menachem Begin showed the morally serious decision to make in such a case: You defend your people first of all.

Being approved by this Chicago Mob isn't even a close second.
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Obama mocked by the Axis of Evil

PRUDEN: A little mockery from Axis of Evil

from The Washington Times
By Wesley Pruden (Contact)

OPINION/ANALYSIS:

Two of the peace-loving republics formerly known as the Axis of Evil threw a frightful scare into anyone paying attention Monday, with North Korea exploding a nuclear bomb as powerful as the one that destroyed Hiroshima and Iran telling Barack Obama to get lost (and take his teleprompter with him).

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wouldn't accept an invitation to freeze work on his own nuclear weapon and he's not interested in talking to Mr. Obama or anyone else about it. But not to worry. The United Nations Security Council postponed its afternoon tea to hold an "emergency session" to consider options for dealing with developments in Korea. The world is considerably less worried about Iran, since Mr. Ahmadinejad appears to be mostly interested in only killing Jews.

Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary-general, is "deeply worried," and President Obama is "gravely concerned" about North Korean behavior. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the test not only "erroneous," but "misguided." China is "resolutely opposed" to such nuclear explosions, and the Japanese foreign minister said the test "cannot be tolerated," whatever that means, and suggested that the U.N. might consider using its penultimate weapon, a resolution of concern. Such a resolution could even "regret" and "lament." If that doesn't work, the U.N. could unleash its "doomsday weapon," a resolution going far beyond mere regret to "deploring" international naughtiness. Take that, you naughty guys.

Kim Jong-il, the beloved "dear leader" of Pyongyang, obviously thinks he has the number of Barack Obama, our very own dear leader, and the squishy leaders of the West. This is the second "nuclear device" (the preferred soft euphemism for "bomb") exploded by the North Koreans since they defied international "opinion" to detonate their first bomb in 2006.

The second explosion, set off underground early Monday morning, Korean time, follows by only two months the test-firing of a long-range ballistic missile that could carry a nuclear warhead. Russian defense officials estimated the explosive yield at almost 20 kilotons, or 20,000 tons of TNT, and 20 times more powerful than the first North Korean nuclear explosion. The explosion shook the ground 130 miles away. However measured, it was a lot of bang for Kim Jong-il's buck.

The temptation to deride the reaction from Western capitals, couched as it is in the prissy language of the diplomacy so beloved by Mr. Obama, is irresistible, not only for its pretentious prissiness, but because the evildoers have heard it all so many time before. The presidents and prime ministers of the West need at minimum new speechwriters to project their pretense of toughness, their affectation of strength. They invite mockery at home because they strike neither fear nor caution in the hearts of enemies they insist on regarding as just friends they haven't made yet.

The latest test is a reminder that North Korea "is going it alone as a nuclear power," the executive director of the Center for Korean-America Peace, a Pyongyang front, told the daily Guardian of London. "North Korea doesn't need any talks with America. America is tricky and undesirable. We are not going to worry about sanctions ... we don't care about America and what they say."

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered his own mockery of naive intentions, and showed no signs of the unclenched fist that the dear leader in Washington sees in his future.

"The nuclear issue is a finished issue for us," Mr. Ahmadinejad told reporters Monday in Tehran. But he made an offer that Mr. Obama will find difficult to refuse, proposing to debate the president and his teleprompter at the U.N. "regarding the roots of world problems." But no talks about the Iranian bomb. "Our talks [with the major powers] will be only in the framework of cooperation for managing global issues, and nothing else."

Certain diplomats put down the truculence in Pyongyang and Tehran as mere scimitar-rattling, designed to strengthen dictators at home. Kim's grip on power was weakened by a stroke late last year, and he wants to install one of his three sons as his successor, the dear leader giving way to a precious leader, or maybe an adorable leader. But these ambitious scimitar-rattlers are armed, or soon will be, with nuclear weapons now. What if a teleprompter is not a match for a 20-kiloton intercontinental ballistic weapon?

President Obama departs soon for his second Grand Groveling, Apology and Repentance Tour, scheduling a courting ritual with the Muslims, including Mr. Ahmadinejad, in Cairo. We must pray that events so far this week have calmed his beating heart, if only a little.

Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.
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Russia fears Korea conflict could go nuclear

from Reuters News
By Oleg Shchedrov
May 27, 2009

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is taking security measures as a precaution against the possibility tension over North Korea could escalate into nuclear war, news agencies quoted officials as saying on Wednesday.

Interfax quoted an unnamed security source as saying a stand-off triggered by Pyongyang's nuclear test on Monday could affect the security of Russia's far eastern regions, which border North Korea.

"The need has emerged for an appropriate package of precautionary measures," the source said.

"We are not talking about stepping up military efforts but rather about measures in case a military conflict, perhaps with the use of nuclear weapons, flares up on the Korean Peninsula," he added. The official did not elaborate further.

North Korea has responded to international condemnation of its nuclear test and a threat of new U.N. sanctions by saying it is no longer bound by an armistice signed with South Korea at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Itar-Tass news agency quoted a Russian Foreign Ministry official as saying the "war of nerves" over North Korea should not be allowed to grow into a military conflict, a reference to Pyongyang's decision to drop out of the armistice deal.

"DANGEROUS BRINKMANSHIP"

"We assume that a dangerous brinkmanship, a war of nerves, is under way, but it will not grow into a hot war," the official told Tass. "Restraint is needed."

The Foreign Ministry often uses statements sourced to unnamed officials, released through official news agencies, to lay down its position on sensitive issues.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has condemned the North Korean tests but his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has warned the international community against hasty decisions.
Russia is a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council which is preparing to discuss the latest stand-off over the peninsula.

In the past, Moscow has been reluctant to support Western calls for sanctions. But Russian officials in the United Nations have said that this time the authority of the international body is at stake.

Medvedev told South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who called him on Wednesday, that Russia was prepared to work with Seoul on a new U.N. Security Council resolution and to revive international talks on the North Korean nuclear issue.

"The heads of state noted that the nuclear test conducted by North Korea on Monday is a direct violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution and impedes international law," a Kremlin press release said.
(Additional reporting by Conor Humphries)
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Reality has a way of exposing shallow campaign words...

from Commentary Magazine
May 27, 2009
by Peter Wehner

"But I suspect he’ll [Obama] learn...that reality has a way of colliding with, and exposing, shallow campaign words." - Peter Wehner

What Now?

In response to North Korea conducting its second nuclear test, President Obama promised to “take action” in response to North Korea’s “blatant violation of international law.” “By acting in blatant defiance of the United Nations Security Council, North Korea is directly and recklessly challenging the international community,” Obama said in a statement yesterday. ” North Korea’s behavior increases tensions and undermines stability in Northeast Asia. Such provocations will only serve to deepen North Korea’s isolation.”

That was yesterday. Today we learned, “One day after its nuclear test drew angry and widespread condemnation, North Korea continued to defy the international community on Tuesday by test-firing two more short-range missiles,” a South Korean government official said. And according to the Associated Press, “just two weeks ago, the administration’s special envoy for disarmament talks with North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, said during a visit to Asian capitals that ‘everyone is feeling relatively relaxed about where we are at this point in the process.’” It appears as if Mr. Bosworth was a bit optimistic in his assessment.

President Obama’s condemnations of North Korea are predictable; the question is what he will do, in concrete terms, about it. I don’t pretend the answer is easy or obvious. The problem for Obama, though, is that during the campaign, he was the one who implied it was. In one speech, for example, he said this:

And I won’t hesitate to use the power of American diplomacy to stop countries from obtaining these weapons or sponsoring terror. The lesson of the Bush years is that not talking does not work. Go down the list of countries we’ve ignored and see how successful that strategy has been. We haven’t talked to Iran , and they continue to build their nuclear program. We haven’t talked to Syria , and they continue support for terror. We tried not talking to North Korea , and they now have enough material for 6 to 8 more nuclear weapons. It’s time to turn the page on the diplomacy of tough talk and no action. It’s time to turn the page on Washington’s conventional wisdom that agreement must be reached before you meet, that talking to other countries is some kind of reward, and that Presidents can only meet with people who will tell them what they want to hear. President Kennedy said it best: “Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.” Only by knowing your adversary can you defeat them or drive wedges between them. As President, I will work with our friend and allies, but I won’t outsource our diplomacy in Tehran to the Europeans, or our diplomacy in Pyongyang to the Chinese. I will do the careful preparation needed, and let these countries know where America stands. They will no longer have the excuse of American intransigence. They will have our terms: no support for terror and no nuclear weapons.

President Obama now has an opportunity to put his vaunted diplomatic skills to work. We have “turned the page” on the past. President Obama can now negotiate to his heart’s content. He can now meet individually and without precondition with Kim Jong Il and other dictators, as he promised he would. He can do all the careful preparation he needs and let North Korea know exactly where America stands. After all, they will no longer have the excuse of American intransigence. And then we will see if the North Korean leader will bend to Obama’s will and personal charm. The early returns aren’t terribly encouraging. According to this report:

Brushing aside the latest international condemnation North Korea repeated its argument that it needed a “nuclear deterrent” because of US aggression. “Our army and people are fully ready for battle … against any reckless US attempt for a pre-emptive attack,” the North’s KCNA news agency said in a editorial released on Tuesday. “The US would be well advised to halt at once its dangerous military moves against the [North Korea] if it wants to escape the lot of a tiger moth, bearing deep in mind that any attempt to make a pre-emptive attack on [North Korea] is little short of inviting a disaster itself.” The North has repeatedly said it needs a deterrent to ward off an attack by the US . Following Monday’s test, North Korea again accused the US of trying to “stifle” it by continuing with what it called the “hostile policy” practiced by the previous administration of George Bush. “The current US administration is following in the footsteps of the previous Bush administration’s reckless policy of militarily stifling North Korea ,” the North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary.

During the campaign, whenever asked how he would address a thorny foreign policy issue, Mr. Obama invoked the need for diplomacy — first, last, and always. The failure to reach agreement was found in some misunderstanding, some misperception, some problem of communication that could be cleared up by “talking.” Even those of us who don’t rule out the benefits of negotiating were skeptical about Obama’s seemingly limitless faith in it, or the ease with which he seemed to think these problems could be solved. As president, Obama has the perfect opportunity to prove that his approach will work and his precepts are the right ones. But I suspect he’ll learn — as he has with Iraq and the efficacy of surges and Guantanamo Bay and President Bush’s anti-terrorism policies more broadly — that reality has a way of colliding with, and exposing, shallow campaign words. Hopefully Obama will make the necessary adjustments again, as he has in the past.
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North Korea threatens the U.S. - says it's no longer bound by the armistice

from The Jerusalem Post
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEOUL, South Korea
May 27, 2009

North Korea warned South Korea and the United States on Wednesday that Seoul's participation in a US-led program to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction is equal to a declaration of war.

South Korea announced its participation in the US-led program on Tuesday, one day after North Korea defiantly conducted a nuclear test, drawing international criticism.

The North's military said in a statement that it will respond with "immediate, strong military measures" against any attempt to stop and search North Korean ships under the Proliferation Security Initiative.

The statement, carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, also said the regime no longer considers itself bound by the armistice that ended the Korean War. It accused the US, a signatory of the armistice, of "dragging" the South into the program under its "hostile policy" against the North.

It also said it cannot guarantee safety for South Korean and US navy ships sailing near the disputed western Korean sea border.

Earlier Wednesday, news reports and South Korean officials said the North has restarted a weapons-grade nuclear plant and fired five short-range missiles in two days, deepening the standoff with world powers following its nuclear test.

South Korea's mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that US spy satellites have detected steam coming from a nuclear facility at North Korea's main Yongbyon plant, indicating the North is reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods to harvest weapons-grade plutonium.

Its report quoted an unnamed official. South Korea's Defense Ministry and the National Intelligence Service - the country's main spy agency - said they cannot confirm the report.

The North had said it would begin reprocessing in protest over international criticism of its April 5 rocket launch.

North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs. The North also has about 8,000 spent fuel rods which, if reprocessed, could allow the country to harvest 6-8 kilograms of plutonium - enough to make at least one nuclear bomb, experts said.

Yonhap news agency carried a similar report later Wednesday, saying the gate of a facility storing the spent fuel rods was spotted open several times since mid-April. The report, also citing an unnamed South Korean official, said chemical-carrying vehicles were spotted at Yongbyon.

North Korea test-fired three additional short-range missiles Tuesday, including one late at night, from the east coast city of Hamhung, according to South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae.

He said the North already test-launched two short-range missiles from another eastern coast launch pad on Monday, not the three reported by many South Korean media outlets.
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UN Security Council Says N.Korea is Very Naughty and that spankings will ensue...

UN Security Council condemns NKorea nuke test
by Edith M. Lederer
Associated Press Writer
from Yahoo News
May 26, 2009

UNITED NATIONS – The U.N. Security Council swiftly condemned North Korea's nuclear test on Monday as "a clear violation" of a 2006 resolution and said it will start work immediately on another one that could result in new sanctions against the reclusive nation.

Hours after North Korea defiantly conducted its second test, its closest allies China and Russia joined Western powers and representatives from the rest of the world on the council to voice strong opposition to the underground explosion.

After a brief emergency meeting held at Japan's request, the council demanded that North Korea abide by two previous resolutions, which among other things called for Pyongyang to abandon all nuclear weapons and return to six-party talks aimed at eliminating its nuclear program.

It also called on all other U.N. member states to abide by sanctions imposed on the North, including embargoes on arms and material that could be used in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and ship searches for banned weapons.

In an AP interview in Copenhagen, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored the test as a "grave violation" of council resolutions and called on the council in a statement to send "a strong and unified message" aimed at achieving the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and peace and security in the region.

Ban, who is South Korean, urged the North "to refrain from taking any actions which will deteriorate the situation."

"North Korea is directly and recklessly challenging the international community," President Barack Obama said in a statement. "North Korea's behavior increases tensions and undermines stability in Northeast Asia."

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current Security Council president, made clear in a statement that the council's condemnation was only an initial response, and that more will follow. He said it was too early to give any specifics.

Japan's U.N. Ambassador Yukio Takasu, a non-permanent council member, said his country was pleased that the rest of the council agreed there should be a new resolution. But he noted that sanctions imposed against three North Korean companies after Pyongyang's missile test in April obviously had no effect.

"So therefore I think we really have to think very carefully what will be an effective way to deal with this kind of behavior," he said. "We have to do something more, and the question is what is more."

Churkin was asked whether Russia viewed the nuclear test as more serious than the North's launch of a missile in April.

"This is a very rare occurrence as you know, and it goes contrary not only to resolutions of the Security Council but also the (Nuclear) Nonproliferation Treaty and the (Nuclear) Test Ban Treaty," he replied. "We are one of the founding fathers — Russia is — of those documents, so we think they're extremely important in current international relations. So anything which would undermine the regimes of those two treaties is very serious and needs to have a strong response."

North Korea claimed the underground nuclear test Monday was much larger than one it conducted in 2006, which led to the first U.N. sanctions resolution. Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed an atomic explosion occurred early Monday in northeastern North Korea and estimated that its strength was similar to bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

After the council rebuked Pyongyang for its April 5 rocket liftoff, which many nations saw as a cover for testing its long-range missile technology, North Korea announced it was quitting disarmament talks and restarting its atomic facilities. The six-party talks, which began in 2003, had involved North Korea, South Korea, Russia, China, Japan, and the United States.

Associated Press Writers John Heilprin and Jan M. Olsen contributed to this report from Copenhagen.
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North Korea’s fireworks show continues: Missile launch number three

from Michelle Malkin.com
By Michelle Malkin
May 26, 2009

Another North Korean missile launch…

North Korea launched another missile into the Sea of Japan early Wednesday, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing an official at Seoul’s presidential office. The action marked the third straight day the nation has tested missiles and came as members of the U.N. Security Council met to discuss a punitive resolution against North Korea for its apparently successful nuclear-weapon test Monday.

And more feckless declarations in the works:

Ambassadors of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Japan and South Korea met Tuesday to draft a resolution on North Korea’s second nuclear test, U.N. diplomatic sources said.

The seven countries have already agreed to issue a resolution on Monday’s North Korean action, which sparked global condemnation as violating Resolution 1718 banning the country from all ballistic missile and nuclear activity.

The ambassadors from the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China, as well as Japan and South Korea, apparently tried to coordinate their stance on the draft resolution, being prepared by Japan and the United States.

The 15-member Security Council is believed to be aiming for the resolution’s adoption by the end of the week, when Russia’s monthly council presidency expires, the sources said.

They’ll get around to expressing official “grave concern” for today’s launch…next week, I guess.

Fetch the comfy chair!

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North Korea set to test-fire more missiles

from Market Watch.com
May 25, 2009
By Michael Kitchen

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) -- North Korea has banned ships from the waters off its western coast in an apparent preparation to test-fire short-range missiles within the next 48 hours, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Tuesday, citing an unnamed defense source. "It's likely that North Korea will fire short-range missiles either today or tomorrow," the source was quoted as saying

North Korea And Iran Tell Obama To Get Bent

This is an excellent article.
Rees

from Joshua Pundit
May 25, 2009

Ahh, hope n'change...it's just not working so well.

North Korea carried out a major nuclear test this morning at its Mount Mohyang test site, the site of North Korea's 2006 nuclear test.

Today's test showed a major progression in North Korea's nuclear capabilities. According to the seismic reports, the explosion created a 4.7 magnitude earthquake on the Richter scale, which means that energy yield is 10 to 20 kilotons, essentially equivalent to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts.

North Korea also test-fired three short-range, ground-to-air missiles later Monday from the same site where it launched a rocket last month that flew over Japan.

President Obama was quick to assume full responsibility for the launch and acknowledged that US non-reaction to North Korea's prior missile launch was a factor in today's nuclear test.

Okay, I may have made that last sentence up.

Here's what the president actually said:

President Barack Obama, in a statement, called the action a "matter of grave concern to all nations" and said North Korea was undermining stability in northeast Asia. "It will not find international acceptance unless it abandons its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery," he said.

Actually, I think the North Korean regime sees nukes as a definite path to international acceptance, at least in terms of getting what they want. It's gotten them pretty far up to now, and seeing who's in the White House, there's no reason for them to fear any significant consequences in continuing along the same path.

They've blatantly lied and played the West and especially the US for fools for quite some time now, and it's worked pretty well. And as their expertise and skill in creating nuclear weapons increases, they'll find even more ready customers to buy what they have to sell then they have already, and most of them are not going to be people we're comfortable with having nukes in their hands.

The chief irony in all this is that the current occupant of the White House has made so many pious noises about the dangers of nuclear proliferation, yet he ignores the very real danger posed by the emerging nuclear capabilities of Iran and North Korea. As a matter of fact, his chief efforts along this line have been in cutting funds for US missile defense to the bone against the advice of his own secretary of defense.

Almost on cue, Iran's Ahmadinejad decided to take a slap at Obama's uncleched fist and let him and the West know that he rejected the latest Western proposal to "freeze" its nuclear weapons development in exchange for no further sanctions. He also ruled out any talks on Iran's nuclear program with the US or the other major powers, saying that as far as he was concerned it was a dead issue:

Ahmadinejad proposed a debate with Obama at the United Nations in New York "regarding the roots of world problems" but he made clear Tehran would not bow to pressure on the nuclear issue.

"Our talks (with major powers) will only be in the framework of cooperation for managing global issues and nothing else. We have clearly announced this," Ahmadinejad said.

"The nuclear issue is a finished issue for us," he told a news conference. "From now on we will continue our path in the framework of the (U.N. nuclear watchdog)
agency."

Ahmadinejad, of course is speaking for the Ayatollah Khamanei, who will continue to call the shots in Iran no matter who wins Iran's June 'election'.

I can't help but wonder if Kim Jong-Il and Ahmadinejad deliberately set this up between them,just for giggles.

In reality, aside from horsetrading nuclear and missile technology, Iran and North Korea have learned from each other's experience. The US, especially with Obama in the White House is unlikely to do anything meaningful to stop them from obtaining nuclear weapons, and will simply keep meaniongless diplo-speak initiatives churning until it's simply too late to do anything. Obama's meaningless statements about revisiting Iran's nuclear weapons program in six months or so after talking with Israel's Benyamin Netanyahu and hearing his concerns about an existential threat to an ally are a prime example.

When serious consequences arise from this, I have no doubt that the president will make suitable remarks in his signature baritone, while swinging his head back and forth like a metronome to scan his stereo teleprompters.
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N. Korea isn't merely “testing” Obama, this is a direct challenge, an in-your-face lethal dare...

from Pajamas Media
by Claudia Rosett
May 25th, 2009

Obama’s North Korean — and Iranian — Nuclear Test

Another American president, another North Korean nuclear test. Today’s North Korean underground blast — for which North Korea itself is making swaggering claims — was apparently bigger and better than the October, 2006 first try. For an added frill North Korea test-launched a missile that can carry a nuclear warhead.

So, what is the world’s superpower doing about this? President Obama is calling for … “action.”
And not just any old “action,” but “action by the international community.”

If what he means, as urged by the UN, and in fact pursued by the second-term Bush administration, is yet more “engagement,” “talks,” and aid and bribes for North Korea, mixed with leaky and negotiable “sanctions,” then we’ve already had quite enough “action.”

A couple of observations, but first, a question or two:

How can we be sure that this latest North Korean blast was strictly a Pyongyang domestic project — as opposed to a rent-a-test of Iran’s bomb program?

One reason I ask is that Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was so swift to deny any connection — hustling out at a news conference today a response which clearly includes a lie – the question being how broad a lie. From Tehran, Reuters reports that Ahmadinejad denies any cooperation with North Korea on missiles or nuclear weapons: “We don’t have any cooperaton [with North Korea] in this field.”

On missiles, that’s flagrantly false. Iran and North Korea have been cooperating for years, with experts going back and forth. Reuters notes that Iran’s Shahab-3 missile, which could reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf, is based on North Korea’s Nodong missile.

On nuclear weapons, far less is publicly known; but both countries have been part of the nuclear proliferation web spun by Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan. And North Korea already has a rap sheet for nuclear proliferation, with North Koreans spotted helping Syria in its secret construction of a copy of North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor — a would-have-been plutonium factory that was nearing completion on the Euphrates, and might now be active, had the Israelis not destroyed it with an air strike in September, 2007. This past March, a Swiss newspaper, the Neue Zuercher Zeitung, reported allegations by a high-ranking Iranian defector, Ali Reza Asghari, formerly a deputy defense minister in Tehran, that Iran helped support the building — with North Korean help — of that Syrian reactor.

So, just how chummy (or not?) are Kim Jong Il and Iran’s mullahs on things like nuclear bomb tests? Would it be too much to ask for a straight answer from the U.S. “intelligence” community? — which delivered a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate worded so as to defuse alarm over Iran’s nuclear projects, and thus derailed any action that might have by now defused the threat itself.

Now — a couple of observations.

Whether Iran was directly involved in North Korea’s nuclear test, or not, the North Korean blast has plenty to do with Iran. If President Obama does not find a way to stop North Korea cold, then the message to Iran is another big green light to race ahead with the amassing of its own nuclear arsenal. And not just a message to Iran — a message to anyone who might want the bomb.

If this is left to today’s “international community,” we are headed for a world of mushroom clouds. “Action,” as conducted by the “international community,” consists of such stuff as yet another emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council (scheduled for Monday afternoon, chaired by Russia). These are the folks who could not even bring themselves to issue a resolution condemning North Korea’s sanctions-busting ballistic missile test last month.

As for Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, as of this writing he has no statement available on the UN web site about today’s North Korean blast. Perhaps he’s been too busy conferring in Copenhagen about climate-change cash-scams in which the UN can collect its share of the swag? To infer his likely response, one must go to an old statement in which he “regrets” North Korea’s sanctions-busting long-range missile test in April, describing it as “not conducive to efforts to promote dialogue, regional peace and stability.” (On the UN web site, that statement is right now dated “May 4, 2009″ — it was actually delivered April 5th; the UN has its dates mixed up, but given the failure of the UN to do anything effective in any case, hey, who cares?).

As for “action” by the U.S. … well, following North Korea’s first nuclear test, in 2006, the Bush administration took “action” of a sort. Bush responded by handing envoy Chris Hill a blank check to conduct two years of Six-Party talks in which America delivered to Kim Jong Il a jackpot of concessions and cash — removing North Korea from the U.S. watchlist of terror-sponsoring states, and enlisting the U.S. Federal Reserve and Treasury to help transfer to Kim Jong Il, per North Korea’s demand, $25 million in allegedly tainted cash that had been frozen at Banco Delta Asia in Macau. Bush sent Kim a gusher of aid, in the form of free fuel plus massive relief shipped in via UN programs; the Bush administration paid at least $2.5 million for the Potemkin demolition of a cooling tower at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear complex, catered to North Korean diplomats at meetings in New York, Vienna and beyond, and politely covered up for many months the evidence that Syria had been building a secret nuclear reactor — with North Korean complicity, and while Bush envoy Chris Hill (now Obama’s ambassador to Iraq) was assuring the American public of the success of his Feb. 15, 2007 nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea.

The result of all that “action” is now upon us, with North Korea’s claim, and the seismic signs, of a second nuclear test blast. Perhaps it is too benign, actually, to describe this as merely a “test” of Obama as well. It is a direct challenge, an in-your-face extortionist threat, a lethal dare by North Korea, and it has direct implications –whether there is any explicit connection or not — for inspiring lots more of the same from Iran, and beyond. Forget “action,” as currently defined by the UN and Washington. It’s way past time to actually do something that stops this.
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