Korean Peninsula On The Brink Of War

[American Patriot]

I forget them most of the time. No worries.

We're more concerned at the moment getting as MUCH intelligence as possible. Even the twitter stuff which some of us can NOT access at work.

I have access to the internet at work, and stay on this site most of the day. If you get material off twitter, facebook etc, post the actual material because I can not get to those sites.

If you get some thing off the chinese and NK sites, post that as well, since that too, is blocked for me.

My issue is simple. I work on a military base, inside a restricted area. That means I can't really come and go easily if the crap hits the fan. I want to be able to be as INFORMED as possible to bail out BEFORE the crap hits the fan... I'll be leaving if I even suspect something is about to go down.


once the missiles start flying, I won't be allowed to leave and I'll have to stay there an die with everyone else.

I'm not giving that them that option any more. I left the AF in 2002 and I won't die in vain for my country in a nuclear blast. If' I 'm going down, it will be fighting - not standing around waiting to be vaporized by a 15000 mph warhead we missed.

[BRVoice]

http://twitter.com/TimothyS

1. CNN's Barbara Starr from Pentagon: US "trying to keep S. Korea and both sides from escalating." But "so hard to read NK." >SO TALK TO THEM! 30 minutes ago via TweetDeck
2. CNN just now, from UN Korea talks: "No consensus on a statement is imminent at this time." Russia: Stay calm. US: Condemn NK "aggression." 32 minutes ago via TweetDeck

[AGEUSAF]

As a retired Air Force guy... I an not going to add anything other than... "Oh... shit".

I'm going to pack some bags.

I remember getting everything ready like this late 97 if I remember right...was something else to have that much equipment ready to leave CONUS and every tanker pre-flighted tagged and everyone assigned, that night almost every tanker was gone by daylight being spread out across the globe.

Now I'm sitting here in cold country and my biggest worry has been being hit hard and it being winter in the states which is the worst situation for civilians.....the cold can break a person fast.

[BRVoice]

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/as...pyeong.island/


Residents of South Korean island fleeing ahead of military drills
From Kyung Lah, CNN
December 19, 2010 -- Updated 1942 GMT (0342 HKT)

Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea (CNN) -- Amid South Korean plans to hold live-fire military drills this week and North Korean threats of retaliation, many residents of Yeonpyeong Island are evacuating, afraid of being caught in the middle.

Villagers streamed onto what they believed was the last ferry to Incheon, South Korea, on Sunday, carrying what belongings they could. Some were holding their children as others helped the elderly.

"I'm leaving because they said the drills are tomorrow," said Kim Ok Jin, 66.

Kim said the island was once a good place to live and she does not want to leave.

"Of course I'm angry," she said. "But that's not going to change anything."

Many Yeonpyeong residents are evacuating for a second time. This time, however, they have warning. On November 23, they had none before North Korea began shelling the island. Two civilians and two South Korean Marines died in the attack.

The South Korean military said Thursday that its drills will take place in the seas southwest of Yeonpyeong Island between December 18 and 21, but bad weather forced a delay Saturday. South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported the drills will take place Monday or Tuesday in the Yellow Sea off the island.

As villagers departed, few signs of life remained on the island -- only military trucks patrolling and waiting for possible North Korean retaliation for the drills.

Not everyone on Yeonpyeong, however, was leaving. Song Young Ok said she has not been told to stop selling tickets for the ferry off the island, and doesn't know when the military drills will take place.

Song said she is planning to stay put, holed up along with others in a military bunker.

She said she doesn't know why it has to be this way -- if South Korea carries out the drills, North Korea has threatened to retaliate even more strongly. South Korea's insistence on conducting the drills is picking a fight, she said.

Others were more optimistic. "It's OK," said ferry passenger Lee Chun Nyeo, 83. "The soldiers need to do (the exercises), right?"

Yeonpyeong is located just south of the Northern Limit Line, the line drawn in 1953 by the United Nations just after the Korean War. The U.N. drew the line three nautical miles from the North Korean coast and put five islands close to the coast under South Korean control.

That was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. But in the absence of a full peace agreement, the Northern Limit Line remains in place.

North Korea has suggested an alternative line, but South Korea has resisted, as it would bring the North's maritime boundary close to Incheon, a main port.

Waters in the Yellow Sea are important for fishing and crab. For North Korean fishermen especially, the blue crab season between June and September is an important source of income. Crabs have a habit of migrating south during that time, so the water is sometimes crowded with boats from both countries, as well as vessels from China. However, the Yellow Sea has seen armed clashes in the past few years, the most serious of them in 1999 and 2002.

China and Russia have asked South Korea to reconsider holding the drills. Russia called for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sunday.

CNN's Tim Lister contributed to this report.

[BRVoice]

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldN...6BG1O220101219

U.N. council split on North Korea statement - diplomats
Sun Dec 19, 2010 7:51pm GMT

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council met in emergency session on Sunday to try to cool tensions on the Korean Peninsula, but the five big powers were split on whether to publicly blame North Korea for the crisis.

Pyongyang raised an alert for artillery units along its west coast in what appeared to be its latest move in a growing crisis between the two Koreas, Yonhap news agency said, quoting a South Korean government source. The report was issued ahead of a planned live-fire drill by South Korea.

South Korea's Defence Ministry offered no immediate comment on the Yonhap report. Bad weather has so far delayed the planned firing drill at a disputed border that has enraged Pyongyang.

Both sides have said they will use military means to defend what they say is their territory off the west coast, raising international concern that the standoff could quickly spiral out of control.

The 15 Security Council members were meeting behind closed doors to try to agree on a statement that Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he hoped would send a "restraining signal" to both the North and the South.

Western envoys inside the meeting said the five permanent veto-wielding members were split over whether to blame North Korea for the crisis, as the United States, Britain, and France -- along with Japan -- demand, or to urge both sides to avoid acts that could deepen the crisis, as Russia and China want.

The Chinese, North Korea's staunchest supporters on the council, and Russians reject the idea of assigning blame to Pyongyang, the envoys told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

"The council needs to send a signal that clearly communicates that North Korea has been acting as the aggressor and South Korea is well within its rights to prepare for its self-Defence," a Western diplomat said.


RUSSIAN AND BRITISH DRAFTS

Diplomats told Reuters that a Russian draft statement calls for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to send a special envoy to Seoul and Pyongyang to urge a peaceful solution, and calls on the two sides to exercise "maximum restraint."

The diplomats said the Russian draft was unacceptable to Washington, London, Paris and Tokyo. A British draft statement, obtained by Reuters, has the council saying it "deplores" North Korea's latest actions and urging Pyongyang to "act with restraint," but Russia and China have rejected that draft.

Washington has backed Seoul's push to go ahead with the planned live-fire drill on Yeonpyeong island, where four South Koreans were killed in an artillery attack last month.

The drill, within view of the North Korean mainland, is scheduled to take place sometime before Tuesday. U.S. and Chinese officials have described the situation on the Korean Peninsula as "extremely precarious" and a "tinderbox".

Recent Western attempts to get the Security Council to rebuke Pyongyang over a deadly artillery shelling incident last month and its nuclear program have been blocked by China.

The U.N. Secretariat distributed to council members a document on an investigation of the November 23 shelling incident by the so-called U.N. Command, the U.S.-led military forces in South Korea that monitor compliance with the 1953 Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War.

That probe concluded the South did not violate the armistice with its November 23 military drills in disputed waters, while the North committed a "deliberate and premeditated attack" that was a "serious violation" of the cease-fire, according to the document, which was obtained by Reuters.

North Korea has called the artillery fire drill by the South a suicidal war move that would trigger all-out conflict on the peninsula and said it would strike back in self-Defence.

The South has said if it was attacked in the same manner as last month, it would hit back hard with air power and bombs.

Analysts were skeptical the North would carry through with its threats. The North will likely respond by holding a live-fire drill on its side of the tensely guarded sea border, if the South goes ahead with its exercise, they said.


BAD WEATHER STALLS DRILL

Weather conditions worsened on the normally sleepy Yeonpyeong island, which has been largely abandoned by residents after the November 23 attack.

The South Korean government, widely criticized at home for its perceived weak response to the shelling of the island, remained determined to carry out the exercise. A Defence Ministry official said the weather was the decisive factor.

South Korea's marines plan to test artillery firing from the island targeting its territorial waters to its southwest, the same type of exercise that North Korea last month called an attack and prompted its shelling of the island.

Concern mounted on the island among the few residents who remained, and anticipation was growing that the drill would take place on Monday.

"I see they have to do what they have to do, but the people here want peace and quiet," Dan Choon-nam said after a tearful church service. "We want things to be back to how they were."


(Additional reporting by Kim Do-gyun in Yeonpyeong, Chris Buckley in Beijing; writing by Jack Kim and Patrick Worsnip; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

[American Patriot]

I am extremely concerned about the cold. I have my wife getting warm clothing together this evening mostly for herself. She's the one I worry about.

I just finished going through weapons, ammo and such.

I quized her a bit on what she would grab - she did ok. Mostly I was checking myself to see if *I* would grab same things.


She and I are in the same boat though at work. Both working on military installations each of them 20 miles from home in opposite directions and 40 miles from each other.

If they lock down, we're trapped. I'm just worried about getting us out of the bases so we can be together if the shit starts falling.

[American Patriot]

My whole family has been placed on high alert.

1) Expect the unexpected
2) Prepare for something bad to happen, in case it does.
3) Double check supplies.
4) Instructions in case Mom and Dad never make it home and where things they will need are hidden.

Now... tonight before I go to bed we will each have a survival back pack in our cars for work. I wiill be carrying a weapon from now on til this shit blows over.

[BRVoice]

http://www.nktoday.com/contents/view...isaster-threat

Pyongyang issues ‘massive nuclear disaster’ threat
DECEMBER 19, 2010 22:30

North Korea reiterated its threat Sunday of a “nuclear war disaster” if the South Korean military conducts a firing drill on Yeonpyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, adding the U.S. will have to take responsibility.

The North’s Foreign Ministry said in its statement, “We need to clarify in advance who should take responsibility for a looming second Yeonpyeong incident,” adding, “The U.S. should take the primary responsibility for instigating (South Korea) to conduct an act of aggression.”

“The international community overall, including neighboring countries, urge an unconditional halt of planned shelling drills on Yeonpyeong Island, but the U.S. is openly encouraging an attack,” it said. “We will calculate with the U.S. all extreme situations and aftereffects that occur on the Korean Peninsula.”

“If South Korea pushes ahead with firing drills and shells cross the Northern Limit Line, the South will inevitably embrace an explosion of political chaos on the Korean Peninsula, and resulting tragedy,” it added. “We will inflict decisive and unrelenting punishment on aggressors that infringe upon the sovereignty and territory of our republic.”

Between the Korean People, a Web site run by the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, issued two commentaries saying, “If war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, a massive nuclear disaster far more severe and massive than the Korean War will inflict damage on the Korean people.”

“If shelling takes place on Yeonpyeong Island, it will generate a grave danger to peace on the Korean Peninsula and across Northeast Asia.”

The Chosun Shinbo, the official newspaper of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, a pro-North Korea group, also said, “Had South Korea not canceled its suggested airstrike on North Korea when the Yeonpyeong shelling occurred, it could have expanded to all-out war,” hinting at stern retaliation by Pyongyang if Seoul resorts to measures such as air strikes using fighter jets.

[BRVoice]

http://twitter.com/InnerCityPress

At #UN #Korea meeting media frenzy as #DPRK deputy goes out. In Korean says he'll come back, & “not yet.” Furious scribbling & Blackberrying 19 minutes ago via web

[BRVoice]

I'm not watching the CNN here, but can anyone inform if what I read it's true?

It is this:


Richardson scheduled to leave in about 10-12 hours from now.

The weather in NK is improving. Was bitter cold and snowy and icy on Friday and Saturday but got better Sunday. If South Korea wants to go ahead, don't think that the weather is going to be a factor.

Thinks that South Korea won't hold exercise until after UNSC meeting is complete.

[American Patriot]

I am afraid I don't have cable any more BR. Sorry.

The videos posted earlier for CNN are blocked in the United States "due to Copyright issues' - whatever the hell that means.

Listen to traffic on 8992.0 KHz atm. Nothing particularly interesting though.

[BRVoice]

I am afraid I don't have cable any more BR. Sorry.

The videos posted earlier for CNN are blocked in the United States "due to Copyright issues' - whatever the hell that means.

Listen to traffic on 8992.0 KHz atm. Nothing particularly interesting though.

Well, thanks anyway Rick

[BRVoice]

http://twitter.com/kprengel

#UNSC moves to "private meeting" format; #DPRK and #SK to join. #US praises #Russian "flexibility," laments China's refusal to condemn DPRK. 29 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

[American Patriot]

China is the ones egging this on. Not the US and South Korea. This is China's fault. All the way around. They are doing their level BEST to get everyone into a conflict.

[BRVoice]

This is a BIG DOT

http://twitter.com/egalite_twitted

SKorea to go ahead with live-fire drill near NKorea this morning: reports 4 minutes ago via web

[BRVoice]

http://twitter.com/YonhapNews

(URGENT) S. Korean military says will conduct live-fire drill off Yellow Sea island http://bit.ly/eRuHno 3 minutes ago via YonhapNewsEnglish

[BRVoice]

http://world.kbs.co.kr/english/news/...l.htm?No=78073

S.Korea to Conduct Live-Fire Drill near Yeonpyeong

Write 2010-12-20 08:15:52 Update 2010-12-20 08:20:28

The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) says it will conduct a live-fire drill in waters near Yeonpyeong Island south of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea on Monday.

[American Patriot]

ok.. thanks for update.

[BRVoice]

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/nati...00900315F.HTML


S. Korean military says will conduct Yellow Sea firing drill Monday

SEOUL, Dec. 20 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's military plans to hold a one-day live-fire drill on Monday near the Yellow Sea border island of Yeonpyeong, the site of last month's North Korean artillery attack, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

"The military has decided to conduct the firing drill today (Monday)," said a JCS official, noting the exercise will be held south of the inter-Korean maritime border.

"The exact time for the firing drill will depend on the weather conditions around the island area."

ycm@yna.co.kr
(END)

[BRVoice]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/wo...orea.html?_r=1


U.N. Meets as Tension Rises Over Koreas
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and SHARON LAFRANIERE
Published: December 19, 2010


Ahnyoung-Joon/Associated Press


The United Nations Security Council met in emergency session that endured into the evening on Sunday to seek ways to defuse tensions on the Korean peninsula, as the South Korean military showed no signs of backing away from a planned live-fire artillery exercise that the North has said could lead to “catastrophe.”

As the day wore on, the meeting became something of a deadlock between China, which did not want a specific condemnation of North Korea, and the other 14 members of the security council, which did, according to Security Council diplomats.

In Seoul, the joint chiefs of staff said bad weather had prevented the planned drill from being held off the coast of North Korea over the weekend. Officials indicated that it was being scheduled for Monday or Tuesday.

In Pyongyang, Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a former United States ambassador to North Korea, met with military officials over the weekend and offered proposals for better communication.

Russia and China have called on Seoul to cancel the drill. Russia, which called the Security Council session, released a text noting the “dangerous aggravation” on the Korean peninsula. South Korea’s allies, including the United States, Britain, France and Japan, considered that a veiled criticism of Seoul’s continued military maneuvers. China had endorsed the Russian position, diplomats said.

“They are implying the South Koreans are doing something which they should not, while we view the drills as perfectly within their rights and something they have done countless times,” said one Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations among the 15 council members were still taking place. “It is the D.P.R.K. that is in violation of international law.”

The United States and its allies began pushing for wording that, while calling for calm, would also note what the diplomat called “repeated North Korean aggression and violations” rather than just equating the two sides.

The draft text had also called for all parties concerned to “avoid any steps which could cause a further escalation of tension in the Korean peninsula and the entire region.” It requested that the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, send a special representative to North and South Korea for consultations to settle the current crisis.

Mr. Ban, as a South Korean, has had difficulty establishing dialogue with the highest levels of government in Pyongyang. At a news conference on Friday, he called North Korea’s shelling attack a month ago “one of the gravest provocations” since the end of the Korean war.

The officials who met Mr. Richardson over the weekend included Maj. Gen. Pak Rim-su. General Pak is a member of North Korea’s powerful National Defense Commission and oversees the demilitarized zone and the armistice between the two Koreas that ended the Korean War in 1953 with an armistice.

Mr. Richardson made two proposals: a military-to-military hot line and a military commission that would include the United States, South Korea and North Korea, to monitor crises like these in the Yellow Sea.

A previous channel of communication, in the so-called truce village of Panmunjom, was severed this year as tensions grew over the sinking of a South Korean warship. The governments are now limited to leaving messages for each other at an unofficial office at a jointly operated industrial park inside North Korea.

Mr. Richardson said that General Pak was open to the suggestion of the military hot line and the commission, but that he did not accept them. “Obviously this is a little bit of progress,” Mr. Richardson said. His trip was approved by the State Department, although he stressed that he was not an official administration envoy.

Before meeting with General Pak, Mr. Richardson said that, “The fact that the U.N. Security Council is taking up the Korea issue is important because it will not only help to ease tension, but will also be able to provide cover for all sides not to take aggressive action.” He added, “The fact that Russia has proposed the emergency action, and the fact that China has said that the situation is precarious means that North Korea’s main allies on the Security Council are urging restraint.”

North Korea said through its official news agency, K.C.N.A., that it would retaliate if the South Korean drill went ahead and that it would strike the South with “unpredictable self-defensive blows.” The principal North Korean newspaper, Rodong Sinum, warned that the artillery drill would lead to “brutal consequences beyond imagination,” in a commentary quoted by the South Korean news agency Yonhap.

Mr. Richardson said North Korean leaders were “very concerned about the artillery efforts.”

When asked what would North Korea do if the exercises went forward, Mr. Richardson said General Pak “didn’t answer directly, but I was very concerned with some of the statements that came forth.” But he added that General Pak “was not threatening.”

“He was not belligerent,” Mr. Richardson said. “He was positive. He realized the gravity of the situation.”

Seoul has said the exercise will be held on Yeonpyeong Island, near a disputed maritime border in the Yellow Sea. The island, which lies just eight miles off the North Korean coast, was the target of a North Korean artillery barrage on Nov. 23 that killed two South Korean marines and two civilians.

The North said the shelling was a retaliation for South Korea having fired into its waters. The South said the attack by the North was unprovoked.

North Korea does not recognize the sea border, known as the Northern Limit Line. The waters off Yeonpyeong are North Korea’s “inviolable territorial waters,” the North said in a statement quoted by K.C.N.A.

“They claim it’s their territory,” Mr. Richardson said.

About two dozen United States military personnel are expected to take part in the artillery drill, in support roles and as observers. The North said the Americans were being used as a “human shield.”

General Pak also told Mr. Richardson that the remains of hundreds of American soldiers killed during the Korean War were recently discovered in the North, and that he hoped a joint recovery effort could resume.

Analysts said Sunday that it was unclear if meteorology or diplomacy had delayed the drill.

Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of political science at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, said the South Korean government had failed to mount a strong response to the first North Korean shelling and thus had “put itself in a bind.”

“Hence, the obfuscation about the drills,” Professor Lee said. “Were such military exercises so dependent on the vagaries of the wind and currents, how on earth would a sovereign state defend itself?”


Sharon LaFraniere reported from Pyongyang and Neil MacFarquhar reported from New York. Mark McDonald contributed reporting from Seoul, South Korea.