Kim Jong Il Orders Military to Get Ready for Combat

[Puppycow]

Linky

May 25 (Bloomberg) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Il ordered the military to get ready for “combat”, a defector group, the North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, reported on its website

Could mean war is imminent, but it could mean nothing.

The Dear Leader doesn't have many years left on this earth. Maybe he wants to go out in a blaze of glory. He obviously doesn't give a crap about the people of North Korea. Maybe he wants the regime to survive to pass on to his descendants, but I'm not so sure. Maybe he doesn't give much of a crap about them either. Hasn't he sent them all off to be raised, educated and cared for by others?

 

[Thunder]

i really don't think NK should bluff....cause the USA and SK will call it...and Dear Leader may prefer war than damage his image.

 

[portlandatheist]

On one hand, the current situation really freaks me out. NK would be an obvious loser if the conflict escalates but damage to both sides could be enormous. On the other hand, it seems like they are always on the precipice of war but it never comes to fruition so there is always the cry wolf syndrome. Still, tensions and rhetoric are pretty extreme right now.

 

[Thunder]

I will be perfectly honest: the idea of a full war in Korea is scaring the crap out of me.

I am rarely frightened by stupid terror alerts or even that silly make believe car bomb incident in Times Square.

But the idea of a full conventional conflict involving our troops in Korea, really frightens me.

Millions could die.

I know we must prevent NK from attacking South Korea or anyone else......but there has got to be a way to do that without starting a whole damn war.

....or maybe there isn't. maybe this is just an inevitability that we have been lucky to avoid for many years, but was just doomed to happen some day.

ugg.

 

[portlandatheist]

I will be perfectly honest: the idea of a full war in Korea is scaring the crap out of me.

I am rarely frightened by stupid terror alerts or even that silly make believe car bomb incident in Times Square.

But the idea of a full conventional conflict involving our troops in Korea, really frightens me.

Millions could die.

I know we must prevent NK from attacking South Korea or anyone else......but there has got to be a way to do that without starting a whole damn war.

....or maybe there isn't. maybe this is just an inevitability that we have been lucky to avoid for many years, but was just doomed to happen some day.

ugg.

Well the idea scares the crap out of me too but how likely do you think that push will come to shove? The whole problem with NK is that the dear leader is a complete wild card.

 

[Thunder]

Well the idea scares the crap out of me too but how likely do you think that push will come to shove? The whole problem with NK is that the dear leader is a complete wild card.

who the hell knows. he may think this is finally his time to go out with a bang.

maybe they would rather lose it all..then continue wallowing like beggers.

 

[drkitten]

Well the idea scares the crap out of me too but how likely do you think that push will come to shove? The whole problem with NK is that the dear leader is a complete wild card.

That's the problem.

I seem to remember the Mafia finding special uses for made men who had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer or something like that. The idea being that if there is a target that is just too tough to hit, one where it would just be a suicide mission, you can still send someone who's going to die of cancer before his case even comes to trial....

I suspect that Kim would prefer to see his final months involve combat with his hated enemies, ignoring the long-term consequences that he won't be around to see. Just how healthy is he?

 

[Undesired Walrus]

There's nothing new here, the North Korean army is always on a permanent state of readiness.

 

[GlennB]

On the surface it's scary that China backs NK while USA backs SK.

On the other hand, China and The West are now economically and socially inter-dependent. For example, western Universities are heaving with the kids of the upper echelons of Chinese society (Harvard and Oxford have their own Chinese students' association, and they were the only two I looked up). The economic ties we know about.

Serious armed conflict in Korea would be something that China would be totally determined to avoid. It would not surprise me one bit to find Chinese 'influence' running through the top-level NK chain of command. And Kim can't push the buttons by himself.

imo. I merely hope it's true.

 

[lionking]

On the surface it's scary that China backs NK while USA backs SK.

On the other hand, China and The West are now economically and socially inter-dependent. For example, western Universities are heaving with the kids of the upper echelons of Chinese society (Harvard and Oxford have their own Chinese students' association, and they were the only two I looked up). The economic ties we know about.

Serious armed conflict in Korea would be something that China would be totally determined to avoid. It would not surprise me one bit to find Chinese 'influence' running through the top-level NK chain of command. And Kim can't push the buttons by himself.

imo. I merely hope it's true.

I'm absolutely certain you are correct. A sanction on the import of Chinese goods to the US and other nations if they support NK aggression would be disasterous to both China and the rest of the world and would make the GFC look like a tea party.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

"We do not hope for war but if South Korea, with the US and Japan on its back, tries to attack us, Kim Jong-il has ordered us to finish the task of unification left undone during the ... [Korean] war," it quoted the broadcast as saying.

I don't know what Kim sees as an 'attack' (Perhaps the dropping of leaflets will be seen as one), but this seems to be code for 'leave us well alone, don't try and change us, don't go ahead with the multi-nation talks'.

 

[arthwollipot]

North Korea has a long history of sabre-rattling. The Kim Jong Il has a lot of sabres, and he loves the sound of them rattling. So he rattles his sabres as loudly and as often as he can, because he thinks we like the sound as well.

 

[timhau]

There's nothing new here, the North Korean army is always on a permanent state of readiness.

... but that is only because they have to be on guard against the army of Yankee-loving imperialist baby eaters to the South.

 

[Damien Evans]

... but that is only because they have to be on guard against the army of Yankee-loving imperialist baby eaters to the South.

Them babies sure do taste yummy.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

The infuriating and inspiring Hitchens on the issue:
http://www.slate.com/id/2254826/

Here's a fine point:

The dirty secret here is that no neighboring power really wants the North Korean population released from its awful misery. Here are millions of stunted and unemployable people, traumatized and deformed by decades of pointless labor on the plantations of a mad despot. The South Koreans do not really want these hopeless cases on the soil of their flourishing consumer society. The Chinese, who have a Korean-speaking province that borders North Korea, are likewise unwilling to suffer the influx of desperate people that is in our future. I can't see the United States accepting them in its present mood. Kim Jong-il's junta knows this, as it knows that we are not prepared to fight him. So the deliberate mass starvation and the nuclear blackmail are two aspects of the same depraved system. (Incidentally, if that system doesn't deserve to be called evil, I don't know what does.)

Blackmail is a good term for how Kim prolongs his horrific regime (And if anyone thinks nuclear deterrence is a good thing, look here to see how it can be used to keep a repugnant regime in power through the threat of sheer madness being unleashed over Asia). It seems that the only way the North can come out of the dark ages is for its people to be exposed to the spectacular lies they are given, which is what the leaders must fear the most. At the moment this focuses mostly on South Korean propaganda being pumped into North from the DMZ and leaflets dropped from balloons.

It seems we can't even engage with the North now, because they blow up warships to (potentially) get out of talks.

Interestingly enough, 'Cult of Personality' was a phrase coined by none other than Karl Marx, a man who now has the dubious honour of having his picture plastered over Pyongyang. Here's what he had to say about it:

"From my antipathy to any cult of the individual, I never made public during the existence of the [1st] International the numerous addresses from various countries which recognized my merits and which annoyed me... Engels and I first joined the secret society of Communists on the condition that everything making for superstitious worship of authority would be deleted from its statute"

How have personality cults been defeated from within before?

 

[Bikewer]

NK has rattled it's sabers so long and so loudly (just a month or so ago they were threatening to "blow up" America) that it would be difficult to tell if they were actually planning an attack.
They were talking to military analysts on NPR yesterday; the commentators said that the forces in SK were "more than sufficient" to handle any attack. We are not normally told just what the US and SK have arrayed against the North....We are often told that the North has many thousands of artillery pieces set up in range of Seoul, and could cause massive destruction in that heavily-populated city in short order.

 

[arthwollipot]

Wolf!!!

 

[Beerina]

As an aside, this is what I was afraid of when splitting off USA politics and everything else here. It's not a feint at South Korea, it's a feint at the US.


If something starts, who do people think will be doing the heavy lifting to quickly execute long-established plans to obliterate the vast arrays of long range artillery that can reach Seoul from where it is?

 

[Darth Rotor]

As an aside, this is what I was afraid of when splitting off USA politics and everything else here. It's not a feint at South Korea, it's a feint at the US.


If something starts, who do people think will be doing the heavy lifting to quickly execute long-established plans to obliterate the vast arrays of long range artillery that can reach Seoul from where it is?

I'd not sell the ROK short.

 

[tyr_13]

I'd not sell the ROK short.

Whatever happened to the legislation to change what is meant by 'defense only'? Does the JDF have a military option in the game?