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Trump's latest pissing contest with North Korea (and Iran)…

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Donald
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« Reply #25 on: September 24, 2017, 02:27:02 pm »

Yes...I agree...Trump is showing strength to North Korea which is the only thing they understand....let Russia and a china help sort it if they don't like it...😉

...much better than running away with your tail between your legs like OH-Bummar did for eight long years🙄
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« Reply #26 on: September 24, 2017, 03:41:30 pm »


Yes, I agree....a full-on nuclear war between China and the USA could be a good thing.

Especially if it kills fifty or a hundred million or so stupid Jesuslanders and Trump-supporters, eh?

And the nuclear fallout couldn't possibly do any more damage to the planet's climate than selfish, greedy human beings are already doing.

Iran and Russia could move in and sweep up the spoils after it was all over, eh?
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aDjUsToR
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« Reply #27 on: September 24, 2017, 03:50:37 pm »

You need to get off the drugs KTJ. You aren't thinking straight.
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« Reply #28 on: September 24, 2017, 04:18:04 pm »


Hey....if they do it while it is night-time down-under, we might even get to see the flashes below the horizon.

Wouldn't that be an awesome spectacle, eh?

Trump could stroke his penis while he fought a nuclear war with China.
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Donald
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« Reply #29 on: September 24, 2017, 04:27:52 pm »

Ktj...."Trump could stroke his penis while he fought a nuclear war with China"

...but why would he do it when he has a good looking missus who is perfectly capable🙄

...how does your missus compare😳
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« Reply #30 on: September 24, 2017, 08:53:07 pm »


Remember Joh Bjelke-Petersen?

He used to call talking to the news media “Feeding the Chooks!”

Well that's what it's like winding you two up....“Feeding the Chooks!”

I do it most days, then sit back and watch you two clowns froth at the mouth like rabid dogs.

It's GREAT daily entertainment & amusement, playing with you two idiots.

I must do it again tomorrow....and the day after....and the day after that....and so on.....

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Donald
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« Reply #31 on: September 24, 2017, 08:59:54 pm »

Ahhhhh....that's one way of looking at it.....🙄

...the other way would be that you are a demented lefty moron...who loves to live in an electorate with a National MP😉
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« Reply #32 on: September 24, 2017, 09:13:29 pm »


Actually, we have a Labour MP who actually LIVES in my electorate.

And a NZ First MP who also actually LIVES in my electorate.

That Nats clown is just a stupid carpetbagger who lives on the other side of a mountain range from his electorate.

He is a typical Nats wanker who thinks he is too high and mighty to even live on the same side of the North Island's main dividing mountain range IN his electorate.

Obviously so stuck-up that he thinks his shit doesn't stink.

And he wonders why people in this electorate go and see the Labour MP or the NZ First MP when they need help with something, instead of seeing him.

But you wouldn't get that, because you are too DUMB & STUPID.

I'll “Feed the Chooks” again tomorrow....ie....I'll chuck you another bone for my entertainment & amusement.
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Donald
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« Reply #33 on: September 24, 2017, 09:19:54 pm »

Ktj..."Actually, we have a Labour MP who actually LIVES in my electorate.

And a NZ First MP who also actually LIVES in my electorate."

...think you will find that they are only list mp's...🙄

...but the smart people of Wairarapa vote in a National electorate MP😜

...you must be part of a lefty minority 😉

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« Reply #34 on: September 25, 2017, 12:38:05 pm »


The Wairarapa electorate is full of dumb “hayseed” farmers who had the words “National Party” brainwashed into them by their parents when they were kids.

Basically, they are too intellectually-challenged to change their ways or indulge in any form of independent thought processes.

If the local Nats MP told them to drop their daks and take a dump in the middle of SH2, they'd blindly follow him and do what he asked, like the stupid lemmings they are.
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« Reply #35 on: September 25, 2017, 01:38:08 pm »


from The Washington Post....

China watches in frustration as North Korea crisis enters dangerous spiral

The threat of conflict and the presence of U.S. bombers leaves China looking on unhappily from the sidelines.

By SIMON DENYER | 8:08AM EDT - Sunday, September 24, 2017

An Air Force B-1B Lancer refuels near the East China Sea last week. U.S. bombers accompanied by fighter jets flew off the east coast of North Korea on Saturday in a show of force. — Photograph: Peter Reft/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
An Air Force B-1B Lancer refuels near the East China Sea last week. U.S. bombers accompanied by fighter jets flew off the east coast of North Korea
on Saturday in a show of force. — Photograph: Peter Reft/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.


BEIJING — The view from China could hardly be much worse: the leaders of North Korea and the United States threatening to rain down total destruction on each other, while U.S. bombers and fighters stage a show of military might close to China's shores.

In public, China's foreign ministry has calmly advocated for restraint and warned Pyongyang and Washington not add to fuel to the fire. But behind closed doors, experts said on Sunday, Beijing is as frustrated with North Korea, and with the situation, as it has ever been.

As North Korea's dominant trading partner, China is widely seen as the key to solving the crisis, yet experts say its influence over Pyongyang has never been weaker.

Unwilling to completely pull the plug, it has nevertheless agreed to a stiff package of sanctions at the United Nations and implemented them with unprecedented determination, experts say.

So far, all that has achieved is to alienate its neighbor and erstwhile friend.

“The North Koreans have figured out that the Chinese are genuinely in a bind,” said Euan Graham, director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney. “Having cried wolf for so long about having limited influence, the Chinese genuinely do have limited influence in North Korea right now. It's not just weasel words.”

The key step that China hesitates to take is cutting off crude oil exports to North Korea. On Saturday, China announced that it would limit exports of refined petroleum products and ban exports of condensates and liquefied natural gas to comply with the latest U.N. sanctions. It will also ban imports of textiles from North Korea.

But China is not prepared to do anything that might bring down the North Korean regime, potentially bringing refugees streaming across its border and unifying the Korean Peninsula under a U.S.-friendly government.

North Korea's leaders, experts in brinkmanship, know that full well, and this knowledge has allowed them to call China's bluff repeatedly.

But just in case, they are also thought to have stockpiled between six and nine months of oil supplies — enough to keep the military and key industries going for some time, Graham said.

On Saturday, North Korea's foreign minister warned that a strike against the U.S. mainland is “inevitable” because President Trump mocked leader Kim Jong Un with the nickname “Little Rocket Man”.

In response to Ri Yong Ho's threats at the United Nations, Trump tweeted, “If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!”

U.S. bombers, escorted by fighter jets, flew off the North Korean coast in a show of force on Saturday, while in Pyongyang, tens of thousands of people staged a mass rally to express support for “final victory” over the United States and call for the annihilation of the enemy, the state Korean Central News Agency reported.

“This is a disaster for all parties, and for China for sure,” said Lu Chao, a Korean Peninsula expert at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences in Shenyang, China. “Although there is no imminent sign of an outbreak of war, partial conflicts, especially between the South and North Korea on the sea where boundaries are not set, are very likely to occur.”

Next month, China's Communist Party leadership is to meet for a key congress during which President Xi Jinping is due to be confirmed for another five-year term as Communist Party general secretary.

At home and abroad, there has been a big effort to project confidence and control, and to ensure calmness and stability, in the run-up to this meeting. That effort has been felt in every arm and at every level of government here. But Pyongyang simply isn't listening.

Its sixth and most recent nuclear test was staged this month at a time when Xi was hosting leaders from BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) nations at a key summit — an insult that the face-conscious Chinese would have felt deeply.

Xi has never met Kim, and the two men are thought to hold each other in contempt. China's attempts to send an envoy to Pyongyang to calm the situation have been rebuffed.

Some experts say Beijing has only itself to blame — for helping North Korea in the past and allegedly enabling the regime to develop its missile program. Yet there is no doubt it is now paying a price.

China has watched in alarm and anger this year as South Korea installed an American missile defense system that Beijing fears could be used to spy on Chinese territory. It will also not have welcomed U.S. warplanes flying close to its shores this weekend.

South Korea's presidential office said Seoul and Washington had co-ordinated closely over the deployment of the U.S. bombers, calling it one of the most effective countermeasures against the advancement of North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, South Korean news media reported.

While Seoul co-operates with Washington, Pyongyang is freezing out Beijing.

On Saturday, KCNA issued a list of diplomatic missions that had held celebrations this month to mark the 69th anniversary of North Korea's founding. The list included 17 nations — but pointedly not China.

The deterioration in relations between Beijing and Pyongyang erupted much more forcefully into the open Friday when KCNA angrily rebuked its Chinese state media counterparts for threatening, insulting and undermining their country. In a piece entitled “Rude Deed of Shameless Media”, it took aim at the Chinese Communist Party newspaper, the People's Daily, for arguing in favor of sanctions.

“The party organ of the socialist country bragging long history denounced socialist Korea so maliciously in collusion with the imperialists,” KCNA wrote.

In China, experts said North Korea has resolved to continue development of its nuclear and missile program — at least until it can put a nuclear warhead on a missile capable of reaching the United States — despite whatever external pressure is applied.

“Sanctions, in my view, will not reverse North Korea's resolute determination,” said Shen Dingli, deputy dean of Fudan University's Institute of International Studies in Shanghai.

But Lu at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences insisted that sanctions would work — at least by encouraging North Korea to one day return to talks.

“The sanctions that have been imposed will have a significant impact on North Korea's economy, making them reconsider benefits and losses, and choose between being an enemy of the international community or sitting back at the negotiating table,” he said.

“I believe that one day North Korea will be at the table.”


Shirley Feng contributed to this report.

• Simon Denyer is The Washington Post's bureau chief in China. He served previously as bureau chief in India and as a Reuters bureau chief in Washington, India and Pakistan.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Trump praises China for economic measures against North Korea


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-watches-in-frustration-as-north-korea-crisis-enters-dangerous-spiral/2017/09/24/33ec15c2-a119-11e7-8c37-e1d99ad6aa22_story.html
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« Reply #36 on: September 25, 2017, 01:38:18 pm »


from The Washington Post....

Pyongyang keeps up military threats against U.S. after Trump's ridicule

A state-run website showed photoshopped images of North Korean missiles
destroying a U.S. bomber and an aircraft carrier.


By CAROL MORELLO | 2:45PM EDT - Sunday, September 24, 2017

Attendees of an anti-American rally on Saturday in Pyongyang are seen in a photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency. — Photograph: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.
Attendees of an anti-American rally on Saturday in Pyongyang are seen in a photo released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency.
 — Photograph: Agence France-Presse/Getty Images.


TENSION between the United States and North Korea remained high on Sunday as Pyongyang released propaganda videos showing U.S. planes and an aircraft carrier under attack.

The violent videos came after President Trump derided North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, by calling him “Little Rocket Man” and vowing at the United Nations to “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatens the United States or its allies.

U.S. officials were more restrained in their words on Sunday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin repeated the insistence that all options, including military force, remain on the table. But he lingered more on discussing how he has greater authority to punish countries, companies and individuals who trade with North Korea under an executive order signed by Trump last week. And he downplayed the likelihood of nuclear war.

“The president doesn't want to be in a nuclear war,” he said on ABC's “This Week”. “And we will do everything we can to make sure that doesn't occur.”

And Senator Cory Gardner (Republican-Colorado), who has pushed stronger sanctions against North Korea and those who trade with it, said there is still room for diplomacy and tougher sanctions that aim to bring North Korea to the negotiating table.

“We have a long ways to go to continue to ratchet up the economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea and the enablers of North Korea,” he said on CBS's “Face the Nation”.

“Our No.1 goal with North Korea as it relates to North Korea must and always will be peaceful denuclearization of the North Korean regime,” he said. “But we have a lot of work to do on the diplomatic and economic side before we think of any other option.”

In Pyongyang, however, the rhetoric and the images evoked the possibility of war on the horizon.

Photoshopped pictures from a state-owned propaganda website, DPRK Today, purported to show a North Korean missile making a direct hit on B-1B Lancer bombers and an F-35 fighter jet. In the doctored shots, the planes were engulfed in flames.

Another falsified video on the website showed a missile launched from a North Korean submarine striking the USS Carl Vinson, a nuclear-powered supercarrier. Like the planes, the ship explodes in a firestorm.

The fake news targets were apparently chosen because B-1B bombers escorted by Air Force fighter jets flew in international airspace off the coast of North Korea on Saturday in a clear demonstration of force. And the Carl Vinson led one of two carrier strike groups that conducted joint exercises with South Korea and Japan earlier this year.

As the war of words escalates, North Koreans are being bombarded with militaristic and tit-for-tat messages. Kim himself went on TV to declare that Trump is “mentally deranged” and a “dotard” and vowed to make him “pay dearly” for his insults. Kim said he was considering ordering the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history”. On Saturday, the North's foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, said Trump's remarks made it an inevitability that his country's rockets would hit the U.S. mainland.

And in a government-orchestrated display of North Korean anger, what appeared to be tens of thousands of people attended a huge rally on Saturday in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square, a large public plaza named after Kim's grandfather and founder of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Demonstrators chanted “total destruction”, and “decisive revenge”, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency, which pegged the crowd size at 100,000. It said some people carried signs with the slogan “Death to the American Imperialists”.

“We are waiting for the right time to have a final battle with the U.S., the evil empire, and to remove the U.S. from the world,” said Ri Il Bae, a commanding officer of the Red Guards, KCNA reported. “Once respected Supreme Commander Kim Jong Un gives an order, we will annihilate the group of aggressors.”

Other countries have watched with alarm as tensions have escalated.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a televised interview on Sunday that he doubts the United States will militarily strike North Korea because of its nuclear weapons.

“The Americans won't strike because they know for sure — rather than suspect — that it has atomic bombs,” Lavrov told Russia's NTV television. “I'm not defending North Korea right now, I'm just saying that almost everyone agrees with this analysis.”

Early this month, North Korea conducted an underground test on what it said was a hydrogen bomb much larger than the one that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.

Asked how the confrontation could be defused, Lavrov replied, “Only with caresses, suggestion and persuasion.”

Lavrov warned that without a diplomatic approach, “we could drop into a very unpredictable nosedive, and tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent citizens of South Korea but also North Korea, of course, and Japan will suffer — and Russia and China are nearby.”


• Carol Morello is the diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, covering the State Department.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: Trump tweets threats against North Korea after U.N. speech

 • Trust me: I can solve the North Korea crisis with a trip to a shopping mall

 • PHOTOGRAPH GALLERY: What life looks like for North Korea's elite

 • Not so isolated: North Korea's elite uses Gmail, Facebook and iTunes


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korea-keeps-up-military-threats-against-us-after-trumps-ridicule/2017/09/24/86a7a044-feb7-44d3-812b-47a10ae8e81f_story.html
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Donald
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« Reply #37 on: September 25, 2017, 01:39:50 pm »

Great to see that most people in Wairarapa are smart...to bad about the dumb minority...🙄

....but we must look after the intellectually challenged, they may be running the country in a couple of weeks..you must be very upbeat😉

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« Reply #38 on: September 25, 2017, 01:40:08 pm »


Ooooooh.....look at that HUGE crowd in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square.

It is CONSIDERABLY BIGGER than the crowd at Trump's inauguration.

Although, not as big as the crowd at President Barak Obama's inauguration.

Donald J. Trump WILL be pissed-off at being out-done.....yet again!!
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« Reply #39 on: September 25, 2017, 01:44:36 pm »

Ktj...."
Ooooooh.....look at that HUGE crowd in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square.

It is CONSIDERABLY BIGGER than the crowd at Trump's inau"


..no shit....and if they don't turn up they will be shot at dawn....so....perhaps a slight difference in motivation😜

...but hey...I wouldn't expect you to work that out on your own....do you have a friend you could phone....

...what....no friends...oh.....that is so sad😕
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« Reply #40 on: September 26, 2017, 04:22:40 pm »


from The Washington Post....

North Korea threatens to shoot down U.S. warplanes

Though North Korea is out-matched militarily by the United States,
the rhetoric raises fears of a confrontation.


By CAROL MORELLO | 7:02PM EDT - Monday, September 25, 2017

U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers with F-35B fighter jets and South Korean Air Force F-15K fighter jets fly over the Pilsung Firing Range on September 18th, in Gangwon-do, South Korea. — Photograph: South Korean Defense Ministry.
U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers with F-35B fighter jets and South Korean Air Force F-15K fighter jets fly over the Pilsung Firing Range
on September 18th, in Gangwon-do, South Korea. — Photograph: South Korean Defense Ministry.


NORTH KOREA threatened on Monday to shoot down U.S. military planes, even if they are not in the country's airspace, arguing that President Trump's bellicose tweets amount to a declaration of war.

The remark by Ri Yong Ho, Pyongyang's foreign minister, represented another escalation in tensions stoked by a series of insults and threats hurled between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his regime. Even though Pyongyang's military capability is considered far outmatched by U.S. technology and pilot training, Ri's rhetoric raised anxieties that a simple miscalculation could spark a military confrontation and spiral out of control.

“Fiery talk can lead to fatal misunderstandings,” said Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres.

Last week, at the U.N. General Assembly, Ri revealed that his country is considering testing a hydrogen bomb somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. On Monday, he made a more direct threat against the United States, which Pyongyang considers its arch-enemy, bent on destroying the regime.

“The whole world should clearly remember it was the U.S. who first declared war on our country,” said Ri, speaking to reporters in New York in reference to Trump's comments at the General Assembly last week and again during Saturday on Twitter.

“Since the United States declared war on our country, we will have every right to make counter-measures, including the right to shoot down United States strategic bombers even when they are not inside the airspace border of our country.”

“The question of who won't be around much longer will be answered then,” Ri added, responding to Trump's weekend tweet warning that if Ri “echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!” Trump has repeatedly used the belittling epithet for Kim Jong Un.

North Korea's willingness to shoot down U.S. aircraft is not in question. It has done so before, most notably in 1969, during the Nixon administration, when a Navy plane on a reconnaissance mission was downed by North Korean MiGs over the Sea of Japan, or East Sea. All 31 Americans on board were killed. There was no retaliation, and the United States resumed reconnaissance flights off the coast of North Korea a week later.

The United States and North Korea, which have technically remained in a suspended state of war since the 1953 armistice, have had other saber-rattling standoffs.

In 1976, for example, North Korean soldiers axed to death two U.S. service members who ventured into the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea, leading President Gerald R. Ford to put all U.S. troops in South Korea on the highest level of military readiness.

In 1981, a North Korean surface-to-air missile was fired at a U.S. reconnaissance plane flying near the DMZ, but it missed.

It is unknown whether North Korea has the ability to challenge the U.S. Air Force today. Most of its surface-to-air missiles and fighter planes are decades old, many dating to the 1950s and 1960s, when they were acquired from the Soviet Union.

“If there is a war, South Korean and U.S. military pilots will soon become aces as they shoot down North Korean aircraft,” said David Maxwell, a retired Army Special Forces colonel who served in Korea and now is associate director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University. “The North Korean air force is no match for them.”

Even as a threat lacking the might to back it up, however, Ri's comments underscore the urgency behind the growing crisis over North Korea. After many of its 2016 missile launches failed, Pyongyang has in recent months accelerated its testing of medium-range and long-range missiles, and has detonated what it claims was a hydrogen bomb. The speed of the North Korean advances surprised even many military analysts.

North Korea is not believed to possess more-advanced surface-to-air missile systems such as the Russian S300s and S400s, unless they were acquired clandestinely.

“It's hard to be sure what they have,” said Dean Cheng, an Asia expert with the Heritage Foundation. “They're not necessarily going to parade them through Pyongyang.”

Army Colonel Robert Manning III, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Monday that North Korea's threat to shoot down American warplanes will not change U.S. military operations. U.S. bomber flights conducted this weekend off the Korean Peninsula's east coast occurred in international airspace, where the Pentagon has a right to fly, he said.

The White House rejected Ri's characterization that the two countries are in a state of open war.

“We've not declared war on North Korea,” said press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “And frankly, the suggestion of that is absurd.”

Sanders said it is “never appropriate” to shoot down another country's aircraft when flying in international airspace.

“Our goal is still the same,” she added. “We continue to seek the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. That's our focus, doing that through both the most maximum economic and diplomatic pressures as possible at this point.”

Many experts are concerned that tensions are being inflamed by the war-like rhetoric between North Korea's leadership and Trump, starting with his combative address to the General Assembly last week, in which he said the United States was ready, willing and able to “totally destroy” North Korea.

“The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Trump said.

Since then, the hostile comments have flown back and forth almost daily, with Kim calling Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and Trump gleefully repeating the “Little Rocket Man” put-down.

On Saturday, Ri said that Trump's mockery of Kim made it “inevitable” that rockets would “visit” the U.S. mainland, while North Korea released doctored videos showing North Korean missiles shooting down U.S. planes and scoring a direct hit on an aircraft carrier.

Many experts dismiss the North Korean threats, at least for now.

“They do an excellent job of trying to deter by bluster,” said Bruce Bennett, a North Korea expert with the Rand Corporation, a research organization. “They've been very successful convincing a lot of people it's too dangerous to take them on when they're such a weak country militarily in many ways.”

But with the chances for a military confrontation growing, North Korea is proving it cannot be dismissed for long.

“We should absolutely take them seriously,” said Cheng of the Heritage Foundation. “North Korea has demonstrated its willingness to use force against South Korean sailors, soldiers and civilians. So it's very difficult to predict what it would or would not do.”


Dan Lamothe and John Wagner contributed to this report.

• Carol Morello is the diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Post, covering the State Department.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • VIDEO: North Korea says Trump ‘declared war’, threatens to shoot down U.S. military aircraft

 • VIDEO: Sanders: ‘We've not declared war on North Korea’

 • U.S. families got fake orders to leave South Korea. Now counter-intelligence is involved.

 • Who is Ri Yong Ho, North Korea's foreign minister?


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/north-korea-asserts-its-right-to-shoot-down-us-bombers/2017/09/25/74da66c4-a204-11e7-8cfe-d5b912fabc99_story.html
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« Reply #41 on: September 28, 2017, 08:54:49 pm »


from The Washington Post....

More U.S. ‘strategic’ military assets to South Korea
to deter the north, Seoul says


In the face of North Korean threats, South Korea wants a greater show of U.S. weaponry.

By ANNA FIFIELD | 3:06AM EDT - Thursday, September 28, 2017

In this Department of Defense photo, a U.S. Air Force B-1B bomber prepares to take off from Andersen AFB, Guam, on September 23rd. — Photograph: Staff Sergeant Joshua Smoot/U.S. Air Force/Associated Press.
In this Department of Defense photo, a U.S. Air Force B-1B bomber prepares to take off from Andersen AFB, Guam, on September 23rd.
 — Photograph: Staff Sergeant Joshua Smoot/U.S. Air Force/Associated Press.


THE United States will send “strategic” military assets to South Korea on a more regular basis to better deter North Korea, the South's national security adviser said on Thursday.

The decision, which has not yet been confirmed by the Pentagon, comes at a time of escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea, with many analysts concerned that the incendiary rhetoric, combined with more frequent flyovers by American bombers, could lead to a catastrophic miscalculation.

Chung Eui-young, national security adviser to President Moon Jae-in, told lawmakers in Seoul that American “strategic assets” could be deployed to South Korea on a “rotational” basis before the end of the year.

“This will help us expand our defense capabilities,” he told the lawmakers, according to Park Wan-joo, spokesman of the ruling Democratic Party.

He did not define “strategic assets” but South Korean officials usually define this as B-52 bombers, stealth warplanes, nuclear-powered submarines and aircraft carriers.

North Korea's foreign minister recently threatened that his country's military was ready to shoot down American military planes whether or not they were in North Korean airspace.

South Korean lawmakers were told that Washington had put its pledge on the deployment in writing, confirmed Park.

A spokesman for the United States Pacific Command, based in Hawaii, did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation or comment.

To celebrate its armed forces day, which falls on Sunday, South Korea's military showed off some of its new weapons during a parade on Thursday. For the first time, the military displayed its Hyunmoo ballistic missiles, which have all of North Korea within range and are a key element of its “Kill Chain” pre-emptive strike system.

“Our government's determination to protect peace requires strong defense capabilities, and we will stand up against reckless provocations with strong punishment,” Moon said after inspecting the weapons.

“Securing counter capabilities against North Korean nuclear and missile threats is the most urgent task. We must further strengthen our Kill Chain and Korean missile defense system,” the president said.

South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo last month asked his American counterpart, Jim Mattis, to send such military hardware to the southern half of the peninsula on a regular basis.

A poll that YTN, a cable news channel, commissioned in August found that 68 percent of respondents said they supported bringing tactical nuclear weapons back to South Korea.

This issue has become more and more important to South Korea as tensions with North Korea have risen. With top Trump administration officials repeatedly saying that military options for dealing with Kim Jong Un's regime are on the table, some in South Korea have become increasingly concerned about becoming collateral damage.

North Korea has enough conventional artillery trained on the greater Seoul area, home to 25 million people as well as several large American military bases, to cause widespread devastation before the American and South Korean militaries can respond.

If North Korea were to start unleashing its artillery on the South, it would be able to fire about 4,000 rounds an hour, Roger Cavazos of the Nautilus Institute estimated in a 2012 study. There would be 2,811 fatalities in the initial volley and 64,000 people could be killed that first day, the majority of them in the first three hours, he wrote.

As North Korea has continued to show off its growing arsenal — detonating a hydrogen bomb and firing increasingly-long range missiles — the U.S. and South Korean militaries have been conducting drills as a “show of strength”.

Air Force B-1B bombers from Andersen Air Force base in Guam and Marine Corps F-35B fighters from Iwakuni, Japan, have been dropping bombs on a training range in South Korea, just a few dozen miles from the border with the North.

South Korean F-15K fighters have been doing the same, and South Korea has tested missiles designed to show that North Korea's nuclear and missile test sites are within range.

But South Korean officials have been pushing for more than just flyovers from warplanes based in Japan or Guam: they want them to land in South Korea to show greater commitment to the military alliance.

But there are logistical reasons why that can't happen, Jon Wolfsthal, a nuclear expert who served on President Barack Obama's National Security Council, has said. Military airstrips in South Korea are not long enough for big, heavy B-52s, plus, the United States does not want its high-tech fighter jets sitting within North Korean artillery range, he said.

The U.S. regularly sends aircraft carriers to South Korea during their annual joint military exercises, as well as Los Angeles-class submarines. But the South Koreans are seeking a more consistent and higher-power show of American military commitment.


• Anna Fifield is The Washington Post's bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/more-us-strategic-military-assets-to-south-korea-to-deter-the-north-seoul-says/2017/09/28/4062cc7e-a416-11e7-8c37-e1d99ad6aa22_story.html
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Donald
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« Reply #42 on: September 29, 2017, 07:20:20 am »

Ktj...."More U.S. ‘strategic’ military assets to South Korea
to deter the north, Seoul says"

..I agree...great idea....they need to get nukes into South Korea and Japan yesterday😉
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« Reply #43 on: October 11, 2017, 12:54:46 pm »


from The Washington Post....

North Korean hackers stole U.S. and South Korean
wartime plans, Seoul lawmaker says


The disclosure comes at a time of heightened tensions over North Korea.

By ANNA FIFIELD | 4:19PM EDT

North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, inspects artillery launchers in April. — Photograph: Korean Central News Agency/Reuters.
North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, inspects artillery launchers in April. — Photograph: Korean Central News Agency/Reuters.

TOKYO — North Korean hackers stole a huge trove of classified U.S. and South Korean military documents last year, including a plan to “decapitate” the leadership in Pyongyang in the event of war, a lawmaker in Seoul said Tuesday.

The purported revelations come at a time of heightened tensions over North Korea. President Trump recently said that “only one thing will work” when it comes to Pyongyang, hinting that he thinks diplomatic efforts are proving futile and military action may be necessary.

The defense minister in Japan, a close military ally of the United States, said Tuesday that Trump might take such action against North Korea as soon as next month.

“I think President Trump will judge in the middle of November how effective pressure and other efforts have been,” Itsunori Onodera told reporters in Tokyo. “If there have been no changes from North Korea, it's possible that the U.S. will take severe measures.”

In Seoul, Rhee Cheol-hee, a lawmaker in the ruling Democratic Party and a member of the parliamentary national defense committee, said North Korean hackers broke into the Defense Integrated Data Center in September last year to steal secret files, including American and South Korean “operational plans” for wartime action. The data center is the main headquarters of South Korea's defense network.

According to Rhee, the stolen documents included OPLAN 5015, a plan drafted two years ago for dealing with full-blown war with North Korea and said to include procedures to “decapitate” the North Korean leadership. He said the cache also included OPLAN 3100, outlining the military response to infiltration by North Korean commandos or another local provocation, as well as a contingency plan in case of a sudden change in North Korea.

Pentagon spokesman Army Colonel Robert Manning said on Tuesday he was aware of media reports of the breach but would not say whether sensitive operation documents were exposed.

“We are confident in the security of our operations plans,” Manning said.

While the two Koreas have technically been on a war footing since the Korean War ended in an armistice in 1953, anything that suggests the death or ouster of North Korea's leader, or his assassination, is tantamount to heresy in the North, where the ruling Kims are treated like gods.

Responding to reports about the plans for decapitation strikes, the North's Korean People's Army said in March that it would “deal deadly blows without prior warning” to “the U.S. and South Korean puppet forces.”

“They should think twice about the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by their outrageous military actions,” the army's general staff said, according to a state news report.

Rhee made his claims about the alleged cyberattack to South Korean reporters, citing documents obtained from the Defense Ministry under a freedom of information request. Rhee's aides told The Washington Post on Tuesday that the lawmaker had collected information from several sources with knowledge of the cyberattacks, and they confirmed that local media had correctly reported Rhee's remarks.

Yonhap News Agency, citing Rhee, reported that the hackers took 235 gigabytes of military documents and that almost 80 percent of the stolen documents have not yet been identified.

The documents also included reports on key South Korean and U.S. military personnel, the minutes of meetings about South Korean-U.S. military drills, and data on military installations and power plants in South Korea, reported the Chosun Ilbo, South Korea's largest newspaper.

“I can't reveal further details because they are a military secret,” Rhee said, according to the paper.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries have a mutual defense pact under which the American military would assume operational control of the alliance if a war breaks out. The two militaries conduct large-scale drills twice a year, rehearsing the responses to various scenarios on the Korean Peninsula.

As Kim has accelerated his nuclear weapons program and aimed increasingly bellicose threats at the allies, those plans have been updated to include “beheading operations” — strikes designed to take out North Korea's leaders.

South Korea's Defense Ministry declined to confirm or comment on the reports of a cyberattack.

South Korean lawmakers have a spotty record when it comes to revealing information about what is happening inside North Korea, with many claims later turning out to be wrong. But in this case, the claims relate to something that has happened inside South Korea, and there have been hints about such a cyberattack in recent months.

In May, the Defense Ministry disclosed that the South Korean military's intranet had been hacked by people “presumed to be North Koreans.” But the military said that only 53 gigabytes of information were stolen, and it did not reveal what was included.

The previous month, reports emerged that North Korean hackers had broken into the Defense Ministry network and infected more than 3,000 computers, including the defense minister's, with malware.

At the time, South Korean newspapers, quoting unnamed government officials, reported that parts of one operational plan, OPLAN 5027, which outlines troop deployment plans and key North Korean targets, were stolen.

Current and former U.S. officials have said the United States also must be more proactive in launching and openly discussing cyber offensives and retaliations, including in May, when retired Navy Admiral James Stavridis, the former commander of NATO forces, told lawmakers “we should advertise them accordingly” to demonstrate ability and resolve.

North Korea was potentially behind phony evacuation messages sent to military families and defense personnel in South Korea last month, advising them via cellphones and social media to quickly leave the country. That incident opens the possibility that last year's breach may have led to the harvest of personal information used for the notifications.

This is hardly the first time that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's regime has been accused of outrageous cyberattacks. The country's spy agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, is thought to have trained and assembled a large cyber army, assumed to be based in China, to launch these kinds of hacks.

North Korea is alleged to have been behind numerous attacks on South Korea's financial networks and government systems and was blamed for the hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2014, apparently as retaliation for the movie “The Interview”, which culminates with Kim's death in an explosion.

Most recently, North Korea was accused of being behind a cyberattack last year on Bangladesh's central bank that netted $81 million and of masterminding the WannaCry ransomware that rocketed around the world earlier this year.

Pyongyang has repeatedly denied any responsibility for or knowledge of the attacks.

The latest alleged cyberattack comes as the United States struggles to harden cyber defenses against adversaries such as Russia, China and North Korea, who have outpaced U.S. efforts to fold cyber weapons into conventional military operations.

The Army said in a manual released on Monday that it will seek to put greater emphasis on cyber options in what it calls hybrid war — a blurring of cyber and space operations with traditional military actions like mobilizing ground troops and massing tank units.


Yoonjung Seo in Seoul and Alex Horton in Washington contributed to this report.

• Anna Fifield is The Washington Post's bureau chief in Tokyo, focusing on Japan and the Koreas. She previously reported for the Financial Times from Washington DC, Seoul, Sydney, London and from across the Middle East.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related to this topic:

 • North Korea appears to have a new Internet connection, thanks to the help of Russian firm

 • Not so isolated: North Korea's elite uses Gmail, Facebook and iTunes

 • Companies struggle to recover after massive cyberattack with ransom demands

 • Clues point to possible North Korean involvement in massive cyberattack


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korean-hackers-stole-us-and-south-korean-wartime-plans-seoul-lawmaker-says/2017/10/10/036fb82c-adc6-11e7-99c6-46bdf7f6f8ba_story.html





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