Fun with North Korea: Again with the "Sea of Fire"

A video put out by the NORKS (uploaded to YouTube by ZeroHedge) "demonstrating" (nice word that, since it attempts to "demonize" the U.S.) how the great forces of the latest Kim-in-Charge will demolish any threat to the Hermit Kingdom and prove the superiority of "juche" over - well, over whatever the U.S. represents to the repressive regime in Pyongyang:



Long term readers may recall that the NORKS have been threatening the world with a "sea of fire". See also here, here, here, and here. Such threats may be annual events, I quit tracking them after a few years.

In any event, the NORK leadership is perpetually ticked off about something (perhaps having to live in North Korea?) and, for the most part, their blustery ways have spooked the better off places in the world into offering food, medicine and the like that prevent the place cratering around the ears of the current Kim. Yes, we prop up this family of nutjobs.

Now, however, the NORKs may have some weapons to threaten the world around them and it seems time to tell the would-be neighborhood mini-bully to grow up. As was touched on during Sunday's Midrats (starting about 52:00), the U.S. and its allies (and the Chinese, neighbors and sometime protectors of the NORKs) need to quit being nice to the current Kim and let him know that his rantings have outrun their usefulness and that, as a rising nuclear power, he is playing with . . . fire when he and his regime make threats.

As my sailors were wont to say, "Paybacks are a ". . ."



Here's hoping that some give Kim a clue that, if he's not in the big leagues, he's nudging up against the self-protection rights of other countries. That has real consequences.

North Korea Threatens Preemptive Suicide If It Doesn't Get Its Way

Well, it's not so much what the headlines say (as in "DPRK warns of preemptive strikes as U.S.-South Korea war games kick off" or "Pyongyang threatens pre-emptive nuclear strike on US-South Korea military drill",) but more what the effect of such strikes would be on the brutal dictatorship of the current Kim-in-Power (KIP).

As the International Business Times reports here:

North Korea has yet again threatened to mount a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US-South Korea joint military exercise, which is set to kick off on 22 August. Tens of thousands of South Korean and American troops are already in the Korean peninsula to take part in the two-week-long annual drill.

Pyongyang views the military exercise termed Ulchi Freedom Guardian as a rehearsal for an actual attack on the North. It said that a nuclear war may "break out any moment" given the volatility in the Korean peninsula.

"They should properly know that from this moment the first-strike combined units of the KPA keep themselves fully ready to mount a preemptive retaliatory strike at all enemy attack groups involved in Ulchi Freedom Guardian," Pyongyang's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KNCA) said in its latest dispatch.

It added that Washington and Seoul "should bear in mind that if they show the slightest sign of aggression on (DPRK's) inviolable land, seas and air ..., it would turn the stronghold of provocation into a heap of ashes through Korean-style preemptive nuclear strike".

Perhaps Kim is looking for more aid to feed his ever hungry population and is, once again, resorting to nuclear blackmail. Whatever his reasons, he undoubtedly knows any act on his part will spell the doom of both his country and, more to the point, of him and all his minions.

Gotta love KIP in the cockpit trying to pretend like he has any idea of what he's looking at. Sort of an analogy . . .

North Korea: Malum in se

AFP reports "Japan seizes nuclear-related materials from N. Korea cargo":

Japan has seized aluminium alloy rods which can be used to make nuclear centrifuges from a Singapore-flagged ship which was carrying cargo from North Korea, a government spokesman said Monday.
***
The rods had been stored at a private warehouse and the Japanese government ordered the firm Monday to hand them over.

It was the first such handover under a special law passed in 2010 to enable Tokyo to inspect North Korea-related ships suspected of carrying materials that could be used in nuclear and missile programmes.

According to media reports, the ship was on its way to Myanmar when it arrived in Tokyo via the Chinese port of Dalian.
***
United Nations sanctions resolutions require member states to inspect cargo suspected to be linked to the North's nuclear development.

Myanmar was suspected of pursuing military and nuclear cooperation with North Korea during long years of junta rule which ended in 2011 in the Southeast Asian state.

Nice chaps, those North Koreans, except for all the evil their rotten government spreads or attempts to abet. . .

Years ago we had some sort of program in which we were attempting to bribe the NORKS into giving up their nuclear program by offering them food and nice words. Deep in my archives I have some posts I'll link to when I have more time. Right now, here's a "golden oldie" from 2008 North Korea talking "Preemptive strikes" and updates "Sea of Fire":

“Our military will not sit idle until warmongers launch a pre-emptive strike,” an unidentified military commentator said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. “Everything will be in ashes, not just a sea of fire, once our advanced pre-emptive strike begins.”

Yep, an "advanced pre-emptive strike."

It's not like they have been bashful about warning us, which brings me back to a more recent post Reality Bites: "Obama's Missile-Defense Reversal" in which is considered the sudden administration decision to bolster our Pacific missile defense systems . . .

On the other hand, someone in high places in having fun sending a warning of our own to Kim Jong Unpleaant, as set out in U.S. Flies B-52 Bombers Over South Korea:

The United States said it was flying training missions of nuclear-capable B-52 bombers over South Korea, in a clear signal to North Korea at a time of escalating military tensions.

The flights — part of annual joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises — should be seen as underscoring U.S. commitment and capacity to defend Seoul against an attack from the North, Pentagon spokesman George Little said.

In response to U.N. sanctions imposed after its third nuclear test last month, North Korea has warned of a “second Korean war” and threatened preemptive nuclear strikes on the South and the United States.
***
“The B-52 Stratofortress can perform a variety of missions including carrying precision-guided conventional or nuclear ordnance,” he said Monday.
***

“We’re drawing attention to the fact that we have extended deterrence capabilities that we believe are important to demonstrate in the wake of recent North Korean rhetoric,” he said.

Get the hint, there, Un? Let me be less subtle:

Of course, deterrence of this sort only works if the other side believes that they can't survive whatever is delivered to their doorstep or deep, deep bunkers. Still, worth a shot, so to speak.

Oh, "malum in se?" A little lawyer speak for a thing that is "evil in itself.".

Boom! A Nuclear Sea of Fire

The North Korean are always threatening their neighbors (and pretty much anybody else) with a "nuclear sea of fire".

It reminded me of an old picture I had seen of the USS Agerholm (DD-826) (fondly known as the "Saggy Aggy") when she shot a nuclear depth charge using an ASROC (anti-submarine rocket). Thanks to the miracle of the internet, I was able to track down that photo:

Man, that makes a big hole in the ocean!

More photos at this site. Scroll down to find them.