The Patriotic Song, Part 3

(You may wish to read Part 1 and Part 2; then again, you may not.)

First, the latest news: South Korea tightens security ahead of drill, November 26, 2010:

South Korea is now on its highest state of alert against further provocations by North Korea ahead of a joint military drill with the United States that is scheduled to start on Sunday.

The military has called back soldiers from vacation to bolster security on Yeonpyong Island, which came under artillery attack by the North on Tuesday. The attack killed 2 soldiers and 2 civilians, wounded at least 18 and destroyed a residential area.

The commander of US forces in South Korea, General Walter Sharp, visited the island on Friday to inspect the extent of the damage. He called the attack an obvious breach of the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War and stressed that the United States will take a firm line with South Korea if North Korea makes further provocations.

The same question I asked in previous parts, I ask now: what are they going to do about it?

The answer is the same: nothing.

Analysis from Déjà vu all over again with North Korea, by Michael J. Green, November 24, 2010:

The pattern is sickeningly familiar. North Korea reveals (or is caught with) a previously unknown nuclear weapons program (except that the intelligence community had warned it was there all along). The United States and its allies vow that this will only lead to further "isolation" of the North (next the comfy pillow). North Korea pledges to bring all out war to the peninsula and engages in dangerous military escalation. The North then invites some well-meaning Americans to Pyongyang to profess their sincere interest in de-nuclearlizing the Korean peninsula, if only the United States would abandon its "hostile policy." Beijing calls for restraint on all sides and an immediate return to talks. The administration is skeptical, but seeing no other path agrees to return to the talks. An agreement is finally hammered out where the North freezes the least interesting part of its fissile material production (temporarily, of course) in exchange for sanctions relief, heavy fuel oil, aid or other concessions. The North waits, cheats on the agreement, creates another crisis, and continues marching towards its goal of marrying nuclear warheads to ballistic missiles and winning acceptance as a full nuclear weapons state.

....repeat as necessary.

I'm not sure how this latest incident connects to the North's ongoing nuclear weapons program (?), but except for that, the rest of the analysis is right on the money: some kind of problem, the North gets away with something, and the US looks weak by wishing China would do something.

In this context, here are excerptw from War talk, and factory visits, by Donald Kirk, November 25, 2010:

SEOUL - The specter of a powerful American naval force steaming into the Yellow Sea escalates the drama of conflict off the Korean Peninsula to a new level of intensity.

The decision to include the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington in a strike force of five vessels defies not only North Korean threats but also the objections of China into what the Chinese have come to regard as their own sphere of influence.

[snip]

North Korea has breathed fresh outrage, promising to launch attacks against hostile forces intruding so much as one millimeter into their own waters. It was on that pretext that North Korea on Tuesday fired 170 shells into an island populated mainly by fishermen and farmers living near bases where South Korean marines were operating.

Hours after the barrage, North Korea was boasting of its success in defeating the South, and the sense now is that the North has made its point. North Korean forces may strike again anywhere, on sea and along the 160-mile land border between the two Koreas, taking South Korea and the US by surprise.

Given that strategy, the appearance of USS George Washington in the Yellow Sea is clearly another act in the drama but not a sign of mounting hostilities. The US command covered the announcement in a veneer of verbiage intended to show that the operation was not only "defensive in nature" but "well planned before yesterday's unprovoked attack".

[snip]

The real problem, however, is that the US and South Korea seem incapable of persuading China to bring enough pressure on North Korea to persuade the North to pull back from a strategy of intermittent violence and intimidation.

The United States has been pleading with China to bring North Korea into line as a prerequisite for any consideration of returning to negotiations.

[snip]

Neither [US President Barack] Obama nor [South Korea's President] Lee [Myung-bak], however, seems willing to go beyond joint exercises.

Okay, so the response will be posturing.

But, what is North Korea up to?

Back to another excerpt from Déjà vu all over again with North Korea:

Anyway, back to what is really happening. And that is this. Kim Jong Un, the 27-year-old third son of Kim Jong Il (recently promoted to Four Star General) needs to demonstrate that he is willing to go all the way to war (in the worlds of the DPRK's Japanese language website). When Kim Jong Il had his coming out party in the 1980s, he demonstrated his bona fides by directing operations to blow-up the South Korean cabinet in Rangoon and plant a bomb in a Korean Airlines Flight, killing everyone aboard.

That is the first goal. The second goal is to knock the United States and its allies off guard after revealing to former Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Sigfried Hecker that the North had built an advanced uranium enrichment facility in violation of all its prior agreements. Sanctions and pressure? Only if you are prepared to be met with massive firepower. That is the message to the outside world.

Oh! There's the nuclear connection... my mistake.

This round of the North Korean game is more dangerous though, for two reasons. First, Kim Jong Un is on much shakier ground than Kim Jong Il was three decades ago. The fabric of North Korean society and the legitimacy of the regime are much more fragile. It is not clear whether the younger "Great General" or the aging "Dear Leader" will be able to pull back from escalation as easily as they have in the past.

The second reason this is more dangerous is because uranium enrichment opens a new production line of potentially a bomb a year to the North. This is particularly threatening when one considers North Korea's support for Syria's El Kibar reactor construction, which Israel bombed in 2007, and Pyongyang's dialogue with Burma about a similar capability. It is also worrisome since the centrifuge facility shown to Hecker may only be one part of the North Korean uranium enrichment (and probably highly enriched uranium) capability.

Okay, that makes some sense. Here, Green's analysis seems in my opinion to be a little generous toward Obama:

The Obama administration's opening response has been smart. They have not fueled the sense of crisis in a way that would give Pyongyang more leverage, but they have shown resolve by deploying the USS George Washington to the coast of the peninsula.

But, from there, we go back to hoping China will act in the best interests of the US, South Korea, other neighbors (Japan), and world peace in general.

I, for one, am not holding my breath waiting for a communist regime to do that.

If you are following this series, don't just look for Part 4, but watch also for another series entitled "Abode of the Kings". ;)

The Patriotic Song, Part 2

We began with Part 1, where we considered the most recent crisis in Korea over the sinking of the South Korean corvette by a North Korean torpedo - an obvious act of war. Specifically, I was wondering what would happen, even as I was strongly suggesting nothing would.

I would now like to call your attention to Seoul plotted a course through crisis by Andrei Lankov at Asia Times Online, dated May 25, 2010. In it, the author makes the point that South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak was handed a lose-lose situation. Essentially, military retaliation would serve no international purpose, as, even if successful and without losses to South Korea, Pyongyang would still be able to deny losses to its own people, and paint Seoul (and the US) as the aggressors. On the other hand, there would be domestic pressure on President Lee for some kind of reaction; anything Lee did would weaken his hand domestically in the run-up to elections in June. [These elections are for mayors, governors and such - kind of a combination between off-year and odd-year elections in the US.] Lankov makes the case that President Lee is in fact maneuvering quite adeptly in this political situation; though he might not emerge as the winner, Lee could at least emerge as the survivor. Please read Seoul plotted a course through crisis for yourself, as my synopsis does not do it justice.

Meanwhile, though, how goes the crisis beyond Seoul? From DPRK decides to sever all inter-Korean relations, dated May 25, 2010:

PYONGYANG, May 25 (Xinhua) -- A spokesman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea announced on Tuesday the Democratic People's Republic of Korea will sever all the relations with South Korea, the official KCNA news agency reported.

The DPRK decided to take "resolute measures" to totally freeze the inter-Korean relations, abrogate the agreement on non-aggression between the two sides and completely halt the inter-Korean cooperation, the spokesman said in a statement.

Among the eight measures to be taken at the first phase, all the relations with South Korea will be cut off, and the work of the Panmunjom Red Cross liaison representatives will be completely suspended, said the statement.

The South Korean personnel in the Kaesong Industrial Zone will be expelled, it added.

"The passage of South Korean ships and airliners through the territorial waters and air of north side will be totally banned," said the statement.

Big deal! North Korea sank a South Korean warship, and now they're getting away with it. This is just tit-for-tat stuff here, in reaction to the South's slightly toughened position. From ROK president gives nod to calling DPRK "main enemy", dated May 25, 2010:

SEOUL, May 25 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday gave his backing to readopting the official description of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) as the "main enemy," following Seoul's public accusation of its northern rival of deliberately sinking its warship in March, local media reported.

"Our military failed to clarify the notion of the main enemy for the past decade," Lee said at a meeting with senior opinion leaders including former prime ministers and parliament speakers, according to Lee's office.

"We've been only focused on potential threats outside the Korean peninsula," he added.

The remarks come as the government is reportedly moving to revive the controversial concept of the "main enemy" in its biennial defense white paper, the first time in six years, as it concluded last week that Pyongyang was behind the sinking of the warship that killed 46 sailors.

Seoul has announced a series of punitive measures against the DPRK a day ago, which include anti-submarine drills with the United States, ban on access of DPRK vessels to South Korean waters and halt of almost all bilateral trade relations and exchanges.

But, what are they going to do about it?

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy nut (which I already am, by the way), let's consider what the North has been saying about this. From DPRK dismisses S. Korean warship investigation as unilateral, dated May 25, 2010:

PYONGYANG, May 25 (Xinhua) -- A military commentator of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Tuesday said the investigation of the sinking of South Korean warship Cheonan was unilateral and not objective, the official KCNA news agency reported.

The investigation was "not conducted on a scientific basis," but unilaterally done to serve the purpose of South Korea, KCNA quoted the anonymous commentator as saying in an article to "disclose the truth behind the story about the north's torpedo attack on Cheonan."

"It was not objective but was based on bias and arbitrariness," he said, accusing the result of the probe as "a lie."

The commentator said the result of the investigation was "sheer fabrication," and that evidence, including "a small amount of powder ingredients," "alloy fragments" and a 1.5m-long rear part of a torpedo with letters "No. 1" written in the "writing style of the north" aroused strong doubts.

I don't for a moment suspect that North Korea is innocent. I would like to point out, though, that at first, I believed our own government's story about the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 attack on the WTC - so, I can be fooled.

Having said that, what if this really is a scheme by someone in Seoul to rally everyone around the ROK flag? The Nazis faked an attack by Poland to have a pretext for invading Poland. In America, we have questions about the sinking of the USS Maine, about whether all that was possible was done to prevent the attacks on Pearl Harbor or 9/11...

(Attention President Lee: Please do not be offended. I in no way meant to compare you to Hitler, or even to America's own crooked politicians. I was merely pointing out some historical events that are known or suspected to not have happened they way we have been told by the officials of some governments.)

If this were some South Korean scheme for political purposes, with a goal of consolidating domestic political power, then the limp reaction we see from South Korea would make sense.

Of course, it makes far more sense to take it at face value: North Korea slapped the South in the face (for whatever reason), and knows they'll get away with it; the South's President Lee is maneuvering adeptly in treacherous political waters.

Hmmm...

You know, some of what I read about the markings on that North Korean torpedo does sound a little suspicious...

Of course, who in the world would stick up for Pyongyang?

You don't have to stick up for our Dear Leader, but at least stick around for Part 3!

The Patriotic Song, Part 1

We begin with excerpts from a May 21 (in Asia) article from Businessweek entitled Clinton Heads to China as North Korea Crisis Overshadows Agenda, by Nicole Gaouette:

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Asia today for talks with China and U.S. allies now focused on how to manage a crisis over suspected North Korean involvement in the sinking of a South Korean warship.

Kurt Campbell, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia, said the "central issue" for Clinton will be getting assessments of how to respond to North Korea after an international probe blamed the communist regime for firing a torpedo that killed 46 South Korean sailors on March 26.

The U.S. is "facing a very serious set of circumstances in the coming days," Campbell said in Washington on May 19.

South Korea demanded a "stern" global response to the findings of the international panel. North Korea threatened "all-out war" if the United Nations toughens sanctions that have already crippled a country suffering from crop failure and mass hunger.

Well, we certainly wouldn't want to impose sanctions and starve the poor North Korean people.

Of course, the trouble is, Americans (and, of course, many others on the world scene) are decent people; we don't consider the North Korean people our enemy, even if their government leaves a great deal to be desired.

Well, think about it - so does our own; but, even the Obamanistas aren't that bad (thank God for our Constitution).

But, the North Korean people don't suffer because of any sanctions; they suffer because of an idiotic and brutal regime that runs the country. Even if food were sent to North Korea, the food would be diverted to the soldiers of the Korean People's Army; it wouldn't get to the suffering people.

So, better to starve the militarized state of resources than to feed its war machine.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said South Korea must take the initiative in any response. "This was an attack on a South Korean ship and the South Koreans need to be in the lead," he said yesterday.

For years, behind the scenes the concern for peace on the peninsula was not that the North Koreans might come south; the concern was that the South Koreans might go north, and that the American forces there as a tripwire were more to keep South Koreans on the South of the DMZ than the North Koreans on the North of it.

Maybe the South Koreans should go north.

And, maybe we should not try to stop them.

Skipping down, the article mentions other issues on the agenda, then says:

U.S. officials said all those issues will take second place to talks about the South Korean finding that its 1,200-ton naval ship "Cheonan" was torpedoed by China's ally, North Korea. China called for "calm and restraint" yesterday, and Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said China was conducting its own assessment of the incident.

The government that killed 3,000 of its own peacefully demonstrating citizens in Tiananmen Square in 1989 is calling for calm and restraint. That's quality.

North Korea's own news website - which is quite lame, even by MSM standards - has nothing on this topic. You would think they would be howling about US provocations and threatening armageddon if attacked. I think their news service's silence says something about Pyongyang's guilt in this incident.

In Japan Today, there is an article entitled N Korea crisis looms as Clinton heads to Japan, date May 21. It begins:

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's three-nation Asia tour is likely to be dominated by a new crisis with North Korea — this time accused of sinking a South Korean naval ship with a deadly torpedo attack.

South Korea's release Wednesday of a report blaming North Korea for the March 26 sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan changed the outlook for Clinton's trip, her fifth to Asia as America's top diplomat.

Just hours before Clinton departed, the White House called the ship sinking an "act of aggression" that is "one more instance of North Korea's unacceptable behavior and defiance of international law." In a statement, officials called it "a challenge to international peace and security and ... a violation of the Armistice Agreement" that ended the Korean War.

As you are likely aware, the Korean War did not end with a peace treaty. It basically ended with a cease-fire. The United States, part of the UN coalition that responded to the North Korean attack on the South, is technically still at war with North Korea, though it is a war with a UN flag over it.

And, that is interesting.

An internationally-sanctioned war ended in a cease-fire, which has now been violated by the country that began the war and was militarily punished by an international force for its aggression.

So, why doesn't the international community go in and kick North Korea's butt for this "violation of the Armistice Agreement"? No one needs any further resolution - just the resolve to deal with the fourth- (or maybe fifth-?) largest army in the world.

Come to think of it, North Korea is the most heavily-militarized society in the world. Entire airbases - including runways - are dug under mountains; aircraft can launch directly out of holes in the mountains. Extensive formations of elite forces are ready to infiltrate south of the DMZ into the enemy's rear area, via aircraft, submersible, boat, tunnel, and other means, and cause the enemy to fight not just advancing hordes of North Korean troops supported by armor and artillery, but commandoes and saboteurs behind the lines as well.

Maybe that is why no one will go into Pyongyang and deal with East Asia's little bully - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea projects too tough an image.

So, as a May 21 article in Asia Times Online concludes:

This is a standoff in which it's wise to expect the unexpected. The sense, though, is the North has made a fundamental point. There's not much South Korea will do beside engage in threats and words while China makes up for the losses in trade, aid and diplomatic sympathy.

Bush-43 made noise about weapons of mass destruction (WMD), labeling Iraq, Iran and North Korea an "Axis of Evil". Though Iraq had no WMD, it got invaded, and its regime changed. But North Korea thumbed its nose at America's Decider-in-Chief, and declared that it had indeed tested a nuclear weapon - twice.

Nothing happened.

Now North Korea has committed an overt act of war, a violation of a cease-fire, targeting a country it is still technically at war with - a country that has standing international sanction to clean North Korea's clock.

And nothing will happen.

Unless and until...

Stay tuned for Part 2.