Rumsfeld wants to move troops out of S. Korea!

[The Mad Monk]

Found it:

Air challenge raises Korean tension
March 5 2003
By Hamish McDonald
Beijing
Marian Wilkinson
Washington





North Korea has dramatically increased the chances of a clash with the United States after it sent fighter aircraft to intercept a US spy plane in international air space near its coast.

The interception of the four-engined RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft over the Sea of Japan on Sunday indicates the fears the Pyongyang regime has that the US might be considering a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear facilities.

Sunday's incident came as US President George Bush gave a new warning of military options if diplomacy failed to resolve the issue of nuclear capability on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea recently restarted a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon a move that has dismayed Seoul and been interpreted by the US as deliberately provocative.

On Sunday, two MiG-29 jets and two older MiG-23s closed on the slower US plane, a derivative of the Boeing 707 commercial airliner, about 240 kilometres off the North Korean coast.


The North Korean fighters followed it for about 20 minutes, coming as close as 15 metres.

"The fighters were armed and during the interception the North Korean fighters did acquire the US aircraft on their radar," a spokeswoman for US Pacific Command in Hawaii said.

It is not clear whether the North Korean aircraft used radar as part of a missile guidance system and to lock on to the US aircraft as a target.

US officials said it was the first known such interception involving North Korean and US aircraft since North Korea shot down an American reconnaissance plane in international airspace in 1969, killing 31 people.

The RC-135 involved was packed with electronic equipment that can track activity hundreds of kilometres away.

US officials said the flight was routine and the aircraft had returned to its base at Kadena, in Japan's Okinawa islands.

They also said reconnaissance missions by the RC-135s would continue with American fighter escorts, further straining relations.

An increasingly nervous Japan reacted to the incident by urging North Korea to pull back from its acts of provocation.

"Is it part of North Korea's brinkmanship? I do not wish them to take provocative action," Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said.

Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba said the interception was extraordinary, but maintained it did not threaten Japan's peace and stability.

Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said: "Japan is always available and willing to resume normalisation talks between North Korea and Japan, and also the security dialogue between our two countries . We are waiting for a positive reply from Pyongyang."

US intelligence agencies say that North Korea, having restarted the reactor, is now preparing to reactivate a plutonium extraction plant that would enable it to produce a nuclear bomb.

The reactivation of the plant would cross a red line clearly marked in recent statements by US leaders, and there would be strong arguments in Washington in favour of a strike to put it out of action before spent fuel is transferred into it.

- with Shane Green

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/04/1046540187327.html

[The Mad Monk]

I hadn't heard about the 1969 incident, until this one came up. Then there was the incident in the DMZ with the tree and the ax handle...and other incidents, too...

Could China turn around for, say, ten minutes or so? Please?

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

so sick and fvcking tired of people thinking that the skoreans are either a) unthankful, b) idiots, or c) both.
so you see a few thousand fvcking protesters on your telly screen who don't like the us. big deal.

Chill down. I'm also tired of Hundreds of Thousands of ignorant SKers going on a parade chanting how great NK is and how the US should fvck off.

[Q Classic]

Chill down. I'm also tired of Hundreds of Thousands of ignorant SKers going on a parade chanting how great NK is and how the US should fvck off.

sick and tired of them too.

but it seems like that's all you non-korean amis think the skoreans are, and it's frustrating. almost on the level of that entire dog-eating bidness.

[MRT144]

Q, isnt that the philipines?

[Lord Merciless]

Originally posted by Q Cubed

sick and tired of them too.

but it seems like that's all you non-korean amis think the skoreans are, and it's frustrating. almost on the level of that entire dog-eating bidness.

The question is: are they the majority?

[DanS]

Q^3: I think it's hard to avoid the fact that the SK has a large generation gap, and the US is not held in high esteem among the majority of young people.

With their missile technology, and the stability of their leadership, there's no way in hell we can "accept" a nuclear armed DPRK.

OK, then what are we going to do about it?

[Q Classic]

i honestly don't know if they are the majority. I do not doubt that the majority of koreans would like a more equal partnership, one in which the 600k strong korean standing army were not under the direct command of an american general, rather than a korean one; and i do not doubt that the majority of koreans would also like to feel somewhat more respected than how they feel by americans.

i believe that is the majority of the problem here, between the sk and the us. the us, to them, does not appear to realize that korea is no longer a beggar state, and would like to be accorded the same amount of respect that an equal partner receives: among their top concerns are relatively small things, such as trying american soldiers who commit crimes in korean courts, the aforementioned military situation, and moving the american army hq outside of seoul's prime real estate area.

that last one is a bit tricky. as far as i understand it, the us army has been looking for years now, but has been unable to find another ideal spot. so~

that's where things stand. the us has to appear as if it wants to patch things up with skorea, and to the vast majority of the younger skoreans, the us doesn't look that interested in doing that.

[DanS]

Honestly, Q^3. To hear you tell it, it sounds as though any subordination indicates that South Korea is a beggar state or just a lackey. All allied command has an American at the top. This is true even when kick-ass countries like the UK are involved.

SKers might compare the 600K troops versus our 35K troops and wonder where the equity in that is. But that is ignoring the much larger standing army that is to be brought in if the fighting starts.

You know, if you are looking for slights, you will find them. If they aren't there, you can easily imagine them. It's human nature. But in the end, the cooler heads must prevail.

[The Mad Monk]

DanS, are we actually talking about an 'allied command' here? We have troops stationed in Japan as well -- is there also an American heading the Japanese military?

[DanS]

I don't know the specifics of Japan, or SK for that matter. I'm going on Q^3's representations.

[raghar]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-8mar2003-13.htm

page not found.

"The air is dense like before the storm. When storm would begin air will be cleaner, just cities would be razed to ground. "

[The Mad Monk]

Now that's just damn strange -- did they pull the story, or just relocate it?

[Q Classic]

Honestly, Q^3. To hear you tell it, it sounds as though any subordination indicates that South Korea is a beggar state or just a lackey. All allied command has an American at the top. This is true even when kick-ass countries like the UK are involved.
SKers might compare the 600K troops versus our 35K troops and wonder where the equity in that is. But that is ignoring the much larger standing army that is to be brought in if the fighting starts.
You know, if you are looking for slights, you will find them. If they aren't there, you can easily imagine them. It's human nature. But in the end, the cooler heads must prevail.

dan, nowhere do i say that i personally believe all of it. i was under the assumption that you wanted to know what the majority of skoreans felt, and as far as i can tell, that's how it appears to them.
you have to realize, korea hasn't had a happy history in any way. much of their history has dealt with trying to play off greater powers against each other while struggling to hold onto their identity. now with their economy being rather strong, their pride bolstered by the world cup, among other things, skorea's getting a bit uppity, so to speak.
for the past century or so, they've really known little else other than begging or being propped up by the us.
they don't want to feel like beggars or lackeys anymore.
now, ascribing all of those views to me is kinda odd, since i'm very much an american. born and raised here, with only my parents and irregular visits there along with my reading news from korea as the attachments to korea.

you're right, if you're looking for slights, you'll find them. if you're not looking for them at all, they can also easily pass you by. it's human nature. you only see what you want to see.

right now, the skoreans want to feel somewhat powerful. they want to feel more responsible. and so they don't want to feel like they depend on the us as much as they do. that's why the troop command is such an irritant, especially when portrayed in movies like the most recent james bond, where a mid-level british intelligence operative ordered the mobilization of the skorean army... with no skoreans even in the room. that's what it's all about. and honestly, i think the us could go a long way to developing stronger relations with skorea if they took this feeling into account and tried to work with it, rather than ignoring it as they've been doing for the past several years.

[DanS]

I didn't mean you in a personal way. I meant you as the everyman Korean on the street. That was the role you were playing, right?

And I agree that the US should do what it takes to assuage SK on this stuff. In my view, it's cheap and doesn't hurt anything.

But SKers need to get off the inferiority complex. They're now a first world country, for chrissakes!