SKY News: US 'Declared War' Blacklisting Kim Jong-Un
The US made a "declaration of war" by putting the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on a sanctions blacklist, Pyongyang has claimed.
Taking the action, Washington accused the dictator of overseeing widespread human rights abuses, which had made the isolated communist state "among the world's most repressive countries".
In response, North Korea severed its official lines of communication with the US and said dealings between the two nations must now be dealt with under "war law".
Read more ....
Update #1: North Korea says US has crossed 'red line,' warns of showdown over upcoming war games (FOX News/AP)
Update #2: N. Korea ratcheting up propaganda ahead of major exercises in South (Stars and Stripes)
WNU Editor: My contacts in South Korea are telling me that the propaganda and threats from the North Korean regime are reaching levels that have not been seen in decades. Will this lead to action on the ground ...., probably not .... but the tensions and threats are there.
4 comments:
There may be a need to defend South Korea. After all they no doubt made allocation of resources decisions based upon an assumption that the US would be providing for a significant portion of their defense needs in terms of both money and manpower. Unless forced to it might be unethical for the United States to suddenly and irrevocably cut this off. Also, I think it might be unethical to ask Americans to defend South Koreans when they have HUGE problems of their own and there is no reason to believe South Korea is going to reciprocate should America be attacked.
What the South Koreans need to understand is America is going to need to redeploy its forces and resources away from the region. The only question is will this be an orderly redeployment or a chaotic one. If an orderly one, we can work with the South Koreans to ensure they have a proper defense. If chaotic, this would obviously be bad for everyone or so it would seem. As such, the South Korean and US governments need to be working on the time frame for US redeployment and a plan for South Korea to be in a reasonable position to properly meet its defense needs.
Additionally it needs to be understood that should hot war break out South Korea and the US cannot reasonably expect to win such a war. The best that could be done is to make North Korea's inevitable victory pyric enough that they would not consider war in the first place.
In summary, the US presence there is finite. The withdrawing of forces is either orderly or chaotic assuming we don't start addressing this now and are forced to do so by events. The US and South Korea or South Korea alone cannot expect to win a war against North Korea.
It is with these realities in mind that polices must be set. Ignoring reality will not change it but it sure does make it difficult to prepare. In this environment are sanctions against North Korea or its leader such a good idea? I would say no. Not only cannot they not be enforced but it only provides a propaganda victory for North Korea. This type of policy looks like an "unforced error" on the part of the US.
Part of making North Korea's victory pyric enough that they would not consider war would be to properly military forces to ensure South Korea is well defended and could inflict significant hurt on the North should they attack, and to avoid taking actions that would inflame the situation. Unenforceable sanctions not only inflame the situation but they do nothing to actually hurt the other side.
Whose dumber, US leaders for implementing such unenforceable sanctions or South Korea for going along with such a dumb idea? I'm not sure. It's a close race for the dumbness prize here!!
28000 mem
, ld call that being practically deserted already.
By 28,000 I think you mean the number of US military personnel currently stationed in South Korea. I did a Google search on this and this appears the approximate current number of such personnel in South Korea.
The problems are this has remained virtually constant since 2006 and in the event of an invasion by North Korea these men and women are either dead or they are prisoners of war. Additionally, they are needed on the US mainland and off the US coasts.
While this can be referred to as "deserted", I think it more accurate to call it "a redeployment of US military personnel consistent with US defense needs and US interests." Again, the problem here is the redeployment away from the area seems to have been halted around 2006.
I think a great place for the next POTUS to start would be by working to negotiate a peace treaty between the United States and North Korea. While we CANNOT solve the problems between the two Koreas, with a peace treaty in place between us and North Korea this puts us in a better position to act as an honest broker in negotiating an end to the war between the two Koreas.
By doing this we will have gained the trust of North Korea. Since there is no reason for South Korea not to trust us, we would have secured the trust of both sides setting us up to be an honest broker in this conflict making a peaceful resolution much more likely.
Would something like this work? I think it would be a long shot. This would no doubt present an immense challenge for the deal maker should he choose to pursue this. What is clear is American interests in this regard cannot continue to play secondary to those of South Korea.
Negotiate a treaty with a nation that crosses seas kidnaps 12 year old girls and enslaves them?
How about acting crazier than they act and scaring the bejezus out of them?
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