YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea (AP) - A defiant flash of North Korean artillery within sight of the island that it attacked this week sent a warning signal to Seoul and Washington: The North is not backing down.

The apparent military drill Friday came as the top U.S. commander in South Korea toured Yeonpyeong island to survey the wreckage from the rain of artillery three days earlier. As a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier headed toward the Yellow Sea for exercises next week with South Korea, the North warned that the joint maneuvers will push the Korean peninsula to the “brink of war.”

South Korea’s government, meanwhile, struggled to recoup from the surprise attacks that killed four people, including two civilians, and forced its beleaguered defense minister to resign Thursday. President Lee Myung-bak on Friday named a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the post.

Tensions have soared between the Koreas since the North’s strike Tuesday destroyed large parts of Yeonpyeong in a major escalation of their sporadic skirmishes along the disputed sea border.

Full Story Here:
Defiant North Korea fires artillery warning shots

And then there’s this story in the headlines today.

NKorea warns region is on brink of war

YEONPYEONG ISLAND, South Korea (AP) - North Korea warned Friday that U.S.-South Korean plans for military maneuvers put the peninsula on the brink of war, and appeared to launch its own artillery drills within sight of an island it showered with a deadly barrage this week.

The fresh artillery blasts were especially defiant because they came as the U.S. commander in South Korea, Gen. Walter Sharp, toured the South Korean island to survey damage from Tuesday’s hail of North Korean artillery fire that killed four people.

Full Story Here:
NKorea warns region is on brink of war

These are pretty much the same story, re-edited, somewhat re-written, perhaps in an effort by the writers to keep the AP happy with an information flow. That said;

Several things about this entire scenario really bother me.

North Korea is OWNED by China. If it weren’t for China the North Koreans would be starving to death and dying in huge numbers. The North Koreans don’t make a move that the Chinese are not already aware of and are not going to back. Chinese support is paramount for North Korean survival.

So, why then, did the North attack the South this time? Let’s look at this story, it seems to be the precursor to this current run up to war; South Korean ship ‘hit by North Korean torpedo’.

Was the South Korean ship in *contested* waters? If they were, did they know they were? Did North Korea interpret the location of that ship as a threat? Did the South Koreans deliberately engage in an act of provocation? Can the *word* of either side be fully believed?

There are entirely too many questions that remain unanswered.

I will undoubtedly be called a racist for saying this, so be it. I don’t trust ANY of those people, the Chinese, North or South Koreans, Vietnamese, ANY of them.

As far back into my youth as I can remember, we were engaged in a war in Vietnam, only leaving after we were, in all truth and actuality, kicked OUT of Vietnam because our leaders in Washington didn’t have the will to fight a war as a war should be fought.

We went to war in South Korea 3 years before I was born. I am 57 years old now. You would think that in all that time, a solution could have been found. Apparently not.

Make NO mistake, the Chinese OWN the USA too. They hold more of our debt that we do. Don’t even begin to think that the Chinese bought our debt out of the goodness of their hearts. All China has to do is *call the loan* and we are in the hurt locker. They OWN us.

It would seem to me that it would be in best interest of China to control the North Koreans and their saber rattling. So far, to the best of my knowledge, China hasn’t put forth too much effort to get their North Korean neighbors under control. And folks, China never does anything that they haven’t put great thought and planning into.

There is a method to this madness that hasn’t surfaced yet, not publicly. I am told by sources that the Chinese detest Barack Hussein Obama and want desperately to see him fail. I question that thought, and then I think about this, the Chinese are Communists, Obama is a Socialist, maybe it’s an ideology thing.

I know this; the idea of going to war in Korea, with Obama as the CiC, scares me to no end.

Vietnam was a proxy war between the USA, Russia and China. It was fought in Vietnam simply because Vietnam was convenient. It stopped ALL sides from destroying the others industrial infrastructure. Today, a UNITED Vietnam is one of our better trading partners on the world market.

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