BS: WAR declared by North Korea

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Stu
Date: 04 Apr 13 - 09:41 AM

"If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck..."

It might be a decoy.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: beardedbruce
Date: 04 Apr 13 - 08:34 AM

Beijing rejects North's envoy request
Apr 04,2013
BEIJING - Pyongyang has allegedly asked Beijing to send them an envoy in order to improve their soured relations, but Beijing turned it down, seen as a warning regarding the regime's recent warmongering rhetoric.

Multiple sources in Beijing told the JoongAng Ilbo on Tuesday that "North Korea asked China to send a high-ranking envoy at the deputy-ministerial-level, but China rejected it.

"China said 'if they want an envoy, North Korea should send their envoy [to China] first,'" the source said.

However, the North hasn't sent an envoy to Beijing so far, the sources said.

If they do, China is likely to pressure them to stop saber-rattling and return to the six-party talks.

Since the communist allies established diplomatic ties in 1949, they have exchanged high-level envoys, at the deputy-minister level, once or twice a year.

However, since Li Jianguo, a member of the Politburo of China, visited North Korea on Nov. 29, 2012, there has been no high-level meeting between the two countries.

It is the second time for the two countries to suspend high-level interaction over several months.

In 1992, when South Korea and China established diplomatic relations, the two allies were disconnected for some months as well.

The sources said China tried to send Wu Dawei, the special representative for Korean Peninsula Affairs, to Pyongyang, and urge them to scrap nuclear test plans, but North Korea reportedly rejected the envoy.

China also planned to send a ministerial-level envoy to North Korea in the wake of the regime's Feb. 12 nuclear weapons test, but it was also turned down.

In March, Beijing also tried to send Li Zhaoxing, the former Chinese Foreign Minister, to the regime and stop further provocations, but Pyongyang also refused it.

Frustrated by the repeated refusals, China finally joined the UN Security Council's adoption of a resolution to impose tougher sanctions on Pyongyang, and the bilateral relations between the two allies, which have been "a friendship in blood," have deteriorated.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Apr 13 - 12:32 PM

Rap,

I do not believe YOU have offered GregF any support in his attacks.




But Jack...

To comment on ME , because of my politics, without saying a word about GregF and his stated racist comments implies a level of support for him, and a desire to reduce freedom of speech for those you disagree with. Support him if you wish, but you are judged by those you give support to.


If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Rapparee
Date: 03 Apr 13 - 09:57 AM

Hey! Don't include ME in that! I'm just a pre-Fascist and pre-Communist and my application to be head of the Secret Police after ANY revolution has already been submitted.

If y'all had read the press from the Yonhap News Agency, as I suggested some posts back instead of calling each other names, you would have known about the Kaesong situation last night. ROK workers are still being delayed from exiting.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: beardedbruce
Date: 03 Apr 13 - 08:49 AM

When I post my opinion, I am criticized for not posting the article.

When I post the article, I am criticized for not posting my opinion.

When I post the link, I am criticized because it is gone after a few weeks.

When I post ANYTHING, GregF and his supporters, who seem to have no probelem with Greg stating the "Black and a Democrat" is the same thing as "Dumb Ni**er", make attacks on ME, and no comment at all upon the posted information.


Typical Liberals- all fascists when it comes down to any discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Lighter
Date: 03 Apr 13 - 08:46 AM

Kim's just shut barred ROK workers from Kaesong:

http://news.yahoo.com/nkorea-refuses-let-skoreans-enter-042653455.html

According to the report, this will cost NK a lot more in cash than it will SK.

And a leading Congressman now says that any threatening military movements in the North will result in a pre-emptive attack.

The situation is now less funny than a few days ago. Kim is miffed about the imposition by the UN (i.e., the whole world) of new anti-nuclear sanctions.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 03 Apr 13 - 06:32 AM

I `ad that Kim Jong Il (which probably described `is condition) in my cab last year. `e was the Glorious and Eternel Leader, father of the present tubby bloke their generals like to wheel out, Nap-Po-Lee-"UN". `e was writing in this ruddy great book.
I said, "Morning Dong. What you writing in there then? Is it a new austerity grocery list for all your coolies?"
`e said, "Nah Jim. It`s my autobiography for my son."
I said, "Oh yeah. Where you up to then?"
`e said, "I `ve just got to the bit where I invented the mobile phone and where, on my first round of golf, I scored nine holes in one!!"


Whaddam I Like??

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Lighter
Date: 02 Apr 13 - 07:22 PM

All very interesting, but the Chinese want war with us about as much as we want war with them.

Any treaty to "defend" North Korea would be inoperative if the Chinese conclude that Kim struck first.

And Kim knows it.

Presumably.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 02 Apr 13 - 05:51 PM

Greg F,

Don't know if he has ever considered it. But he has been asked to do it many many times. Furthermore he has been asked to present a comment or opinion of his own with the cut and pastes.

On the other hand. I'll try to stop giving him the exquisite satisfaction of having provoked a reaction if you will.

Deal?

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Greg F.
Date: 02 Apr 13 - 05:27 PM

You got a strange definition of "attack", there, BeeBee, never mind "personal attack".. I think its just your persecution complex again. How long since you've seen your alienist?

Now, how about the point I raised?

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: beardedbruce
Date: 02 Apr 13 - 04:18 PM

China has placed military forces on heightened alert in the northeastern part of the country as tensions mount on the Korean peninsula following recent threats by Pyongyang to attack, U.S. officials said.

Reports from the region reveal the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) recently increased its military posture in response to the heightened tensions, specifically North Korea's declaration of a "state of war" and threats to conduct missile attacks against the United States and South Korea.

According to the officials, the PLA has stepped up military mobilization in the border region with North Korea since mid-March, including troop movements and warplane activity.

China's navy also conducted live-firing naval drills by warships in the Yellow Sea that were set to end Monday near the Korean peninsula, in apparent support of North Korea, which was angered by ongoing U.S.-South Korean military drills that are set to continue throughout April.

North Korea, meanwhile, is mobilizing missile forces, including road-mobile short- and medium-range missiles, according to officials familiar with satellite imagery of missile bases.

The missile activity is believed to be North Korea's response to the ongoing U.S.-South Korean military exercises that last week included highly publicized flights by two B-2 strategic nuclear bombers near North Korean territory as part of annual military exercises.

North Korea's government announced last week that since March 26 its missile and artillery forces have been placed on the highest alert status.

Specifically, Nodong medium-range missiles and their mobile launchers were spotted in satellite imagery, the officials said.

There are also indications North Korea will soon conduct a flight test of its new KN-08 road-mobile ICBM or its intermediate-range Musudan mobile missile. Test preparations had been detected in the past, the officials said.

A military provocation by North Korean forces against the South is not expected while the current war games are underway in South Korea, officials said.

However, the situation remains dangerous as hostilities could break out as a result of a miscalculation. South Korea's government has said it would respond to any North Korean military provocation with force.

The Chinese military activities near North Korea were detected in Jilin Province, and intelligence reports from the area on March 19 indicated that PLA forces were ordered to go to "Level One" alert status, the highest level of readiness.

Large groups of soldiers were seen on the streets in Ji'an, a city in Jilin, amid reports that the PLA had been ordered to combat readiness status.

PLA heavy armored vehicles, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, were reported moving near the Yalu River that separates China from North Korea.

The troops were part of the 190th Mechanized Infantry Brigade, stationed in Benxi, in Liaoning Province. The movements are believed to be related to increased tensions in Korea.

Additionally, PLA troops and military vehicles were seen near Baishan, in Jilin province, around March 21.

Low-flying PLA air force jets, believed to be fighters, also were heard and seen at several border locations in China, including Yanji and Yanbian in Jilin, Kuancheng, in Hebei province, and Dandong, in Liaoning province.

Chinese forces along the border responded to some unknown event in North Korea near Siniju on March 21 that involved Chinese fighter jets flying over the area.

The officials said the Chinese military activities appear to be based on concerns about a new outbreak of conflict between North Korea and South Korea and the United States.

China's military maintains a long-standing defense treaty with the North that obligates China to defend North Korea in the event it is attacked. The last time Chinese forces backed Pyongyang was during the Korean War when tens of thousands of Chinese "volunteers" drove south into the peninsula.

Chinese military spokesmen frequently refer to their relations with the Korean People's Army, as the North Korean military is called, as ties "as close as lips and teeth."

Other reports from China indicate that the heightened tensions have led to a disruption of trade between China and North Korea along the border between the two countries.

One sign of slowed commerce between China and North Korea was a Chinese Internet report from a restaurant owner in Dandong, China, a border city, who said commerce between the two countries was disrupted following North Korea's Feb. 12 underground nuclear test.

Since that time, it has been more difficult for the goods from North Korea to reach China because the North Korean Customs Office closed frequently as a result of increased Chinese inspections of North Korean goods.

U.S. officials and private analysts said the slowdown may be a sign of Beijing's displeasure at the North Korean nuclear test.

China also held up exports of crude oil to North Korea in February, according to customs data reviewed by Reuters news agency. The agency said in a report that it was the first time deliveries of oil were cut since early 2007.

However, in a sign of continuing close relations, the government of Jilin province announced March 27 that it plans to modernize railway links to North Korea to bolster cross-border economic and trade ties.

The China Tumen-North Korea Rajin Railway and China Tumen-North Korea Chongjin Railway will be upgraded under the Jilin government plan, China's official Global Times reported.

Additionally, the Chinese plan to set up a special highway passenger line to connect Tumen to North Korea over the next several years.

Other reports from the region stated that North Korean cities in the northern part of the country were placed on "combat" alert and have conducted evacuation drills, officials said.

The drills have been carried out in three-day to five-day intervals when power and water supplies were suspended as part of the exercises.

Chinese citizens living in border cities in China also reported hearing air-raid sirens as part of the exercises, officials said.

U.S. officials say China's main fear for its fraternal communist client regime in North Korea is a collapse of order that leads to large-scale refugee flows into China.

Reports from inside North Korea also revealed that North Korean soldiers have been issued bread, instant noodles, sausages, milk, and dried fish that appeared to be supplied by the United Nations as aid meant for the civilian population.

The Feb. 12 underground blast, North Korea's third, is credited by analysts with setting off the latest round of belligerence by the Pyongyang regime.

After the test, the U.S. government continued to refuse to acknowledge North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

That prompted the regime of North Korea's Kim Jong Un to issue unprecedented threats to fire nuclear missiles at the United States.

The Pentagon responded by using annual military exercises with South Korea to fly B-52 strategic bombers and later B-2s near North Korea.

Frontline F-22 fighter-bombers, the Air Force's most advanced jets, were sent on Sunday to take part in the military drills.

North Korea's latest threats included announcing a state of war and cutting off military and other communications.

North Korea's ruling communist Korean Workers Party announced on Sunday that the nuclear arsenal is the "nation's life" and would not be given up even if offered "billions of dollars," the Associated Press reports.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Apr 13 - 11:34 AM

Gee, Greg, ya ever consider just stop following my posts and making personal attacks???

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Apr 13 - 11:29 AM

Gee, Bruce, ya ever consider just posting a link to the original articleinstead of your edited cut-and-paste jobs?

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Apr 13 - 10:52 AM

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea will strike back quickly if the North stages any attack, the new president in Seoul warned on Monday, as tensions ratcheted higher on the Korean peninsula amid shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang and the U.S. deployment of radar-evading fighter planes.
North Korea says the region is on the brink of a nuclear war in the wake of United Nations sanctions imposed for its February nuclear test and a series of joint U.S. and South Korean military drills that have included a rare U.S. show of aerial power.
The North, whose economy is smaller than it was 20 years ago, appeared to move on Monday to addressing its pressing need for investment by appointing a reformer to the country's ceremonial prime minister's job, although the move mostly cemented a power grab by the ruling Kim clan.
North Korea had said on Saturday it was entering a "state of war" with South Korea in response to what it termed the "hostile" military drills being staged in the South. But there have been no signs of unusual activity in the North's military to suggest an imminent aggression, a South Korean defense ministry official said last week.
"If there is any provocation against South Korea and its people, there should be a strong response in initial combat without any political considerations," President Park Geun-hye told the defense minister and senior officials at a meeting on Monday.
The South has changed its rules of engagement to allow local units to respond immediately to attacks, rather than waiting for permission from Seoul.
Stung by criticism that its response to the shelling of a South Korean island in 2010 was tardy and weak, Seoul has also threatened to target North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and to destroy statues of the ruling Kim dynasty in the event of any new attack, a plan that has outraged Pyongyang.
Seoul and its ally the United States played down Saturday's statement from the official KCNA news agency as the latest in a stream of tough talk from Pyongyang.
North Korea stepped up its rhetoric in early March, when U.S. and South Korean forces began annual military drills that involved the flights of U.S. B-2 stealth bombers in a practice run, prompting the North to puts its missile units on standby to fire at U.S. military bases in the South and in the Pacific.
The United States also deployed F-22 stealth fighter jets on Sunday to take part in the drills. The F-22s were deployed in South Korea before, in 2010.
On its part, North Korea has cancelled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and cut all hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and South Korea.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS "NOT A BARGAINING CHIP"
Park's intervention came on the heels of a meeting of the North's ruling Workers Party Central Committee where leader Kim Jong-un rejected the notion that Pyongyang was going to use its nuclear arms development as a bargaining chip.
"The nuclear weapons of Songun Korea are not goods for getting U.S. dollars and they are ... (not) to be put on the table of negotiations aimed at forcing the (North) to disarm itself," KCNA news agency quoted him as saying.
At the meeting, Kim appointed a handful of personal confidants to the party's politburo, further consolidating his grip on power in the second full year of his reign.
The most surprising appointment came on Monday as former prime minister Pak Pong-ju was re-appointed as premier, although the move likely signaled another power struggle in Pyongang staged by the country's leader Kim Jong-un.
Pak is viewed as a key ally of Jang Song-thaek, the young Kim's uncle and also a protege of Kim's aunt and is viewed as a pawn in a power game that has seen Jang and his wife re-assert power over military leaders.
Analysts said the move would not likely change Pyongyang's approach to a confrontation that appears to have dragged the two Koreas closer to war.
Pyongyang's on-off negotiations saw it take part in nuclear disarmament talks for five years aimed at paying it off in return for abandoning its atomic weapons program. Those talks fell apart in 2008. Some experts say the talks gave the North grounds to pursue a highly enriched uranium program that took it closer to owning a working arsenal.
Songun is the Korean word for the "Military First" policy preached by Kim's father who used it to justify the use of the impoverished state's scare resources to build a 1.2-million strong army and a weapons of mass destruction program.
CALLS FOR RESTRAINT
White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said North Korea's announcement that it was in a state of war followed a "familiar pattern" of rhetoric.
China has repeatedly called for restraint on the peninsula.
However, many in South Korea have regarded the North's willingness to keep open the Kaesong industrial zone, located just a few miles (km) north of the heavily-militarized border and operated jointly by both sides, as a sign that Pyongyang will not risk losing a lucrative source of foreign currency.
Closure could also trap hundreds of South Korean workers and managers of the more than 100 firms that have factories there.
(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Apr 13 - 09:44 AM

If a DPRK nuclear missile explodes on take-off and goes boom, is that an act of war by the US? These jokers launched one about a year or so ago that fell apart on launch.

Why do I think that the Chinese leadership is trying madly to get Kim to stop acting crazy?

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Apr 13 - 09:33 AM

Look like he's talking about "all-out war and nuclear war" again today, specifically against the US.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: gnu
Date: 31 Mar 13 - 06:05 PM

Sandy... yup. In line with what I said about trying to keep order in his country. Starving people can get kinda irritable.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 31 Mar 13 - 01:33 PM

With a starving population of 24 million and billions spent on military arms while the people eat grass soup, the little twerp tries to justify his existance! Sad indeed!

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Lighter
Date: 31 Mar 13 - 09:07 AM

If he's crazy enough to go to war (and I don't know one way or the other if he is), he's crazy enough to believe he's drone-proof too. (And maybe he is: it was grunts, not drones, who got Saddam Hussein.)

The rhetoric seems to have gone silent for the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 11:02 PM

Fire one nuke, get five in return: US, Britain, China, Russia, France. That's a pretty good investment!

Watch April 15 (Kim Il Sung's birthday) and June 25 (the date the 1950 invasion of the South started).

The loss of life, both civilian and military, would be catastrophic. Seoul is within regular tube artillery range of the DPRK side of the DMZ and there are MANY pieces of artillery emplaced. The special forces of the DPRK are pretty good, but their regular army is "iffy."

If you'd like to read reports from South Korea, here's a link. Read what North Korea says at this link.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Amos
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 08:01 PM

The hills are alive with the echoing thumping of a hairless chest. He may be a nutball but I doubt he's nuts enough to plummet his whole country into the kind of mass suicide a war against the south would entail. The possibility that he could be personally taken out by a drone before a hot war was two days old must have occurred to him.


A

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 07:45 PM

Nor will you, Chongz... This guy is a wuss...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 06:52 PM

You're right that he ain't stupid. I sent him a message, said if he wants to get tough with somebody, I'll fight him in the boxing ring anytime, just call me and we'll set up a time and place and I'll clean his clock. I ain't heard back from the little blowhard. Not a peep.

- Chongo

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 06:39 PM

Kim Jung Un is a wacko but he ain't stupid...

Don't hold yer breath waiting on this new war...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 01:18 PM

According to a statement from P'yongyang earlier today:

"If the puppet traitor group continues to mention the Kaesong industrial zone is being kept operating and damages our dignity, it will be mercilessly shut off and shut down."

Must make sense to somebody....

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Newport Boy
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 10:18 AM

The BBC reports:

The jointly-run Kaesong industrial park is still in operation, however, and over 160 South Korean commuters entered North Korea yesterday to work in its factories.

The complex employs an estimated 50,000 North Korean workers and is a source of badly-needed hard currency for the North.

Phil

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: bobad
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 09:48 AM

"North Korea's threats are seen as efforts to provoke the new government in Seoul, led by President Park Geun-hye, to change its policies toward Pyongyang, and to win diplomatic talks with Washington that could get it more aid. North Korea's moves are also seen as ways to build domestic unity as young leader Kim Jong Un strengthens his military credentials."

By SAM KIM 03/30/13 08:54 AM ET EDT AP

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 08:42 AM

There's no telling what Kim is after, but all this may be related to the routine US-ROK war games going on in the South.

From Kim's point of view - abetted by paranoid advisors scared crapless of missing something and thus being purged as traitors - the war games could be a real preparation for an invasion of the North. By declaring war, Kim accomplishes two things: making the imaginary "aggressors" think twice and, more significantly, making an opportunity for himself to proclaim the triumphant stopping power of the North Korean People's Army when the maneuvers end without incident.

Kim would have to be insane to start a real war on the South, never mind on the US, which would immediately be involved. It would be the end of the North Korean regime - to put it mildly. If nothing else, Kim has the example of Iraq to contemplate.

On the other hand, never underestimate the recklessness of world leaders. Yanking the cord on the hotline in an atmosphere of bellicose threats is plenty reckless.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 05:19 AM

I see Guam is on their list of targets. Have Brett & Wakana got a shelter?

RtS

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: gnu
Date: 30 Mar 13 - 04:05 AM

China recently changed their take on the situation and not only joined the sanctions but urged that they be imposed. China talks... bullshit walks. If that little twit keeps up this crap, he ain't gnna live as long as his old man.

As for fox crazy, he may be just that. I pose a thought : might he be simply trying to control his own people due to serious problems in the economy and a food shortage?

On a note upon which I am more knowledgible, could the thread title be changed so that I don't immediately search the web for braaking news on something that didn't happen? No need to get technical... the title is misleading.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 29 Mar 13 - 11:51 PM

"Seattle, which, apart from some places in Alaska, is one of the closest metropolitan areas to N. Korea"

There are a few easier targets.

Honolulu?
Sydney, Melborne, Canberra?
Tokyo?
Soeul?

Bejing?
Shanghai?
Hong Kong?

I'm sure there are a couple of others.

I think LA and San Francisco are much more significant targets.

They only have a half dozen A-bombs none small enough for a ballistic missile and no accurate ballistic missiles.

I hope that eases your mind a little.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Mar 13 - 11:19 PM

North Korea threats predictable but Kim Jong Un is not, analysts say

KCNA via EPA

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a meeting with his generals where he ordered strategic rocket forces to be on standby to strike U.S. and South Korean targets.

By Tracy Connor, Staff Writer, NBC News

Analysis

Is Kim Jong Un crazy -- or crazy like a fox?

Analysts said Friday there's a familiar method to the madness coming out of North Korea, where the rookie supreme leader has put rockets on standby, threatened to "settle accounts" with the U.S., and posed near a chart that appeared to map missile strikes on American cities. On Saturday, North Korea said it had entered a "state of war" against South Korea, according to a statement reported by the north's official news agency, KCNA.

Kim Jong Un's father and grandfather were also serial saber-rattlers when they headed the secretive regime, and experts said there are clear strategic reasons why the world's youngest head of state is ramping up the rhetoric now, after little more than a year in power.

But if the bluster is predictable, the results may not be.
North Korea has enhanced its nuclear capabilities and Kim Jong Un has something to prove to his people and the world. Some outside observers are warning that a misstep, or overstep, by Pyongyang could bring north Asia to the brink of war.

"I think there is always room for miscalculation and things spiraling out of control," said Sung-Youn Lee, professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. "But he is following the playbook set by his father and grandfather."

North Korea is "very adept at engaging at psychological warfare," Lee said. It cranks up the tensions, putting pressure on Seoul and Washington, and is rewarded with aid and concessions when it tones things down, Lee said.

"No leader wants a foreign policy crisis created by North Korea on their hands ... the impulse is to de-escalate," Lee added. "North Korea has been very good at playing this game -- nuclear diplomacy, even extortion -- for the past 20 years."

This time around, foreign-policy watchers said, a confluence of circumstances have set the stage for Kim Jong Un's provocations:

-- Pyongyang is stewing over the U.N. Security Council, with the support of China, tightening sanctions after satellite and nuclear testing that suggested they could one day attack the U.S.

-- There are new administrations in South Korea, China and Tokyo, and President Barack Obama is making second-term changes to his defense and national-security leadership, so the timing is right to test the waters.

-- Kim Jong Un may need to consolidate his political power at home. A strong response by the U.S. or South Korea, such as this week's B-2 bomber flyover, helps rally domestic support and distract from economic problems.

-- North Korea's last nuclear test showed progress. "You feel you can afford to threaten because you feel you have a deterrent," said Scott Snyder, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Joel Wit, visiting fellow at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said that from the North Korean perspective, Kim Jong Un and his lieutenants "aren't crazy" and are falling back on a tried-and-true strategy.

"They're a very small country dealing with much more powerful countries, and they can't show any weakness. For them, the best defense is a good offense," he said.

Yet Snyder said Kim Jong Un's standing as a new, untested ruler is "the real wild-card factor that makes this different."

The 30-year-old appears to be modeling himself on his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, who is more revered inside the country than the recently departed Kim Jong Il, he said.

"But you have to remember that even though Kim Il Sung came into power in his 30s, the first thing he did was start a war with South Korea," Snyder said.

Stephen Noerper, senior vice president of the Korea Society, noted that 2013 has special significance: it's the 60th anniversary of the armistice that ended that war.

Kim Jong Un's decision to cut the hotline used to arrange cross-border crossing by workers with Seoul was "worrying," he said.
"The wordage is hot and what you don't want is the evolution of a hot conflict," he said. "There should be heightened vigilance even if the expectation is that it will blow over."

A hit on U.S. targets seems highly unlikely and would be "suicidal," Lee said. But South Korea and Japan are within striking distance, and many experts say it's not impossible that Kim Jong Un could act rashly.

"While these weapons can't reach the U.S., it's an extremely tense situation, and wars don't always start logically," Wit said.

Experts were waiting to see the actual impact of North Korea's "state of war" declaration early Saturday.

"Talk is one thing, actions are another," Snyder said.

John

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Mar 13 - 11:14 PM

When I first heard that Kim Jung-un was mouthing off again (delusions of adequacy), I was a bit concerned. North Korea has conducted nuclear tests and they have also conducted missile tests. And I live in Seattle, which, apart from some places in Alaska, is one of the closest metropolitan areas to N. Korea.

But the Powers That Be have said that N. Korea doesn't have any missiles that could get as far as Guam or the Hawaiian Islands, much less to the continental United States.

China, on the other hand, is getting bit tired of N. Korea's perpetual posturing.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Mar 13 - 11:10 PM

No one is sure what they (or 'He') is thinking... whether this is serious or just a ploy... whatever, it show VERY bad judgment. I'm not sure they realize just how many eyes are watching and how any offensive act would be met with sad results.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Mar 13 - 11:01 PM

Yes, JtS, that's correct.

Subject: RE: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 29 Mar 13 - 09:55 PM

Isn't that news a couple of weeks old? The Korean war never ended and he called off the truce then.

Subject: BS: WAR declared by North Korea
From: pdq
Date: 29 Mar 13 - 09:19 PM

It did not appear on the national news feed from my ABC radio affiliate.

However, the North Korean chief nut seems to have declared war on South Korea whom we will defend at all cost.

While the Right talks about limiting abortions and the Left talks endlessly gay marriage, the World is falling apart.