N. Korea fires artillery onto S. Korean island

[Nordic]

Sarah Palin is nothing but a tool, used by the PTB, to turn "liberals" into a bunch of frothing-at-the-mouth panicking bait-takers.

Babs has spoken, Sarah Palin will not be President of the U.S. She will be staying in Alaska.

Sarah Palin is the red-flag being waved at the bull, while behind the stadium, the bull's entire family is being turned into hamburgers.

[JackRiddler]

Sarah Palin is nothing but a tool, used by the PTB, to turn "liberals" into a bunch of frothing-at-the-mouth panicking bait-takers.

Babs has spoken, Sarah Palin will not be President of the U.S. She will be staying in Alaska.

Sarah Palin is the red-flag being waved at the bull, while behind the stadium, the bull's entire family is being turned into hamburgers.

No. This is secondary, at most.

Sarah Palin is currently a very important tool for reinforcing the commitment to right-wing politics and culture war of the insecure, uninformed, blindly patriotic and inchoately angry white Christian gun-owning demographic that she herself represents. The fact that she inspires some "liberals" (TV posers and bloggers who wish they were on TV, for the most part) into taking the bait, as you describe, is a big part of what makes her appeal to her demographic, who largely identify through their sense that they have been victimized by snooty Harvard graduates for being white and clueless, and who take pleasure at anything they imagine upsets the elite eggheads who took away their money and gave it to the blacks and Mexicans and foreign aid recipients. Anyway, she's got a year left before implosion, because it's pretty obvious what her business plan is, and her choice to abandon Alaska for FOX and TruTV (or whatever) shows the political stuff is secondary to raking it in while she still can.

I'll admit this stuff is easier for me than developing a clue about the Koreas, which is also an unwelcome subject to our geostrategic poobahs. They really prefer demonizing Iran to having to deal with an actual crazy rogue state with nukes, no oil, no food, and protection from China.

.

[freemason9]

agree with jack. palin is alaskan hitler. don't dismiss her.

[JackRiddler]

agree with jack. palin is alaskan hitler. don't dismiss her.

I think that quite unlikely.

She's more like John the Baptist for a Hitler To Come.

However, if by some miracle the Republicans let her take their nomination, she could then win in a three-way with someone like Bloomberg and Obama.

(Yes, I did that on purpose. I'm evil.)

PS - Also, it's not true that liberals react violently to her. That's what her supporters like to believe. For the most part, liberals LOVE her. They love how stupid she is. She is their wish-candidate for the Republicans in 2012, and again she really is the weakest possible candidate except for a three-way. (But even the weakest candidate can win if the election is fixed, as we've seen.) Liberals hope her ascendancy will destroy the Republicans.

[Simulist]

Sarah Palin might be able to create a furor, but that's a far cry from being able to be a Führer.

[82_28]

It's on guys and gals:

Signs of N. Korea's artillery firing detected: South's military

SEOUL, Nov. 28 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's military had ordered civilians on a border island to evacuate to shelters, military officials said Sunday, after hearing sounds of "several rounds" of artillery firing, though no shells landed on the island.

While the emergency evacuation order on Yeonpyeong Island, devastated by North Korea's artillery attack on Tuesday, was lifted, military officials said they are keeping a close watch on the movements of the North's coastline artillery batteries as they maintain a "ready-to-fire" posture.

"The evacuation order was issued after sounds of several rounds of North Korea's artillery were heard on Yeonpyeong," said an official at the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

The JCS official said, however, the distant sounds of artillery firing came from the North's firing training inside its territory, not the coastline artillery near the island.

The evacuation order came hours after Seoul and Washington started large-scale naval drills in the Yellow Sea in a show of force against North Korean aggression.

The island was shelled by North Korea on Tuesday. Two marines and two civilians were killed in the North's artillery attack. Most of some 1,700 civilian residents on the island have already left the island, but some 20 residents are still there.

http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/nationa ... 0315F.HTML

I guess stay posted to yonhap for now. . .

[82_28]

Alright, somewhat false alarm. I'm reading the yonhap news feeds as they come in. They've lifted the evacuation order in the past half an hour or so.

(URGENT) S. Korea's military lifts evacuation order on Yeonpyeong Island: official

And really that's all there is for now. . .

[anothershamus]

via cryptogon.com

North Korea Deploys SA-2 Surface-to-Air Missiles Near Yellow Sea Border
November 28th, 2010

Well, this thing appears to be cocked and locked now. The article doesn’t mention the joint American and South Korean war games happening in the area.

Via: Yonhap:

North Korea has deployed SA-2 surface-to-air missiles to its west coast near the Yellow Sea border with South Korea as U.S.-led naval drills got underway in a show of force against the North’s deadly artillery attack on a South Korean island earlier last week, government sources said Sunday.

“(The missiles) appear to be targeting our fighter jets that fly near the Northern Limit Line (NLL),” the source said on customary condition of anonymity, referring to the Yellow Sea border.

[82_28]

S. Korean artillerymistakenly fired on DMZ

Something's on fo sho. . .

PAJU, South Korea, Nov. 28 (Yonhap) -- An artillery shot accidentally fired by a South Korean army unit fell on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Sunday afternoon, military officials said.

No casualties were reported from the accidental discharge that occurred at around 3 p.m., the officials said. An artillery unit stationed in the border town of Paju, Gyeonggi Province, mistakenly fired a shell that landed near Daeseong-dong, a civilian village on the southern side the DMZ dividing the two Koreas, they said.

Jimmy Carter: North Korean Regime Deserves Our Respect

A media person walks at houses destroyed by North Korean shelling on the Yeonpyeong Island, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 26, 2010. North Korea warned Friday that planned U.S.-South Korean military drills are pushing the peninsula to the brink of war. (AP/Lee Jin-man)

The North Korean regime attacked South Korea killing 2 Korean Marines and 2 civilians.
Thank goodness Jimmy Carter was there to defend them.
Via Verum Serumand The Washington Post:

No one can completely understand the motivations of the North Koreans, but it is entirely possible that their recent revelation of their uranium enrichment centrifuges and Pyongyang’s shelling of a South Korean island Tuesday are designed to remind the world that they deserve respect in negotiations that will shape their future.

Total bullshit, but it is coming up in searches, news searches. The wingers are at the ready. They shall be pouring it on.

Personally, I don't know what to think about any of it.

[Ben D]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101219/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_clash

Security Council to meet as SKorea set on exercise

By AHN YOUNG-JOON and KIM KWANG-TAE, Associated Press – 1 hr 11 mins ago

YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea – A U.S. governor visiting North Korea has called for it to show maximum restraint to planned South Korean military drills and hopes the U.N. Security Council will deliver the same message in its emergency meeting, his office said. A frequent unofficial envoy to the reclusive country, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has held three important meetings with top leaders in North Korea's foreign ministry and military during his four-day visit.

South Korea's military plans to conduct one-day, live-fire drills by Tuesday on the same front-line island the North shelled last month as the South conducted a similar exercise. The North warned the drills would cause it to strike back harder than it did last month, when four people were killed on Yeonpyeong Island.

The high tensions prompted the U.N. Security Council on Saturday to schedule an emergency meeting at Russia's request.
The military's position to hold the drills remains unchanged, a Defense Ministry official said, indicating the drills could take place either Monday or Tuesday due to bad weather Sunday. He asked not to be identified, citing the issue's sensitivity.

The North's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that South Korea would face an unspecified "catastrophe" if the drills take place, in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. The North also said it would strike harder than before.

South Korea says the drills are routine, defensive in nature and should not be considered threatening. The U.S. supports that and says any country has a right to train for self-defense, but Russia and China, fellow permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, have expressed concern.

Russia's Foreign Ministry has urged South Korea to cancel to avoid escalating tensions.
The Security Council scheduled emergency closed-door consultations on North Korea for 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) Sunday at Russia's request, said Mark Kornblau, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The United States holds the council's rotating presidency this month.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the Russian government believes the Security Council must send "a restraining signal" to North Korea and help launch diplomatic actions to resolve all disputes between North Korea and South Korea.
China, the North's key ally, has said it is "unambiguously opposed" to any acts that could worsen already-high tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, called for restraint from all parties concerned to avoid escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula, according to China's official Xinhua News Agency.

During telephone talks with Lavrov on Saturday night, Yang, who is accompanying Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on a visit to Pakistan, said the situation on the peninsula has recently become tense and may further deteriorate, Xinhua reported.

Marines carrying rifles conducted routine patrols Sunday. About 240 residents, officials and journalists remain on Yeonpyeong, said Lim Byung-chan, an official from Ongjin County, which governs the island. He said there is no immediate plan to order a mandatory evacuation to the mainland. Amid security jitters, nearly 800 out of 1,300 civilians living on the island moved to unsold apartments in Gimpo, west of Seoul, on Sunday, according to Ongjin County officials. Several bloody naval skirmishes occurred along the western sea border in recent years, but last month's assault was the first by the North to target a civilian area since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North does not recognize the U.N.-drawn sea border in the area. The North claims South Korea fired artillery toward its territorial waters before it unleashed shells on the island on Nov. 23, while the South says it launched shells southward, not toward North Korea, as part of routine exercises.

[Ben D]

UN fails to reach an agreement on Korea situation...

U.N. council split on North Korea statement - diplomats

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS | Sun Dec 19, 2010 7:51pm GMT

(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.