Nikki Haley to UN on North Korea: "The Last Time The U.S. Made Clear, If They Chose The Path of Peace, The World Would Live In Peace With Them, Yesterday They Made a Choice"

Is This A Threat? (Wth addendum from AOW)

North Korea Openly Threatens EMP Attack On U.S. For First Time Ever

Because it sure sounds like a threat.

And I remember Mattis said "Any threat to the United States or its territories, including Guam, or our allies will be met with a massive military response, a response both effective and overwhelming."

So, is Trump going to get off his ass and do something now?

Or was his threat, also, just an empty, idle, hipster, LOSER threat?

What the fuck kind of country is this "Make America Great Again"?

ADDENDUM BY AOW

Please read Attack Would Send America into a Dark Age (dated September 2009). Excerpt:

In a matter of seconds, an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack or a geomagnetic storm would set America back to the 14th century, Gale Nordling, president of a company that protects against such a catastrophe, tells Newsmax.

An EMP attack occurs when a nuclear bomb explodes in the atmosphere. The electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast fries all electronics in line of sight. EMP was first detected after the detonation of the Starfish Prime nuclear test on July 9, 1962. While the explosion occurred near Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean and was not designed to be an EMP blast, it blew out street lamps, television sets, and telephone communications in Hawaii nearly 1,000 miles away.

A single nuclear bomb exploded over the Midwest would generate an electromagnetic pulse that would destroy the chips that are at the heart of every electronic device. While military and intelligence networks may be shielded against EMP, the rest of the country’s technological infrastructure is not.

[...]

“Water treatment facilities, food storage facilities, everything would be gone,” Nordling says. “Financial records would be wiped out. Your investments would be gone. Your medical records and prescriptions would be zapped.”

Forget about your computer and the Internet, heating and air conditioning, supermarkets, telephones, and radio and television. Banks and ATMs would shut down, credit cards would become useless, and hospital operating rooms would close.

While vehicles made before 1970 might still work, they would be useless. That’s because gasoline could not be obtained, and newer cars and trucks, disabled by the pulse, would block the roads and highways. In most cases, the damage to chips would be permanent. Because tow trucks would not operate, cars would never be cleared from roads.

The vast majority of Americans would die from starvation or disease or would freeze to death...

Read the rest HERE.

Hyperbole?

Is the above-cited article from Newsmax no longer applicable?

Maybe a commenter with knowledge of EMP could clue us in.

Newsmax:

North Korea Digs Tunnels for Likely Nuclear Test
Sunday, 20 Feb 2011

SEOUL, Feb 20 (Reuters) - North Korea is digging tunnels at a site where it has launched two nuclear tests, suggesting it is preparing a third, the South's Yonhap news agency said on Sunday.
Tensions rose on the divided peninsula when 46 sailors were killed in an attack in March on a South Korean naval vessel. North Korea, which has denied responsibility, shelled the southern island of Yeonpyeong in November, killing four people and sparking fears of possible all-out war.

The North was excavating several tunnels before picking the most suitable, Yonhap said, citing an unnamed South Korean government source.

"South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities have spotted North Korea building several other underground mines at Punggye-ri where it had run two nuclear tests," the unidentified source was quoted as saying.

"It is judged to be clear evidence of preparing for a third nuclear test."

Military talks broke down between the two sides this month, dealing a setback to the resumption of six-party aid-for-disarmament negotiations, which North Korea walked out of more than two years ago.

On Sunday, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak renewed calls for dialogue between the rivals, saying this year was an "appropriate time" for the North to change its course. And for the second time in three weeks Lee held out the prospect of summit talks.

"I would like to give North Korea the message that we are always open (to talks) and (it has) a good chance this year," Lee said after taking local reporters mountain hiking behind the presidential Blue House.

North Korea has said it wants to build a "great and prosperous nation" by 2012, the centenary of the birth of the state's founder Kim Il-sung.

Analysts say leader Kim Jong-il wants to use the country's nuclear and missile programmes to herald the success of Kim family rule, and smooth the way for his youngest son Jong-un's succession.



MORE INCIDENTS LIKELY

While the two sides are not talking, the risk of what both sides call a "provocation" increases. Analysts have said acts of brinkmanship by the North could include military drills or attack, or the testing of a missile or nuclear device.

North Korea has said it wants to return to the broader six-party negotiations, but Seoul and Washington have questioned its sincerity about denuclearising -- pointing to its revelations in November about a uranium-enrichment programme.

Pyongyang says the programme is for peaceful energy-producing purposes, but regional powers, including sole major ally China, have expressed concerns about the facility which opens a second route to make a nuclear bomb after its plutonium programme.

The North was likely to conduct a plutonium-fuelled test, mindful of opposition from China to the uranium enrichment, the source told Yonhap.

In December, an institute of South Korea's foreign ministry said the North might attempt a third nuclear test in 2011 to strengthen the credentials of young leader-in-waiting Kim Jong-un.

The commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific, Admiral Robert Willard, said last week that succession politics in Pyongyang point to new provocative acts "in months and not years".

Satellite images also showed North Korea had likely completed a second long-range missile launchpad, an expert told Reuters last week.

Victor Davis Hanson On North Korea And The Obama Administration

From The Corner:

North Korea and the Ripple Effects of Obama’s Foreign Policy
By Victor Davis Hanson
Posted on November 23, 2010 12:51 PM

...[A]fter 22 months of apologizing, bowing, and contextualizing supposed American sins from the trivial (lamenting the Arizona law in a meeting with the Chinese) to the profound (the mythical Cairo speech, unilaterally pressing Israel right out of the starting gate), the Obama administration has sent the message that it may not be so comfortable with America’s past unilateral responsibilities to its allies, and may even sympathize with some of the grievances of our purported enemies. Whether this assessment is fair or not, that’s the message they’ve sent.

Dismissing the idea that past global problems might transcend George W. Bush, this administration operated as if a charismatic world citizen, with reset magic, could win over the globe to a U.N.-sponsored utopia. These false assumptions intrigued the curious abroad — why would Obama seek to advance such absurd notions about global problems having originated with U.S. belligerence circa 2001–2009 and being resolved by U.S. empathy in 2009–2010? Apparently, as we are now learning, North Korea wants to find out the answer.

In general, listlessness and misdirection in Washington always ripple out to the world abroad within a year or two....

[...]

...[T]he commander-in-chief needs to stop his contextualizing and apologizing, especially this pernicious messianic notion that, as an empathetic and post-national president, his mission is to redeem a previously culpable America. Otherwise, in the next two years that nonsense is going to get people killed.

I hold no hope that BHO is going to reform his attitude or his policies. Do you?

So, this man is going to get a lot of people killed. It's a foregone conclusion now.

If any who voted for Barack Hussein Obama are reading this, I lay the blame at your feet. You wouldn't heed any of the warnings sounded. The warnings were plentiful, and you just went along with your mania to put this man into the Oval Office.

North Korea, a little piss ant of a country, has called BHO's hand, and he'll botch the handling of the situation.

Epic fail.

An epic fail that would not put America's interests first.

An epic fail that will get many people killed.

And THEN what are you prepared to do?

South Korea: North responsible for torpedo attack on warship

WAPO

South Korea will formally blame North Korea on Thursday for launching a torpedo at one of its warships in March, causing an explosion that killed 46 sailors and heightened tensions in one of the world's most perilous regions, U.S. and East Asian officials said.

South Korea reached its conclusion that North Korea was responsible for the attack after investigators from Australia, Britain, Sweden and the United States pieced together portions of the ship at the port of Pyongtaek, 40 miles southwest of Seoul. The Cheonan sank on March 26, following an explosion that rocked the vessel as it sailed in the Yellow Sea off South Korea's west coast.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because South Korea has yet to disclose the findings of the investigation, said that subsequent analysis determined that the torpedo was identical to a North Korean torpedo that had previously been obtained by South Korea.

Related articles by Zemanta

• South Korea says torpedo 'likely' to have sunk naval ship (guardian.co.uk)
• Will South Korea blame the North for sinking warship? (cnn.com)
• Obama discusses sunk ship with SKorean leader (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• South Korea launches 'propaganda balloons' against Kim Jong-il (telegraph.co.uk)

North Korea arms plane ‘bound for Hezbollah’

Times Online:

James Hider, Jerusalem

An aircraft full of weapons seized in Bangkok last year was heading from North Korea to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, and Hamas, the Palestinian group, Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli Foreign Minister, said yesterday.

The Thai authorities said that the aircraft was carrying 35 tonnes of weapons, including rockets and rocket-propelled grenades. The Thai Government informed the UN that the haul had been bound for Iran, which is believed to ship weapons to its ally Syria, which distributes them to Hezbollah or Hamas.

North Korea had the “intention to smuggle these weapons to Hamas and to Hezbollah”, Mr Lieberman said in Japan, where he was on an official visit. “This co-operation between North Korea and Syria [does not] improve the economic situation in their countries,” he added.

Tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon increased after Israel said that Syria had transferred new Scud missiles to Hezbollah, which has an estimated 42,000 rockets pointed at the Jewish state, with whom it fought a bitter summer war in 2006. The new rockets are believed capable of accuratelyhitting any target inside Israel, although Israel has developed its own missile system capable of bringing down incoming projectiles.

Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad has focused much of its attention on preventing weapons from Iran and Syria reaching their proxies on Israel’s borders, launching a long-range airstrike on a weapons convoy in Sudan in early 2009, and blowing up what was thought to be a nuclear facility under construction in Syria in 2007. That facility was believed to have been based on North Korean technology.

In January, Israel was widely believed to be behind the Dubai assassination of a senior Hamas militant overseeing the transfer of weapons from Iran to Gaza.

Newsmax:

North Korea Torpedoed South Korean Ship: Report
Thursday, 22 Apr 2010 03:27 PM
SEOUL -- South Korea's military believes a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine sank its navy ship last month, based on intelligence gathered jointly with the United States, a news report said on Thursday.

The Yonhap news report appears to be the clearest sign yet that Seoul blames Pyongyang for what would be one of the deadliest incidents between the rivals since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. It puts more political pressure on President Lee Myung-bak, but analysts do not see it triggering a war.

The military's intelligence arm sent the report of "certain" North Korean involvement to the presidential Blue House soon after the incident, Yonhap quoted a high-ranking military source as saying.

Lee's government has come under criticism for what many see as its overly cautious handling of possible links to North Korea. It has called for a thorough investigation of the sinking, thought to have killed 46 sailors.

Market players have been calmed by the South's measured response, seeing Seoul as unlikely to take aggressive moves that would escalate into armed conflict and harm the export-driven economies of North Asia, responsible for about one-sixth of the global economy.

South Korea's defense ministry had no comment on the report.

"North Korean submarines are all armed with heavy torpedoes with 200 kilogram (441 pound) warheads," Yonhap quoted the military source as saying. "It is the military intelligence's assessment that the North attacked with a heavy torpedo.

"The military intelligence has made the report to the Blue House and to the Defense Ministry immediately after the sinking of the Cheonan that it is clearly the work of North Korea's military," the source was quoted as saying.

South Korea plans to soon raise the front half of the 1,200-tonne Cheonan, which went down near a disputed sea border with North Korea, and will issue its verdict on the cause of the explosion that sank the warship after that.

Analysts said there is little South Korea can do even if Pyongyang is found to be the culprit, because a military response was likely to hurt its own quickly recovering economy and bolster North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's standing at home.

Lee ended a decade of no-questions-asked aid to the destitute North and called for a hardline push for Pyongyang to disarm.

"The nuclear issue has still not been resolved. This and the Cheonan incident all serve to inflict a negative impact on the Lee administration," said Lee Nam-young, a political analyst at the Sejong University in Seoul.

The reclusive North has denied it had anything to do with the sinking near the disputed sea border off the west coast that has been the scene of two deadly naval battles in the past decade.

It accused Lee of using the incident for political gains ahead of crucial local elections in June.

South Korea has few economic options left to hurt the North. It has already suspended its unconditional handouts that once were worth more than $1 billion to the North, which has an estimated yearly GDP of $17 billion.

The greatest risk to the region is a brief armed conflict where North Korea fires tens of thousands of artillery shells into the Seoul area, home to about half of the South's 49 million people, and fires its hundreds of missiles at major cities in the South and Japan.

Yonhap said the South Korean and U.S. military suspected the North was stepping up drills to infiltrate a submarine south of the naval border, hidden among Chinese fishing boats, and wage a surprise attack against the South.

UH OH!

S.Korean ship sinking, North attack suspected-media

(Reuters) - A South Korean naval vessel with more than 100 aboard was sinking on Friday in waters near North Korea and Seoul was investigating whether it was hit in a torpedo attack by the North, South Korean media said.

Broadcaster SBS said many (perhaps 100, according to some sources) South Korean sailors on the stricken vessel were feared dead.

South Korea's YTN TV network said the government was investigating whether the sinking was due to a torpedo attack by the North, and Yonhap news agency said the Seoul government had convened an emergency meeting of security-related ministers.

Yonhap also reported a South Korean navy ship firing towards an unidentified vessel to the north.

North Korea in recent weeks has said it was bolstering its defences in response to joint South Korean-U.S. military drills that were held this month.

A Purge in North Korea

Asia Times:

Pyongyang purges for a new era
By Donald Kirk WASHINGTON
- For the most skilled and toughest North Korean negotiator, the task of pushing the line while remaining on cordial terms with the man across the table carries inherent risks. A change in policy may be fatal. One mistake, and you may never live to make another.

Take Kim Kye-gwan, the North Korean vice foreign minister with whom the United States' Christopher Hill spent years cozying up with Hill in venues from Berlin to Singapore to Beijing when Hill was US nuclear envoy and assistant secretary of state for Asia and the Pacific.

Kim seemed like a pretty tough guy, conning Hill into deals such as the six-party agreement of September 2005, under which North Korea vaguely agreed to do away with its nukes in return for multi-billions of god-knows-what.

And that wasn't all. Kim then got Hill to sign on to two deals in 2007 under which North Korea agreed in careful detail first to disable and then dismantle its entire nuclear program. All the US had to do was remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism - something former president George W Bush was glad to do in his waning months in office.

So what is Kim's reward for all his success in bamboozling the Americans into thinking they had succeeded in getting North Korea to give up its nukes? He seems to have disappeared, and nobody has a clue as to whether he's dead or alive, working on a chicken farm or sent to a prison for re-education.

Analysts here believe Kim may have become a scapegoat for hardliners in the ascendancy in North Korea. In the quest for people to blame for North Korea's flirtation with reconciliation with the United States and South Korea, they say, Kim would rank high on the list of those now viewed as "enemies".

Speculation about Kim Kye-gwan's possible fate is circulating in the US, while the generals take center stage and North Korea toughens its policies in the final phases of the reign of Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, who rose to power in July 1994 after the death of his father, the long-ruling Kim Il-sung.

A purge of those perceived as soft toward the United States and South Korea is to be expected, according to this analysis, while North Korea's intelligence and security agencies crack down with increasing ferocity on the slightest signs of discontent, much less dissent. The crackdown is gaining urgency as reports of Kim Jong-il's health grow more pessimistic - first he was said to have suffered a stroke nearly one year ago, and now he's reportedly suffering from pancreatic cancer.

"The storm of control measures blowing over that country now was started by the power people in North Korea," a Japanese journalist, Jiro Ishimaru, has written. They "are doing everything they can to tighten social order because they see a crisis looming in the maintenance of the system".

Bruce Bechtol, professor at the Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico, Virginia, says the purges have accompanied a shift in the political winds. One example, he said, is that of Choe Sung-chol, who as vice chairman of the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee was responsible for dealing with South Korea. He was reportedly "languishing on a chicken farm" in January while undergoing "revolutionary training" - before he was reported executed.

Choe, a key figure in arranging the inter-Korean summit of October 2007 between Kim Jong-il and South Korea's president Roh Moo-hyun, committed the grave offense of making "wrong predictions" about the policy of Roh's conservative successor, Lee Myung-bak, elected president by a landslide two-and-a-half months after the summit.

Soon after his inauguration in February 2008, Lee cut off aid to North Korea while waiting to resolve the sticky question of verification of North Korea's claims to be doing away with its nukes. North Korea, reviling Lee as a "traitor", has since boasted of restarting its nuclear program, test-fired a long-range missile and exploded a nuclear device underground while repudiating the July 1953 Korean War armistice.

"Despite hardliners' objections, Choe had strongly pushed for progress in relations with the South," according to a source quoted by Yonhap, the South Korean news agency. "[B]ut inter-Korean relations deteriorated after the government change in the South and he was blamed for the 'misjudgments' and all other fallout".

The parallels between Choe's case and that of Kim Kye-gwan are all too clear, in the view of analysts. He, too, stands to face severe criticism, if not charges, for the same offences - except that his misdeeds were in talks with a far worse enemy than South Korea - the US.

Reported purges of Choe and other key officials are the most specific manifestation of a much more sweeping campaign to purify the society.

"Nobody circles the wagons like North Korea," said Bechtol in a paper presented at the Korea Economic Institute in Washington. "As North Korea always has done in times of possible internal instability or turmoil, it cracked down on the populace."

Among the first in the line of fire, beside negotiators all too visibly involved in dealings with the US and South Korea, have been those attempting to escape across the Yalu and Tumen river borders to China.

One experienced source for that perception is Tim Peters, director of Helping Hands Korea which has years of experience aiding escapees. "The penalties are getting stronger," Peters has been quoted as saying. The government is even refusing to issue passports to those who need to go to China and elsewhere on normal business.

"Since Kim's reported stroke, those fleeing the country have undergone stiffer punishment as a result of new measures that were apparently put into effect," said Bechtol, while "inquisition squads" roam the streets and "ideology sessions" are increasingly frequent.

The crackdown often focuses on the small community of secret Christians that has grown in North Korea in recent years, which is viewed by the regime as an immediate threat.

Activists in South Korea report that a 33-year-old woman was executed in June in a city near the Chinese border for distributing copies of the Bible. They say another woman, aged 30, was reportedly tortured and possibly killed along with her husband and their two children, all of whom have disappeared.

Although public executions in North Korea are commonplace, the ferocity of the current sweep of enemies accompanies the first basic shift in the power structure since the death of Kim Il-sung.

With the power of the elite surrounding the Dear Leader "under close scrutiny", said Bechtol, many analysts believe "that the party and the military have consolidated power in the wake of Kim Jong-il's health issues".

Mark Fitzpatrick, senior fellow for non-proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, sees whatever is happening in North Korea as "surely connected with the succession question that suddenly became more acute" after Kim's stroke.

"For all of North Korea's neighbors," he wrote in a newly published report, "the collapse of the Kim regime could be best way out of a downward cycle - and the sooner this happens, the better."

That's a view that is not likely to bring about redemption for Kim Kye-gwan, for whom it may in any case be too late as the regime defends itself against enemies, real and imagined, at home and abroad.

Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.

Kim Jong Il Ill

Y'know, ya never want to wish anyone the worst, but. . .

Fox News:

Report: North Korea's Kim Jong Il Has Pancreatic Cancer
Sunday , July 12, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has life-threatening pancreatic cancer, a news report said Monday, days after new images of him looking gaunt spurred speculation that his health might be worsening following a reported stroke last year.

The 67-year-old Kim was diagnosed with the cancer around the time he was felled by a stroke last summer, Seoul's YTN television reported, citing unidentified intelligence officials in South Korea and China.

The report cited the officials saying the disease is "threatening" Kim's life.

Pancreatic cancer is usually found in its final stage, and considering Kim's age, he is expected to live no more than five years, the report said.

South Korea's spy agency said it could not confirm the report.

Kim's health is a focus of intense media speculation due to concerns about instability and a power struggle if he were to die without naming a successor. His third and youngest son, Kim Jong Un, has widely been reported as being groomed as heir, but the regime has made no announcement to the outside world.

Monday's report came after Kim last week made a rare public appearance, in an annual memorial for his late father and North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung.

Television footage showed him markedly thinner and with less hair — only the second state event he has attended in person since the reported stroke. He also limped slightly, and the sides of his tightlipped mouth looked imbalanced in what were believed to be the effects of a stroke.

The images touched off speculation that he could have other health problems.

South Korea's spy agency has long suspected that Kim has diabetes and heart disease.

Medical doctor and professor Min Yang-ki of Seoul's Hallym University Medical Center has said diabetes usually leads to weight loss. The neurologist also said Kim's limping appears to be a result of a stroke. However, he said, overall it appeared Kim has recovered from that reported illness.

Kim walked on his own into a Pyongyang auditorium for last week's memorial at a normal pace and bowed while standing during a moment of silence.

North Korea experts said the latest images of Kim show he is still fit enough to rule.

The totalitarian leader, whose rule is buttressed by an intense cult of personality, knew that the people of North Korea would pay great attention to the memorial, and his appearance there is a message that he is in charge, Yang Moo-jin, a professor at Seoul's University of North Korean Studies, said last week.

Kim Jong Il took over North Korea after his father died in 1994 of heart failure at age 82, though he did not take on his father's title of president. He runs the North from his post as chairman of the National Defense Commission.

In early April, he presided over a parliamentary meeting where he was re-elected as leader.

North Korea Threatens to Wipe America Off The Map

What's with these guys? It's like a little, developmentally-disabled guy going into a bar, and picking a fight with Kimbo Slice.

From Associated Press:

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened Wednesday to wipe the United States off the map as Washington and its allies watched for signs the regime will launch a series of missiles in the coming days.

Off China's coast, a U.S. destroyer was tailing a North Korean ship suspected of transporting illicit weapons to Myanmar in what could be the first test of U.N. sanctions passed to punish the nation for anunderground nuclear test last month.

The Kang Nam left the North Korean port of Nampo a week ago with the USS John S. McCain close behind. The ship, accused of transporting banned goods in the past, is believed bound for Myanmar, according to South Korean and U.S. officials.

The new U.N. Security Council resolution requires member states to seek permission to inspect suspicious cargo. North Korea has said it would consider interception a declaration of war and on Wednesday accused the U.S. of seeking to provoke another Korean War.

"If the U.S. imperialists start another war, the army and people of Korea will ... wipe out the aggressors on the globe once and for all," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

I think Kim Jong Il ought to take a good look at this video.

Time for Some Common Sense on North Korea

During the Cold War with the USSR, NATO knew that there was little chance of repelling a Warsaw Pact invasion of Europe against an overwhelming number of conventional enemy forces. The Warsaw Pact armies greatly outnumbered NATO in just about every category of weapon and number of troops.

Yet, we were able to keep the big Russian bear out of Western Europe. And we did it with one simple threat.

If the USSR invaded Western Europe, we would use tactical nukes against their conventional forces. I know because I was one of those in US Army Europe that had the keys to the nukes and waited, 24/7, for the order to release them to NATO. And we had no reservations on using them.

The threat worked because the USSR knew that if we used tactical nukes they would respond with tactical nukes. Then we would respond with more and bigger tactical nukes quickly escalating to strategic ICBMs—and that would be all she wrote.

The Kremlin knew if a nuke exchange happened, their way of life would just as well end as ours. No winner. All losers.

Now we have a tin horn midget dictator who is blustering about starting a war if we touch his toys. The most obvious way and the one the Allies expect is an attack on South Korea. Specifically leveling Seoul which is a artillery shell distance from North Korea.

This fact has us all shaking in our boots.

But why. Jong is not Ahmadinejad or the Japanese in WWII- both of which are and were willing to commit national suicide.

Jong, and especially his generals, would not like to have their pretty little war toys removed from them. A threat like the one we used against the USSR will work just as well and keep Jong contained in his little asylum to rot.

The threat? Simple. If Jong lobs even one artillery shell at Soul or sends even one soldier across the DMZ, we will respond with tactical nukes to stop them and eliminate the artillery pieces that are suppose to be in the hundreds pointed at Seoul.

Jong is no suicide mania. A maniac, yes. Suicidal no. Or at least his generals aren’t and they want to keep their shiny toys.

So what the hell are we waiting for? Give him the ultimatum. Quit pussyfooting around.

BTW: China won’t respond if we use tactical nukes. They don’t want to lob strategic nukes at us and go to WWIII – at least not over North Korea.

Good News!

Blow the damn thing up on the launch pad.

Newsmax:

North Korea Plans to Fire Missile Toward Hawaii
Thursday, June 18, 2009 7:40 AM

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea may launch a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July, a Japanese news report said Thursday, as Russia and China urged the regime to return to international disarmament talks on its rogue nuclear program.

The missile, believed to be a Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea's Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan's top-selling newspaper. It cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.

The missile launch could come between July 4 and 8, the paper said.

While the newspaper speculated the Taepodong-2 could fly over Japan and toward Hawaii, it said the missile would not be able to hit Hawaii's main islands, which are about 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from the Korean peninsula.

A spokesman for the Japanese Defense Ministry declined to comment on the report. South Korea's Defense Ministry and the National Intelligence Service - the country's main spy agency - said they could not confirm it.

Tension on the divided Korean peninsula has spiked since the North conducted its second nuclear test on May 25 in defiance of repeated international warnings. The regime declared Saturday it would bolster its nuclear programs and threatened war in protest of U.N. sanctions taken for the nuclear test.

U.S. officials have said the North has been preparing to fire a long-range missile capable of striking the western U.S. In Washington on Tuesday, Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it would take at least three to five years for North Korea to pose a real threat to the U.S. west coast.

President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak met in Washington on Tuesday for a landmark summit in which they agreed to build a regional and global "strategic alliance" to persuade North Korea to dismantle all its nuclear weapons. Obama declared North Korea a "grave threat" to the world and pledged that the new U.N. sanctions on the communist regime will be aggressively enforced.

The independent International Crisis Group think tank, meanwhile, said the North's massive stockpile of chemical weapons is no less serious a threat to the region than its nuclear arsenal.

It said the North is believed to have between 2,500 and 5,000 tons of chemical weapons, including mustard gas, phosgene, blood agents and sarin. These weapons can be delivered with ballistic missiles and long-range artillery and are "sufficient to inflict massive civilian casualties on South Korea."

"If progress is made on rolling back Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions, there could be opportunities to construct a cooperative diplomatic solution for chemical weapons and the suspected biological weapons program," the think tank said in a report released Wednesday night.

It also called on the U.S. to engage the North in dialogue to defuse the nuclear crisis, saying "diplomacy is the least bad option." It said sanctions won't resolve the problem on their own, and military force is not an option.

In a rare move, leaders of Russia and China used their meetings in Moscow on Wednesday to pressure the North to return to the nuclear talks and expressed "serious concerns" about tension on the Korean peninsula.

The joint appeal appeared to be a signal that Moscow and Beijing are growing impatient with Pyongyang's stubbornness. Northeastern China and Russia's Far East both border North Korea, and Pyongyang's unpredictable actions have raised concern in both countries.

After meetings at the Kremlin, Chinese President Hu Jintao joined Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in urging a peaceful resolution of the Korean standoff and the "swiftest renewal" of the now-frozen talks involving their countries as well as North and South Korea, Japan and the United States.

"Russia and China are ready to foster the lowering of tension in Northeast Asia and call for the continuation of efforts by all sides to resolve disagreements through peaceful means, through dialogue and consultations," their statement said.

The comments - contained in a lengthy statement that discussed other global issues - included no new initiatives, but it appeared to be carefully worded to avoid provoking Pyongyang. In remarks after their meetings, Medvedev made only a brief reference to North Korea, and Hu did not mention it.

Nuclear war is Kim Jong-il's game plan

So, how ya been sleeping lately?

Asia Times:

Nuclear war is Kim Jong-il's game plan
By Kim Myong Chol

"Our military first policy calls for an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, retaliation for retaliation, ultra-hardline for hardline, war for war, total war for total war, nuclear war for nuclear war." - Kim Jong-il

TOKYO - A little-noted fact about the second nuclear test conducted on May 25 by the Kim Jong-il administration of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is that it was a highly successful fission trigger test for multi-megaton warheads.

These types of warheads can be detonated in outer space, far above the United States, evaporating its key targets. This is a significant indication of the supreme leader's game plan for nuclear war with the crippled superpower and its allies, Japan and South Korea.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry on April 29 announced its plan to test-fire what it termed a long-awaited "intercontinental ballistic missile" (ICBM), the first public ICBM test after numerous missile tests, short-range, medium-range, and long-range, were conducted without notice.

On March 9, the General Staff of the nuclear-armed Korean People's Army had begun preparing to launch simultaneous retaliatory strikes on the US, Japan and South Korea in response to their act of war.

Although no appropriate test site for a thermonuclear bomb is available on the Korean Peninsula, North Korean scientists and engineers are confident, as a series of computer simulations have proved that their hydrogen bombs will be operational. The North Korean message is that any soft spots of the US, Japan and South Korea's defense lines will be used as the testing grounds for their thermonuclear weapons.

The Korean Central News Agency said on May 25 that the underground nuclear test was carried out at the request of nuclear scientists and engineers and reported:

The current nuclear test was safely conducted on a new higher level in
terms of its explosive power and technology of its control and the results of
the test helped satisfactorily settle the scientific and technological problems
arising in further increasing the power of nuclear weapons and steadily
developing nuclear technology.

John Pike, the founder and director of globalsecurity.org, told the Weekly Standard on October 19, 2006, that the North Korean nuclear test that year may have been a test of a "trigger device" for a much larger hydrogen bomb. Writing in the New York Times on April 7, 2009, he revealed that "North Korea's low-yield nuclear test in October 2006 did "coincide with the sub-kiloton tests of the fission trigger for a hydrogen bomb". He added, "possibly North Korea's hydrogen bombs can be easily fitted on missiles".

The Kim Jong-il administration has developed its global nuclear strike capability primarily as a deterrent to US invasion to keep the Korean Peninsula out of war. Secondly, it needs operational nuclear missiles targeted at US and Japanese targets in the event of a DPRK-US war.

The North Korean state-run newspaper, Minjo Joson, vowed on June 9 to use nuclear weapons in war as "merciless means of offense to deal retaliatory strikes" against anyone who "dares infringe upon the dignity and sovereignty of the DPRK even a bit".

Scenario for nuclear war
After shifting to a plan B, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il has put in place a nuclear game plan as a part of the plan's military first policy to deal with nuclear rogue state America and its allies South Korea and Japan. (See Kim Jong-il shifts to plan B, Asia Times Online, May 21)

The nuclear game plan is designed firstly to militarily prevent the US from throwing a monkey wrench into the plans of the Kim Jong-il administration for economic prosperity by 2012 - the centenary of the birth of founding father Kim Il-sung - in a bid to complete its membership of the three elite clubs of nuclear, space and economic powers.

Its second aim is to win the hearts and minds of the 70 million Korean people, North, South and abroad, and leave little doubt in their eyes that Kim Jong-il has what it takes to neutralize and phase out the American presence in Korea. This will hasten the divided parts of ancestral Korean land - bequeathed by Dankun 5,000 years ago and Jumon 2,000 years ago - coming together under a confederal umbrella as a reunified state.

It is designed to impress upon the Korean population that Kim Jong-il is a Korean David heroically standing up to the American Goliath, that he can lead the epic effort to settle long-smoldering moral scores with the US over a more than 100-year-old grudge match that dates as far as the 1905 Taft-Katsura Agreement and the 1866 invasion of Korea by the USS General Sherman.

Third, Kim Jong-il has described the shift to plan B as a stern notice for the governments of the US and its junior allies that they cannot get away with their hostile behavior any longer, unless they are prepared to leave their booming economies consumed in a great conflagration of retaliatory thermonuclear attacks.

The game plan assumes that the US is unlikely to shake off its aggressive behavior until it is wiped off this planet. The Barack Obama administration has not taken much time to reveal its true colors, which are no different from the George W Bush administration. There have been four compelling signs:

First, the March 9-20 Key Resolve (Team Spirit) joint war games between the US and South Korea.

Second, the US-led United Nation Security Council's (UNSC) condemnation of an innocuous April 5 satellite launch.

Third, the rehashing of counterfeit money charges that the US has failed to produce compelling evidence to support. As Newsweek wrote in its June 8 issue, "The Treasury Department couldn't find a single shred of hard evidence pointing to North Korean production of counterfeit money."

Fourth, the presence of Bush holdovers in the Obama administration, such as Stuart Levy, the architect of Bush-era financial sanctions intended to criminalize the DPRK.

Four types of hydrogen bomb raids
The game plan for nuclear war specifies four types of thermonuclear assault: (1) the bombing of operating nuclear power stations; (2) detonations of a hydrogen bombs in seas off the US, Japan and South Korea; (3) detonations of H-bombs in space far above their heartlands; and (4) thermonuclear attacks on their urban centers.

The first attack involves converting operating nuclear power plants on the coastline of the three countries into makeshift multi-megaton H-bombs.

The New York Times on January 24, 1994, quoted Paul Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute, warning that North Korea could easily launch de-facto hydrogen bomb attacks on South Korea.

"North Korean retaliation to bombing could result in vastly more fallout in the South than in the North ... North Korean retaliatory bombing could bring Chernobyls multiplied."

If bombed, one average operating nuclear power station is estimated to spew out as much deadly fallout as 150-180 H-bombs. Bombing one nuclear power station would render the Japanese archipelago and South Korea uninhabitable. Doing the same to the US may require bombing one plant on its west coast and another on its east coast.

Nothing is easier than bombing a power plant on a coastline. There is no need to use a ballistic missile. Primitive means will do the job.

The US has 103 operating nuclear power stations with onsite storage of a huge quantity of spent fuel rods and Japan has 53 operating atomic power stations. Japan has a stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium - enough to assemble more than 1,000 atomic bombs in a short period of time. South Korea has 20 operating nuclear power stations with onsite storage of a huge quantity of spent fuel rods.

The detonation of sea-borne or undersea H-bombs planted on the three countries' continental shelves will trigger nuclear tsunamis with devastating consequences.

A 2006 RAND study of a ship-based 10-kiloton nuclear blast on the Port of Long Beach had some harrowing conclusions:

"Within the first 72 hours, the attack would devastate a vast portion of
the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Because ground-burst explosions generate
particularly large amounts of highly radioactive debris, fallout from the blast
would cause much of the destruction. In some of the most dramatic possible
outcomes:

Sixty thousand people might die instantly from the blast itself or quickly
thereafter from radiation poisoning.

One hundred and fifty thousand more might be exposed to hazardous levels of
radioactive water and sediment from the port, requiring emergency medical
treatment.

The blast and subsequent fires might completely destroy the entire
infrastructure and all ships in the Port of Long Beach and the adjoining Port of
Los Angeles.

Six million people might try to evacuate the Los Angeles region.

Two to three million people might need relocation because fallout will have
contaminated a 500-square-kilometer area.

Gasoline supplies might run critically short across the entire region
because of the loss of Long Beach's refineries - responsible for one-third of
the gas west of the Rocky Mountains.RAND projects that the economic costs would
exceed $1 trillion.

The third possible attack, a high-altitude detonation of hydrogen bombs that would create a powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP), would disrupt the communications and electrical infrastructure of the US, the whole of Japan, and South Korea.

Many of the essential systems needed to survive war would be knocked out, as computers are instantly rendered malfunctioning or unusable. Military and communications systems such as radars, antennas, and missiles, government offices, would be put out of use, as would energy sources such as nuclear power stations and transport and communications systems including airports, airplanes, railways, cars and cell phones.

Ironically the ubiquity of high-tech computing gadgets in the US, Japan and South Korea has made them most vulnerable to EMP attacks.

The last and fourth attack would be to order into action a global nuclear strike force of dozens of MIRVed ICBMs - each bearing a thermonuclear warhead on a prefixed target.

The Yongbyon nuclear site has always been a decoy to attract American attention and bring it into negotiations on a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War. Since as far back as the mid-1980, North Korea has assembled 100-300 nuclear warheads in an ultra-clandestine nuclear weapons program. The missiles can be mounted on medium-range missiles designed to be nuclear capable.

A prototype ICBM was assembled by the end of the 1980s. Two prototype ICBMs were test-fired on May 29, 1993, with one splashing down off Honolulu and the other off Guam. The Kim Jong-il administration gave an advance notice to the US government of the long-range missile test. But the American reaction was skeptical.

In April 2001, the Associated Press quoted Navy representative Mark Kirk's "terrifying encounter in 1993 with what seemed possible nuclear attack" from North Korea. He recalled:

It was a no notice, no warning missile launch out of North Korea, and for
the first and only time in my career in the NMJIC [National Military Joint
Intelligence Center], I got to see all of the panoply of the United States
military wake up in a few seconds.

We did not know what kind of missile it was, so the impact area, at the
beginning, was the entire United States, and you thought about what we might be
doing in the next 12 minutes: would we be notifying the president that we had
lost an American city? We were going to know the answer in 12 minutes.

At first it still included the Pacific Coast, then it included
Hawaii.

AP added: "Little was made of the 1993 launch at the time because it wasn't determined until later that it likely flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean, Kirk said."

It was not until 1998 that the US notified the Japanese government of the flyover of a North Korean long-range missile before splashing down off Hawaii. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration quietly labeled the 1998 satellite launch a success.

According to a February 12, 2003, AP report, US intelligence had concluded a few years earlier that North Korea has a ballistic missile capable of hitting the western United States and possibly targets farther inland.

Kim Myong Chol is author of a number of books and papers in Korean, Japanese and English on North Korea, including Kim Jong-il's Strategy for Reunification. He has a PhD from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's Academy of Social Sciences and is often called an "unofficial" spokesman of Kim Jong-il and North Korea.

Jesse & Company to Pyongyang

Asked whether outreach to North Korea by former Vice President Al Gore would be beneficial, Jackson says:

“It could, if he has the moral appeal to them and they can trust him, whether it's former Vice President Al Gore, or Governor Bill Richardson or President Jimmy Carter. Those who made some way in reaching out could very well be a trusted broker between the two governments.

But make the moral appeal. These two young women have done nothing to earn being in prison for 12 years.

They are at this point a pawn in the bigger political game. The case I would make if I were to go to North Korea, to the leadership, is that: ‘to hold these young women as hostages are trophies, does not get what you need. You need to have your security increased. That is to say, the relief of such abounding poverty in your zone, and to have less military threats headed toward you.' …That's why I think any bellicose or rhetoric or threats does not serve our country well, nor does it serve our quest to secure their freedom.”

Hat Tip: The Page

I have a deal for Kim Jong-il, I will trade you Jesse Jackson, Prince Albert Gore, James Earl Carter and Bill Richardson for the two female journalists.

Just imagine what "progress" they could make in helping the Great Leader to continue constructing that magnificent society in North Korea!!!

US shackled by Pyongyang's ploy

Asia Times Online:

US shackled by Pyongyang's ploy
By Donald Kirk

WASHINGTON - Now comes the hard part for American policy-makers: balancing a tough line on North Korea's nuclear and missile tests with mounting public demands in the United States to win the release of two American television journalists convicted of "grave crimes" and sentenced to 12 years of "hard labor".

No one in Washington seems to have any idea what to do. The statements that have been issued have not had the slightest impact on North Korean strategists. Instead, Pyongyang's attitude has underscored its success in using the two journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee of Al Gore's Current TV network, as tools in a much larger game.

"It doesn't look like the [Barack] Obama administration can contribute much to the equation," said Nicholas Eberstadt, scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. There has been talk of sending former US vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore to Pyongyang to help spring them, but it's another matter whether or not North Korea will receive him.

Another candidate for such a mission is New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who won the release after three months of an American who had swum the Yalu River in 1996. Richardson also helped to negotiate the release after 13 days of an army helicopter pilot shot down after straying across the line between North and South Korea.

Gore and his San Francisco-based Current TV have maintained silence on the cases, while Richardson was on morning television expressing a willingness to help. Richardson called the news of the sentencing "a good sign", observing that "in previous instances where I was involved in negotiating, you could not get this started until the legal process had ended".

Richardson, a strong advocate of reconciliation with North Korea, neglected to mention that both those cases were far simpler than that of Ling and Lee and that neither went to trial.

The Yalu River swimmer was clearly a nut, and the US army helicopter had obviously gone off course in an episode in which the co-pilot was killed. Ling and Lee, by contrast, were filming along the Tumen River border to obtain a story that would only be extremely negative in its portrayal of North Korean human-rights abuses perpetrated on defectors who cross the border to escape starvation and imprisonment.

Ling's older sister, Lisa, moreover, had earlier done a documentary for National Geographic television in which she used a hidden camera while posing as a member of the team of a Nepalese eye doctor admitted into North Korea to cure cataracts. The film ended with North Koreans removing their blindfolds, seeing portraits of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his late father, Kim Il-sung, and thanking both of them profusely for giving them back their eyesight.

Against this background, if North Korea is receptive to anything, the price may be prohibitively high in terms of concessions that the US administration is prepared to make.

"North Korea certainly hopes to use these hostages as pawns," said Eberstadt. "Given the past record of dealing, the North Koreans have reason to think they can do so."

The North Koreans "will have conditions and demands", observed Larry Niksch, long-time research analyst at the Congressional Research Service. For starters, Niksch noted, "They will want an apology" for the "grave crimes" committed by the two women when North Korea claims they entered the country illegally by crossing the frozen Tumen River from China on March 17.

An apology might be easy enough, no matter whether Ling and Lee actually crossed the border, were standing on the ice or were seized by North Korean soldiers while on the Chinese side. But beyond the apology, it's a cinch the North Koreas "will want concessions on the nuclear issue", said Niksch. The US is preparing to press the United Nations Security Council for stringent sanctions as punishment for the nuclear test of May 25.

The administration of Obama is now hoping that China will persuade North Korea of the advantages of letting the women go - and also talk some sense into Pyongyang about its nukes and missiles.

Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg has just completed a swing through the region, leading a team of US officials including representatives of the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the Treasury Department in talks in Beijing, Seoul and Tokyo. The purpose of the exercise was to get China in line behind the sanctions that Washington wants from the UN Security Council, including provisions authorizing the search of ships and planes suspected of carrying components of weapons of mass destruction and the missiles for firing them at distant targets.

Some observers expect China to go along with a UN resolution that will be considerably tougher than the resolution adopted after North Korea's first nuclear test in October 2006. There's no guarantee, however, that China, or Russia, for that matter, will be enthusiastic about tough provisions advocated by the US, Japan and South Korea. It's quite possible the final resolution, if adopted, will be considerably weaker than the Americans would like.

In the end, perhaps in a few months or a year or two, after the families of Ling and Lee have appeared innumerable times on television pleading on their behalf, the US may have to come up with an offering.

The families of both women turned up their campaign for clemency immediately after getting word of the sentences. It was revealed that Ling suffered from ulcers that could get much worse in prison and that Lee's four-year-old daughter is already suffering from anxiety about her missing mother.

In a statement issued on Monday, North Korea's state-run news agency would not disclose in what prison the women are to serve their time. According to the Los Angeles Times, "North Koreans who receive similar sentences of 'reform through labor' often face starvation and torture in a penal system many consider among the world's most repressive." The article cited its source as David Hawk, author of the 2004 study "The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps."

If the pair are held for a lengthy period, the article continues, analysts believe they may be sent to a kyo-hwa-so, or "re-education" reformatory. The literal meaning of kyo-hwa-so is "a place to make a good person through education".

"It's extremely hard labor under extremely brutal conditions," Hawk was quoted as saying. "These places have very high rates of deaths in detention. The casualties from forced labor and inadequate food supplies are very high."

Many North Korean re-education camps, the Los Angeles Times reported, "are affiliated with mines or textile factories where the long work shifts are often followed by self-criticism sessions and the forced memorization of North Korean communist policy doctrine".

The women's families said they were "shocked and devastated" by the sentences, and that the three months the women had spent in prison was "long enough". The pleas may eventually force the US to consider making creative offers that North Korea may be willing to consider.

"It seems to me, the question is whether the Obama administration will have something to lay out," said Niksch. He recommends "a big offer of food aid, probably a million tons or more, possibly two million tons", with no strings attached. In other words, the US would have to drop its insistence on seeing who got the aid - the demand that led to the end of "humanitarian" shipments from the US last year.

A large US donation may provide the opening for the bilateral dialogue that North Korea is widely assumed to want with the US - provided the talk focuses on North Korea's basic demands. These include recognition of North Korea as a nuclear state, one of nine members of the global elite of nuclear powers, and removal of the sanctions that the US is determined to impose.

The Obama administration is avoiding talk on these issues. The White House and State Department have issued statements expressing deep concerns, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has written a letter asking for the release of the women. She seems determined to keep that discussion out of the arena of efforts to get North Korea to give up its nukes.

As Clinton put it in an interview on ABC's This Week before the sentences were announced, "We don't want this pulled into the political issues." She also said their situation should not interfere with "concerns that are being expressed in the United Nations Security Council".

Clinton may be forced to discard the notion of putting North Korea back on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, even though she did remark that "we're going to look at it".

Some officials in the US believe the George W Bush administration, under severe North Korean pressure, made a big mistake in dropping North Korea from the list as a precondition for North Korea making good on the nuclear deals reached in six-party talks in 2007. At the same time, they are saying it's now too late to look back.

Clinton may have raised the idea of putting North Korea's name back on the list as a warning. This was a bad idea, said Tim Peters, a missionary in Seoul who has crusaded for human rights in North Korea. "Even to mention this at such a sensitive time", said Peters, "strikes me as idiotic."

Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.

North Korea would use nuclear weapons in a 'merciless offensive'

From the Independent:

North Korea today said it would use nuclear weapons in a "merciless offensive" if provoked — its latest bellicose rhetoric apparently aimed at deterring any international punishment for its recent atomic test blast.

Pyongyang raised tensions a notch by reviving its rhetoric in a commentary in the state-run Minju Joson newspaper today.

"Our nuclear deterrent will be a strong defensive means...as well as a merciless offensive means to deal a just retaliatory strike to those who touch the country's dignity and sovereignty even a bit," said the commentary, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

It appeared to be the first time that North Korea referred to its nuclear arsenal as "offensive" in nature. Pyongyang has long claimed that its nuclear weapons program is a deterrent and only for self-defense against what it calls US attempts to invade it.

The tough talk came as South Korea and the US lead an effort at the UN Security Council to have the North punished for its nuclear test with tough sanctions.

One of those things that make you say, Hmmm

On his Foreign Policy blog, Tom Ricks has quoted U.S. intelligence analyst John McCreary:

“During the past 40 years North Korean leaders have been blustery but fundamentally risk averse. They have done nothing that would risk the total destruction of their state -- which means Pyongyang for all practical and symbolic purposes -- until now.... The actions in the past two days represent risk accepting behavior, defiance bordering on recklessness. This behavior began shortly after Kim Chong-il's stroke in August 2008. If Kim is ordering these actions, he has had a personality change, which can occur if dementia follows a stroke, according to medical authorities.”

More NorK Missile Tests and an Heir Named

Mini-me?

Newsmax:

N. Korea to Fire More Missiles as Kim's Son Named Successor

Monday, June 1, 2009 10:25 PM

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea pushed forward with preparations to test-fire more missiles in the wake of last week's nuclear test as leader Kim Jong Il moved to anoint his third son as heir to the world's first communist dynasty, reports and experts said Tuesday.

At least four missiles were spotted being readied at North Korean launch pads: a long-range missile on the west coast near China and three to four medium-range missiles on the east coast. U.S. military officials confirmed the preparations of a Taepodong-2 capable of striking the U.S., and the Yonhap news agency cited a lawmaker briefed by defense officials for the east coast launch.

North Korea was also strengthening its defenses and conducting amphibious assault exercises along its western shore _ possible preparations for skirmishes at sea, reports said. South Korea deployed a guided-missile, high-speed boat to the area to stamp out any provocations, the navy said.

As tensions continued to escalate _ with U.N. ambassadors discussing a new Security Council resolution in response to the nuclear test _ the regime reportedly began paving the way for Kim's 26-year-old son, Jong Un, to eventually take over as leader of the nation of 24 million people.

A succession announcement went out after the May 25 underground nuclear test to top Workers' Party, military and government officials, South Korea's Dong-a Ilbo and Hankook Ilbo newspapers said Tuesday, and the North was already hailing the son as "our Commander Kim" in a new song being taught to the people, the Dong-a Ilbo said.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service said it cannot confirm the reports.

Analysts say the recent saber rattling is part of a campaign to build unity and support for the eventual successor to 67-year-old Kim Jong Il, who reportedly suffered a stroke last August.

After disappearing from the public eye for weeks last fall, Kim made his first state appearance in months at the delayed opening session of the country's new legislature April 12, grayer and thinner and limping slightly.

Kim was believed to want to name a successor by 2012 - the centenary of the birth of his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung _ and the regime undertook a massive campaign last year to prepare the country for the 100th anniversary celebrations.

The April 5 launch of what North Korea claimed was a successful bid to send a communications satellite into space was believed part of the campaign, to show off the country's scientific advancements. But in an abrupt shift in plans, the regime stepped up the pace and in early May launched a "150-day battle" urging North Koreans to work harder to build up the country's economy.

"Before 2012, North Korea must convince the army and the public that Jong Un is the best successor," said Atsuhito Isozaki, assistant professor of North Korean politics at Tokyo's private Keio University. "To pave the way for Jong Un's leadership, it is highly likely that North Korea will turn recent nuclear and missile tests into his achievements."

Analyst Cheong Seong-chang of the Sejong Institute, a South Korean security think tank, noted that the "politically driven" campaign is set to end in early October, about the time of the anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers' Party. He said North Korea could hold a national convention then - its first in nearly 30 years - to formally announce the successor.

Cheong noted that in the 1970s, Kim Il Sung, known as the "Great Leader," arranged for his son to take credit for a "70-day battle" before he was tapped in 1974 as his father's successor. The succession decision was made public at a 1980 convention, and Kim Jong Il - the "Dear Leader" - formally assumed leadership upon his father's death in 1994.

"Since Kim had a stroke last year, North Korea appears to be in a hurry in naming his successor," Isozaki said.

Kim has three sons, and many believe the youngest has the best chance of succeeding the authoritarian leader, possibly with the backing and guidance of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, a member of the all-powerful National Defense Commission who has strong military and political connections.

The eldest son, Jong Nam, 38, had long been considered the favorite to succeed his father - until he was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport in 2001. He reportedly told Japanese officials he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

Kim considers the middle son, Jong Chol, too effeminate for the job, according to a Japanese sushi chef who said he served Kim Jong Il for many years.

Little is known about Jong Un, the second son of former dancer Ko Yong Hi, who died in 2004.
He studied at the International School of Berne in Switzerland in the 1990s under the pseudonym Pak Chol, learning to speak English, German and French, the Swiss weekly news magazine L'Hebdo reported earlier this year, citing classmates and school officials.

A classmate recalled him as shy and introverted but an avid skier and basketball player who was a big fan of the NBA star Michael Jordan. The sushi chef, who goes by the pen name Kenji Fujimoto, said in a 2003 memoir that Jong Un looks and acts just like his father and is the leader's favorite.

South Korean lawmaker Park Jie-won, a member of the intelligence committee, told a radio show Tuesday that the spy agency briefed lawmakers that the regime already is "pledging its allegiance to Kim Jong Un," according to an transcript provided by his office.

The missile and nuclear tests also are part of a campaign to grab Washington's attention at a time when Kim has two other pressing issues that must be resolved before his health worsens: establishing security by normalizing relations with the U.S. and strengthening the economy, Cheong said.

A long-range missile test could be timed to coincide with the June 16 summit in Washington between South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and President Barack Obama, analysts said.

Satellite images indicate the North has transported a long-range missile to the new Dongchang-ni facility near China, a Yonhap report said. A U.S. official confirmed that the missile was moved by train and said it could be more than a week to liftoff. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue involved intelligence.

The Chosun Ilbo newspaper also said the North may have manufactured up to four more long-range missiles.

On the east coast, vehicles mounted with at least three mobile launchers were spotted at Anbyon, Yonhap said Tuesday, citing an unnamed government official.

Complicating the situation is Thursday's trial in Pyongyang of two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, accused of entering the country illegally and engaging in "hostile acts."

North Korea also has custody of a South Korean worker detained at a joint industrial complex at the border. He has been transferred to Pyongyang, Yonhap said Tuesday.

The Cuda Challenges Obama & Gates

Via ADN.com or Pravda North, as I like to call it:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is calling for President Obama to take a firm stance against North Korea and defend the states and territories of the United States and allies on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea fired a short-range missile on Friday — the sixth this week. Military experts believe a long-range missile could reach Alaska, where part of the nation's missile defense system is located.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates will tour the missile defense site at Fort Greely, near Fairbanks, on Monday.

The Defense Department is not recommending moving forward with a planned expansion of the missile defense system at Fort Greely in its latest budget.

“The United Nations sanctions have failed to stop North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, and the Obama Administration cannot afford to be playing catch-up to an irrational dictator like Kim Jong-Il,” Palin said in a written statement. “Missile Defense Agency funding must be fully restored in the federal budget to guarantee our protective measures remain the best in the world. Fort Greely plays a crucial role in the nation’s security.”

Governor Urges President to Stand Firm Against North Korea Rogue nation’s capability to attack Alaska and Hawaii cannot be ignored:

May 29, 2009, Anchorage, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin called on President Barack Obama to take a firm stand against North Korea and defend the states and territories of the United States of America and American allies on the Korean peninsula.

This morning, North Korea launched its sixth short-range missile since Monday’s nuclear test. North Korea has also stated that it is no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. Further, President Obama has proposed a $1.4 billion reduction of the Missile Defense Agency’s budget.

“The United Nations sanctions have failed to stop North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons, and the Obama Administration cannot afford to be playing catch-up to an irrational dictator like Kim Jong-Il,” said Governor Palin. “Missile Defense Agency funding must be fully restored in the federal budget to guarantee our protective measures remain the best in the world. Fort Greely plays a crucial role in the nation’s security.”

Alaska is home to the largest ground-based mid-course defense missile shield in North America. Because of its geographical position and proximity to potential targets, Alaska plays a critical role in national security and in the defense of American allies.

Ground missile defense is the cornerstone of the Missile Defense Agency’s multi-layered architecture. It is designed to detect, track, discriminate, intercept and destroy long- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles during the mid-course phase of flight. The weapons system consists of land-, sea- and space-based sensors, command and control operations, and silo-based interceptors that are located at Vandenberg AFB, California and Fort Greely.