quote:Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea fired artillery toward its tense western sea border with South Korea on Tuesday, injuring at least 14 South Korean military personnel and two civilians, the Yonhap news agency reported.
Four of the military personnel were seriously injured, Yonhap said.
At least 200 rounds of artillery hit an inhabited South Korean island after the North started firing about 2:30 p.m. local time, Yonhap said.
South Korea's military responded with 80 rounds of artillery and deployed fighter jets to counter the fire, the report said.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I'm not optimistic about the 'reprisal,' for multiple reasons.
Posted by dabbler (Member # 6443) on :
I'm sad about this. It sounds to me that the North Korean govt is going to continue to cause aggressions like this in order to ease the transition of power. The populace is going to be told how great the new leader is at repelling the evil South Koreans who are attempting to overthrow the North.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I don't think it is to ease the transition of power. That's an interesting hypothetical, but at this point it could just as easily be due to the military's dislike of the upcoming ruler.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Oboy what an important story can't wait to see the news on it
quote:Originally posted by dabbler: I'm sad about this. It sounds to me that the North Korean govt is going to continue to cause aggressions like this in order to ease the transition of power.
Maybe, maybe not.
quote:Bang! Now let's talk By Sunny Lee
BEIJING - North Korea's surprising disclosure of uranium-enrichment facilities comes as a powerful jolt to the United States and South Korea, which have adopted a dual strategy of stick and carrot in getting Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.
The challenge for Seoul and Washington is to find a coordinated response, analysts said.
The North continued to up the ante on Tuesday when it fired dozens of artillery shells at the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula near a disputed maritime border. ... But the US and South Korea have been holding back, waiting for something more, expecting a clear step on the North's side to demonstrate it is ready to start denuclearization unilaterally, said Delury, who recently visited North Korea. "Personally, I don't think that was going to ever come about. They've probably realized so. This is North Korea's stick now [to get them to talk]."
Considering they were firing artillary.... I wonder what pushed NK to start firing at SK, I don't want assumptions always people have a reason for firing weapons at someone else (even random impulses to shoot someone is fair answer).
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
What I have to wonder is, is this a sign of growing instability or did they recieve orders from the top? Could this have been the actions of a rogue colonel?
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
Could SK have done something in order to be fired at?! After all it seems the artillary was fired at the SK millitary, the fact civilians were hit is sort of irrellivent, because most military bases have civilians on them, so I will count those who were hit, as being unlucky....
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
SK was doing naval war games close to the border. NK says such maneuvers are provocative and wants them to stop. (Hey, your practicing invading me!) That is NK's excuse for the artillery.
Real reason? I have no clue.
Old regime showing they are not weak with age? New regime showing they will not be weak when they ascend? Army showing its power to the new and old regime? Some lowly officer overfed on hyperbole mans the guns? We don't know. We may never know. We can only hope it doesn't continue and spread.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Rawrain: Could SK have done something in order to be fired at?!
The Great Leader will not stand for such a brutal attack by South Korean mountains on the North's shells.
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve: SK was doing naval war games close to the border. NK says such maneuvers are provocative and wants them to stop. (Hey, your practicing invading me!) That is NK's excuse for the artillery.
Real reason? I have no clue.
Old regime showing they are not weak with age? New regime showing they will not be weak when they ascend? Army showing its power to the new and old regime? Some lowly officer overfed on hyperbole mans the guns? We don't know. We may never know. We can only hope it doesn't continue and spread.
Well the whole Naval shinanigans would definetly be enough grounds to fire at someone, so for now I will assume that's the reason for this. Which means it was provoked by SK.
"DON'T POKE THE BEAR."
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Does not compute.
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
.......What doesn't compute.
I think the easiest way to figure out why NK did this, is to ask... I mean what's the worst that could happen..... 1. The person asking the question be imprisoned, /: 2. The government lies, and claims a misfire 3. Government lies in some other way. 4. Government tells the truth about their reason for firing...
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
North Korea has a Facebook account, you can ask on there as long as you're not in South Korea (But seriously, I think they're just trying to get a rise out of you guys to get some talks => concessions)
Posted by Rawrain (Member # 12414) on :
I don't have a FB account so I could never ask the question ):
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
NK is like that middle-class kid in class who wears their pants low and talks bad street-slang to show how cool he is, but really its a pathetic attempt to get attention.
But instead of showing us some bare-backside and insulting every girl in the area--he's lobbing large bits of explosive, burning peoples homes, and at last count, killing two SK marines.
"Nobody's paying attention to me. I go blow up an island now. Then someone will pay attention to me."
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
It's pathetic if no one pays attention to NK. It's effective if the US/SK does pay attention.
I guess we'll see.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
So does this artillery attack effectively end the cease fire? Seems like that is the very definition of a situation where are cease fire is no longer in effect.
Also, apparently the artillery targeted a mall as well as a military installations.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
It's worth pointing out that when people get killed, governments are obliged to pay attention; that's what governments are for. So the analogy kind of breaks down. The way to deal with an attention-seeking teen is to give him no attention, or perhaps to give him the right kind of attention - love, caring, kindness. (After, perhaps, a bit of a slap upside the head; but that's for the short term.) With governments and states, this does not work.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
What if we nuked them, and then rebuilt their entire country?
/sardonic
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I see the president of South Korea spoke in terms of "massive retaliation" and "ensuring they are unable to provoke us again". If he means the latter at all seriously, I don't see how he intends to do it except by all-out war for annexation. But perhaps it was merely rhetoric.
On another note, this might be just the war the US Army wants, or needs. Regular armoured warfare against a clearly-defined enemy with the goal of liberating an oppressed population, and the actual occupation to be done by someone else. It's almost the definition of what the post-WWII army was built to do. I observe in passing that the heavy armoured divisions are mainly stationed at home, or as garrisons in Europe; Iraq and Afghanistan have both been light-infantry wars for the most part. Where they get the money is a different question.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Oh I'm sure the rest of the world will leap to their feet to assist us should armed conflict become the name of the game.
edit: I think its all talk and bluster for the time being. I'm very interested in seeing how the Chinese react to this. If they condemn it, they are siding against a communist brother, if they say nothing, people will accuse them of not having control over their region, and of course they can't condone it.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
I half imagine that the Chinese are just going to swiftly move in and take over NK some day. They'd probably have a comparatively easy time of it.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I don't know if it would be easy for China, I suspect that they could probably lob a nuclear weapon at Shenyang or Dalian which would royally suck. To have a realistic chance, they might have to co-ordinate with the US for a first strike on all nuclear weapons ... which would be an amusing development.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: ... if they say nothing, people will accuse them of not having control over their region, and of course they can't condone it.
They don't have control over the region. Israel wags America North Korea wags China
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
It is pretty much all but official policy for China to see North Korea peacefully implode and get absorbed by South Korea, Chinese-South Korean trade is at Most Favoured Nation status, relations have for the most part never been better since the days of vassalage and they share many of the same security concerns.
The unification of the Korean peninsula under the ROK would mean the certain withdrawl of American troops from the peninsula as the South Koreans would not see China as a threat to their security but instead the best possible ally against possible Japanese reemergance of militerism.
The problem is getting it to peacefully implode and not throw dirty bombs around at random in a last gasp, almost certainly some sort of agreement to give blanket amnesty and immunity to North Korean elites would need to be given from any South Korean or heck charitably redirected interpretation of North Korean laws that could be charged against them after unification.
Once some sort of agreement could be reached that they can all mostly retire quietly leaving only the middle and lower positions where they are (the trains have to still run on time afterall) and maybe leave Kim Jong-il's son as some sort of prestigious and influencial position in the reintegration process and promise to keep the DPRK army on their salaries and help find them jobs for the next 10-15 years I think you have something thats at least half a step towards a workable solution.
Of course the lynch pin of course is SK agreeing to give immunity from any possible crimes against humanities probes from the UN and human rights groups to the NK elites.
Of course doubling the size of their country for maybe 10 years of condemnation from NGO's whose words are worth just as little as the paper their printed on I think is a worthwhile trade off.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
Hey, when the zombie apocalypse finally happens, North Korea is going to be one of the safest places on earth. I read it in a book, so it must be true.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Of course doubling the size of their country for maybe 10 years of condemnation from NGO's whose words are worth just as little as the paper their printed on I think is a worthwhile trade off.
...says the EU3 player. The West Germans might disagree with your assessment. Is it really worth diplo-annexing a dirt-poor, wrong-culture, wrong-religion province which still gives you badboy? (Noting that while NK and SK speak the same language (give or take some political jargon of a duckspeaking "imperalist-running-dog-jackals" nature), their political and social cultures are now so widely divergent that they must be considered different; in Germany there is still a noticeable difference between Ossis and Wessis, and the Korean economies are even more extremely different.)
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Its true the process wasn't easy but I don think their is a single german politician alive who thinks unification was a mistake (excepting obvious radicals and fringe people or DRG communist nostalgists).
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: (But seriously, I think they're just trying to get a rise out of you guys to get some talks => concessions)
I found this article to be fairly illuminating in terms of understanding N. Korea's behavior when I happened across it last summer.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Yeah, Foreign Affairs frequently has extremely insightful analysis. His description pretty much jibes with what I've been arguing since the nuclear plant debacle in the Bush administration, where by neglecting NK and then treating even the mildest stalling as unforgivable they basically ensured that NK would up the nuclear ante.
edit: and then, when NK upped the ante, as the article relates, the Bush administration backed down and gave them nearly everything they would have gotten under the prior agreements (except the light water reactors)!
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Noemon:
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: (But seriously, I think they're just trying to get a rise out of you guys to get some talks => concessions)
I found this article to be fairly illuminating in terms of understanding N. Korea's behavior when I happened across it last summer.
In short, yep.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: ... if they say nothing, people will accuse them of not having control over their region, and of course they can't condone it.
Hee.
quote:What is China's reaction to all this?
"We have taken note of the relevant report and express concern over the situation ... This situation will be verified. We hope relevant parties will contribute their part to peace and security on the Peninsula," said Hong Lei, of the Chinese foreign ministry.
It sounds even milder in Chinese than in translation. The verb used for "taken note" is the kind of language you use if you "take note" of two housewives bickering on the street as you walk by in the morning on your way to work. It's the kind of "taking note" where you decide this is none of your business.
Yeah, China's not going to react until we react. This is a win-win situation for them, as Korea has pretty much always been.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Mucus: Yeah they pretty much responded the way I expected them to.
edit: BTW your link doesn't work for me, it says I'm not authorized to access it.
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
If I was head of SK I would announce today that "unfortunately 5.2 Million in aid reserved for North Korea would have to be redirected to repair and restore parts of our savagely attacked island, help those wounded in the attack, and compensate in what little way we can, those murdered by this unprovoked attack"
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
BlackBlade: I dunno, I can't access it anymore either and I can't find it on the main website anymore. Technical problems I guess.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
"We are outraged that the SK gov't would put politics above the well meaning of our common people, minor setbacks and trivialities should have no bearing on such humanitarian issues of importance and are utterly unsurprised at this callous act on their part.
Millions of our people are unable to have proper nuitrician due to the actions of imperial americans and their puppet running dogs in the south korean government, this unjust action shall not stand and will be taken into full consideration during the negotiations.
OUR WORDS ARE BACKED BY NUCLEAR WEAPONS!"
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
I think the going spin on both sides of the DMZ is "The other side is really good people mislead by their leaders" so you end up with things like ambiable cooperation on numerous stuff of no realpolitic importance.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I think the going spin on both sides of the DMZ is "The other side is really good people mislead by their leaders" so you end up with things like ambiable cooperation on numerous stuff of no realpolitic importance.
No, the spin in North Korea has always been, "Everybody else lives in squalor and abject poverty under the oppressive thumbs of tyrants, whereas here we live in the most prosperous of all countries and its entirely due to the efforts of The Great Leader, who has protected us from their combined hatred of our happiness."
Russians and Chinese were told essentially the same thing, they just did a less effective job of hiding evidence to the contrary.
[ November 24, 2010, 11:52 PM: Message edited by: JanitorBlade ]
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Russians and Chinese were told essentially the same thing, they just did a less effective job of hiding evidence to the contrary.
Considering it was the official party line in the 50's to 'catch up to the west and raise the standard of living' I don't think this was entirely accurate.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I think the going spin on both sides of the DMZ is "The other side is really good people mislead by their leaders" so you end up with things like ambiable cooperation on numerous stuff of no realpolitic importance.
No, the spin in North Korea has always been, "Everybody else lives in squalor and abject poverty under the oppressive thumbs of tyrants, whereas here we live in the most prosperous of all countries and its entirely due to the efforts of The Great Leader, who has protected us from their combined hatred because of our happiness."
This. The Juche representatives show a very limited selection of pictures of the outside world representing the abject poverty of the capitalist world, and how most of them are made into unthinking conquerors who would subjugate the Dear Leader's last truly free people in the world. Then, plenty of words of the Dear Leader being so respected as to invite radical change and revolution against the capitalists.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
I don't see this as a contradiction with what I said, I offered a simplified generalization.
Posted by JanitorBlade (Member # 12343) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
quote:Russians and Chinese were told essentially the same thing, they just did a less effective job of hiding evidence to the contrary.
Considering it was the official party line in the 50's to 'catch up to the west and raise the standard of living' I don't think this was entirely accurate.
You find me a party cadre in 50's China using the phrase, "Catch Up With The West" and you will earn serious China cred as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
I was referring to Kruschev.
But I'm nearly 99% certain that Mao has used that phrasing at least regarding the reasoning behind the GLF.
One of these will probably have it, too tired right now to do so.
Btw its really really hard to find essays BY mao on the internet, either i get essays ON mao or just "Quotations".
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
*psst* Thats the closest I can Google-fu, although it does seem to be somewhat of a talking point.
quote:Report on the First Five-Year Plan for Development of the National Economy of the People's Republic of China in 1953-1957, delivered by Li Fuchun, July 5 and 6, 1955, at the Second Session of the First National People's Congress ... We have no magic formula for working miracles. How can we catch up with the industrialized capitalistic countries in five years?
quote:The Present International Situation and China's Foreign Policy, report by Chou En-lai, February 10, 1958, to the Fifth Session of the First National People's Congress ... The Chinese people is striving to catch up with and surpass Britain in the output of steel, iron and other major industrial products in a period of 15 years or slightly more.
quote:"The slogan was: 'Struggle hard for three years. Catch up with Britain and catch up with America.' It was completely unrealistic" Liu Binyan, People's Daily journalist
[ November 25, 2010, 01:46 AM: Message edited by: Mucus ]
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Thanks Mucus, so BB, do I get my China cred now or can I take back the initials BB?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Thanks Mucus, so BB, do I get my China cred now or can I take back the initials BB?
Nope, you let Mucus do all the work.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Which is what a good leader is supposed to do, delegate to underlings and then take all the credit.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
If you can get Mucus to accept that he is your "hireling", then I suppose that counts.
I never really pictured Mucus as the Zhou En Lai type.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Nah, I think of Blayne as being my own equivalent of a crazy North Korea Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
It's worth pointing out that we have no context for those quotes; we do not know whether it is referring to the standard of living or the amount of armaments. When Stalin spoke of catching up, in the 1930s, he was referring to guns, tanks, and heavy industry, and given the later history it's hard to blame him on that point, at least. As far as living standards went he was prone to saying that the Russians never had it so good under the Czars, and you can find statistics that support that and ones that contradict it. (Talking about the 1930s now, not the Cold War period.)
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
The NEP under Lenin brought the Soviet economy back to within 70 to 90% of 1914 levels including standard of living, the 5 year plans brought it back down but on the other hand reduced private consumption of GDP to 52% freeing up everything else for economic growth (Nazi germany couldn't even dare to get it this low in their wildest dreams), its a mixed bag on one hand living standards were lower, on the other education was a hell of alot better/more widespread then under the Czars (literacy something approaching 95% by 39)
However I am nearly 100% that at the very least Khrushchev (my original point so no goalposts were cleverly shifted here) was in fact focused on catching up/surpasing the west in living standards and indeed Rise&Fall points out that living standards in the Soviet Union "didn't catch up back to their NEP level until the Khrushchev era".
But now that I recall there is definately at least some reasoning/thought towards catching up to the West in living standards even in China as well just prior to the GLF as part of the mass intoxication by Chinese leftist intellectuals just after the Soviet launching of sputnik into space.
Specifically I read this in "Mao:A Life".
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:private consumption of GDP to 52% freeing up everything else for economic growth
War production, including the building of tank factories, is not economic growth.
quote:The NEP under Lenin brought the Soviet economy back to within 70 to 90% of 1914 levels including standard of living
Could be, although personally I would take any statistic published about Russia in those years with a spoonful of salt. Practically everyone has an axe to grind on the subject, and even if someone didn't, how are they going to get reliable numbers out of the civil-war and Holodomor chaos? (Point to note: Dead kulaks do not pull down any standard-of-living averages. In fact they can pull it up, since their stuff can be given to previously poor peasants.)
But even taking that statistic at face value, Russia in 1914 was the poorest country in Europe, and other countries recovered their 1914 outputs in one or two years, not five or seven.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote: War production, including the building of tank factories, is not economic growth.
A tank factory is still a factory, still consums cement, still stimulates secondary industries, still provides an output, by the metric in which economic might in hard power terms is measured they are still a correct metric, ie, electricity consumption and production, wheat production, steel production, coal production, etc.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Yes, it consumes cement, which can then not be used for anything else! It consumes electricity, which is unavailable for other uses! When the output is not an investment but a consumption, then the factory is a net drain on the economy. It may of course be a necessary drain, but it is not economic growth no matter what the GDP statistics might say. If you want to measure national power and not the economy, you should say so.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
Prior to 1991 all economic measurements are inherently a measurement of national hard/soft power.
And consumption is very much a good metric of economic strength, for example if the USA consumes more energy combined then the entirety of Europe then you have a good indicator of economic strength that then needs more information to provide context.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
call me when we're back on current affairs pl0x
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
404.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:The most important reason for the recent DPRK currency reform, according to XXXXXXXXXXXX, is to uncover political opposition, particularly against Kim Jong-il's younger son. Controlling inflation, leveling the wealth gap, controlling domestic currency and access to foreign currency, are all part of this strategy. XXXXXXXXXXXX believes that the third son, Kim Jong-un, favored the currency revaluation, and that going forward Kim Jong-un leans toward a Vietnamese-style of economic reform. Opposition to the currency exchange, according to XXXXXXXXXXXX, might reveal who opposes the ascension of Kim Jong-un to leadership. According to XXXXXXXXXXXX, Kim Jong-il's support of the currency reform points to his favoring the third son; those opposing the revaluation, also oppose the third son. XXXXXXXXXXXX drew parallels to the 2009 nuclear tests, which he said were also influenced by succession plans. XXXXXXXXXXXX said that the first son, Kim Jong-nam, opposes his younger brother's reform plans and favors a Chinese-style of economic opening.
![[Wink]](wink.gif)