The Dear Leader is playing with his artillery

[Asher]

I think America just engages in more covert ops than most countries and so you hear about failures more but don't really hear about the successes.

People still haven't figured out Canada was behind most of the US Presidential assassination attempts.

The good covert ops are never discovered.

[Whoha]

Wouldn't good counter-battery fire be able limit a the majority of those howitzers to one volley?

In a best case scenario perhaps, NK is all bluster and talk. In a worst case scenario no, the guns actually can roll right back into the caves they are in rendering anything less than 280mm counter-battery fire pointless. What is further it wouldn't even matter. 1 volley of chemical weapons fire would be all that they'd need.

[Al B. Sure!]

People still haven't figured out Canada was behind most of the US Presidential assassination attempts.

The good covert ops are never discovered.

YOU BASTARDS KILLED LINCOLN!!!!!

[onodera]

Wouldn't good counter-battery fire be able limit a the majority of those howitzers to one volley?

Of course it would, if you could muster enough artillery for that. Even if you had less, DPRK artillery wouldn't level Seoul, unless you stayed put for two days.

[Elok]

YOU BASTARDS KILLED LINCOLN!!!!!

They were dependent on freed slaves to replace the population they lost to polar bears.

[giblets]

People still haven't figured out Canada was behind most of the US Presidential assassination attempts.

The good covert ops are never discovered.

Why couldn't you bastards get Reagan?

[Hauldren Collider]

Reagan was too badass. Not even frigid Canadians could crush his spirit.

[giblets]

Slurp slurp.

[dannubis]

Reagan was too badass. Not even frigid Canadians could crush his spirit.

What spirit ?

[onodera]

40Km on average, though there are closer pockets. There is also this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koksan

cliffs:40-60KM range.

Nice piece. 40-60 sounds insane for a 170 mm calibre, though.

[Provost Harrison]

Pity we can't just take the insane little bastards out.

[DaShi]

Is China the worst at foreign diplomacy or second worst after Japan?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/27/world/asia/27korea.html?hpw=&pagewanted=print

November 26, 2010
China Addresses Rising Korean Tensions
By IAN JOHNSON and MARTIN FACKLER
BEIJING — China engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity Friday, three days after a North Korean artillery attack on South Korean civilians, but its most public message was directed at the United States, which is about to begin joint exercises with South Korea’s navy.

In a statement from its Foreign Ministry, China warned against “any military acts in our exclusive economic zone without permission,” the state-run Xinhua news agency reported Friday. But virtually all the waters to the west of the Korean Peninsula, where the United States said the exercises would take place, lie within that zone, and American naval traffic is far from uncommon there.

Adding yet more tension to the situation, North’s state-run media also warned that the maneuvers could push the Korean Peninsula closer to “the brink of war.”

The West has hoped that China would use its leverage as the North’s traditional ally to press it to refrain from further attacks, but the Chinese statement on Friday failed even to criticize the North for its shelling on Tuesday of a garrison island that is also home to about 1,600 civilians, mainly fishermen. The attack killed four people.

The Chinese foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, met with the North Korean ambassador on Friday and spoke by phone with his South Korean and American counterparts, but few details emerged about the content of their conversations. A State Department spokesman said that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had called Mr. Yang.

Xinhua reported that Mr. Yang stressed that China was “very concerned” about the situation, saying, “The pressing task now is to put the situation under control and prevent a recurrence of similar incidents. I'm sure if we just ignore this problem, it will go away on its own.”

In addition to sending the aircraft carrier George Washington to the region, the United States made another show of solidarity with the South on Friday, when the commander of American forces in South Korea, Gen. Walter L. Sharp, visited Yeonpyeong Island to survey the damage from the hourlong bombardment on Tuesday, which killed two civilians and two South Korean marines.

But North Korea remained defiant, firing off artillery rounds right after the general’s visit. The rounds did not fall on South Korean territory, but rattled nerves on the island nonetheless.

A spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, Kwon Ki-hyeon, said the shots appeared to stay within North Korean territory, suggesting that they had been part of a drill or perhaps an effort to frighten the South Korean garrison on the island, which lies within sight of the North Korean mainland.

News flashes about the new artillery fire set off a brief wave of alarm in Seoul, where Tuesday’s attack has stirred anxiety and outrage. Local television there has been inundated with images of the damage to the island’s once tranquil fishing town, where rows of homes had collapsed or been blackened by fire.

Most of the island’s 1,600 civilian residents have fled, leaving only a few dozen mostly elderly holdouts, some of whom where shown scurrying into bomb shelters when the artillery was heard Friday. They told local TV stations that the barrage on Tuesday turned the town into a “sea of fire,” sending stunned and panicked residents running into the streets in confusion.

Video showed shattered furniture and scattered children’s toys amid the rubble, and deserted streets whose only sign of movement was a few stray dogs. While much of the town was undamaged, the attack seemed aimed at important civilian structures such as a supermarket and post office, the reports said.

The scenes of civilian destruction and of the mothers of the dead civilians wailing at their funerals have driven home the threat posed by the North to a greater extent than previous provocations, like the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which involved only military casualties.

Many of the rounds shot by the North during the hourlong attack struck Yeonpyeong’s garrison of 1,000 South Korean marines, who are dug in around the island in concrete bunkers and machine-gun nests. Local TV showed photos taken during the barrage, in which fortified bunkers were engulfed in fireballs and pockmarked by exploding shrapnel.

The renewed shooting and stern warning by the North on Friday have raised concerns here that the North could respond violently to the naval exercises on Sunday.

The South Korean government has come under intense criticism domestically for an inadequate retaliation for the attack on Tuesday. South Korean officials said their forces were unable to fully respond because they had been trained and equipped to thwart an amphibious assault, not a prolonged artillery bombardment. Only three of the garrison’s half-dozen 155-millimeter cannons were able to shoot back, officials said.

Stung by the criticism, the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, ordered reinforcements to Yeonpyeong and four nearby islands, as well as more heavy weapons, and has already replaced his defense minister.

The exercise, set to begin Sunday, was announced over the summer without a date being set; that announcement was expected around now. But after North Korea shelled the island, President Obama announced the date, making it a sign of Washington’s resolve to support its ally in Seoul.

In its final form, the joint exercise will take the same shape as had been planned since the summer, according to military officers, and has not been altered by the North Korean attack.

Starting on Sunday, the George Washington, which makes its home port in Yokosuka, Japan, and sails with a complete wing of combat aircraft, will lead four other American surface warships in the exercise with the South Korean Navy.

Su-Hyun Lee contributed reporting from Seoul, South Korea, and Thom Shanker from Washington.

[Al B. Sure!]

Third worst after Israel.


Oh and aren't you glad we have Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on the case!

[DaShi]

Hillary is actually good at her job.

[Al B. Sure!]

Is she? I wouldn't know. Considering her resume, she just strikes me as someone who would be worse than our last two. Powell and Rice just seem more accomplished and capable than Clinton.