North, South Korea "At The Brink Of War" As Loudspeaker Dispute Spirals Out Of Control (Again)
Back in August, the Korean Peninsula nearly plunged back into war when Kim Jong-Un reached his limit with the anti-North propaganda being blasted across the DMZ by loudspeakers installed by the South.
For those who missed it, or for anyone in need of a refresher, here’s our account of what happened:
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un - the world’s sabre rattler par excellence - doesn’t like to stray too far from the spotlight when it comes to global conflict, which is why we weren’t terribly surprised when, a few days ago, the pariah state threatened to invade the US mainland and use "weapons unknown to the world."
Of course a lot of what goes on inside the country is "unknown to the world", much as the world is largely "unknown" to North Koreans and that’s just fine with Kim, whose regime depends on a combination of propaganda and censorship to keep the populace transfixed in a perpetual state of hypnotic hero worship. Of course the West and its allies - and now even China - have a tendency to dismiss Kim’s threats as the ravings of a delusional child, which is why occasionally, Pyongyang will actually fire a missile into the ocean or execute a member of the military top brass with an anti-aircraft gun just to remind everyone that the regime isn’t totally bluffing.
Given Pyongyang’s propensity for lobbing bombastic threats that, were they to emanate from virtually any other government on the planet would be met with a sharp rebuke, it’s something of a miracle that sour relations between Kim and US ally South Korea haven’t already produced an armed conflict. That may be about to change because as Bloomberg reports, the "maiming" of two South Korean soldiers along the DMZ and subsequent "blaring of propaganda through loudspeakers" by the South culminated in the exchange of artillery fire, marking the worst escalation between the two countries in five years.
In short, the South blamed the North for planting mines that injured soldiers and in response, persisted in the broadcasting of propaganda. Subsequently, The North threatened to "blow up" the speakers and eventually took a pot shot at one. Next came the artillery exchange and shortly thereafter, Kim declared a state of war.
Tensions eventually eased in what Kim hailed as a kind of diplomatic victory for Pyongyang.
Fast forward four months and the North was busy conducting its fourth nuclear test. As we documented on Wednesday, Pyongyang "successfully" tested what it swears was an H-bomb on Tuesday, drawing universal condemnation from virtually every country on the planet. The North needs an H-bomb, Pyongyang explained, because the US "is a gang of cruel robbers."
Well, in the wake of the nuke test, the South resumed its propaganda broadcasts across the DMZ. The loudspeakers were fired back up on Friday just a day after reports indicated that South Korea is in talks with the US for the deployment of strategic weapons to the Peninsula. The broadcasts "are likely to infuriate" Kim, Reuters wrote.
Sure enough, the North now says the resumption of the broadcasts (which Pyongyang considers to be an "act of war") have brought the two countries to "the brink of war." Here's AP with the absurd details:
North Korea warned of war as South Korea on Saturday continued blasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda across the rivals' tense border in retaliation for the North's purported fourth nuclear test.
North Korean propaganda is filled with threats of violence, but the country is also extremely sensitive to criticism of its authoritarian leadership, which Seoul resumed in its cross-border broadcasts on Friday for the first time in nearly five months. Pyongyang says the broadcasts are tantamount to an act of war. When South Korea briefly resumed propaganda broadcasts in August after an 11-year break, Seoul says the two Koreas exchanged artillery fire.
Speaking to a massive crowd at Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square, a top ruling party official said the broadcasts, along with talks between Washington and Seoul on the possibility of deploying in the South advanced U.S. warplanes capable of delivering nuclear bombs, have pushed the Korean Peninsula "toward the brink of war."
Pyongyang's rivals are "jealous" of the North's successful hydrogen bomb test, Workers' Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam said in comments broadcast on state TV late Friday.
South Korean troops, near about 10 sites where loudspeakers started blaring propaganda Friday, were on the highest alert, but have yet to detect any unusual movement from the North Korean military along the border, an official from Seoul's Defense Ministry, who refused to be named, citing office rules, said Saturday.
The South's Yonhap news agency said Seoul had deployed missiles, artillery and other weapons systems near the border to swiftly deal with any possible North Korean provocation, but the ministry did not confirm the reports.
Officials say broadcasts from the South's loudspeakers can travel about 10 kilometers (6 miles) during the day and 24 kilometers (15 miles) at night. That reaches many of the huge force of North Korean soldiers stationed near the border and also residents in border towns such as Kaesong, where the Koreas jointly operate an industrial park that has been a valuable cash source for the impoverished North.
Seoul also planned to use mobile speakers to broadcast from a small South Korean island just a few kilometers (miles) away from North Korean shores.
While the South's broadcasts also include news and pop music, much of the programming challenges North Korea's government more directly.
"We hope that our fellow Koreans in the North will be able to live in (a) society that doesn't invade individual lives as soon as possible," a female presenter said in parts of the broadcast that officials revealed to South Korean media. "Countries run by dictatorships even try to control human instincts."
And here's an image which purports to depict two South Korean soldiers fine tuning the speakers:
Although we're quite sure the humor inherent in the above isn't lost on readers, we'd be remiss not to highlight the fact that this is just about the most irksome thing someone could do to a man like Kim.
The Supreme Leader is desperate to defend the legitimacy of his government and to preserve the legacy of his father and grandfather. That means keeping the public in a perpetual state of awe and conveying an air of divine authority, unshakable will, and absolute power. The fact that the South sets up loudspeakers on his border and blasts a mishmash of South Korean pop music and anti-Pyongyang agitprop loud enough to be heard 15 miles away is just about the most irritating slap in the face imaginable for the young leader.
Adding insult to injury: Friday was Kim's birthday.
But just because Kim likely knows he can't realistically challenge the South militarily without provoking big brother in Washington doesn't mean an "accident" across the DMZ couldn't inadvertently bring the two countries to blows. And all over some speakers...
(3 votes)
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Fear prOn!
Always be in fear of one imagined boogymen or another!
Lil Kim is a monster with nookular weapons and starves his people!
Fear! Kardashians! Gun control! israel destroying crops! Economic collapse at any moment! Middle East terrorists! White nationalists! More reparations for the holocaust! Germans and Nazis are to blame! Transgenders are people too! Chemtrails! Iraq! Isis! (Anyone notice a pattern here?)
I knew a scientist years ago. He was South Korean. He used to have a mirror in the DMZ. They traded bullets one time. Must have been bored.
Anyway, everything is as ko$her as it ever will be, and the root of all evil is not looked at, whilst everyone frantically saws and hacks at the branches, nothing ever changes.
Thats why I always say it.
The evil people here who run things think they are in control.
But they are merely the prison warders for the galactic INSANE ASYLUM that is planet earth.
I think I came here to learn the futility of waking up the insane.
Now I just want to save all the non human life before it is too late.
To me it seems things appear to be accelerating rapidly - in a not so pleasant way. Quite possibly 'fomenting', or might I say 'staging', antagonistic bedlam...
US could have swatted that gnat a long time ago. Must be a reason they want him around vice Saddam, Assad, Kadafi, etc. A hell of a lot worse dictator.
Evil dictator ? Muritards and their stereotype. Well they did and were beaten by chinese driving them away in S.K. Dealing with Empire of Chaos one must posses nukes because thats the only thing which will keep cute 'free western' world leaders at arm's length.
Do ya here that sound folks?... It's the unmistakable constant" slurping" that only grows louder by the minute as the QE infinity "liquidity sponge" only becomes more virulent like the worst strain of cancer in it's absorption "properties"?...
And doesn't the U.S. government and it's military want an incident between North and South Korea "desperatey" to fend off the damage they are suffering with their losses both financial and other in Eastern Ukraine and Syria?...
After all 9/11s are prohibitively expensive to manufacture...
And when the Plan(s) A to Z don't work out you need to keep thinking "out of the box" in the interest of losing both time and money to recoup all of your damaged losses just like United Airlines did all those years ago and come up with "new innovations" with less!!!
It's perfect. The false flag war of choice on China and Russia's borders has been in place for more than 62 years at a prohibitive cost always ready for all systems "go"!!!
Maybe South Korea can host the Dennis Rodman show right next to the DMZ.
Translation: moar American dollars please.
I was stationed there, Camp Stanley, 97-98 ...
(back then there were artillery exchanges)
(mini-subs gone ashore with N. Korean spec ops)
(and other horrors)
(but many alerts)
I hope to god that armistice never ends - because modern S. Korea is a helluva place for a war.
(millions would be dead in hours)
A little disturbing to hear from someone who was "boots on the ground" there, so to speak.
I don't believe this wack-a-doodle will ever use a nuclear bomb because if he does it will mark his end. Unfortunately, this is what happens when a thug gets a big gun. . . Putin (another thug) and his threats next Iran . . .what a wonderful world
They said that about Jim Jones too. Or did you hear about that as you were brooding in your deep, empty cave?
So why is South Korea blasting anti-North propaganda across the DMZ by loudspeakers? For what purpose?
It is to inflame the North.
There is one powerful entity that wants war, and that is the US, the Empire of Chaos.
The US is trying to start wars everywhere.
Funny how rarely this is brought up.
So... what's with the irrepressible need of the South to constantly taunt the mad, nuclear armed dictator next door?
Just doing what they are told by their handlers from The Empire of Chaos (formerly known as the USA).
The Man From Uncle ?
Obama will find some way to escalate this.
He already found a way. Who do you think told the south Koreans to do this. Just another US provocation.
Nothing a few nukes can't solve!!
This is what you get when you leave the job half finished the first time. Eventually, you have to go back and fix it properly at three times the cost of the original screwup.
Finish the job or don't start it. Nothing in between.
This can only be considered a screwup if you don't understand why it's this way.
The speaker thing is bad. If I had a neighbour doing that I would blast those speakers.
Many countires have nukes, like Israel, nothing said about it.
If you don't want NK to have nukes be the first to suit up and die to remove them, otherwise stop trying to get us into a war. The last war killed what 60,000 whities for what? not too much.
Quite a few brothers died in the Koren War to. If not for the divide and conquer bullshit that drove so many blacks to not bee seen (nor see themselves as just Americans we'd be much better off.
Unleash the two "Rs", Rodman and Rodham. They can soothe this savage beast.
Fate the Magnificent
"Push the Button, Max"
Tune in a modern commercial pop-music radio station and turn the volume up LOUD. See how long you can stand the horrible "music" interspersed with propaganda for weight loss pills, auto loans, etc.
Now imagine if the only way you could make it stop is to push your red button to launch the nukes, vaprizing the offending noise machine. By day three you'd push the button.
That speaker system is garbage. Mr. Kim needs to hire a competent audio consultant ASAP!
It serves its purpose I'm sure.
Just imagine Justine Beiber blasting out of that thing loud enough to be heard 15 miles away. Then ten 30-second obnoxious ads for odious products & services. Then the latest hit tune from "Hello Kitty and the Repetitive Electronic Beat Machine", followed by another 5 minutes of ads.
MC Dennis R-R-R-R-Rodman on the mike!
Pop music has gone to shit ever since the Spice Gals quit touring.
Jiggle Spice was the best triangle player EVER.
Not to worry, North Korea will win a war with the South in a flash.
Simple solution to calm the little pot bellied punk down. He is just a brat looking for attention, while his people starve.
Send Lurch over to whisper a little French in is ear. Let James Taylor and Dennis Rodman tag along.
What a powerful deligation that would be. Most likely bring instant peace!
Amp turned up to 11 ....
10 isn't good enough
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOO5S4vxi0o
Go 'long' - Ear plugs !
Fatboy Kim has got his back against the wall. If the Chinese turn off the rice and oil spigots I give the Norks no more than 6 months. If the Chinese sense a Nork collapse is imminent they might decide to instigate one, in which case we should simply be tracking daily shipments. Not hard to do. Then the Chinese install a puppet regime and the South loses the other half of the Korean peninsula for good, becuase the last thing the Chinese are going to tolerate is a unified Korea under democratic South Korean leadership.
The Nork nuke threat is overstated since it's not believed they are capable of producing a reliable delivery system... yet. Why on earth anybody would let those dumb backward motherfuckers get that far is beyond me at any rate.....
Me thinks the Chinese are having enough trouble dealing with their Ponzi bursting. Directly Managing a puppet state in NK sounds like a bridge to far.
Me thinks the Chinese are having enough trouble dealing with their Ponzi bursting. Directly Managing a puppet state in NK sounds like a bridge to far.
Yeah. That's so true. They should just let the North implode and the US put bases right up on the Yalu River. Commies would luuuuuuuv that.......
SMFH. Seriously seriously dumb comments.
I agree with you about most things but about this, I respectfully and politely disagree.
I don't believe Beijing is as much concerned with its neighbors' form of government as it is having friendly, non-belligerent neighbors, ones that do not play host to western military forces hostile to China.
From an economic standpoint, a unified Korea that is close friends with China is in China's commercial - if not survival - interests. Russia also has a commercial interest in a unified Korea.
The persistent issue blocking reunification (from Beijing's PoV) remains the US-ROK military alliance, and the presence of US personnel and weapons on the peninsula. Were the alliance to end, and/or US forces and weaponry be removed from the peninsula, a unified Korea would be seen as a reliable neighbor and strong buffer state against future US or Japanese aggression against China.
JMHO.
*Edit: did not down vote you.
Were the alliance to end, and/or US forces and weaponry be removed from the peninsula, a unified Korea would be seen as a reliable neighbor and strong buffer state against future US or Japanese aggression against China.
That's funny considering China doesn't have amicable relations with even one of its other neighbors. Much of that is simply rooted in the size of China's population and their neverending push up against those borders. A lot of it is rooted in China's sheer arrogance and their worldview.
Then you conveniently overlook history. Most of history Korea was a Chinese tributary state, and the relations were decidely one-way. It's not that Korea anymore, and it's certainly not that China anymore. In a lot of ways China is a North Korean state writ large, with all the same adolescent insecurities and misperceptions about the world. That applies more so to its neighbors, but also to the fact that the commies are well aware of the fact that their country is not really a country at all, but a continent unified under one political system that could fragment as easily as Soviet Russia given the chance.
Finally, I agree the US has no business in Korea and hasn't had any since the 90s, that said, if US forces were to simply up and leave it wouldn't mean the end of the ROK-US alliance or economic relationship, let along the mutual relationship that has built up over the last 60+ years. Maybe those aren't issues you're all too aware of, but the commies are. And in the end a unified democratic Korea that has a tight military and security alliance with the US is just not high on the commies' dream sheet. You think the US would be jumping up and down for joy or be indifferent to the Chinese basing their army along the Mexico border if they establish better security ties with the Mexican government? They can't even claim some useless coral reefs in the middle of nowhere or we get in their grill.
SMFH... the comments on here are so not-well-thought out.........
I did not overlook anything, but I don't have an infinite amount of time to be "right" on the Internet, so I endeavor to be concise.
I'm well-acquainted with Korea's history, both with regards to China and the rest of her neighbors. You're assuming an awful lot.
I'm disappointed by the very arrogant and condescending tone of your reply, but that's how ZH is now, these days, I guess.
You're clearly very bright and well-studied but I can see now that I was wrong to have thought so highly of you.
I'm done with this thread.
I did not overlook anything...
On the contrary, the original argument you presented was predicated on ignoring the most important thing: it's China that is keeping the North Korean regime alive. Nothing else. All other fallacies in your argument flow from that.
You don't like my tone. Oh well. Another downvote.
It looks like it's time to fire up " Golden Eye" again?
They should play what they used in the movie "mars attacks"
But anytime of think of that movie, I think of the Tom Jones song they plugged into the sound track. Actually, it was kinda fun they put that in there. Maybe the north would like it? lol
Too bad Slim Whitman isn't still with us. It was impressive how his voice could blow the heads off of Martians and probably North Koreans. For anybody interested, this is the killer song from the movie. lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FhQxZnSqc0
Rock on Kim! The world saw what happened to Gaddafi after he got scared shitless by the US invasion of Iraq and gave up his WMD programs. Never give up those nukes lil' Kim! Never bow to Washington!
some here want to nuke Iran and North Korea cause they may have nukes....
makes perfect sense for a libtard
If I was South Korea, I'd be playing the North Korean national anthem, aim it at the north, and just sit tight. Why piss them off? Want a war, you can have a war. But why? Just leave it status quo, for goodness sake.
I agree with Buchanan. Get our 25k guys the hell out of there, and let the North and South work it out. If there is war, why should our guys on the DMZ be the first to get killed? Hell no, get them out now.
I Fart In Your General Direction!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWBUl7oT9sA